Stick 'em up

The Mumbai episode  rocked the country like never before and in the aftermath of that unfortunate but totally avoidable incident- enough has been said about the efficiency,or the lack of it, of the government et al - security checks have been beefed up everywhere. Hell i now have to be subjected to a strip search just to get a cup of coffee in the morning! Okie that's pushing it too far. But you get what i mean.

Anyway the place where i work is no different and it currently resembles an army base.However the methods employed there leave a lot to be desired.The policy makers have decided that bombs can only be in two places -underneath the car and in the boot.A mirror slides underneath while the security guard glances at it (setting his hair at the same time!) and then stumbles over to the back to peek inside the boot. He wouldn't spot a bomb if i had one in my lap with a big sign saying "BOMB" in large red text!

The two-wheeler inspection is even worse.Apparently one cant bring in bombs in the bag that most IT professionals have over their shoulders.Only an ID card check is enough and on any given day one can walk in by showing a credit card to the guard who seems only interested in seeing some vague plastic square thingy.

They should probably place a sign outside asking all potential suicide bombers to place all bombs in the boot or under the car.That should simplify things but then again considering the way they go about their work they should probably modify the sign requesting bombers to drop off their bombs outside the gate if its not too much inconvenience.

Though i work in a security firm it seems that knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.

The Gift - Part Trois

I'm back after a long hiatus.Actually wanted to finish my trilogy before moving on to other interesting topics. This one is pretty short.If you are a new reader then please read the previous two posts.

Today being Sunday and all i went to write my mock cat, came back ,showered and went to church.There she was again.Yawn , i'm getting bored already.She was in her usual plaxce so i sat in mine ( next to her) and taking the advice of a friend who had commented on the previous posts, we shared a hymn book :) I was thinking that today's the day i'm finally gonna break the ice when something the priest said caught my ear.

He said that God (insert proper reference here in accordance with your beliefs) wanted us to get in touch with ourselves and thats why we were here today.It made me think that i should be doing much more than thinking about girls or singing out loud.This was a time for self introspection...a period when i spent time with 'me' and that was the greatest gift i could hope to receive.

Its not often that you get to examine yourself and try to iron out the niggling creases.So i spent some alone time in a crowded room and that was one of the best experiences of my life.It all went so quickly that when i was done everything was over and she was walking out of the church.

Freeze frame.In that moment i realized that i had spent enough time with myself.Now to the part where i spend time with a certain other who is just exiting the church ;-)

End of story.

The Gift - Part Deux

This has taken a long time coming. To get the context of this i suggest you read the previous post if you haven't already and even if you have it wouldn't hurt to read it once again. There's a "moral" at the end you know. Anyways onto the story.

The location.The house of God.Again.Ya i know.Its getting repetitive.But then again i don't plan these things.They just happen.This time she was in early.I entered just on time as usual and was looking around for a place to sit. Then there was this light shining from above , down into one of the pews , and there i saw a vacant place! (Na I'm kidding about the light. I spotted her at once and noticed that there was a place next to her) . Wow there is a GOD !!

I sat down and stole a glance at those magnificent garments. I was rooted. There was an aura about the entity i had my eyes on. I just couldn't take my eyes away! The long flowing silky white material.....The booming voice commanding an air of superiority...yes...the Archbishop was an intimidating presence! The one beside me wasn't too bad either ;-)

There must be a different script this time i thought.But no. I had to sing again!! Sad!!Please suggest something original for me to do next time.So it went on until the end of mass and she got up to leave.

The good thing about me is that i learn from past mistakes. I got up as well and proceeded to the exit.Then from out of the blue i feel someone tug at my shoulder.I turn round and its one of my old ,long lost forgotten friends! "Hyeeee", I say."My god it's been so long!". Then i turn around and she's nowhere to be seen.As i said before, there is a GOD! And he's crazy!!!

Remember how i spoke about living for the moment and that the present is a gift? Well the present is overrated. There is something even better and its called the future.Whatever crap may happen to us in the present should not put us down for theres a future ahead of us.A chance to set things straight. A chance to follow the girl out without getting interrupted, and even if someone stops you fret not for there's always another Sunday :)

The Gift

Ever tried to make an impression to a girl? In school you would probably have pinched her cheeks and put bits of paper in her hair.Progress a bit to college and it becomes riding in on a macho bike and splashing cash in the cafeteria.Moving on a bit further to the work place it becomes dressing in "smart casuals" as has become the trend and talking the big talk and selling ideas to the boss.

I had my chance a couple of Sundays ago.There i was sitting on a bench minding my own business when this drop-dead-gorgeous girl came up and sat next to me.She took a while to settle down and we turned to each other simultaneously and smiled.First contact.She seemed a nice person but both of us sat still for the next fifteen minutes and looked straight ahead at a person talking some way off.I look back and wonder why i sat still then.I guess it was because we were not alone and i was conscious of others around.Or maybe it could have been because we were in church!!

Now the place of God is not ideal for making a first impression but when you are put in such a situation you make do with what you have and try to make the best of it.So i began act one of my play . I started to sing.It was about all i could do.For people who haven't attended a mass in church let me tell you that there are songs called hymns which are sung throughout the duration of the mass.Some are traditional whereas a few have incredibly catchy tunes.

So i sang and to my my pleasant surprise so did she.And what a voice she had! I had a eargasm then and there!! She was brilliant! Now i am not bad myself so decided to try and match her.I usually sing in church but this time i did so with a lot of gusto till it became a singing contest.I won't tell you who won but suffice to know that i came out of it a lot better than expected.And as suddenly as it had begun it ended.The mass got over and she walked out and i was too busy singing to notice.

Looking back i think that i should have done something .Maybe i should have followed her and asked her if she would sing for me over a cup of coffee.I notice that i often do this.I often think of what could have been rather than living the moment.You cannot correct what has gone on in the past but you can sure make a better effort going forward.Instead of looking back at what might have been try to enjoy the here and now.Its a great way to live.Living for the moment is a wonderful gift.

I like to call it the present.

Trust in me!

There's this restaurant i go to quite often and being as absent minded as i am i tend to forget my purse quite often.The first time i did that i called my roomie who had to bike all the way there to pay my bill.The second time it happened my usual waiter was there so i slipped out and got back home and got my purse. Today however was a different story.

Midway through my meal i discovered to a feeling of inevitability that my purse was not in my pocket. My first backup plan was to call my roomie but for some reason he did not pick up. I looked around for the waiter i knew and he found a very convenient time to not be around! Damn.. I hadn't a clue what to do.

So i tried something different.In the adjacent table were four guys who were tearing into a chicken like rabid dogs.So i caught the attention of the apparent group leader, a 6 foot plus guy with an extremely large build and explained my situation to him and asked if he could pay my bill . To my pleasant surprise he asked me how much i wanted and took out his purse.I got the money and paid the bill at which point my trusty waiter showed his face again. Talk about being like the police in a Kollywood flick.Arriving after the action is over.Well i went home and promptly returned to pay the guy back and went on my way thanking my stars that i didn't have to grind flour at the restaurant.

I then realised that what i did could be a pretty good scam and could be used to get free food every day :) Maybe the amount in question was trivial but what struck me was how the guy could just trust a stranger who was dressed in a sleeveless T with shorts and disheveled hair ( all the appearances of someone shady) . It felt good that a person actually trusts his fellow man and this is a breath of fresh air in a world filled with lies ,corruption and hate.

I feel though that people are more trustworthy than they are trusting and thus we fail to see the goodness in others.Well my experience was the opposite and i hope this trend continues.If i want to augment it i have to make a start myself and start trusting people a bit more and you can too.. Theres still hope for the human race!

Confessions

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what
the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced
by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which
states that this has already happened." - Douglas Adams

I found this very interesting as it made me wonder why i'm here and what my purpose is.Do i really have some goals or objectives defined or is someone controlling my every move here.No my friends this is not the matrix but it certainly got me thinking and i rewound to a time when i was a lil kid just entering the whole new world of school.
I was four i guess at that time(not the time i entered school but the time of this incident which i'm about to narrate) when the powers that be decided to have a fancy dress where the theme was "What am I going to be when i grow up?". Being incapable of making such career oriented decisions at the time i left it up to my parents or rather they did it themselves.
So there i was on stage dressed with a nice blue shirt, a tie and a pen in my pocket.No it's not what you think.I was NOT a TCS recruit! I was supposed to be an I.A.S. officer. Yeah thats what my parents decided i should be.Hell i didn't know what an I.A.S. officer was....I couldn't even spell it out for crying out aloud! Yet there i was reciting the lines i had memorized on how i would end poverty and hunger and do the rest of that impossible stuff.And as i walked off stage ( to a thunderous applause :) ) i made a mental note to myself that an I.A.S. officer was something i was definitely not going to be! That was perhaps my first piece of independent thinking. That i would do what i wanted to to do and not what others wanted me to.
So if you want to do engineering because all your friends are doing it or if you want to become a doctor because your parents want you to or if your stuck in some crappy job you hate but put up with only because of the money then pause and think a while.Being a musician or a bartender or EVEN a clown(no disrespect to any clowns reading this) is good if thats what you want to be.So go for it and follow your dreams!! It's worth it.

Part-Time

You ever had a problem with names? Like a name is at the tip of your tongue but you can't just get it and end up saying something totally weird? There was this one time i was chatting with a friend of mine and i asked her "How's skullcap?". She hadn't a clue who i was talking about till i told her i was asking about her boyfriend whose name sounds somewhat like what i said.
Well the name is not important here but her reaction was.She promptly told me that he wasn't her boyfriend but her "part-time" boyfriend!! This was new to me so i asked her what she meant and she went on to say that a part-time boyfriend is someone who she is not committed to.I probed further and got some quite interesting responses from her.Digging deeper i asked some other friends who admitted that they too had part-time boyfriends. And in most cases the guy in question does not know it!!
From the responses i got i put together a little test which you can take to find out if your a "part-time" boyfriend to someone.And for girls you can read this and know whether your boyfriend is a part-timer.Here goes...

1.You always hang out at Barista or CoffeeDay or the coffee shop next door and always pay the bill.
2.You are her private chauffeur and do a damn good job of it too!
3.You don't get upset when she forgets your birthday and doesn't get you a present but hopes she spent the money on a unicorn ride or other fancy things that girls like.
4.You take "your girl" out to lunches and dinners at fancy bistros quite often and hire a crooner to sing some romantic Spanish love song.
5.You constantly tell her how beautiful she looks and draw comparisons with the stars in the night sky.
6.You spend hours talking to her over the phone listening to stories about how the office bitch looks too fat in her jeans.

Hang on....Wait a minute.This is what all boyfriends do. Then what makes one a part-timer???

Simple.You don't get any :)

So are you a part-timer ? Think about it..

No pun in ten did

Its been some time since i passed out from school but still always pine for it. I like school a lot but somehow didn't like the principal of it. Believe me it was tough!I used to work for 24 hours straight before calling it a day.Even when we were small there was so much work.And we were forbidden to use pens till class five.I'm quite careless and used to lose my sharpener and it was so pointless trying to write with a broken pencil.
And then there were the subjects....I used to love biology.Especially looking at fungi on a piece of bread through the microscope.It was a good way to mold my mind. English was also good.I remember this one time when my English teacher was telling us how two negatives could make a positive.She also told us that however two positives can never make a negative.My friend though was skeptical. "Yeah rite", he said.
Geography was cool too.Learning about the world is always fun.My teacher told us a story about two Eskimos who were in a kayak . It got very chilly so they lit a fire and that caused the boat to sink.Well that pretty much proves that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.
I won't dwell much on history.Its all old news anyway.One subject that i did like though was physics.We had a charismatic teacher and all but it wasn't the teacher more so the subject.I just loved studying about gravity.It was a very attractive field.
And then came maths.The scourge of many of my classmates.I found it ok.So so..I mean the kiddie part of it like addition and subtraction was easy enough.But then it got tough.I remember calculus.I absolutely hated it.Those were the times when our young teenage minds were impressionable.My math teacher used to warn us about social evils.She always said that alcohol and calculus never mix.So don't drink and derive!
Well those were the days.Days that will never come back.And i try to be funny and get a few laughs out of it.I actually entered all these puns into a competition hoping one would win.And you know what happened? Check out the title of this post.

Fun things to do in a meeting.

Corporate life can be extremely interesting or sometimes just a pain in the ass.One of the things i dread are meetings.They seem to go on for ever and ever and nothing ever gets accomplished..Atleast thats my opinion...Over time I've learnt to enjoy meetings by doing a lot of other activities in the meeting room.Suggestions from friends who are far more experienced than me help a lot.So here are the top 3 things to do while in a meeting.

3. Sleep : - Never underestimate the importance of sleep. Scientific research has shown that man needs at least six hours of sleep per day. And thats something that some people do not get.So what better time to get the required sleep than in a meeting room.Sitting back in a cozy chair with the AC cranked up to the max is the ideal environment to take a nap in.

(Warning : - People who snore should probably avoid this . For best results practise sleeping with your eyes open and take some cotton to stuff in your ears.)

2. Computer Games : - There is an advantage of taking your laptop to a meeting.Apart from checking out the latest gossip and cricket scores you'll find a good number of people with whom to play online with.Just make sure that you and your colleagues have the game installed and just hit the meeting! Counter Strike is one of the better games to play cause its fast paced and wont take up much time.However for long drawn out meetings involving quarterly reports i suggest Age of Empires.The downside is that you may not be able to use your headphones.

(Warning : - Keep the volume down and don't forget your charger especially if you use a laptop whose battery is like an AC supply and lasts for 5 minutes! Yeah i'm blaming you Dell!!)

1..Bullshit Bingo : - This is something i've not tried yet but is quite innovative.It was recommended by a friend but involves a good amount of setup time.The idea is to take a piece of paper and write down 15 words of "managerspeak" in 3 lines of 5 words each. People who've played tambola or bingo will know exactly what im talking about. The words can include stuff like "leverage" , " timebox" , "problem solving" , "out of the box" (some may be more than one word but you get the drift). So each person playing has a list of 15 different words .Then as the talk goes on you keep striking off each word or phrase as soon as it is used. The first person to strike off all the words gets up and shouts "BULLSHIT".

(Warning : For this to work you must have an extremely informal atmosphere or you could be making a trip to the unemployment agency or put your resume on a jobsite pretty soon)

So thats it! Should be easy enough to do.Lemme know if you have better suggestions.Of course the best thing to do would be to actually listen and take note of whats going on.