Nobody knows the Enemy !!

According to me the real threat is terrorism and the real enemies are the flaws in our system.

I am sure there must be thousands of blog posts on what is happening currently in Mumbai, and I am just trying to make another post to tell how impotent and useless our current security systems are and will be in the future. The police men still hold sticks (lati’s) to control the public. With over 110 crore population and this figure increasing rapidly I seriously feel we need a strong defense mechanism to protect the peace and harmony in our country.
I don’t see this happening the population is exploding and at the same time number of people who are getting enrolled into the military or police is declining. The reasons are pretty obvious.

• Indian Military cannot compete with the hefty salaries which corporate pay. ( 6 pay commission has come up but are they marketing it well?)
• Work culture of military officers, as we hear more and more military officers are committing suicide year on year.
• Parents somehow never encourage kids to take up such risky options, all parents want their children to take a hefty salary and live a happy life. ( it’s the case not just with defense services but it’s the case with any other off beat profession say journalism or Politics for example)

The problem is simple and clear, the problem lies at the grassroots of this nation. We need good educated politicians first, keep a retirement age in Politics to 50 so that all the old people are washed off, they can definitely act as advisory members but I don’t see them leading the country from the frontline. Increase the defense budget, IT might be the booming industry but it’s important to have a good defense system first. Our police constables needn’t risk their lives by trying to fight RDX with lati’s.

Many things are running in my head currently, is shoot at sight a solution?? Should the government give shoot at sight orders to whomever they feel are suspected terrorist? I feel that would be the worst thing to do, I am sure people will start suspecting every Muslim and I am sure they might shoot me if I grow a beard? That would eventually make the daily lives of people worse and in turn make the terrorists happy for spoiling the harmony of the nation.

Rahul Bose rightly said in the debate in CNBC- “don’t make daily life miserable, we are living in an age of terror and we will have to live with such terror attacks instead of suspecting everyone and spoiling the harmony of the city”

People started classifying terrorism, whether it’s the rich or the poor whether its through bombs or by guns, they are eventually able to spoil the peace and harmony of this nation. Kill ‘em all . why didn’t the government hang the Indian Mujhaheden people, why are they still alive??

I guess I can keep writing this forever and ever, and keep the blame game going. But I feel its time for the real brains to start working now. Get a concrete solution to this crisis. Don’t leave it on the government they will be busy with their election campaigns soon !!

Why we aren’t as patriotic as the Americans or for the matter of fact Pakistani's are?

Why are we always the soft targets?

Is our NSG good enough?

Hello Indian “It’s time to wake up my dear !!!”

An illusion

Is time not illusion?Why does that sound so insane?

Time is and will ever be an illusion. Do you feel you have lots of time in hand (think again)? Or do you feel you can get back the wasted time? In this illusion I have graduated from the best private engineering college in India, in this illusion I still live thinking life is still young and there is lots of time left to waste. But looking at the people around me taking up so much responsibility the illusion no more stays.

It’s a rat race! Yes it seriously is!

I was reading this book by Randy Pausch the Last Lecture where randy says “we cannot change the cards; we are dealt just how we play the hand”. Make the most of every card that’s their in your hand. Opportunity is what I would like to call it. It is not an illusion as such but it is definitely an “illusion in disguise”. It must be right next to you, right in front of your eyes, but you will have to see it as it is never there in the open. Opportunities are many but you need to know which card to use when else there is no use of the rest. Every one wants to score an Ace in life but you have to digest the fact that it might take many faults or double faults to finally get and Ace(destiny).

Fall! Learn! Win! Dream! Dare! Do! Keep dreaming! Dream On! ………

Introspection

Stop looking for answers for all the unanswered questions. Some questions are better unanswered.

“Questions,dipped in poison
Burning with seeds of doubt
Helpless I turn to the heavens
But the silence is still too loud
Questions,I will not fear them
Though I'm still so full of doubt
I'm searching for the answers
In the echoes of my shout”

Motherjane Questions

Abandoned

"If you feel you are a Priority to None, Let 'None' be a priority to you"- Abandon them all.

-Bongu

A Biography of a Man in middle of a freeway

I was having a great time, with my eyes tightly shut and my legs totally stretched, all the worries in mind have taken a back seat and I was relived for just that moment. Sounds of many a vehicle on the road were like rhythmic music playing to put me into sleep, many more sounds were hitting my deaf ear but were not reaching my brain, I guess god has given me this special gift he made me a deaf man. I am really thankful to him, but that is not it he has given me many more things in life, I shall talk about them later. So I was deep asleep, it was like heaven in middle of a free way suddenly I felt my face going cold and me waking up to a splash of water that was thrown on to my face. I woke up and now I think I could figure out all the stuff for which I need to thank the almighty, I already thanked him for making me deaf, now I guess I need to thank him for making the left part of my body dysfunctional, for making me beg all day and sleep with an empty stomach, for making me deprived of basic necessities. The only thing I hate god is for giving me something which he shouldn't have, he gave me a pair of eyes to see my miserable state, he gave me a heart to feel bad, a stomach which makes me hungry always, and a brain which activates all the above mentioned things.


snap clicked near my house with my mobile.
Perhaps this is what he was feeling when he was sleeping in middle of the road. without even realizing what was happening around. Until a man (who fortunately happens to be my driver) woke him up and put him at the other side of the road.Our car had broken down otherwise we would have seen him and ignored him to be a drunkerd lying on the road.

Love is in the Air

Strictly not for people in love

Hello dear xyz,
I love you!! I can’t live without you .blah blah blah…………….
With love
ABC

What’s love? Is it the unforgettable feeling that one gets or is it the feeling which is over hyped that “you have to be in love to know what it means”. I don’t know what that feeling is all about. As you all might have guessed by now this blog entry is dedicated to all the people who are in love.

“Love is in the air”- this can fit any college campus, their might be colleges without the required infrastructure, without professors but I bet you wont find a campus without lovers. Couples who are in love are seen everywhere unless it’s an all girls or all boys college. Every dark corner u will find them, in classes, in restaurants, on road, in front of the hostels everywhere. It was real good fun to treat them as “made for each other”, but are they? Once they cross the boundaries of the college everything is forgotten, all the things that happened it just happened. Perhaps they just needed emotional support from the opposite sex.

According to me most of the relations are “born to end”. There are very few that I have seen which were successful, one of them is a senior who took me into dopy. Given a chance perhaps all relations will continue, but what might be the reasons for relations to end? It can be anything ranging from parental pressure to misunderstandings to gen thrill “let’s end it we had enough” types.

Now that it has ended lets see how it actually started. It started with perhaps a smile that they exchanged in a class, perhaps with regular conversations on Google talk, perhaps discussing a close friends break up, how ever it was born, finally it has an end.

After how it all started now lets talk a bit on life after the end. I rather call it “The new beginning for another end”. In this phase both of them are meant to have a tough time (unless the relation never meant anything to the couple). But it is often found that one of them takes it to heart and looses his identity and self respect. He/ she tend to do crazy stuff for a while and later on they find their true love again. Another relation is born; let’s wait for the end to see the vicious circle continue.

Hello dear pqr,
I love you!! I can’t live without you .blah blah blah…………….
With love
ABC

PS: it’s the same letter he sends I guess just the name changes and perhaps some more adjectives are used.

This loop is never ending till the day of your marriage, considering India to be a developing country and the concept of divorce and second marriages is not yet the in thing.(that’s not the case with our film stars though).

A little mention to “bhajrang dal” a group formed by kiki, on Valentines Day to piss off all the couples. Three cheers to Rahul Vj and his movie “She wont cry when you die” asking the biggest question whether she will cry when u die.

A special mention for all the people who change their partners faster than their mobile phone. They have different vicious circles laid all around the park. This case is still confusing and I never understood how can someone do that? Research in progress I guess…

Planning to end this heavy topic on a lighter note. Here is my friend who is weak in romance
Beep beep sms..
My friends girl : hey listen I am hungry . Not able to concentrate on studies.
Friend: don’t worry mess opens in half an hour (what a fag man)

The Sultry Harsh Water

We all are like fishes, which are groomed properly for more than two decades under, parental and teacher care. Lessons that are more important than just Newton’s laws are thought, lessons that teaches you inertia of life, that teaches you that for every action(good/bad) you will have an equal and an opposite (needn’t necessarily be) reaction. You are kept in an aquarium well fed and well nourished and are kept in a well maintained room temperature miles away from the harsh sun or rain.

The transition state (read as the state in between college and an actual job) comes a bit harsh at the fish as they are not given importance and are no more fed at proper times and nourished, they feel the harsh sun and rain and find it tough to digest. Boredom and idleness get on to them and they lose all the self confidence that they had in the aquarium (college) to conquer the ocean (the C world) . They become rather tired and fed up with life the harshness hits on to them and the drainage stinks. Unfortunately drainage is used to pump all the fish from aquariums to the ocean.

Tired of surviving in the drain the fishes are suddenly thrown into an ocean along with fishes of all kinds, fishes that never have been nourished in an aquarium to fishes that are harsh and street smart, fishes that have been in the ocean for years laugh at us and say welcome to “the real world buddy get used to the taste of this harsh and sultry water”. You need to survive, fight for food and shelter, stay away from the big fat fishes which might swallow you anytime and make fewer friends whom you can trust. Rebuilding your confidence that you have lost in the drain,the feeling which makes you feel like a useless piece of shit needs to be eradicated from your mind. Keep floating and keep going as many a new fish will enter the ocean soon and you might find it tough to find your own piece of food. This needs to go on till you are tired of doing it (till the day you say enough I have lived enough let me sleep till eternity)

Perhaps this the problem with most of the fish that grows in an aquarium without seeing the outer world, they are lucky to have a happy two decade of living at the beginning of the "never ending" but what’s their state after that. Many a fish drown to the immense pressure and the tide. Very few survive and most of us who do, learn to live with the sweet water (sultry water starts to taste sweet soon).

The compromise(life) continues...

Happy to Help (are they??)

pic courtesy vodafone ESSAR

8am -(literally everyday) beep beep.. 1 message received- Vodafone- Hello! Your Vodafone mobile Phone usage is reaching credit limit. We request for an interim payment for uninterrupted services.


Vodafone Essar the third largest mobile telecom providers in India and the fastest growing telecom providers in India currently. A large amount of credit goes to their brilliant video ads, which actually revolutionalized the advertisement industry and made its competitors think of the importance of good ads. (Even R'com is coming with decent ads now a days but I think BSNL will never change, no wonder they lost their market share substantially over the years) With more and more telecom companies getting ready to conquer the already populated Indian Telecom market I feel the BPO's will have a gr8 time ahead. (Rather we will have a tough time)The point of me writing this post is not to analyze the Indian telecom Industry but to vent out my frustration on how ineffective the customer cares are lately. Its been 10 days now since I have paid my post paid bill and its not yet been credited to my account, calling up the Vodafone customer care has been in my To-Do list since then and even now, my tone while talking to the customer care has changed from polite to harsh but still the company which has spent crores of rupees in creating ads and buying ad time on television have forgotten to invest on a good customer care service.

Call 111 - the first 3 mins you spend figuring out how to reach the customer care, once u finally get to reach the customer care the happy to help tone keeps repeating with messages in between saying "thank you for waiting we are happy to help you" and finally when you reach the customer care they either say they are pre-paid customer care of they are not concerned with billing. The worst part is even to pay the bill I had to wait for 40 mins for my turn to come. When they can remind me everyday that my credit limit is reaching why cant they do something about crediting my amount to the account??

Same is the case with all the customer cares in India, I have seen my friends struggling to activate GPRS on their mobile who are subscribed to the leading telecom provider in India, At least they don’t show everyday on TV that they are happy to help, the ad is getting on to my nerves now....

Currently waiting for a call back from vodafone, She said ten minutes I am done with writing my post too..

The Box!!

People say Think out of the box! I rather want to leave the Box aside and explore the world out of it..

We all stay in a Box for most of the day, which no one else except the nearest ones have a right to trespass but I feel the dimensions of the Box have exploded, i do not know where the vertexes lie and rather do i know which segment of the Box i am standing in. I want to leave the box but i am failing in finding the Exit.. !! Perhaps their is none..

Life moves on ...

Cocktail – (long island iced tea)

Recipe
Take a long glass (brain), add equal amounts of alcohol (rum + vodka + scotch), now to this mixed alcohol add loads of ice and then add chilled ice tea into it. Now the long island iced tea is ready to be served... its bitter its ruthless but two of them will take u on a high (a decent one)
That’s how my brain is as of now mixed with various emotions trying hard to kill boredom and not participating with the body when it is hanging out with friends. Pressures though not applied directly by the preachers (relatives), it’s been felt immensely these days. Perhaps it’s because I myself am not sure about the composition of the mixed emotions and the various doubts in my mind with which I can compose a perfect answer.
Currently the cocktail is hard to take the alcohol is hitting me hard and I am always on a low these days. The ice is helping me a bit though especially today I had a quick game of bowling and happened to reach my highest score so it’s diluting the alcohol a bit and it’s keeping me going.
I want to finish this cocktail once and for all (bottoms up I suppose) but it’s not a cake walk, so sipping it slowly...
Life moves on …
Currently on high (in spirits)

US(m)E

Dedicated to all the engineers of 04 batch who are ready to crack IT out of shape. Wishing them good luck and giving them my condolences for their future endeavours.

Dedicated to kavi and his demotivators, this would be a definite demotivator for me against IT or rather i say infosys (i dont think i need this for demotivation as i have reached saturation already)

SEE FULL SIZE IMAGE

Life – “a compromise” for Survival

All of us have read lot of success stories but here is a story of a batch topper of ahmedabad university.
Couple of weeks ago, I have seen this guy for the first time. A rickshaw puller by profession, but thrice my age and experience in this shit hole (life). I asked him “IFFCO Chowk”(referring to my destination) he replied back 20 bucks, I accepted the deal and sat on the passenger seat. Suddenly he stopped looked at his rickshaw wheel and said “bad luck its pumchured”.
Today, I happened to see him again and decided to take his rickshaw as he missed out on the 20 bucks last time. (of late I stopped taking rickshaws) but today I wanted to take it for helping the poor guy. I asked him the same question he didn’t say 20 bucks this time around perhaps he recognized me, but he said that the road was miserable because of the overnight rain. I sat on the rickshaw and we set off to IFFCO. It takes 20 minutes to reach my destination from my office. I never knew 20 minutes are enough to know a person and also to feel sympathetic for him. He took the initiative and asked me couple of questions, he was surprised by the fact that I was working in an MNC and didn’t own a bike for myself. I told him that I was a student getting trained at my workplace, he replies back saying “we all are students till death” in fluent English I was shocked that he knew such good English. He continued “you learn a lot from life don’t stop learning as you never know what life has in store for you”. He introduced himself and then said “Batch topper 1961 batch Ahmedabad university” I was shocked he later explained why he was pulling a rickshaw about how he had to toil for his lifetime as his father expired at a young age leaving him with loads of responsibility on his young shoulders. His son was everything for him, he worked a lot and made him a software engineer, but he was perhaps the most unfortunate father “his son expired of an epidemic”. Then he has decided to give up in life he has given away all his property to an orphanage and now he lives on the platform pulling a rickshaw. He made a very interesting (rather disgusting) point about gurgaon “the city might look great with so many towers all around but the people are sick bastards they have no heart and no manners, someone stole my pair of clothes now I am left with only this one”. He was wearing a green t-shirt which no more was green full of stains on it and half torn. I could see his voice broke when he was saying that and then continued “I pull the rickshaw for my survival I have no relations in this world, god bless you son, and may you have the best life ever” with a heavy heart I opened my not so heavy valet and gave him 50 bucks and left the place. Throughout the 20 minute journey I was guilty of making a man who is of thrice my age to pull my weight, I could figure out from the speed that he was in immense pain. But the smile on his face when I gave him the 50 bucks note was satisfying though it didn’t make me feel less guilty but it at least didn’t make me feel worse.

“if he wanted he could have spent rest of his life peacefully with his property, he donated his money and now he is undergoing all the hardships, perhaps he has decided that his purpose of survival on this earth, is to undergo hardships, perhaps he felt god has made him for this purpose, he also must be blaming it on his previous birth” -those were the thoughts that were running through my head on my way back home.

"A World Of His Own "- A Short Story

All the characters in the story are imaginary and resemblance with any person alive or dead is totally coincidental.

Sitting on an old wall, near the market place this man with more wrinkles on his face than teeth or even hair on his head, with a turban heavier than his head, sipping huge puffs of tobacco from his hukka sits this old father, deserted by his own beloved people who are well settled in their lives. As a proud father,he is now a happy man doing what he likes unshakeable from the worldly pressures.

Meanwhile his son an Investment banker, in a nearby city is tensed and overly worked out by his daily work in the not so predictable financial sector. Reading about stocks for most of life and also dreaming about the same when he sleeps. With the fear of being fired any moment, and by working more and more to keep his position safe in the company he spends his weekdays. He now looks older than his age though not as old as his father but definitely much older than his colleagues of the same age.

His sister works in one of the biggest MNC’s in India which recruits atleast a hundred people yearly from each technical college, trains them vigorously for half an year and use them as cheap labor. Yes, we Indians are cheap labor but we also the most effective labor in the world considering our brains to be the best in world. She never liked the work but she now got used to the life , “a compromise” for the 20k that she gets at the end of the month. If anyone asks her suddenly if she was happy the instantaneous answer would be a Big “NO”.

Days are passing by heaven might be the next destination but he is still near the wall sipping his daily share of tobacco from his hukka and keeping himself occupied. He just finished dreaming about the festival which is scheduled after a month when his children are supposed to see him and they are planning an outing to a nearby religious place. He is waiting for that day since the day it was decided couple of months back.

Meanwhile a recession occurred in the United States with the bankers having to work now according to the US timings, there was hardly any time his son was getting out of office totally drained with tons of work loaded on him. It’s been almost a month since he made a call to his dad struck up at his work place for most of his time.

“Its time for her to get married”- I shall discuss it with them when they come to see me during the festival. Says the old man to his friend who accompanies him at the old wall in the market place, after his wife expired a couple of year’s back he was his only companion. Nights seemed longer than days sleeping all alone in his huge mansion, dreaming about some disaster everyday, waking up to it and sitting all alone for the rest of the night.

Tomorrow is the big day when his children were scheduled to meet him, after collecting his new clothes from his tailor and after purchasing gifts for his children he sat down at the same wall puffing tobacco from his hukka hoping that the days passes quickly in a whisker. As always the day seemed to be the longest day of his life.

9pm the the phone rang –“Papa I am sorry to tell You that its not possible for me to visit our village as I am struck with some work out here” same was the dialogue from both his children one after the other within a gap of ten minutes.

Its festival time, he goes to the temple all alone he was a depressed man but he realized that they all were living in this world which is a different world for each one of them. He thinks to himself and then shouts at the top of his voice “my own world” and breaks down into tears.

He had a long sleep that night, he didn’t wake up the whole day, he never would, people realized that only after two days when the body started to stink. They are busy in their own world doing what they never liked much, but that was the priority in their lives at that moment. “May his soul rest in peace” said the saints at the funeral but will it?

Khuda Kay Liye

I am basically a movie freak I always like watching movies (not on computer though), I prefer a 70mm screen nice push back seats and a coke while watching movies. Its not always that Pakistani movies release in India this one Kudha Kay Liye is one of them that recently released and I happened to see it today.


One of the best movies I have seen and IMDB also rightly gave 9.0/10 only the top few movies have such ratings I suppose brilliantly shot and great screen play . The director dealt with every aspect and he was very vocal about his thoughts. He spoke about the youth in Pakistan, Terrorism , Woman in pakistan a etc etc. I dont wanna write the plot here I just want all my friends and readers to just watch the movie and enjoy.

Amazing music and a must watch...

The one actor we know is naseer uh din shah he has a special role 5 mins role and he has done an amazing job.

What Next!??

I was never found of reading books and neither was I interested in blogging, things have really changed after I passed out from college (not really though). The day I left home having huge goals and expectations about my life and the C world I was planning a really different carrier path I wanted to write my GRE and then do my MS in finance, then I gave up on GRE as I felt its not worth reading as I wanted to do something different in life, though I still love finance and I still want to pursue a degree in finance perhaps the target of mugging up the dictionary or the gap of four years from education discouraged me.(I got an engineering degree in these four years). These four years I just did things to get the degree, I will be getting it in less than two months now I just have to fill in my PS diary and pay my student union dues to get my transcripts. Once I get them, I am an engineer my name will now have a B.E (Honors) suffixed to it. To be frank I don’t deserve the degree I don’t know the basic definitions in electronics and if you ask me what kirchoff’s laws are I would find it tough to answer. Perhaps, this is the case with many engineers passing out, but definitely in these four years I learnt to live life, learnt what good is and what bad is and now I am ready to take challenges in the world , immense amount of exposure that BITS Pilani has given to me, I owe a lot to my college. I was a very shy person in school and I only used to open up to the closest of my friends, I met people from various regions and I have best of my friends from various states who talk different languages and do stuff different ways, one thing which I feel worth mentioning here is that I was even shy to talk to girls it took one long year to open up and after that I was pretty comfortable talking to them.

I wanted to write about confusion in life and the way I have been dreaming of different things everyday to add on to my confusion. Getting an higher degree is almost compulsory now, whether to grow in an organization or to make quick money but somehow I am not serious about giving an examination and doing it right away though half the time I spend discussing about this with my parents on phone. I don’t want a desk job and coding is nowhere in picture, as of now I am jobless though my mom keeps boasting about my Infosys job back home. I am from a conservative family as most of us in India are my dreams are big but as all parents dream they want me to do a decent job and take the amount they give every month and be happy. They say people live happily when they do a job. That’s not right at-least I can justify this as 9 out of 10 people I met in the C world are just living for the heck of it, they do things as they are answerable to their managers, especially the people who are coding or testing as a matter of fact, they don’t know for what they are doing and how much of a contribution are they doing to the company. I will never work to a company in which my direct contribution is nothing. (At-least that’s what I feel now) . The last few lines that u read will clearly tell u that I am not even happy with the C world, so what else is left in life, I want to start-up and run my own company but I am not sure about what and when ? And also I am not sure about the amount of support I will get from the people that matter the most for me. I have some friends who used to share the same kind of thoughts like these but looking at them now, enjoying the de-bugging or testing or whatever desk job they are doing I fear I might end up doing that. Why? On earth should I do that? I have less than two months left and I have no job at hands after these days are done when people ask me what you planning next I need an answer, but as of now I myself am not sure what I should be doing and whether my big dreams will come true…

I was reading this book today “think big and kick ass” by Donald Trump which really gave me an insight to life. The best thing I realized is In life You never get a chance to relax, you have to keep working to keep yourself up in this competitive world. I also saw an advertisement in TV today which showed a mans life how he compromised on everything for fulfilling his family needs and finally when he is sixty he realizes he has to do what he wants at-least now. Yes, I have to be one of them I am not from a filthy rich family to start enjoying right now, so here it goes work ur ass out but “think big” to kick ass in life.

First it was GRE then a good job now startup my mind has been thinking a lot.. For all those people who asked me what next here you go this entry will answer your query.

With newly found hobbies and confusions in life my journey of life continues………..

Who am I??

When we were young we were ignorant, that we were hurting them, with our childish behavior and the words which were not actually meant to be said. Then they gave us all the support and encouragement to do what we want in our careers and to secure our futures, they filled our bank accounts with all the money we needed and gave us whatever we wanted even before we asked.Even after college when you are thinking what next in life they are with you. They now say that you are big enough to take care of your family, but still would treat you as a little kid for ever and ever.

Its been 6 long years away from them and I want to go back, go back home , to the place where I was taught the difference between good and bad, and the place which was always filled with happiness irrespective of the circumstances backstage.

I wanna say "Momma I am Coming home", but the time has not yet come, I will at-least have to wait two months to say that, but I can't tell her for how many days? I am not home sick , I just feel that I am wasting life living, doing what I want, wearing what I like and enjoying all the comforts that my dad has given.I owe a lot to them and I hope , I can reach their expectations though my carrier plans are different from what my parents want me to do.That's the biggest fear that i currently have in my head, the fear of the day when my dad will have to bow his head in shame because of me, the only wish that I ask the almighty,that this day never comes.

Now the big question, Who am I?? I will be proud to answer this question as the "Son of my lovely parents"

With loads of love
bharat

PS: typed this down on my parents wedding anniversary when i went back home to give them a surprise, wanted to share a lot with them but ended up typing down loads instead.This has been in the drafts for over two weeks now :P

Adventurous Rishikesh

Disclaimer – this is a blog entry that describes my recent trip to Rishikesh, which has been written much in detail on request of the people who were on the trip. Kindly bear with length. Hope you guys enjoy.

October 2007, with bandages all over the left part of my body, with forty of my friends from my department I have been to this place called rishikesh (250 kms from delhi) one of the best places on earth and obviously the best place I have ever been to. Well known as a holy pilgrimage place for the Hindhu’s as the river Ganges flows from this part of the country, the two suspension bridges namely Ram Jula (swing) and Laxman Jula (swing) lead you to the holy town which is famous for obviously its holy temples but also for this eat out place called Chotiwala’s which serves typical gujrathi thali. But the actual activity that attracts so many students from all over north India are the adventure sports and the river side camping. The last time I was there in October I missed out on the best part of the trip rafting for 26kms in all the scary but yet thrilling rapids of the river Ganges.

There is yet another angle to my life in the C world, the life after office, here I stay miles away from my home in Gurgaon with six other roommates, all of them who are two years senior to me and are well established in the C world (unlike me who is still not able to digest it). Initially when I boarded my flight to Gurgaon from Home I was worried about whether I will be able to adjust with my seniors, etc etc (atleast I was sure that they cant rag me J ) anyways the whole point of giving all this stuff is to say that we guys are a well knit group having regular weekend trips and having fun pulling each others legs for the little time we spend together on weekdays. So we have decided a week ago to push off to Rishikesh on the coming weekend , three more friends from Pilani also have decided to join the bhagwanti(name of the apartments that I stay in) guys in Gurgaon.

Let me introduce you to the 9 members who have gone to the trip, you must be wondering that its 10 along with me, but no one of our roommates has gone to Pune on some personal work over the weekend(I think I am being too indirect he has gone to meet his girl friend). So now we are nine people who have decided to start off to rishikesh at around 7am on the previous Friday, but unfortunately our three friends from Pilani got struck in a record breaking traffic jam 20 kms from Gurgaon, they spent the whole night in the jam, they were supposed to reach at 2am but ended up reaching at around 10am (yeah 8hrs in the traffic jam). The GR8K (non stop fart machine, the fattest among the 9 with obviously the biggest ass), Jockey(a Karnataka guy,born and brought up in hyd and now stays in the loci land of jaipur) and Puttar (as the name suggests he is “A SURD” Sardar Preet Kamal Singh) are among the three. Among the remaining six one is obviously me, the others are Body (fattest in the gang joint winner with kavi the GR8K who is also a finance stud), Jittu (“he was the b’day boy”, well known for his PJ’s and supposedly he writes down all the jokes he cracks), Pasha (the firangi, and the runners up among the fat men after kavi and body), Anil oops Candy (he is the person who gets the maximum share of jacking, for reasons which I better not mention and he is half of Body’s weight) last but not the least Gowda (another a Karnataka guy, born and brought up in hyd and still stays in hyd whom we finally jacked in the trip…..an amazing cook ). I think I am boring u guys with all this descriptions but I feel its important to give a build up to my blog entry.

Gurgaon, March 21, 2008, 10 AM , the guys from pilani arrived half dead even before the trip started, we had an heavy south Indian breakfast at home as we knew we cant afford to stop for lunch as we had to reach Rishikesh before seven as the road towards the camp closes in the night because of security reasons. We were all set we pushed off to Rishikesh in two vehicles. The initial part of the trip was tiring with the typical delhi traffic to beat on a hot summer afternoon, we somehow managed to cross delhi in three hours i.e we traveled just 50kms in the first three hours, as soon as we left Delhi we saw boards saying Jain Shikanji (lemon water) every two hundred meters and so we decided to stop to see what this Shikanji is all about, we bought Shikanji in one of Indias oldest Shikanji shops which started it operations way back before independence in 1932 and the shop beside it was a competitor and the second best Shikanji shop in that area for over 70 years now which started off in 1933 J . The shikanji was amazing a perfect refresher in the hot summer, after a while we picked up some burgers from Mc Donald’s and were all set to cover the remaining 120 kms with less than two hours to go. With all the efforts we could only manage to reach Rishikesh by 8pm, with our camp guy doing some arrangements with the security guards we could take the narrow road to the camp even at that time in the night, after hour long of bumps, twists and turns we reached our camp site in a village called Bhyasi (25 kms from Rishikesh), the camp was owned by Adventours so the first adjective for this trip “its was definitely promising something Advent(O)urouS ”

This is the second time for two of us, but the rest of them were spell bound as we both were the last time we saw a camp in white sand along the banks of river Ganges adjacent a hill, the full moon that day added to the amazing look the place already had and body kept saying the whole night “this place is mesmerizing”. One best thing about the trip was that the place didn’t have any cell-phone network, away from all the daily crap(unlike what the Airtel Ad shows). After having our dinners and stretching our bodies for a while after the long car journey we rested our asses on the white sand and discussed random stuff. “About why the water level increases on a full moon day” and other random topics which I somehow am not able to recollect as I was half asleep then. So we decided to crash so that we can have an amazing raft the next morning.

The camp looked different the next morning, with the sun almost ready to rise and cool breeze blowing we have decided to go a bit closer to the Ganges and feel the water. We hogged a lot during the break-fast we also drank loads of OJ only realizing later that it belonged to the Firangis who were staying the camp along with us. It was Holi so we dressed ourselves up for the rafting after playing volleyball for a while in the white sand and then started playing with colors for a while unlike what we used to do in college, we thought the Firangis what holi is and they suddenly went crazy they were playing around with colors more than that we Indians were doing out there. After all this gen enthu we have left to Rishikesh on our raft , this is the best part of the trip which cannot be described in words I would say the best experience any adventure lover can have, and is advised to do with friends during college. After crossing the scary but rather amazing rapids namely golf course, butterfly, three blind mice, roller coaster and surfing our bodies in the Ganges for over four hours of amazing raft guided by our caption Pradeep (he was our trainer) we reached this place where we were supposed to jump off a 50m cliff into the Ganges with all of us being amateurs to swimming rather more than half of us didn’t know how to swim we all jumped into the Ganges in weird ways. It took time for us to get used to all the instructions initially , all front,left-front right-back,right-front left-back ,all back, halt etc and the next big task was to synchronize once we got an hang of it there was no looking behind we covered the rafting distance with ease. meanwhile while rafting we did other crazy stuff like comparing all the families that we saw to the friend of ours in Pune who would be visiting later in his life, and wishing both Indians a happy holi , over taking rafts and pouring water on to them.

After the experience of our lifetime we all got back to the camp had our lunch with all of us eating atleast four times more than what we normally do. Some how we pushed our limits by not taking a nap in the afternoon coz we were sure that that wouldn’t be a nap once we hit the bed. So we stared at these creatures on the hill initially mistaken to be leopards but later realizing that they were deer. We were staring at them for almost half an hour later went for another volley ball session and then sat down with non-veg joke session, with Sardar Preet Kamal Singh in full form. Then we sat down for an -OH session with just a lantern with five of us sitting with our share of -OH with a strong determination to go on a high. Pitch dark sky initially as the moon was behind the hill, white sand, roaring Ganga, sounds of land sliding, one lantern and 9 people around it. Once we reached the state that we wanted to the GR8K started off with his so called BS about life with many statements like “life is a compromise” being repeated by jockey after every minute. Weird stuff again like what the rabbit was doing on the moon and how “everything that we did can be covered up……. With sand” were discussed.

After an amazing session and a great night sleep, we realized all good things have to come to an end and started off to Gurgaon with memories that cannot be erased by anything, with just one feeling in all our hearts “Rishikesh rox”. By doing random stuff on our way back like rating girls and by stealing sugarcane we reached home late in the night only realizing that we all needed to shave and go to office the next morning.

Maturity??!!

I would like to describe a small incident that happened long-long ago in a little kids life, he was told by his teacher how his country men fought for its independence and how the current politicians are looting the same country now, and how these little kids will have to serve the country once they grow up and become adults like the teacher. The kid dreamt of being an adult he thought he would at-least joint the military if not politics and do his contribution to the nation. He felt for it then. But slowly priorities changed as days passed by he just thought about his friends and the fun involved in hanging out with them, he was into high school now and he thought he was not grown enough to start thinking about the nation etc, I am not writing this to create a Yuva sort of a feeling in the readers I am just penning down the autobiography of this kid whose priorities changed rapidly. Let me get back now, in high school this guy at-least thought about his friends and group and slowly as days passed it became himself, his best buddy and his family. He didn’t give a shit for what was happening to others forget the country he wasn’t bothered about what was happening to the person saying in the adjacent room of his hostel. He got all his support that he needed from his best friend on campus so he never bothered to give a shit about what the others felt about him, now all of them are out of college busy with their own lives so busy that they don’t even have the time to talk to each other, now this kid feels lonely, he now thinks about what next in life who will replace his best buddies from college, perhaps a girl friend, that doesn’t seem to be working out in a environment where people are at-least five years elder to him or the typical DC’s. Now if I look back and think the way priorities changed in my life I see the same kid in me, perhaps all of u will be feeling the same. Within the next few years priorities will narrow down to only me and my family I suppose. Hard to digest but it needs to be digested at times. Now if my teacher who told me to serve the nation comes to me I can do nothing but bend my head in shame and say,” Mam, I have been selfish as that’s the key for survival”. Be selfish but do spare a thought to all the good people you meet in life, because they made you to the person that you are today.

Signing off
Kiddo
Bharat Bongu

The Endless Journey

There is an unavoidable journey which each one of us are going through, the journey of life the journey which takes u places , which makes you meet loads and loads of people. Perhaps at the end of the little part of my journey so far I feel I lost myself, there is small thought at the end of my heart, that I started living for this world, for the people around me. I enjoy every moment but at the end of the day I feel this is not the same me that I was couple of years ago. Perhaps college changes people, I miss the kiddo in myself(where have you gone ??), I wanna go back to the bachpan days where there is so much ignorance and innocence involved, where you implement a lot but never bother to think, but no! Now I don’t ever have time away from thinking. Weird thoughts run through my head all day, what next in life? the biggest question in life, carrier or family is the next? Amongst all this shit and much more u still have to move around normally faking all day long, they expect you to reach deadlines but they are never bothered to know what u are going through. Yes, this is yet another entry where I am writing to vent out my frustration. A small disclaimer before I continue, I am not always in such moods. “Dead Inside”- by thermal and a quarter inspired me in writing this entry. Though none of you agree all of us are “doing, walking, smiling and faking” for the most of our lives. We all are living less and faking more.

I always thought about this when, people bless you asking to live for hundred odd years, I felt like asking them “are you blessing me or cursing me”. I am no Jim Morrison to die soon so here is the beginning of this endless journey called life. “all the best to all those who are sailing along with me in the same boat” for the rest you will be our guests one day so enjoy this moment.

Pushing the Limits - @NCR

While the city was fast asleep, we four were out on a “push the limits drive” in the national capitol, our destination was the India gate .We all were high on caffeine, after heavy dosage of devils own and sizzling brownies we started off on our great Delhi ride at around 2 Am .We were all pushing our limits, the driver, the great K was busy changing gears and waking up people. Delhi roads were the best in night with not much of traffic, ours was one of the very few four wheeler on road, the others being either six or ten wheelers carrying heavy loads and finding it tough to even climb a normal flyover, while our busy driver, the great K was busy taking high speed cuts, we did it we pushed our limits we reached a top speed of 150kmph at 3 40 am. We were disappointed to see the green lights flashing at the traffic signals because we wanted to follow traffic rules at 2 Am in the night and also teach the truck drivers some traffic rules which they rarely follow. The not so visible India gate which was at its best with that orange tinge to it, looked like a perfect sepia mode picture , was a perfect icing on the cake for the trip. The janpat road looked amazing with a row of yellowish lights along side and a chervolet car at 100kmph on it. The drive was “Leg-End-Dary”!! The best part of the trip was that the owner (M) of the vehicle had no idea that his car was on a joy ride.

Public Transport

Conveyance is the word. !!
I always used to dream of the night life in a city, the disks the pubs and the late night buffets, but what to do? Here I am struck in the cement jungle where u got to have ur own conveyance to roam around. The public sector doesn’t offer anything , but the private sector does , they run bus service , I rather call them match boxes filled with twice the number of match sticks than its capacity , perhaps twice is also an understatement. The first thing that u hear in the bus journey is two people hanging out of the bus and shouting chapan chapan chapan (56 56 56 referring to sector 56) throughout the journey ,even if they know no one else can fit in the bus they over load it just to earn that extra 5 bucks . I almost travel in this bus at the same time everyday so do my fellow companions , I see the same middle aged man with his wife discussing some family issues in an unknown language , the same not so pretty wannabe air-hostess , the same college going students reading the same book everyday . They all are like my friends now , I spend this long 40 mins bus journey observing them , sometimes I even overhear what they discuss , (they are way to loud to even avoid) majority of the discussions involve employees bitching about there managers , wifes about their husbands and India about their cricket team . Trust me when I find it difficult to even breathe in the bus people are busy discussing every other topic in the news, I even saw some one discussing Obama and Clinton (was surprising)and ya how can forget the loud haryanwi songs played by my bus driver to add on to our frustration. I can’t avoid this journey the only best option I have is to take the company cab at 7 am or to take a private cab by shelling out 200 bucks. So in unavoidable circumstances I end up boarding the bus.
This is the case with buses ,Autos its even worse seven seaters are treated as seventeen seaters loaded with people all over! it won’t be surprising to see the driver inviting someone to sit in his lap while he is driving in the near future, for all the visionaries who feel that the nano can replace an auto in India they have to definitely give a second thought to this. I had this small but rather scary experience in a jeep , with people all over it trust me we were 30 people in an old armada with people hanging on its doors while the driver is driving at 80kmph , that’s the situation of public transport in the so called IT Hub of India , if the public really have the capacity to buy there own cars then why are these buses overloaded , there is a huge necessity for immediate action on this . Perhaps a private player itself needs to enter this market and make conveyance better. (might not win you a b'plan competition but definetly will give loads of business)

This is all reality I didn’t exaggerate any bit.

Reporting From Gurgaon
Bharat Bongu

Role Reversal

Time and money are the two most important assets for anyone, here I am sitting in a well furnished office and trying to waste one of them, (time of course) by starting to write yet another blog entry .suddenly while talking to a close friend of mine it struck my mind what if there is a small role reversal what if time takes over the place of money in this world. The obvious reason that I want this to happen is that I have loads of the former and a very little of the latter, so why cant the former taker over the latter. Just imagine I have already lost so many valuable seconds. In this world there is no peace , with money there is greed that is prevalent in this world , people think twice to even do there daily necessary activities , people think twice before praying , they think twice to sleep , they wont watch tv , they wont chat to friends , what will they do they will try to use there time effectively . Now what do u mean by using time effectively, isn’t doing ur daily activities using time effectively, isn’t a short conversation with someone u love using time effectively, isn’t resting using time effectively. there would be so much peace in this world ,the day time replaces money, as it is the only asset and as money is an asset that can be wasted , everyone is equally rich , people burn money (literally) and still be at the same social status , people sleep the whole day and still be the same , people will now have the time to care about their fellow humans , people will be people. As It is god who gives time , he gives 24 hrs for all his children , he gives the same 24 to the black and also to the white , to the rich and also to the poor , to u and also to me. All are happy, all professions will be happy, people will tend to stay back in their own mother land, and my motherland will be the richest with so many people caring for each other. I just realized I am sitting in my office, in the C (competitive) world, where people are working for money and here I am trying to waste time by replacing time by money . “ Money is not Everything in Life ” – perhaps u should have enough money to say this (this line is not mine , one of my friend said this).perhaps I will be eligible to say the dialogue one day.

Split Personality

Looking at the title of my next article it might sound as though it’s another Sheldon novel or another shanker movie sort of an article. I won’t say that it will be no where close to them as the back bone storyline of this article also deals with split personalities in a person. Here I introduce the two personalities, ME and MYSELF. Me is an extrovert, who always looks cool and happy to the world, he laughs dances and he is seen only when there are people around. Myself is an introvert never comes out when people are around and he is a close associate of Me when he is alone, mood swings are his favorite pastime. Both Me and Myself share the same wardrobe; they eat the same stuff but never think alike. me always tries to be positive, he tries to leave his past aside and enter into the future by being optimistic where as myself spoils me’s happiness by always making him feel low, making him think only about the past, about his best pals whom he left about the home (pilani) that he no more belongs to and about how he cant do without them etc.
Finally whether its Me or Myself that is speaking or thinking at a particular point of time finally happiness can be attained only when they are synchronous in thought and actions , this is perhaps the major problem which many a ME in this world are facing , (to compress Myself) . Me is what I am to this world, the personality that keeps adopting depending on the people around but shows his true self only to his best buddy myself, who knows all his hidden feelings and all he actually thinks about a particular person or situation. Finally I don’t know its ME or Myself that’s making me write this but I hope u guys enjoyed this perspective of mine.

Cheers
Me and Myself
Alias Bharat Bongu

the C world

Corporate(C) that’s the word that u hear in the penultimate semester of your student life , the word that creates such an aura against ones image the life that is dreamt by every student , if any one of u who is still in ur penultimate semester of ur student life or the one before that stop dreaming about it . there are many things that I observed in my little stay so far in the C world , the same C world that I was dreaming about ,perhaps big bucks is what u dream off perhaps u feel u had enough on ur dads money all these weird thoughts start creeping in once u reach the end of college life . We are all wannabe seniors who want to swipe our credit cards and treat juniors just to show that we are filthy rich or to prove that we are doing well in the C world, (nothing against my seniors though). I always wanted to be one of them but now I realize how tuff it is especially for a trainee in a company , the same trainee was the senior most on campus just a month before he stepped into the C world , the trainee had so many friends and also juniors who looked up to him ,but suddenly all of a sudden he is the junior most person in the company , perhaps the only person who has not yet passed out from college , at-least I can say that just for the heck of it for the next few months . This trainee is perhaps bored, perhaps looking for company, perhaps scared of being lonely so he has decided to do something which he perhaps never dreamt of doing when he was on campus, he decided to blog , though he got loads of encouragement from blogs which dealt with topics close to his life , perhaps the toothpicks and the toilet papers gave him the inspiration to start his own blog .
From a village which hardly had proper roads, or building except for the five decade old hostel buildings on campus, he moved into the cement jungle as called by great visionaries. Wannabe sky scrapers, wannabe locis , and wannabe rj’s that’s gurgaon in short , a city or perhaps a village itself as the name suggests , it’s a massive village of wannabes . the transition didn’t end there , from hardly a floor to the fourth floor , from a single room with rarely any furniture , to a well furnished 3 BHK flat (Bed room Hall Kitchen) , from dhobi to washing machine ,from shorts to formals ,all transitions came at once and turned out to be a big culture shock for him .the biggest shock so far perhaps came at the lunch table , suddenly he couldn’t see people waiting in long queues and ask for more and more eggs to be broken , now what he is seeing is all the people irrespective of their age sex or even weight are trying to loose some kilos as if they are going to represent the Indian team in Olympics next year . He saw the tri color in their plates, true Indians is what he called them, by eating the few pieces of carrot, cucumber and radish they end their lunch, to add on to their patriotism they also watch cricket and try to be wannabe experts. Among all these wannabes there is this wannabe MAN , who is eating a full plate of wannabe chicken biryani ,and drinking loads of coffee just to watch a extra bit of his country play its not so wannabe national game.
What happens next to this trainee to know more and to see the C world from his perspective keep reading …