Bird's-eye view

Another bird rescued from the major oil sleek (Deepwater Horizon rig explosion) that happened a couple of weeks ago on the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, it is certainly a bird I am talking about, to be precise a brown pelican, currently doing fine at the isolation recovery area of Louisiana Bird Rescue Center. Well, not exactly intending to discredit this news article(Citation: click here) which was btw published in Bloomberg Businessweek, it’s slight bemusing to find such an article, when you can expect (and rightly so!) that most of the people would be fruitlessly engrossed either in estimating the exact figure of the gallons they lost or indulged in the blame game for inept recovery operations.

All that aside, it highlights the stark difference that exists across societies the world over, the differences in choices available, the difference in liberty, the differences in the evaluation of a human life or any life for that matter, in different parts of world. It’s funny when you see that an injured bird receives equal (if not more) media coverage (read importance) than what would be received by a whole bunch of humans who die almost daily in a bomb explosion, in some of the other parts of the world say for instance- Afghan, Pak or Iraq. Surely Americans take pride in their lives, and probably anybody would if in a similar position. Does their snobbishness ever deem them less friendly with the rest of the world? Doesn’t matter, they are in a position where they don’t need many or at least they don’t need to beg for making any. Take the Times Square car-bomb incident for instance, what I heard was, on 6:28 the officials were notified by a local shirt-seller and at 6:30 the entire troop had arrived on the scene, moreover they deployed a robotic arm to their service, safeguarding even the lives of their hurt lockers. Two days later they nab the criminal and are able to accumulate all the details and evidence related to the case. Well, so much for our successful conviction of Mr. Kasab….belittled in comparison, even when it is considered one of the fastest trials held on a terror linked criminal case.…reaching a verdict in record time (under 18 months!!, although it’s an altogether different story about the number of years the Indian constitution offers him to extend his lifespan by remaining in pipeline or by carrying forward his appeal to the President, in which ever case it is highly likely that the junta might lose interest in Kasab or will get soft-hearted and ultimately acquit him from the capital punishment)



Anyway, the point above focused on highlighting the striking difference....Now the question is why? One might rubbish this off saying that it’s entirely the rich nations’ muscle power of ‘paisa’ or ‘bhandwan’ (in local slang). I would not rack my brains arguing back, even a nincompoop would agree...but surely, isn't it wonderous to think, why and how come so much difference exists in a particular life form - Homo sapiens, in the same planet. Just to bring things in general perspective, the difference pointed out above was between two nations separated by only by 9 others when listed based on nominal GDP...there are over a hundred with which no comparison can be drawn. In fact, I now realize I can’t be fit to justify my view entirely, because based on an estimate, if I am able to write this post and publish this on my blog from my lappy, sitting comfortably at home while sipping coffee...then I belong to those lucky few millions who can afford or have the luxury to do so, out of the billions who amass this planet. Thus, my view can never entirely quantify the plight of the billions of below-poverty-liners. There has always been this difference in the past and perhaps it will continue to be in the future.

Here as you would recon, I don't seem to be drifting towards a conclusive end of this whole predicament; It's not so easy and not my job. However, it does remind me of something that Stephen Hawking has said in his new documentary with Discovery Channel, that stirred up quite a debate in scientific circles. He said we shouldn’t be seeking aliens in the outer space, (right after he almost confirmed their existence) explaining that we are not ready to face them. Although, his remark was touted as the most unscientific bohemian view point yet, the celebrity scientist does make profound sense in terms of serene logic.

We have a very long way to go indeed, resolving internal conflicts, working ourselves towards humanity, bridging the gap among different races, bringing all human lives up to scale and uniting all under one common banner, before we can dare to think of tackling aliens. Genocides, wars, hunger, colonization, plunder, deprivation, jealousy, hatred...we already have enough means to nail our own coffin and dig our own grave, who needs an FDI from outer space??

Food for thought

The television show “Deadliest catch” depicts commercial crab fishermen in the Bering Sea. “Dirty jobs” shows all kinds of gruelling work; one episode showed a guy who inseminates turkeys for a living. The weird fascination for these shows must lie partly in the fact that such confrontations of material reality have become exotically unfamiliar. Many of us do work that feels more surreal than real. Working in an office you often find it difficult to see any tangible result from your efforts. What exactly have you accomplished at the end of any given day? Where the chain of cause and effect is opaque and responsibility diffuse, the experience of individual agency can be elusive. “Dilbert”, “The Office” and similar portrayals of cubicle life attest to the dark absurdism with which many Americans have come to view their white collar jobs.

Is there a more “real” alternative (short of inseminating turkeys)?
High school shop-class programs were widely dismantled in the 1990s as educators prepared students to become “knowledge workers”. The imperative of the last 20 years to round up every warm body and send it to college, then to the cubicle, was tied to a vision of the future in which we somehow take a leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy. This has not come to pass. To begin with such work often feels more enervating than gliding. More fundamentally, now as ever, somebody actually has to do things: fix our cars, unclog our toilets, and build our houses.

When we praise people who do work that is straightforwardly useful, the praise often betrays an assumption that they had no other options. We idolize them as the salt of the earth and emphasize the sacrifice for others their work may entail. Such sacrifice does indeed occur- the hazards faced by a lineman restoring power during storm come to mind. But what if such work answers as well to a basic human need of the one who does it? I take this to be the suggestion of Marge Piercy’s poem “To be of Use”, which concludes with the lines “the pitcher longs for the water to carry/and a person for work that is real.” Beneath our gratitude for the lineman may rest envy.

This seems to be a moment when the useful arts have an especially compelling economic rationale. A car mechanics’ trade association reports that repair shops have seen their business just significantly in the current recession: people aren’t buying new cars, they are fixing the ones they have. The current downturn is likely to pass eventually. But there are also systemic changes in the economy, arising from information technology, that have the surprising effect of making the manual trades- plumbing, electrical work, car repair – more attractive careers. The Princeton economist Alan Blinder argues that the crucial distinction in the emerging labour market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site. The latter will find their livelihood more secured against outsourcing to distant countries. As Blinder puts it “you can’t hammer a nail over the internet”. Nor can the Indians fix your car because they are in India.

If the goal is to earn a living, then may be it isn’t really true that 18-year-olds need to be imparted with a sense of panic about getting into college (though they certainly need to learn). Some people are hustled off to college and then to a cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, when they would rather be learning to build things or fix things. One shop teacher suggested to me that “in schools we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged,”

A gifted young person who chooses to be a mechanic rather than to accumulate academic credentials is viewed as eccentric, if not self destructive. There is a pervasive anxiety among parents that t here is only one track to success to their children. It runs through a series of gates controlled by prestigious institutions. Further there is wide use of drugs to medicate boys, especially, against their natural tendency toward action, the better to “keep things on track.” I taught briefly in a public school and would have loved to have set up a Ritalin fogger in my class room. It is a rare person, male or female, who is naturally inclined to sit for 17 years in school, and then indefinitely at work.

The trades suffer from low prestige, and I believe this is based on a simple mistake. Because the work is dirty, many people also assume it is also stupid. This is not my experience. I have a small business as a motorcycle mechanic in Richmond, Va., which I started in 2002. I work on Japanese and European motorcycles, mostly old bikes with some “vintage” cachet that makes people willing to spend money on them. I have found the satisfaction of the work to be very much bound up with the intellectual challenges it presents. And yet my decision to go into this line of work is a choice that seems to perplex many people.

The above passage appeared in one of the mock-tests while I was preparing for CAT, but then later I found out it was published as an article in the New York Times Magazine, titled “The Case for Working With Your Hands” written by Matthew B. Crawford

The article posits a line of thought that is gaining popular attention especially in the developed world, apart from the US there was a similar article published in Chinese news paper editorial.

Let us, for a while, neglect the economic aspects, possibly relating to outsourcing of work etc, that support the theme of the author; From a reader’s point of view it asks of me two things: First, to think and attempt to justify my past deliberations in academic front and second, to realize the importance that satisfaction might lay in any kind of job that I am doing. Being a middle class Indian, I can visualize that the former of the two points is bound to suffer a clear justification as people need to think from the point of building up a family and thus, providing for the needs, which logically implies people have to go for the job that pays the most. But, in the haste of pursuing goals bound towards family-building (which we Indians prefer calling ‘getting settled in life’), the second point about satisfaction gets neglected.

Often people are too late to realize its gravity, which compels them change jobs at a later stage in life with much difficulty, while most of them, with the fear or pressure of added responsibilities never tread that path. So, the question is- How to choose among the ‘two options’ & what factors should contribute to what extent in choosing them? (I haven’t used the words like- success and happiness or money and peace of mind or cubicle and free lance, for their definitions can be different for different individuals…) Do share your views in this regard.

Random Thoughts

So starts a new year....2010!
This is an ad lib post...I just felt like writing something as I didn't have anything worthwhile to do....something big is supposed to have happened recently and I am missing some good company...so lets start talking

hmm....2010 seems like a lot cooler number than a lot of previous ones....may be because of the 2 zeros in it although it marks the beginning of a whole new decade but I find the zeros more facinating.....Cooler numbers bring a sense of anticipation as if they are destined to witness something great....huh! we’ll cee...

New years bring a time when people take a pause from their regular, hum-drum course of life for a few moments, and muse about....about a lot of things.......whether good or bad is immaterial.....One such thing amongst those happens to be the stark realization often coupled with dumbfounded amazement, that an entire yeeeaar has gone past.....but what the hell happened in the last 365 days of my life? Were the events any fruitful? How were they categorised...good? Bad? Did I waste my time? and not to mention a few of If-only-it-could-haves ultimately leading the entire thought process to a blind alley.......then suddenly, the inability to find a quick solution switches the situation to- 'OMG how come nobody told me that in the end each day counts and to make each day count each hour of a day should count'.....and so it goes....moving further in this direction I derive no pleasure...so ill conveniently shift focus.

As I happen to reel back the last 365 days of my life....I can recount a whole lot of new experiences...some of them I had never imagined that I’d be facing....’09, for me was packed with lots of things....good as well as bad....touching upon the emotional and psychological realms of my life...although I’d refrain from commenting about any accomplishment but at the end of the day I believe I stood having bettered my knowledge of the world and hopefully learned to keeping things in their perspective and It counts....damn! I wish I were better at writing philo stuff... x(

On maturity front ?.....It is my opinion that maturity has somewhat ambiguous definition...since it doesn’t have any achievable or satisfactory upper limit; but as a by-product of passing out numerous days of a year I believe to have been bestowed by some of it too...although personally I despise some aspects maturity....sometimes it acts as a veil concealing ones true self which probably longs for innocent childlike behavior...a classic display of venerated maturity by being a pretentious albeit acceptably well mannered bum isn’t one of the most fulfilling experiences...

Well....coming back to new year’s buzz....many of us also feel blessed by a brand new chance to better ourselves from the past....Yup! despite of the fact that it was just an ordinary Thursday that passed by giving rise to an ordinary Friday and not the 1st of another year....It is surprising to see how human virtues are often influenced (if not driven) by periodic events hyped up by their own selves....Common sense! may intervene here by arguing that ‘why the hell bother as long as it works??’

Hmm....this concept of making an ordinary looking Friday a not so ordinary one, also derives support by the permitting people to make resolutions.....any number of them, unrestricted, as unquestionable as they please....even unwarranted for conforming to ethical or social conduct.....If you are famous you make news and even some money...just blurt out the first piece of crap your mind conjures before even it has recuperated from previous night’s alcohol manifested bash.....However, usually the resolutions are for the good as the essence of self-betterment generally outweighs any desire for engaging in unruly mischiefs. My intent isn't to criticize these human behavioural tendencies, even given the fact that most resolutions seldom last longer than the first week.....I am simply amazed by their timely trigger on the advent of every new year....really...If a person wishes to make a change why should he wait for the 1st of a year?...1 isn’t even the luckiest of numbers....What if the person is unfortunate to miss the bus...? The next trial after 52 weeks will only mean lesser hair on his head to accompany him for his promised feat....

So once again, not inclining to reach a biased conclusion I chose the safe route, accepted things in their novel form....and.....began to think.....what kinda resolution I should come up...which is good and which doesn’t force me to quit after a few weeks.....tough job....cuz balancing your thoughts after much brain-storming only dysfunctions your brain and ruins your enthu...after much ado...I settled for finding more reasons to laugh and smile this year than I did last year... ;) (smart workaround ...isn’t it?...nobody but I can prove it wrong)

Recounting another popular new years notion which says if one encounters anything bad or even vaguely unsettling on the 1st then it’s likely to bother him/her through out the year.....heh..mercy shan’t be expected for suffering is ordained....and not so surprisingly instead pretty humanely, this notion is restricted only to bad and ugly events....somehow for the good ones we develop the obvious “matured” understanding that, “Oh come on...Every day can’t be a Sunday”....Oddly true....my dentist once confessed that he never receives any business on the 1st of January...Well, this led me to assess my own experience of 1st January...which I barely happen to remember....except the fact that I reached office pretty late, prepared to face my bosses comments and it turned out that I had satisfactorily met his expectations......the rest of the day, as far as I remember was exceptionally ordinary...although I did enjoy receiving sweet new year wishes.....I only hope this doesn’t affect the profile of my 2010...although, not having to remember much of the day at least helps me conveniently transfer the blame/credit for the events of the year, to the 1st with undoubted certainty :)

So these were the musings of my mind on the first night of this decade....I was badly missing my parents and my bro....as well as my old college friends with whom I if I had partied on new years' eve, I would never have gone through this stuff an posted on my blog...(as I'd still be recovering from the overdose :P)

Wish you all a very bright and cheerful new year...

Ex - Bangalored!!!!

I used to think, I, being a true ‘Mumbaite’, one who eats, sleeps, talks and even breathes Mumbai; often hung over by the premonition that I will never be able to dig my nest in any foreign land, other than ‘Amchi Mumbai’….but to no avail, I was proved wrong, as I recount my days spent in Bangalore, which is sometimes rightly believed to be a “Bachelors’ Paradise”

And especially, it being my first time away from home and that too with the added responsibility of work and the abundance of liberty made it more exciting for a super lethargic moron who hated responsibilities n considered sincerity as a sinister or ugly disease.

We can often speak about “been there, done that” but what I want to recount in this post is some of the small yet wonderful instances of our lives in Bangalore which made it quite fun filled and memorable….

The ten things which used to make my day!!!!

1) Wee hours…cacophony!
Well getting up was the most dreadful part of the life back then. Wrapped up in a shell of blankets n what so ever available to make up for the bitter cold winter mornings, the alarm bell used to give the most distraught feeling, as the dreamily subconscious mind was aware, somewhere in its deep corner, that the bloody clock is gona ring any minute!!
Alas, sleep was always so welcoming just after u’ve slammed the alarm down. To somehow beat the early morning desperation for sleep, we placed the alarm clock high up the shelf, thinking that it would require enough effort to shut it down, that I can manage to resist my good old soft bed and the beautiful sleep, but to no avail, one very fine day, as I rose to shut the alarm….”Whaam!!!”…….. I turned around and answered to my other half awake room mates…”Well…great!, no more clock!!!” and……we headed back to sleep….Luckily, Himanshu never came to know how d ruddy hell did his clock break when he came back from his home visit :P

2) Say, ‘Rise n Shine’ to your partner!
Goarn!....Have to give up sleep and make up my bed… :(
Now comes the pearl of the day!....Finding an occasional cockroach idling under your bed covers….yawning, and probably gaping at you….annoyed by the sudden exposure to light…cursing u with all his might!, to have woken him up so early. . . .
Whoa!......and people talk about human encroachment!


3) Gay time with the Geyser!
Well…no body actually fancied getting up early in the morning and running straight down to bath, much to the likes of the crazy geyser. The first person used to be in for a boiling steamy prickle, so that half of the hot water used to get wasted only to avoid the heat and the other half while gingerly trying to adjust it with the cold water tap…
And for others…..well what d’u know?!!! No more hot water for anybody else!!!!......as the stupid geyser took an eternity to heat up the fresh water again! Crap!!! All you can do is muter curses under your shivered breath while the running water sends a chill through your spines…. :)

4) A wise guy! Aye???.......U shout up at the sky.
As the time carries on and you bathroom sing, the 9Xm is running in the background, things are looking cool. After a few banging on the door by fellow room mates, crying for the paucity of time, feared that it will eventually burst open, you come out. You check out for the clothes drying outside only to realize your shitty luck and bizarre amazement that they are much wetter than how you had left them after wrenching them hard the previous day! You wonder…
“Shit happens, but this is holy shit!!” on some occasions it is followed by ‘deep shit’, when you realize that a friendly pigeon or crow had a nice time cozying up on your shirt with its droppings nicely patterned on your precious clothes…….doesn’t matter you concentrate harder on the song that is being played on the 9Xm. :)

5) Fire in the mountain Run! Run! Run!
While Harpreet has pleaded someone to iron his shirt which generally mercifully accepted by Varun, Kedar hits d panic button giving us a fake alarm in the form of a miss call that the cab has arrived! Varun responds for the call and makes a beeline to it. While I and Harpreet, both born with the exceptional skill for time calculation and manipulation, force that we may still make it, even if the crooked watch is made faster. A couple of miss calls and then a final call which makes the Clock Tower in our minds strike hard!!!
…Next moment……
We are panting! With bag in one hand, and belt, I-card, watch and mobile dangling from the other, the shoe laces, playing with the wind, precariously avoiding your feet, while they are pumping and your eyes are fixed on the cab!!!(Discreet, yet I am aware honey is running along close by, this thought butters your burnt toast adding taste to your life:))

6) Being the ‘Apple of the Eye’
No sooner do we hop in the bus…all eyes scathingly X-ray us…with an occasional look of disgust and snort they used to be withdrawn, as sleazily as they had groped us before. Finding ol’George (our mate) and wish him good morning was the easiest way of avoiding discomfort :D But mind you a lot goes in for our poor friend Varun…as, he took in a lot of rubbish for always making the bus wait for us! Kudos to him, we saved our asses a lot of times :)

7) Oh...dear me!....I got a wrinkle!!!
Aah…Now as our dear friend honey was having a merry time with Mindtree’s pretty ladies…we all got into the habit of having a maquillage done in the bus. Alas, it used to be a 45 minutes journey, so why not a lil tidying up?? ;) lol….seated in the last so as to avoid surprised gazes, we used to have our make up done quite discreetly….completing the unfinished stuff while we left from home till applying moisturizer and hair gel. Finally emerging out of the bus as ‘Dudes’….
Make way MindTree, cuz Here we Come!! :D


8) Daze…..at the office
The day used to be full of new things….new people and new encounters. Altough there was a slight discouragement in the use of the phrase “Kannada Baralla or Gothilla” yet things used to be welcoming as soon we realized we could get almost everything done by the use of one simple word – “madi”. :) We felt a new freedom, freedom to enjoy eating what ever we want to eat! For the first time in my life I was eating so many chocolates in a day!!! :D :D The free time spent used to be simply awesome! Playing scrabble, pictionary or taboo was fun and if not then we would just team up and combat against each other with gritted teeth and vehement concentration on a CZ clan, never to relinquish or accept defeat. No wonder in a couple of months’ time we all made hundreds of friends, departing from them was agonizingly dolorous :(


9) The awesome ‘Bum Massage’
While this was an extra feature that we were esteemed with, courtesy- MindTree’s Swaraj Mazda shuttle service. The 40 seater mini buses had a pathetic rear suspension; more worse was the fact that the Bangalore roads were deprived of speed breakers; instead you could find rumblers (a series mini speed breakers placed closed to each other). The road, withered because of the heavy traffic, used to take a wavy form n any one sitting at the back was in for a bumpy ride. The driver, vaguely aware of the distant ramblings at the back, carries on but you are skeptical whether your insides have been disembodied and rolled over and your stomach gets churned to make up lasagna of the food u had last eaten!

10) Nighttime Tranquility
As the birds serenade their way back, the day draws to an end, our innocent minds used to be filled with exuberant thoughts about the new experiences and events of the day. I, Honey and Varun (room mates) then set along to have sum nice homely dinner complemented with a juice or a chai form the usual roadside tappri, not giving each other a moment to speak while we all recount the happenings of our day. Being too judgmental in nature was an inbred disease so that gossiping came natural to me and honey ;) and our frequencies matched to such an amazing extent that things used to be better understood without spoken words. Cribbing about gals at office was one thing, but suddenly gossiping about them the very next instant was rather usual. At night, gazing the starry sky, cuddled atop the roof, daring the chilly wind, having the conversation of the life time, four friends, who all had a recent transformation in their lives – distantly aware about the insecurities of this new world and the fact that life now demanded more responsibility – yet engrossed with teenage ‘cakes and ale’, very raw, yet accepting :)


TV and carom used to be the best remedy to swarm out the nostalgia and hurtle us back to enjoy the present! Apart from that, we all used to be game, for pulling each others legs, clicking weird snaps, bemusing over kannada names….which all, I rather enjoyed as I used to loose pathetically at carom...


Things did not change much, even when we moved to our new rented house at ‘Jayanagar’. Out of the initial ten days when we used the shuttle service, we (I and Harpreet) were only able to catch it twice. The daily agenda was grabbing an auto till ‘Devegauda petrol pump’ where we would hurriedly catch some Mindtree shuttle awaiting at the signal, which being the longest running signal. The occasional hunt for a new place to dine and party out on Thursdays had become habitual. Soon we were joined by Rohit and Sunil to live along with us, as my departure to Chennai was confirmed. The remaining days were spent blissfully, enjoying the maximum possible. We used to reach office comfortably at 9 30, neatly dressed, very relaxed albeit lethargically numbed, when we used to get out of Sunil’s car, rather appearing as if each one of us owned an IT company for himself :P

I will surely miss having spent quality time there in Bangalore, having made so many friends and having enjoyed life with them, for all the trips we went to, for all the parties or hangouts….Alas! Some one great has rightly said-

“With good ol’ friends to the valley of joy, these days will never last.
For, life is to move ahead, with lingering reminisces of the past! “

- De’ Varshi Code

Ah! Well…who cares????? I find Chennai as rocking too! :P

P.S. – “Bakki theek Hai”