First Day First Show

Being Happy and optimistic I begin this article with mixed feeling. Happy, for successfully completing a revolution around the sun with my company. Optimistic, about the rest of the years to spend.

08 July 2011, It was a cloudy Friday, the day I was supposed to report to my company. Those days I was staying in a place called Domlur (Bangaloreans obviously heard of it) and my reporting location was in Koramangala. Since the mentioned time was at 8 in the morning, I along with one of my college buddies had to take an auto-rickshaw from Domlur-Koramangala. We had to pay a hefty auto charge only for travelling in Bangalore when the traffic was very minimal (that’s so common in Bangalore). Reaching the destination, we were too eager and little nervous waiting for everything to kick start. At first sight, the building looked like an apartment built using only match-boxes. Having said that I thought of diverting my mind by hunting good looking girls around (this is common too ;)) hoping for that charismatic  girl to come with a magical wand and raise few eye-brows, sadly I ended up finding a few of my own college girls and started mumbling “ NOT AGAIN ”

Moving On, briskly placing autographs before our names in a sheet of paper like an upcoming Bollywood star, we all were given a temporary i-card. Later, we were asked to board one of the buses and we did just that blindly even without knowing where we are headed to. Choosing the bus which consisted of highest number of good looking girls (well, better than zero). I was overwhelmed to know that the so called “Match-Box” was not my workplace.

The bus drove for about half an hour and reached Sarjapur, Head office. In that thin period, many Indian languages were flowing non-stop around me. One I heard the most was “Neenga Tamila?” , “Endha ooru macha?” (no hard feelings, its fact  :D). Luckily, we reached. Instantly feeling too proud to be a part of the company, I was blindly following the queue (like a sheep following the herd for grazing) and found the way to conference hall.
The next couple of hours was literal “Bheja-Fry” as a nerd-looking lady started off with her repeated induction words. Feeling too hungry and exhausted as I skipped my breakfast, I was desperately in need of a break. Right then, an astral sound came to my rescue calling for a brief tea-break. As soon as I heard that we are getting something to munch (for free), I left no time to join the line midway to make sure I get it before it’s all over.

Coming back fresh and recharged, I was expecting something better than pre-tea session. Luckily, a middle aged, smart looking guy came up with a fluent speech which was a distant dream for the former girl. Explaining about the expectations in the company, he succeeded in carrying my energy to float for next couple of hours. Besides the fact that the session was interesting, I was suffering from lack of heavy food for few hours. Naturally, when he asked us to disperse for the Lunch I was over the moon.

Honestly, I am one of those who believe that the best way of pleasing any guest is by the taste and quality of the food we serve them ;). Seems my company had similar thought and they came up with good food. They say “A lot can happen over a cup of coffee”. Infact, “A lot more can happen over a plate of food”:D. It was then, where I had a brief and formal chat with a few strangers from different parts of India and turned them into acquaintances. Post-Lunch, we decided to take a mini-tour around the campus to check the infrastructure, the view did not disappoint us. Only thing disappointing was my watch, which was crawling at snail’s pace in session but was accelerating at the speed of Bugatti Veyron outside.

Coming back from a heavy Lunch I was totally drowsy (I’m sure most of us were). Just like rubbing salt on the wound, the same lady was back with loads of documents. This time we had to do some paper work, signing on the bond, contracts and all the other important papers. It was too obvious session post-lunch, the peculiar reason would be that most of us were sluggish to go through every point mentioned in the bond/contract. The lady started off with her redundant use of words. If I were to collect a wheat grain each time she used the word “Professional”, I would have sold wheat in kilos for a month. Only one thing could have broken all this drama, Tea-Break (no prizes for guessing: P)

 Having couple of tea shots, I was off with my drowsiness and back to where I was supposed to be. Though it was the same nerd lady, I was used to her by now and her presence or absence was not making difference anymore. After few minutes, she came up circulating a piece of paper which had our coming week’s schedule mentioned and it reminded me of my school time-table. Right then, a guy interrupted and gave us some valuable information about transportation, rooms and useful information about paying guest availability for Bangalore Freshers.

When he was done with his brief talk, we were provided with an upgraded temp i-card (with photo) which was valid for next 3 days. At this point, I started feeling it was too much to take for a single day as I had developed a severe headache too. Luckily, we were at the climax of the drama. After the session, I headed back to bus following the herd of sheep. Choosing the bus which consisted more number of vacant seats than good looking girls (which was more important ;)), I had a peaceful journey on the way back and ended the day on a happy mood.

Petrol Drops

Petrol price goes up to Rs.80. Heaven forbid!! . I wonder Robin Sharma knew this day would come, which made him choose the title "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" for his fable.  It seems Indian Government is a strong believer of Mayan's Calendar, they want the petrol price to touch that 3-digit mark before the world "ends" . But, fortunately(?!) if the world does not end by this year-end what would be the cons owing to petrol price hike??

Here, I have noted down some of my  weird thoughts ;)

1 . First and foremost, Long Drive would be a metaphor and imaginary.

2. Nano cars will be cheaper than petrol.

3. Indian Banks would come up with various EMI schemes for availing Petrol

4. Swiss banks declares holdings of dematerialized black petrol

5. Autowallahs increase their minimum charges, failing to which breeds a new reason to protest

6. Rupee vs. Dollar would be a history, Gold vs. Petrol trends in.

7. Twitter and Facebook would fall prey to petrol debate.

8. Free Coupons for limited petrol would be a festive offer.

9. Petrol robbery hits headlines more than car robberies.

10. Petrol museum would be opened consisting of petrol cars.

11. BCCI declares every M.O.M in IPL will get 1 litre of petrol and 10 litres for Man Of The Series

12. Politicians  promise a litre of petrol per each vote

13. Groom's demand for petrol along with car as dowry and later burn bride with the same.

14. Celebrities will be caught sniffing petrol in Rave parties.

15. New branch in business schools - Petrol Management.

16. Petrol Bunks would be among  hit-list of  Al-Quaeda

Finally, Petrol extinct in India and petrol bunk is considered as a historical place.

God, Save Us!!

Bumpy Ride

Udupi- A name, which reminds many among us about the name of a South-Indian restaurant round the corner. Perhaps, only a filtered few among us are aware that it is a name of a Place too. It is in the coastal belt of Karnataka which is about 755kms from Hyderabad which is my current location. By bus, it takes 14 long hours to travel (Okay now, enough of Geography). In this article, I would like to share those 14 hours I spent on my journey from "Pearl-City" to the "Temple-City". So, fasten your seat belts and get ready for the roller-coaster.

It was a bright Sunday evening, where Sehwag was hammering every nook and corner of the ground and I could not resist to get off it. As the old adage goes "Time and Tide waits for none", I had to leave Viru for my bus :P. Reaching the pickup point with my buddies( who were too happy to send me off :P ), I waited there for the bus as it did not show up in the mentioned time. Meanwhile, my eyes caught a good looking girl (Seldom do I miss it ;)) who was waiting for the bus too and I was just wishing that she travels in my bus :D. After about half an hour, the bus finally arrived and Ta-daan she was in my bus.

Bidding all my buddies good-bye and heading towards the bus, I heard a slow Kannada Devotional song playing. I looked around and made sure it is not one of those buses on pilgrimage tourism. Soon as I settled, many greetings flew in through messages and calls, which made me feel like Marco Polo set on his voyage. A loud noise from the TV brought me back from my thoughts and "DOOKUDU" (a Telugu Movie) was started. Must say, it is a good movie but sadly I’ve seen it before, so I had no interest to watch it again. Call it a "Sheer Negligence" or "Weird Coincidence" internet-pack in my cellphone had expired too. So finally, I opted to listen to songs which made me realize I’ve many good songs in my cellphone.

Beautiful sunset and slow music took me to a different world which I enjoyed a lot. Soon the bus halted for some refreshment somewhere in a village which is never available in Google map, I went to blend with the mob to have the "Simply Dileesius" tea out of curiosity and the effort was fruitful, it was indeed delicious. I was all alone like a lost kid and that attracted a foreign couple towards me. If my memory is fine, it was Harris and Juliane from South Africa who were in India to explore dhabaas and local delicacies. We had a nice chat and discovered that, they were in their last week stay in India. Soon after, they took a pic with me. Well, maybe by now that pic has been published in South African Daily as "Malnutrition-Struck Adult In India" :P

Back to my seat, I dozed off unknowingly, courtesy songs. After about an hour, I was forcefully woken up by the scary rather hilarious snoring sound by my co-passenger, who is blessed with a kind of snoring which could make even Lions feel shy about their roaring. Holding back my anger, I took out the bedspread given to me and covered my face to sleep but in vain. Next couple of hours I had to  deal with his horrible snoring and I ended up having a strong headache. Oh! did I miss out that "good-looking girl" in my bus??, her seat was at diagonally right to mine and I could see her deeply immersed into the movie going on. She was mentally not there, my plans of talking to her was aborted instantly.

Soon, I slipped into sleep though the 'King Of Jungle' was roaring non-stop next to me, a much required sleep for me as the date was already changed and my brain was demanding for some rest. At around, 2.30am a middle-aged lady screamed so loudly which was sufficient enough to send any heart patient to deep sleep forever. In no time, the whole bus woke up and lights were on, I mumbled to myself - "I’m damn sure, she has been molested by the old guy next to her" but in reality she had a dumb-baseless-irrelevant dream, which not only disturbed the whole bus but also brought me back to Lion’s Den. It took around quarter to an hour for everyone to settle down. Peacefully, I had a deep-sleep thereafter, ironically not long enough.

I wonder people who have new-born babies are never dependent on alarms. Right on the dot, at 6am a toddler started its tantrum which made me mumble again - "VERRY Good Morning, U MORON”. From that point, I had to simply sit and enjoy the nature for the next couple of hours. As I came closer to my destination, my new found excitement overshadowed the tireful journey. Finally, I jumped out of the bus and stretched my arms to feel the familiar breeze which energized me more than a RedBull could do;)

Four States

Freshly coming out of Chethan Bhagat's imaginary world of "2 states", I decided to go with this simple rather self explainatory title.

Welcome to India. To be precise, South India. India is land of different culture..blah blah blah..all these we have learnt long back and fortunately(not sure) we are proud of what we are and where we belong. In this particular article I would like to share my thoughts on few funny things about my state and my neighbouring state.
Since Karnataka is lucky to have me let me pen down about it first. A state where businessman has more fame than those working in Cinema Industry. This state is attracting many outsiders or in typical desi-style "Pardesis" everyday and losing twice in number. Former Courtesy Bengaluru and the latter due to dirty politicians. Bengaluru is "open-arm" for every Indian irrespective of the place one belongs to or the language one uses. As a result, Tigers in India are more than Kannadigas in Bengaluru.
Now,when this is the scene in Karnataka. Lets go straight down to "GOD'S OWN COUNTRY" Kerala. Ofcourse,"Devils own people" thats what they say but lets cut that here. From Elephants to Boat Houses from Apples to Coconuts everything is abnormally "Huge" here (Atleast Few got my point there). If u want to impress a localite here u will have to follow one of the two easy steps.
Step 1: Try to speak as loud as possible while gargling with salt water.
Step 2: Buy a Gum. Try to yawn besides chewing it.
You end up being considered as one of the literates of palindrome language. M-A-L-A-Y-A-L-A-M.
Okay now, lets shed lights on Andhra Pradesh. This is the state which I had only visited but had never stayed before. The only thing I knew about this state was Tirupati and Telugu. Though I could easily read the language and do nothing more than that, I had never attempted to even learn it ever before.Ippudu koncham koncham show off cheyya daanki sufficient undi :P.Interestingly, while the whole nation speaks different Hindi. Andhra or Hyderabad in particular, speaks different Hindi. "Arey! Ye Hindi Kathe..Toh tuh Darta Kaiku?"  which really reminds you about Lahore or Abbottabad. Half of the city is busy taking Cinemas and actors tooo seriously while the other half is busy licking fingers with the famous "Dum-Biryani". 
Last and least :D I would take the honour to mention about TamilNadu - the worst part of India where sunlight makes no difference. I'll have to stop being racist for my own good :P Anyways, back to point, this is the state which truly believes in "Brotherly-hood" and sadly the bonding that starts and ends within Tamilians. Its very easy to form a team of Tamilians. Infact, these are those people who use words like- "Teri..maa" frequenlty and fearlessly..which you dare to use elsewhere. However, Andhra tops the list in this matter, they use words like "Randi" , "Rape" and "Choos" use of which straight away gets an "A" certificate in a Bollywood flick. TamilNadu shares the honour of "Style Disaster Striken State" with Kerala and all the credits to Lungi (Natural A/C) 
Lots and lots of thoughts are flowing in but I 'll have to end it.
These were few drops of the bucketful of information I have collected from an Ocean. If you  feel like patting my back. Do comment . That would serve it ;)
Finally, let me end this on a Happy note. These difference makes us what we are and I would like to quote myself- " We Should Know the Similarities and Respect the differences"  :P