musings

I never thght i wld once again 1 day b writing some deep personal shit down here . Today is exactly march 15th and exactly one month down the line i will be completing one year down the coll . If i look at the score who are still there and who turned "professional" i m glad that things happened exactly s i thght they wld turn out . I m in touch with just one person from coll . I sure expected things 2 turn out this way but i did not expected this fast :P . That ws probably one of d many reasons for me being uncommunicative during coll .I had come straight from navy hostel and i had seen people who r s thick s hives on ship 2 share their deepest secrets not 2 meet once in their lives nt 2 have any communication once d voyage is over . So i kept my opinions and thghts 2 myself besides having n obvious reason .I always thgt if i m able 2 get a single friend on whom i can trust 2 talk abt my deepest insecurities out of 60 guys , i m cool . I guess that's d way i have been . To b part of d crowd and yet b alone .

But as i listen to "piano man "i keep thinking abt the conv b/w me n a close frnd which I discussed 2day . To a large extent i follow what he thinks for once we think along similar lines . When i told him that for three long years i have been single and of my own choice and why , he was to surprised but he understood for he was told the same thing by somebody close . I just said i have seen the best of the worlds and worst of the worlds and then i told him one of the worst poss stories which i have seen in merchant navy .He was 2 aghast n i told him that perhaps that was one of the nicer ones .

Perhaps my expectation of me of what i wanted from life actually surfaced when i was giving fire to the body at Rishikesh .For the first time i realised u can walk away from everything but u can not walk away from yourself .Quite frankly at this stage , i do not want anything for myself but still i want everything because i have my duties to my parents and which i can not walk away from . No matter what. As Dido says in her song "life for rent " :-

I haven't really ever found a place that I call home
I never stick around quite long enough to make it
I apologize that once again I'm not in love
But it's not as if I mind
that your heart ain't exactly breaking

I've always thought
that I would love to live by the sea
To travel the world alone
and live my life more simply
I have no idea what's happened to that dream
Cos there's really nothing left here to stop me

It's just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don't lean to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine

My two years

Day after 2morrow is my farewell and i am nervous . I still think about the two years here and then realize that they actually passed in a bling . I can still rem my freshers ( most do :P) and then the first year . When i came here , i came with a swagger thinking i knew all but then i realized i knew nothing about the basic thing - people . I had 2 start from scratch .

The transition from the confident to a nervous has been gr8 :P The learning experience a lot better .I still have not mastered a lot of things but i do know for sure : what i want . The learning has been gr8 . I hope and pray that some friends made here will stay with me . As the Shakespeare sayz " All the world's stage and we merely the players " . Thanks for everything .

after a long gap i went home . d feeling of leaving can not b described .

MBA

What does MBA teach us ? one yr into the course I wonder does it teach us how to manage business ? Just taking an example GM lost over hundreds of billions of dollars over a period of 1983-2000 ( strategy book guys !!) just how many hot shots from topnotch MBA’s were in that company during that period and did nobody think that they were loosing money by tons ? again there are people like jack Welch who make the company grow into 10 times the value or pepsico present chief who had the balls to cut down the sales from annual over $40 billion to little over $20 billion and then again use the money from the buyout to increase it’s sales .in all the three cases people were from topnotch colls so wat was the diff with combined knowledge of biz more years than could be counted ? I will start with two very general examples which I have seen and l leave the judgement to people : there’s this chap who started going to his shop @ class 5 . by the age of 25 ,he had seen it all . by 40 , he multimillionaire several times over . he never studied except novels , philosophy and biographies .then one day he comes to know one of his staff has killed his wife and he is in jail . now he has a staff strength of close to 1000 and this guy is like on the upper top 10 of entire lot besides if he is not out on jail that will create a bad impression for the staff.

So he uses his means to get him out on bail , fixes up a lawyer and he comes back saying he wants his job back . now this is a situation where u can not have this fellow becoz he has already murdered once before , so wat’s stopping next , secondly it’s bad for an organization especially a biz one and people have long memories . at the same time he has served you for over 10 years. Given worked his ass for u . so wat will u do ? I can tell u wat this person did but first I would like to have opinions . u can b anonymous but do give opinions and yeah this is an incident which did happened . I just happen to b there when the drama was unfolding

Second example is for second blog wen I write .

battle of saragarhi

I have always wondered what is to be on winning side .Though to speak honestly , I would rather go down in flames fighting on loser’s side than winning . At times losing has a charm which makes u go through the minefield of life . After all if is there anything left to fight for . Then suddenly , u find one day that u have that one thing to fight for n then u realize it’s just not worth fighting for . ever heard the song piano man by billy joel ? there’s that little bit of cynicism of that song that makes it everlasting . I was reading a couple of days back about the true account of a battle that took place in 1897 ,rated 5th on all time : - not becoz it was lost but because it was 26 people fighting a losing battle and yet fighting .”the battle of saragarhi “ . There were 26 people sitting ducks surrounded by over 3000-4000 tribal pathans n yet all fighting till the finish, at that time does death actually matter ? I guess not . for then wat matters is life needs to be paid back for living . recently one of my friends asked wat would u do if u were in similar situation ….he said most probably do the same thing answering his own question becoz he is going to lose his life anyway . but I still have this doubt in nook of my mind ……..

the first one

i guess this will more b like a journal for the simple reason .some incidents lodged in some distant corner of mind which makes for an interesting reading ....couple of days back i was in santacruz near poddar school . i had gone there to meet a client . as I was standing outside the building ,there was some time to kill . there was one indica parked between two autos . the next thing I knw a burly guy gets inside the car starts it , bangs the auto with a lady in it deliberately ,backs it and rams into second auto . again moves and again ramming of the first and then the second once more . by this time everybody is confused but the first auto realizes and moves his auto just in time . everybody is cursing the indica guy but I ask the readers was the guy really at fault ?say u r in hurry and wen u come down u find suddenly between two autos then this mess ..

after meeting the client i came out and realised that my shoe was torn and if i do not get it repaired immediately the heel is going to come out .just opposite to the very i stood is a junction and on the other side of junction was a mochi's shop as i could see . i crossed the junction, went to shop and wat do i find ? a lad of 15 -16 yrs sound asleep . muttering under my breath ,i wake him up and tell him to fix my shoe . he looks at me and i stare back . there is a ganesha's picture behind his back plastered on the wall . he asks pointedly : wat happened? i point towards my shoes. he takes one look and says if u do as i say u will have no problems but will cost u thirty bucks
thirty bucks for a torn shoe .. wat has world come 2 ? i start bargaining ..start with ten and then he says ok i will apply solution and stitch it but it is not going to last long .i say who cares just fix it up .he says fine . there is this box beside where is stitching and I sit down . after a while I again ask him wat about the other shoe he says “do as I say and u will have no probs “ and I again start bargaining but when he refuses .i realize I have two options : do as he says and may be no issues regarding shoes henceforth or just do wat I think is correct and then suffer wat may happen on the road . I decide to take the professional’s view J the thing is I thght he was overcharging but by then I had already said yes to him .

so to pass the time I ask him I start joking with him n say that the flat opposite to him has 2 be around 2 crores so does he have any clue where do they get so much of money .his reply : u need to ask them instead of me . I realized the guy was street smart . my intrigue let me get ahead of me and then a barrage of questions followed .the guy is from sultanpur and only wen I spoke Bhojpuri did he reveal his native . he has one sister and one bro ,younger. I was enquiring abt his education but he said he couldn’t becoz of his father was ill and his younger bro needed studying .he made a statement wich I agreed . the statement was it’s the younger ones who have all the fun .truly spoken, I guess

then it was his turn and he opened his salvo with a big one” why are you not married “ I replied saying I m not employed and no income . The worst sin , I said , is to bring a wife and not able to feed her .he understood . he said same goes for the relatives “nobody is going 2 help u out wen u need the help most infact it will b strangers who will help u out “ admirable . next was a bouncer “ wat is one thing which u have not seen in mumbai “ I am stumped . what is one thing that in Mumbai can not be seen .the answer “ a mom feeding her babe “ I m truly mystified .This chap is 2 gud 2 b on street and I realize how lucky m I ………

As I m taking the shoes he starts by saying that some chap gifted him 40 bucks for the a rupees 10 job which he asked .i get the drift but then was the whole thing a charade …as I m thinking I pay him rupees thirty and leave saying “ jindagi rahi to phir milenge “