An eye for an eye

Hello people,

I have been wanting to write this for a long long time but have not had the time to do it. Now I am writing this just to get my mind of something that has been nagging me. I am not a big advocate of An eye for an eye, but then when it happens to some one I am not sadistic to enjoy it also. But there was this one occasion when i enjoyed this the most.

Scene 1 -

Date - February 14th 2009.

Place - Mangalore.

I was watching TV and some one called me to ask me to watch the channel I loathe the most - TV9. I switched to this channel and was appalled by what I was seeing. There were this girls and guys who were being beaten up by some goons. Then the news reader and the channel that was glorifying this gave a name to these set of goons - Sri Rama Sene. I was wondering who on earth are these guys to tell us where to go, whom to hang out with, what to wear. Their propaganda was that all this was Western culture and not Indian culture. Ironically one of the goons who was beating the girls was wearing T-shirt which was advertising a Rock band which specialised in Death Metal. A few days later me and my friends had an argument about this and I was vehemently against these goons and a friend was completely for them. After about an hour's discussion (more like argument which later turned out to be a shouting match) I posed a question to my friend -"Have you ever gone out to a pub or a discotheque with a girl?". As expected the answer was "Yes, of course." My next statement was "Then you donot have any right to be supporting these goons when you do not follow their culture and go against their propaganda, why are you saying they were right?". That was the end of the discussion/argument/shouting match. I left the place with a big smirk having had the last say on it and satisfied I could live upto what I believed in and supporting it.

Scene 2 -

Date - 14th February 2010

Place - Bangalore.

The same scene repeats all over with a friend calling me to ask me to watch the damned lousy channel TV9. What do I see on the screen? - A man being blackened in the face. I was wondering who is this man? Then the presenter appeared and said that he was the head of the Sri Rama Sene. I was like wow, I'm lovin it. For the first time since TV9 came into existence I was glued to it watching the same thing being repeated over and over again. I was infact feeling elated seeing this. Now that is called a comeback of sorts and was happy now the scores were even. A few days later I saw this sting operation by a leading daily which said that this so called self styled "Culture Vulture" was willing to start protests in different places if he was paid a fee!! Now thats a "protest for hire"!! What a neat business proposition. I was happy he was exposed.

Now i questioned myself was I right in enjoying another man's misery? Then I felt my heart answer - "Yes" (An emphatic one at that) because this was the same man who had orchestrated and enjoyed the misery a year before on poor souls, who had been beaten black and blue because they decided to go out to a pub for a celebration of love. Serves him right!!

Oh yeah by the way talking about love if you notice the above blog that was 2 consecutive Valentine's Day I was at home, which should be giving you the hint. If you still have not gotten the hint then I have no intentions of spending the next one alone (I would definitely want to spend it with a beautiful lady - this is for all the narcissists who would end up asking me so is a guy ok?). If you do have any beautiful ladies who are single and ready to mingle please drop them my number subtly. Till then love you all take care and babye!!

P.S. - I am not one of those connoisseurs of English and hence dont care about the grammar. :P

Phir Mile Sur!!!

What the hell is this all about!!

For some damn reason, I just cant accept this version from ZOOM TV. Its definitely the nostalgia of the previous version.

I just cant get myself to believe that A Deepika Padukone with a mini skirt and a Shahid Kapur with a rapster look will inspire National Integration. For some of you who might not know the original video was a small seed of idea from the Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Today the video looks like India is integrated only through Bollywood.

What happned to the likes of Vijay Salaskar and Hemanth Karkare who lost their lives to the mindless terrorist attack on Mumbai? What happened to all the Army personnel who laid down their lives and went to eternal sleep only so that we can sleep peacefully in our beds?

The best advertisement for National Integrity is our Indian Army cos irrespective of the state, religion, caste and creed they try as much to save each others lives in the face of adversity.

Apart from that where are Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar atleast they both needed to be on this video.

I am a big fan of SRK at the same time an even bigger critic of his, but he has not achieved anything that deserves him to be on this video.

The next Khan is Sallu, a man who in an inebriate state killed so many innocent people is on the video for National Integrity. ROFL :D.

Aamir the third Khan, I probably would say is ok cos he took us to the threshold of Oscars.

Hold your breath "The father of India's Nuclear Arsenal" APJ Abdul Kalam is not on the video.

If only I could lay my hands on the dim wit, shit head idiot whose idea this video was he would be dead meat by now.

ZOOM has stooped a disgustingly low level to raise their TRPs. I have decided, I would never want to watch this bloody channel again.

DEVE GOWDA

The year - 1996
The gift - From order to Anarchy - A book on Devegowda's tenure as a PM.
Gifted by - The author famouse economist Prof K Venkatagiri Gowda.

This was a book that made me prejudiced and I decided Devegowda's amassing of wealth was extremely bad. I started hating him more and more. In fact the very sight of him would make my blood boil.

11th January 2010 - All these feelings in me did a complete volte - face on me. I started admiring the guts of this man. He had just called the most useless Chief Minister of Karnataka B.S. Yeddyurappa a B@$!@*D. This was amazing. Caution here though I am not against or for any party here. Its just that the caste politics being played by Mr Yeddi that ticks me off. He is a puppet in the hand of the Reddys, of course I probably would have jumped up and down with joy if Mr Yeddy had lost his seat to the politics of the Reddys. We have seen Chief Ministers of the likes of S Nijalingappa, J H Patel, etc although all of them were not in the same league they belong to the same caste as Mr Yeddy but never used caste as a platform for politics. I realised this when one of my frens for ages came up to me and said "Nam jaathi namma CM gaddi li" he got a piece of my mind. Which of course pissed him off and had sent him into hibernation. When he came back from his hibernation I told him how come ur with us i thought u would be with ppl of "Nim Jaathi". He had the sanity to realise his folly and apologised and I let bygones be bygones. Although Karnataka politics has always had caste involved to an extent, it was never this bad. The day this man is thrown out of power I will party to my heart's content.

The reason I hate him is:

> When women in a Mangalore pub were attacked by SRS goons this Chief Minister was spineless to take any action against them.

> We dont need moral policing and for God's sake we dont live in a Taliban ruled state.

> What is the point in attacking places of worships and ur intelligence machinery is an utter failure if they cant nab the culprits.\

> He blames everything on opposition conspiracy. Just shut the f#%k up.

> This one is my favourite - I met a cop I know he said "If for any god damn reason this man is removed from his post we will all party sir, we dont mind even if it is death."


Disclaimer - My blog is posted as My Views on purpose and these are purely my views!! If for any damn reason you think you wanna comment go ahead do it. If it is against my views I give a damn. If it is for my views welcome to the club!!

HPCT

Hey Guyz,

This one is dedicated to all my friends in the most happening team of SMS - HPCT. As life throws another round of change at me at the most unexpected time....I just wanted recount my experiences here.

The team started as HSG and then went on to be called HBT and then to HPCT, its current name. I am sure there will be another name change that will happen after I leave, but yes leaving is the hardest part. Its purely the same feeling I had when I left college after my MBA, leaving a long list of friends of which some may stay in touch and some may not. I will miss this team sorely!!!! This was like a second family cos I could share everything with them and still end up in a good mood.

Started the Chapter Symphony in February 2007 in the book of my life and thought it would be a really BIG chapter but life cut it short rudely and abruptly in September 2008. Started with this team when Joy was the manager with a team of veterans as his team members. This team was easily the noisiest and the most fun loving teams on the floor and I was sure to have fun. All those team members then like Ravee, PG, Sheetal, Shailesh, Shashi, Sriki, Kochhaps, Jassi and all the others ensured that I was completely comfortable with this team. Now they always said this is the honeymoon period enjoy it, I did not know how to enjoy this honeymoon period cos I have never been on one!!!!!!! Then I got my first work for which I would be directly interacting with the client, this was something exciting. Well I thought so, but later i realised that it would not be. It was for Johnson & Johnson and I had to create saved selections and publish them and send a list of the Saved Selections that I had created to the client. It started like this.....a month later we were put on Academy training in which we had a good time. The whole group was on the floor and as we worked and went through an appraisal by this time we were officially consultants who were handling clients independently. Through this journey we learnt a lota things n made a hell a lot of frens. And then life through a speed breaker at me, which i thought was small and took at a high speed only to realise that the road after the speed breaker was in a mess. Continuing in this messy road was not an option and my vehicle had to stall. It stalled one fine day and I left with a heavy heart a lot of friends.

SMS, Quicksand & HPCT

It was a Thursday, September 4th to be precise the day after Ganesha festival. Dad was in the hospital just moved from the ICU to the ward and all in the family had breathed a sigh of relief. I dont know, like the guy in the Safari ad says " I always wanted to resign on a Monday Morning " I had just not thought about when I wanted to resign but it was just that the moment I entered the office that day, I made my decision I wanted to be close to Dad. I resigned, a week later now it is the same feeling I had during the last few weeks of my college life, was worried about missing my friends all the fun we had. It was a mini college atmosphere here, a lot of friends and a lot of work and at the end of the month you had your money in the bank account. Well if you are wondering about SMS in the title that is the name of the organisation - Symphony Marketing Solutions nee Symphony Services.

Coming to the Quick Sand,

It is the name of our bay the Dal Dal Bay. Dal Dal in hindi means quick sand, thanks to Mitu for teaching me that. What's so special about this bay??? Well it is the most happening bay in office....It consists of Shrinivas Gujar, Sourabh Godkhindi, Shaileshchand Marlady, Sharnitha Suvarna, Suman Kundu, Mitu Grewal & me. I have a bad feeling that this will probably be the best days of my life in the corporate world. I don't know if I would ever return to the corporate world or not but I am sure I will miss all these people, their comments, the fun and oh yeah of course the treats. I will miss the projectiles that would come out from Sharnitha's cubicle aimed at Shailesh (but could land on you if you are unlucky....Thank God I havent been unlucky), Shailesh's looks of sheer pleasure when he looks at Prabhjot, Mona Sharma, etc (etc cos the list goes on), Sourabh's one liners which rarely come out but once they do rest assured people around are rolling on the floor laughing, Mitu proving herself to be a proud Sardarni time and again, Shrini and his automation trackers finally Suman and his list of affairs with....(the people who know him know what I am talking about).

Apart from these people the whole vertical - On the February 2nd 2007, I was interviewed by two people - Navin D'Souza and Joydeep Ghosh. At the end of the interview Joydeep said I was selected and will be joining HSG. For a minute I was wondering what a weird combination of alphabets and just hoped that the team wasnt that weird. The day arrived and it was Feb 15th and I entered the office and was made to sit with a set of people on of whom was chatting away on her phone. We waited for almost 45 minutes and I had dozed off a couple of times already and enters a beautiful lady saying she is from the HR which simply kicked my sleep off. After filling a million forms we were asked to report to the other office. We reached there in the afternoon and had lunch. Then we went to the 2nd floor where I was met by Joydeep Ghosh who introduced me to a guy called Raveendran Krishnan and said he would be my buddy. "Buddy" - What the hell these guys decide with whom I have to be friends with also is it??? - My first thought. Then it was explained by Ravee that he would help me in settling into the organisation. This is how my journey in this team started. Will miss all my friends in the team, Kocchaps, Freako, Guns, Ravee, PG, Sachin, Snigdha, Manu, Atreyi, Tama, Vinu, Navin, Sudeep, Shashi, Mark, Sameer, Syed, Bibin and all the other members of this team (My sincere apologies to any names I have missed).

My lunchmates,

Initially when I joined I used to have lunch with Ravee, PG and Sachin once Ravee n PG moved to the US and Sachin joined the BI Team, I had to look for new lunch partners and boy oh boy!!!! I found the perfect set in Mark, Freako and Shailesh we used to eat lunch from outside more often than the times we had tea in the cafetaria. Not that previously we did not eat from outside but though then it was mostly once a week now it is once in two weeks that we eat in the cafeteria!!!!! Will miss all this!!!

Life has thrown this change at me and I have accepted it with open arms. I am waiting to see where life will take me....So the journey of life continues, although a chapter called Symphony is coming to an end.

IDENTITY

Land, Water, Language & Culture are 4 things that defines every individual. Go to any human being on earth and attack any of the 4 things he retaliates. Its exactly the same situation that is happening to Karnataka & Tamil Nadu. Both states are very possessive about these 4 dimensions. What happens when any one of them is attacked by either of the states. Its mayhem, with every political party out to get some cheap mileage out of this. The amateurs are getting maximum mileage out of this issue. The question is why??? That is because directly or indirectly your identity is based on these four dimensions. Losing any small part of any one of these dimensions will get a really violent side of yours out. When we go somewhere they ask where are you from? Our identity is based on land here. Once we start talking about this we tell them that we are from such and such a place which has this language this creates our identity. So in other words our identity is being attacked, when this happens nobody would want to be quiet and they fight back. These are touche issues I dont understand why the politicians use them for their gain.......

Youth at the age of 71

If an individual at the age of 71 is called to represent the youth of India, what should happen to the actual youth. Its said the median age of India lies between 26 and 28 and about 30% of India is below the age of 15. Look at it whatever way you want but India is young!!!!! The youngistan ad we see on TV for Pepsi was created exactly for the same reason. IPL was created because the Gen X which consists of the youth of India asked for something that should be explosive. The average age of investors in the stock market is 31. About 80% of the investors in the stock market lies between 25 & 40 age group. Well economists are people who rely only on data. Why this gyaan????? Here is the answer Dr. Manmohan Singh is an economist and also the Honourable Prime Minister of India, inspite of all this data freely available for him he has gone ahead and inducted a minister who is 71 years old and accorded him with the Youth Affairs portfolio!!!!!!!! God save us.