Just another day!

It’s just another day in the life of two people you probably know. It’s been more than a year since the last thing you knew about them happened. What happened during this one year is anybody’s guess.

Now in the US, he’s 25, she’s a little older than 25. There was something strangely romantic about the fact that she was older. Both of them are early risers now. She wakes up at 6 and he at 7, both alone in their respective suburban apartments in two very distant cities.

He now works for a number crunching firm where he uses his past experience in India, to strategize and optimize diaper stocking at Wal-Marts across the US. He spends countless office-hours facebooking and very frequently twittering updates! He doesn’t particularly dislike his job but there something about his job that makes him want to go into-the-wild. Or may be write a book. Or at least join a business school!

She’s working in a software firm for a year now. She’s spending most of her office time watching trailers and TV series on you tube as she’s not really interested in what she’s doing and she is planning to quit. She’s been planning to quit since a year now!

They sort of still think about each other, sort of as in very often. He is thinking of their first meeting in the resort. She’s thinking about the first photograph they took together. He’s thinking of the first time he made her laugh her lungs out. She’s thinking about their labeled gross conversations they particularly enjoyed! But now, each time they think about talking to each other, they run into emptier spaces, they run into more silence!

He spends his evenings watching football and sometimes trying his hand at what was his dream sometime ago, quizzing. He goes around with people whose company is not what he would have wished for, but at least is better than being alone.

She spends her evenings watching reality shows and then clicking through the facebook albums of her close friends and friends she once knew. She looks at her friends posing with their husbands and babies! She feels a little jealous. At the same time she has a weird kind of sympathy for them. Life was never about just husband and kids, but she, like him, had no idea what it was about. She always had this number in her head though. It was 25. Now it probably is 27. That’s her I-want-to-settle-down age!

They often joked about having a bowl of cereal for dinner all there lives after getting married. After all they were such ‘lazy bums’ to cook anything for themselves!

He cooks his own dinner these days. He’s a master rice-cook now. He cooks rice measuring out cupfuls of it. A marked improvement from when he couldn’t operate the microwave and couldn’t tell Basmati and Sona Masuri apart!

She cooks her own dinner too. She now cooks great Rajma, Dal Makhni , Jeera Aloo and most importantly she now prepares fantabulous decoction coffee . Irony!

They don’t blame each other in their sleep anymore. For them , as someone said, if their is an antagonist of sorts, it is love itself - romantic love, which brought both of them out of their familiar worlds and then won't let them break free of its hold, normally the job of abductively inclined smugglers.

For them, successful relationship remains a story told, a film made; by others. They loved and lost and wept. Silently. But will they move on? Will tomorrow be any different? They doubt!

From a Big Country !

It's been a little more than ten days since i've landed here in this big country! IPL has been my one great source of entertainment here and are the Deccan Chargers not nailing it? I would have loved to watch and support Telangana Biddas though, had their been one ! Office has been another source of entertainment , for all that has happened so far !

Incident 1:
It was my third day in office in Chicago. The first two days were spent trying to locate my desk in a campus that is as big as Bangalore. I hadn't had food in the foodcourt till then and decided to hit the foodcourt right away .Here i was in the food court, reasonably comfortable with the accent and the people around i thought, trying to act like i knew it all. I decided to have a chicken burger and here's what happened :

"Hello sir, may i help you?"

(Wow! did he call me sir? anyways)" Hi, i would like one spicy chicken burger." I said that with such confidence and panache, onlt the CEO of the firm could manage

"Wheat?"

"Yeah" i said casually, though i didn't quiet understand what he meant. I had to sound like a seasoned campaigner. No?

"For here or to go?" he asked with his heavy accent

"Yeah, Varrier" i said

"What sir?"

"Yeah, varrier" i replied back, as if i had "varrier" with sambahr rice everyday back home in India.

The thing was i had mistaken "for here" as "varrier" because of all that i've heard about the cosmopolitan nature of chicago and its cuisines and i assumed "varrier" was some kind of sauce and was nonchalantly saying "Yeah, varrier" each time.

"Good to go sir" he said with a condescending smile, having packed the food in a box !

The champ i was, i happily returned back without even realising what happened, hoping to have spicy chicken with some nice "varrier" sauce !


Incident 2:
One day i was on a call with a client, for anonymity let's call her Nancy.

"Hey Chey..wait let me get this right..chey..than.yaa?"

"Hey Nancy, this is Chaitanya here. And you got that right! Well, almost"

"Am very very particular about names you see. I make sure i get the names absolutely spot-on"

"Yeah, nice to know someone's actually trying. Hehe"

"Okay i need this product's report by today evening"

"Oh! but thats generated offshore. So you could actually shoot a mail to Ramaiah in Bangalore who's working on it"

"Okay i'll do that"

"Copy it to me as well and let me see if i could be of any help"

"Oh sure, Thanks a lot"

"You're welcome"

"Bye"

Within the next five minutes i recieve a mail from Nancy addressed to Ramaiah!

Hey Ramya,
This is Nancy here. COuld you give me a status update from a physician stand-point so that i can touch-base with the stand-in manager and please update me hands-on on the self-starter-package and the productivity-function. Should you need any help call the help-desk at 847-848-7936 without those hyphens in between.
Thanks,
Nancy

Okay Okay ! i made that mail-matter up but the point is Ramya got lost in all those hyphenated buzzwords these guys use and he had to sit all night to generate the report.

But one thing hasn't changed even after coming here. I still recieve very noble sounding mails staing that, in a nutshell, they can help my penis-enlargement ! I didn't totally understand the intricacies of the mail but to cut the story short, there are these bunch of hardcore researchers working in the area of you-know-what and have come up with this medicene that can actually enlarge the middle. For marketing reasons they decided to send free samples to a select few around the globe and somehow i believe, my name came up . That's too hard to believe but i seriously want to suggest a few names and mail Ids to these people. Mr.Nancy, Ramya and Sridhar to start with ! You can see Ramya and Sridhar below !




All said i am not really happy here because i cannot afford my food three times a day as the company pays me peanuts for working twelve hours a day ! Do you think am exagerrating? Of course i am. I get paid only half a peanut !On that note i need to go buy myself a spicy Chicken. "For here" !

In Love !

What do I say about him? He’s slim, dark and reasonably tall. He lives alone in a single room near the city bus stop. The room is too small even for someone like him who treats his lifestyle as a matter of simple common sense. He makes it a point to leave the socks out of his room, for he washes them only once a week and doesn’t care to change them often. Not that he cannot buy himself a few more pairs but just that he thinks it’s not important. He wants to look attractive but he knows he’s not. He dreams of being an extremely good quizzer, a Mr. Know It All, “the Oracle” a title the quiz clubs gave to the best quizzer in the city. Sometimes, he dreams of a beautiful girl in a white dress attending one of the big imaginary quizzes he’s won. He also imagines having coffee with her after the quiz and explaining to her a mnemonic for the Euler’s number. Whether he wants to be “The Oracle” or he’s just quizzing to find that beautiful girl, he isn’t sure. Why should he even want to know for sure? He just wants to let it be.

He works in a small local factory for a meagre amount of money. Not many people know what he does. That’s because he doesn’t have many friends. But he has one good friend Ajay. He met Ajay a few years back in a quiz and have been friends ever since. Ajay is tall, dark and handsome and is a midst of an affair with a beautiful rich girl, Richa.

He for that reason is envious of Ajay. His life would change forever if he had a beautiful, wise gal, that he was certain! He loves the idea of having a patiala- peg of Jack Daniel’s with such a girl!

Shriya is Richa’s class mate at the University of Architecture. According to Ajay, Shriya is a very sweet girl. Ajay also told him Shriya and Richa were neighbours and have been best friends ever since. On a Friday Ajay and Richa take him along for a party to resort some distance away from the city. Shriya, Richa’s friend is among company. She is not very tall, around 5feet 6 inches , dark and is holding a glass of wine. She’s not in a white dress but she’s extremely beautiful nevertheless! She’s full of energy and the damsel is swinging to music with such grace, he’s not seen before.

He walks up to her and introduces himself. She responds and talking to her wasn’t as difficult as he’s imagined. He gets on with her for sometime. She seems to be enjoying his company along with the music and the wine. But he’s getting conscious. He knows he looks not-so-great and he’s afraid people around him are mocking him. Just then Shriya suggests a walk around the resort. If Shriya really wants to walk along or is it just the influence of the alcohol, he wasn’t sure. Why should he even want to know for sure? He just wants to let it be.

Hand in hand they walk around the resort. They sit down in a secluded corner of the resort and are talking when he instinctively locks his lips with hers. What is this going to lead to? Is she going to assume he’s just another sex maniac? Why did he do it? Whatever! Did she like it? Questions just bombarded his head.

He doesn’t talk about it, neither does she. Instead they talk about chicken, cabbages and gay marriages. They just go about it like it never happened. It’s late in the night and it’s getting cold. They gather themselves and tread back. Hand in hand !

On his way back home, he realises he after all was not carried away. He’s struck with the thought that even though she never invited her, she merely failed to resist. He likes this fact. He actually loves it! He smiles at himself. It’s happened. This time he’s sure. It is Love! He wants to let it be. Forever!!!

The next day he calls Shriya and asks her out. She’s waiting for him in her white dress and they leave for a walk around the streets. He has never found walking the streets so beautiful, street food never tasted better! And he has a feeling this is just the beginning of a very long journey together in life!

In the night when he thinks about it, he realises, neither of them tried too hard. Neither of them proposed but both of them knew. But why did the girl fall for someone like him? What did she find interesting in him? Perhaps she likes the fact the he's just another boy next door. He wasn't sure.Why should he even want to know for sure? He just wants to let it be.
One thing he knew was that there was a magical inevitability about it! “This is love!” he tells himself, “This is life!”

He’s no longer attending quizzes, for he can remember nothing, except her. She’s now a regular visitor of his “egg carton” the name she gave to his room and they spend long periods of time together! Every second a moments of pure bliss!!!

Days pass by like a dream until both of them have petty complaints. Shriya complains about him getting impulsive and not being caring enough and he complains about her mood swings and demands. Both have big egos they know and love each other more than anything, they know this too. The phone calls are not as often anymore the conversation not that passionate anymore. Though they still very much love each other there’s more and more silence between them.

He doesn’t like the fact that things aren’t as good as before, things are not like he wants them to be. What he doesn’t know is he’s been bottling up his frustrations, both personal and professional and that a grave sense of helplessness is winding him up.

It all comes to a head when he is out gulping patiala pegs of Jack Daniels one after the other and in an inexplicable moment of madness calls Shriya up and says “ If you don’t like being with me, let it be . I want to end it here. It’s all over” and hangs up. Shriya , red in anger, for she loved him , more than anything else , rings him back and yells “ If you felt like that, let me tell you one thing, I loved you more than anything else but now I realise you didn’t deserve one bit of it. Thank you for letting me know. Get lost!”

His world crumbled at once. He’s unable to grasp what has just happened. Why did he do it? he cannot comprehend . He still loves her for all his life’s worth. It’ll take a few hours for him to realise he committed hara-kiri in a second of madness. He calls her up but gets no response. Understandably so!Why should she respond? Why should he deserve any second chance?” He’s just mindlessly shattered the girl who loved him and who meant more than his life to him.

He’s now living with her memories. He feels happy and also privileged for having lived with such a girl. He feels happy for not living alone in the past few months like he did most of his life. He is wondering, for all the lovely things he’s done for her why did he have to do that one thing wrong? Questions haunt for which he has no answers but one thing was sure, he needed her. He is wounded from within. If anything is to cure him, it would be love. He may not believe in God but he believes in love and the magic of love. More importantly he believes they are “meant to be”. He’s sitting alone in his room reading Erich Segal’s “Love story”. He’s reading it for the sixth time.

Just then, he hears someone knocking at the door!

……..To be continued in PART II

Moment of Shame

HL Mencken once appropraitely defined puritanism as 'the haunting fear that someone,somewhere might be happy'. So when a group of young people were having fun on a saturday night, in a private pub causing discomfort to none at all, the purists from Shri Ram Sena couldn't stand it. A group of youngsters , in a familiar place, were happy afterall. They invaded the pub and the next thing you know, young girls getting pulled by the hair, thrown down to the floor and getting physically abused. The 'purists' pulled the girls' tops and skirts and molested them. The custodians of Indian culture were only doing their duty.

The footage of the incident shocked me. It is impossible to exaggerate the shockingly shameless manner the bastards carried out the whole thing. It is appalling someone can stoop to such low standards as to actually shove down a young girl to the ground , really hard . In the name of God and culture !!! If this is what they call religion and culture , I'd rather remain a culture-less atheist all my life.

Someone at the top needs to act. And act fast ! The perpetrators of such shameful acts need to learn they can't get away just like that. Lock the bloody cowards up, and teach them to respect the fellow human being. More importantly the women. Someone who can involve himself is such an abuse deserves to castrate himself ! Make them realise attacking innocent women is not what their moms breast fed them for. That attacking women is not a part of 'Hindu culture' and that they are no one to moral police and protect Indian culture !

Seems like everywhere i see these days, i encounter a strange sense of righteousness among people .Those who have law in their hands and those who take law into their own hands. You can't smoke in a pub ,you can't have dance clubs and now you cannot party in a pub on a saturday evening. Looks like these people know best. They decide for us, what is good for us and for our 'culture'. Now i am not arguing for unbridled alcoholic consumption, smoking or pubbing but to infringe upon one's rights to an extent that we are doing now in our country, for me is unacceptable!! For once i am ashamed of being an 'Indian' !

Surprise Surprise !!!

Just received an offer from a local Radio FM channel in Hyderabad to send in a script for a hour long not-so-prime-time English programme . The people at the FM company supposedly 'liked' the content on Know More Nonsense and think i can do a script for them along with an English play list i deemed appropriate . "We can actually take it on from there" it seems .

It feels great to get recognized but i am not so sure i can do justice to what is being demanded. I stay in Bangalore and hence the logistics get a little complex but i am planning to send in a draft sometime soon, just for the heck of it .

Have been totally disconnected the last couple of weeks and hence the update to let friends , foes and especially my manager know i actually am not sitting idle all day!

One more surprise has been the 99+ percentile in CAT this time. Though am not so keen on a Masters degree this year, am thankful to those who reminded me the day before to take the test. Thank You !!!

Just to let you know Chandni Chowk to China sucked. All the way! Had been to the premier show a couple of days back and the best thing about it all was the Dev D poster in the waiting lobby.

Currently consuming : The title track of Delhi 6. Totally loving the female's voice !!! Very nice album must say !!!

Dev D !!!

This is as commercial as Anurag Kashyap can get. With a concept of contemporary Devdas , Dev D sure sounds interesting. Amit Trivedi , the music director of Aamir who gave us the lovely track "Ek Lau " scored the music for the film .

I am very impressed with the music. The album on the whole totally rocks. I recommend it to all the readers. One hell of a ride it is !!!

You can download the album from here.

The Geek Arrives !!!

All my regular readers would know i am a total gizmo illiterate. Given a choice between embarrassing myself by spilling coffee all over my pants in a coffee bar and operating one of the costly
phones , i would always choose the former. Having said that, I don't have to choose, because i always spill coffee over myself. All i need is some coffee!!!

There are rumours going around in office saying i can't even check email on my iphone. For the record that's not true. I can but just that i still haven't. Really!! Promise !!!

But things are about to change. This new year i've decided i am going to turn a gizmo geek. The kind who reviews gadgets and gizmos for the young, cool, urban wannabies.

So in our first edition of tech reviews , let's review the cool and not-so-cool cell phones.

First things first. IPhone , the coolest phone around. Even if my manager who owns the developer piece of HTC Dream G1 running on Android (that sounded really techie right? guhahaha !!!) thinks it beats the iPhone by a mile. Not only that he thinks IPhone is for rich losers who are gizmo-illiterates.

Wait! He actually called me a gizmo-illiterate? Yes, he did. Dammit!!! I've seen the HTC dream and here's it's review !



Yes, like you can see it's a pre World War I gadget under the veil of the "next big thing" . It's actually only an IPhone wannabe! The finish of the phone is so bad my father's age old Casio personal organiser looks much much more sleek and stylish. The way the keyboard pops out is such a dampener !!! And you've to pay 25k for it ! All in all it'll totally totally drive the chicks away! It's just not your phone, it's your worst foe !! Stands first in what i call the Electronic Birth Control Series (EBC 1.1). Launch the HTC G1 in India first i say ! We'll take any form of birth control. Condoms don't work here , i am sure HTC Dream will, but at 25k bucks!!!

Damn the review on other phones !! Got my revenge !! Ufff!!! This is so so liberating !!

P.S: Blogged from my iPhone