Train-ing guide!

There is no experience quite like travelling in a Mumbai Local. Given that an average Mumbai dweller spends one-eighth of his/her day travelling from one corner of Mumbai to another, many a tasks are fitted to fill in those 4 odd hours. Many a things that form the book definition of a wholesome life which us original modern, non-city dwellers do not bother much about, creep into the life of anyone who has spent about 2-3 odd years in Mumbai. It’s contagious…and it varies with age…ranging from the extremes of chopping vegetables, mugging up for exams, catching up with loved ones on phone, chatting, knitting sweaters for kids in colder lands, praying, reading or saying grace…trains are a haven of all elements of a life well lived. Every little moment accommodates every little nuance which matters in a daily checklist of a ‘responsible’ citizen…

What I love the best about my train journeys, especially if I am standing (which is the case more often than not) is peeping into & reading open pages of the novels which my co-travelers are going through. My daily dosage of reading surely gets done along with giving enough foliage to my imagination thanks to chapters from fiction novels which begin out of nowhere (like scenes from a play) & end unceremoniously when one of us gets down at the next station! Spirituality is taken care of with chapters of Art of living staring at my face…it is indeed a wholesome train-ing experience in the train!

It is great to see a novel unfold in its most cathartic moment, as if that is where it all begun & I fight the urge to snatch the book to flip back the pages to check the context of it all! I put imaginary faces to names, imaginary settings & if I really like what I read, I strain to check out the names of the books on the covers & along the upper page margins! I make it a point not to be noticed as I read up pages after pages, more often than not way faster than the original reader…

(What really surprises me is the affinity of a slightly elder age group of women lapping up chapters off Mills & Boons in the train! I must admit, it’s my maiden brush with M&B as well, so I too sort of qualify to be a vicarious elderly reader J )

Someday I am sure I am going to get a feeling of déjà vu in the middle of many a book…but until then, I guess it’s going good!!!

**Image picked from the internet**

By an Ant...

Shoes on the dance floor,
Strapped & tied...

Shoes on the dance floor,
narrow & wide...

Shoes on the dance floor,
Of the groom & the bride...

Shoes on the dance floor,
On the middle & the side...

Shoes on the dance floor,
As they moved in stride...

Stomped on me, n hence I died :P

My experiments with Tech...

I am a technology illiterate & not immensely proud of it. I would have been over 21 years of age when I first learnt how to switch on a laptop! The first words I typed on the keyboard was – “OK” – after having spent over a minute trying to figure out where the two alphabets were placed on the keyboard.

I never formatted presentations & reports all of my 1st two trimesters at college. I had groupies who would do that while I sat next to them either dictating or just giving them company while they aligned the document & made it presentable (but for you, my horrid grades would have been worse) Summer placements took me to IBM and there I learnt that there exists something known as a Master slide & watermark! If I look at the presentation I made back then, (I get scared) my belief that there are people & companies that look beyond the cosmetic gets strengthened.

I came back to year two with new found power-point skills & started at MS office with a vengeance! Just then I was introduced to windows 07 & the new awakened curiosity bug took me to the world of page settings, smart art etc; It was a good ride.

I joined work at a conglomerate. With over a hundred companies to boast of, I was sure I would be pretty away from all things geeky. Soon I found myself in an atmosphere powered by Seibel, with Ajax, portals, click streams, data churning in the air which reeked strongly of automobiles. It was here I understood the importance of making a single slide with multi messages using ‘custom animation’ in the presentation. I honed my PPT skills to almost a PhD level here given my reporting managers fondness for presentations. (I must mention here, that all reporting managers like presentations, I will like them too!) The presentation I put together here is (one that can make my jaws drop in amazement) one I am myself immensely proud of.

By now I had ‘mastered’ the ‘Art of the fancy’. And with my new-found qualification under my belt, I sped off to a hard core engineering project which required me to have some knowledge of the ground realities & engineering basics (in hindsight, bursts out laughing) Needless to say, my ‘tech skills’ held me in poor stead here as the need was for the ‘correct tech skills’ For a moment I thought I understood why more people opted for IT as a discipline. I survived.

I moved on to an utterly non geeky world of agriculture where tradition required me to write the proper English, use the proper font, write the proper mails & use the right templates. My non-geeky & relaxed self loved it here! But I learnt the nuances of propriety. I put my ppt skills to good use here & explored hitherto unknown arenas & uses of the Web. Webinars, video conferences, tele presence were becoming commonplace. I felt like how the pickle must feel lying in the jar, marinating in the ingredients put around it.

Next came the visit to an era in time 50 years behind ours. I was in a rural set up, drinking well water, sitting on the roadside, when under-the-tree was the ‘coolest’ place to hang out in. The place did not have even a cyber café & kids ran behind a one-off running vehicle on the road randomly giggling & enjoying themselves. Life was simple & easy, yet difficult.

The project period passed & I was over an year in work-life, all set to join an old manufacturing company which would help me get an ‘on-ground’ understanding & help ‘get the hands dirty’. Alas, that was not to be. I joined the Telecommunication sector!

Its been doing me good to ask random questions on and off. I have handled quite a few things tech. And I have concluded that the lesser one knows the better it is for the self & for the companies one works at.

All these years interspersed with SAS, Seibel, Ajax, 3G, HSDPA, HSUPA, CHS, Switches & not to forget MS office have still not convinced me that I understand anything remotely technical, IT or geeky. However, I do spend larger hours on the internet than ever before. One think that Google did for me is helping me think lesser, what fB did for me to help me meet ‘friends’ after over eternity. I don’t know if that is good. I still don’t know whether tech includes engineering, MS office, jazzy system languages or network operations. What I do know, is that I can be excused – I admit, “I am a tech illiterate.”

Adventures of Sem - Part V

The day at work passed in a jiffy. It was 9pm in the night when Sem returned to his car in the parking lot. Even as he heard it unlock at a distance, the night security guard wished him a good night. Sem replied with a huge grin looking fondly at the exit & tickled within at the thought of being in the parking lot again! He was humming a loony tune & ruffling his hair.

He got inside the car & pushed the gym gear to the back seat. His long hours at work were costing him his gym routine. Within minutes, he was on his way back…even the traffic did not seem to bother him much & he even noticed the moon through his car window. By the time he reached home, it was 11:30 in the night. Sem went upstairs quickly & peeped through the balcony window. A few perched pigeons looked at him dismayed at being disturbed. He felt like shooing them all away, then thought how fond his folks back home are of feeding birds and let them be. The balcony on the other side was pitch dark. The door was ajar though & Sem reluctantly peeled himself away from the window & quickly settled down.

The next morning he got up pretty early-even before the alarm clock sounded. It was a nice fresh dewy morning. And his pets were dutifully making their wicked groaning noises in the balcony. Instinctively, he went out to shoo them away. He couldn’t help but notice, the door was shut now.

He brewed himself some nice black coffee & perched among his now there-now away pigeon friends facing the balcony on the other side. Girls, he thought, but quickly collected his expanding smile as the door on the other side yawned open…

Adventures of Sem - Part IV

Sem was a nice boy. Nice boys, for the uninitiated, are guys, a majority of whose friends, advisors, advised, buddies are girls, but who, somehow, do not have a girlfriend. They are invited to most of the weekend get-tos, with or without shopping involved, go to most ball parties, accompanied or accompanying and have a ton of buddies, girlfriends, their boyfriends and sometimes even their children included. Sometimes, they can even be found buying stuffed toys for girls ranging from grannies to babies, and their friends term them as nice, albeit a lil too nice to torture with a relationship.

Coming back to where we left our friend, he slept that night on his bean bag, only to be rudely woken up on the Monday morning by his cuckoo doorbell. He opened his eyes just in time to see the cuckoo rush back to the secret cubicle after coo-ing twice! Had he not hated his landlady for it…but stopped after he figured out how fond his niece, who used to visit him sometimes, was of that silly bird. He smiled at the bell and involuntarily shrugged his shoulders. By the time he reached the door, his ‘guest’ had left leaving a rolled up newspaper bill tucked at his door handle.

He picked up the scroll unfolded it and read the amount. Promptly he separated Rs 500 to hand over to the guard on his way to work. He was fond of Chotte, the guard and his affections (In this case) were reciprocated. His shirts (all branded) home sweets share on Diwali, etc went to Chotte who in turn dint mind paying Sem’s bills in time.

Sem washed, dressed, dabbed on some cologne & was all set (with his gelled spiky hair) to reach work. He liked to drive to work & claimed he hadn’t set foot in a local more than 4 times in his lifetime (that too in opposite traffic direction, mind it) A couple of years at work had helped him afford a brand new steel grey car!

He settled his glares and started to reverse his car. It was then that he saw her again…even as she passed by, right there, in front of his car…and confused as he was, he honked the car horn, not once, but twice in succession. The annoying echo filled the parking!

She turned around and glared at him. He was sure he saw her mumble something under her breath… “Why are girls so difficult…?” he sighed

Adventures of Sem - Part III

A stray feather floated lazily in front of his eyes. For an instance he thought of Forrest Gump, his mind tore him quickly to the thought of pigeons…aarghh! He looked helplessly at the slightly ajar window, which he cud not close without removing the cable wire that was too short to enter from any other crevice in the wall. Annoyed he pushed the sliding window open (with a thud) and with an expression just short of a Red Indian, readied himself, with a broom!


Hardly had he jumped out that he spotted a pair of curious eyes staring at him. Guess he had been too loud in his expression of anger. He felt slightly flushed. Settled the invisible stray hair strand atop his head, realized the very next moment his hands were soiled, n grinned sheepishly. He had studied in a guy’s college all through, he wasn’t, ahem, used to ‘attention’.


He dint dare look in that direction again. Quickly stepped back in n peeped out from behind the curtain. He caught a glimpse of her just leaving her balcony. “Duh”, said he, “who cares?”


As for the nest, it survived. We are sure the unborn chicken embryos chuckled at Sem when he flushed. They were egg-witness to the instant transition in his demeanor. The MBA had gone for a hike!


Sem went back to the newspaper and dumped himself on his bean bag. He wasn’t really reading. He found himself smiling to himself. “Gosh!” he needed some coffee…black, without a touch of milk, just as he liked it. He spent the remaining day drowned in the sitcom he so adored. He covered a couple of seasons for the nth time. The thought of the pair of eyes dint cross him even once again. It was a lazy weekend and it was just one more week before he left for his trekking trip next week.

Adventures of Sem - Part II

HE smiled at the beam of the morning sun that entered his room, tiny dust particles moving around in a cacaphony. It was a nice start of a weekend, jogging, he could always resume. He played with the dust particles for some time, before the MBA reminded him that there were no commensurate results to be achieved by the action. Shaken to reality, he left his cozy bed.

Sem had lived alone ever since he got this job in this respected conglomerate. After dabbling in finance, marketing & strategy, he had finally settled in this job in a respected company where he could pursue his dreams of M&A (the calling of the royal blood was hard to ignore) His childhood had been untouched & uneventful – basic , if we may call it that and it showed in the way he was. As a child he had been ‘ordinarily bright’ (as everyone of the clan was supposed to be) The court elders thought he was just the same as everyone else born in the era…hopes so trashed, they decided to call him ‘the same’ aptly shortened to Sem in the coming future to save the kingdom’s royal ink.

Walking up to the kitchen, Sem opened the window wide…a stench greeted him marking the freshly cleaned…err…remains of the pigeons. He closed it. He peeped to see where the eggs used to be, them realised there was no nest. Good riddance, shrieked the MBA, Sem, we think, missed them. Both however, promptly fixed up some toasts & brewed some black coffee and he sat downt to devour them. He flipped channel after channel scooting over the reality shows of the world, and finally put up some random music channel & buried himself in the morning’s ET.

He thought he could still hear some commotion outside. He reluctantly pulled aside the curtain and peeped out…

Adventures of Sem - Part I

(This story is purely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely a coincidence. The author shall not be liable for any repurcussions of such similarity whatsoever)

Once upon a time in Mumbai, lived a boy called Sem (pronounced as same). Sem, an MBA by qualification had always wanted to do something profound for his countrymen through mergers & acquisitions. Now that the era of kings & their kingsmen was long gone, he could do little to have a “yudhh” with a “sena” to win a territory, so the pigeons, which he had reared since childhood (training them as his secret messengers) were of not much use to him. Given their free time, the pigeons, perched in his hearth & home, procreated & recreated. Therefore, Sem was surrounded with pigeons day in & day out.

The era of the kings had long gone, the newer generations of pigeons used to huddle together in evenings & make grumbling sounds at the loss of luxuries’ tales that their grannys told them. After a point in time, Sem started to get annoyed. Slowly his despication grew as he began to notice the mess created by his noisy disciples. The volcano would one day erupt. Sem was seething inside...!

One day, when Sem opened the window to take in a breath of fresh air, a hush of wings fluttered past his face. Irritated, Sem had barely got over the assault when he noticed… Lo n behold... “two dandis” and three eggs lying on them!

Sem & the MBA in him went into deep thoughtful discussion! What poverty, Sem said..., what real estate cost escalations, the MBA argued…Sem’s heart went out to them…the MBA in him delegated the clearing of them slums to the bai.

The next morning, Sem got up late, not disturbed by the grumbling pigeons at 4 am. He had missed his jogging routine. Little did he know that over the next three months he will put on all the weight he had lost thanks to getting up early and jogging...!

Latest release....

Conceptual errors exist in this picture. Why in the name of the holy angel would A ask B to 'eye' a sage...tch tch, profound mis-mannerisms (or whatever the dignified lingo for bad manners would be)

Anywhat way, once that the blasphemy has been committed by the creator of this picture, the fundamental question that remains unanwered is why must 9 sages be arranged in a 3x3 matrix in order that a lay viewer may (lay his/her) sight(s) on sage 3...

Ahem, as we would appreciate, a 3x3 matrix alongwith a 2x2 matrix is an easy to decipher & play around with matrix than the larger matrices. (why ... it is even easier to find its determinant!!!)

However, the mathematics of this picture, (or of any picture whatsoever) leaves the poor author fumbling for words (ok, I flunked a pre board... :( ) So let us proceed to the problem of choice each one of us faces in our mundane everyday life. Its starts at the restaurant menu card...where we, who complain about being stifled of our choices, crumble under the volley of dishes staring at us from the menu card (and almost sailing over the aroma escaping the kitchen door right into our nostrils) and ends with us sitting somewhere sulking & cribbing over the fact that we never were given enough choices or options. Here, the ... err ... assembler of the picture has given the viewer a choice of choosing a 'mera wala 3rd' (remember "mera waala pink" ads) There is a plethora of odd ways in which one may look for uska waala 3rd. Thats the beauty & the depth of the picture.

The fundamental human need of identity is answered by this opportunity to differentiate among the uniform.

God made Dog!

Had a more-than-ordinarily-eventful ride from Noid(e)a to N.Delhi today. 

Stuck in the perpetually unavoidable jam, (not bread jam, traffic jam) I happened to see a dog, who had shun the worldly moh-maya (that means worldly attachments for those who complain I was better off writing in English) & was sitting with his back to the worldly din at large.

He was sitting on the road perpendicular to the one in which traffic 'rested'. I am convinced dogs think. But I surprisingly did not think of what the dog in question must be thinking in his then current moment of meditation & rebellion (an interesting combination indeed)

Part credit of it goes to the dog & part goes to God, the almighty! The dog for sitting the way it was & God for giving it the funny mane, rather the artistic mane it sported! The pattern enthralled me! For a moment I wondered what animal it was, or even whether or not it was an animal at all! Now I wonder whether the metro dog had seen 'Fashion' (the movie) & was displaying effectively what he had to display! 

Alas I could not ask the dog...all this is, therefore, plain conjecture...!

Bird Talk!

एक सुबह को मुर्गे ने उठके बांक लगाया
पास में आके मैना ने उसको ये समझाया
"मुर्गा भाई! बड़े श्रमी हो! पौ फटते उठ जाते हो...
सुबह सुबह फिर शोर मचाके सबको तुम्ही जागते हो"
मुर्गा बोला, " मैना रानी, ये है मेरा काम...!
Once upon a time तो मैं था everybody's alarm!!!"

Mouse Potato-Part I

Once upon a time there was a mouse named Kari. Kari was a tiny fair pink cheeked mouse with a furry tail & sharp attentive ears. One peculiar thing about Kari was that she loved shopping unlike other mice of her age & loved it so much that if she did not resort to it on a regular basis, she would start to lose sleep over it.

Years went by & Kari finished school. Thereafter came the question of pursuing Graduation & Kari chose Commerce! B.Com Honours was what she wanted to do. So she enrolled herself in one of the premier grad colleges in Mumbai & passed out after 3 years with flying colours & 3 big shopping bags (dont ask me where they came from coz thats how it is with Kari...u close your eyes for a mo, n lo & behold, a shopping bag appears...trust me, Kari could cross stinking fish markets in Jamshedpur to reach a favourite mat she wanted to buy for her room)

Now that we are discussing Kari's room, let me tell you that yours truly had a chance to live in the same room as the little fair mouse Kari! The evenings were full of two she-mice jumping & tugging on the walls trying to kill moths (or what they were!) with rolled up newspapers. An year rolled by b4 both of them realised. (This was during our MBA days..yeah...mice have progressed) The days, when they used to talk to ants & dry clothes in all permutation & combinations of clothes lines & chairs, were there no more...& rooms were separated.

Kari, the aesthetically minded (mouse) painted one wall of the room blue as the blue of oceans & painted 3 joyously jumping dolphins it even as Tito, the tortoise, watched in glee, blissfully gleaming eyes, thinking of the oceans he himself was rooted in....

Monkey Bird...or vice versa!

एक सुबह को एक पेड़ पे, नन्ही चिडिया आई! 

पास बैठ के बन्दर के उसने तान लगायी!

 

सुबह भोर की नई किरण में, बन्दर उठ बैठा अब... 

देख के गाती चिडिया को, बोला वो उससे अब... 

 

"चिडिया रानी, मैं सोया था, नज़र न तुमको आया? 

अभी अभी मैं सोया था...और तुमने आ जगाया...:("

 

"रात को एक्स्ट्रा क्लास लगी थी, 3-hour session था... 

इसीलिए मैं आज सुबह से सोने में मगन था!!!" 

 

चिडिया बोली, " Sorry Monkey, I went to the gym...

Why else you think, (O monkey)...Im so slim n trim!!!"

Aint no swot!

""There's the tension and there’s the fear,

The panic, the worry, the untold fear,

The clock is ticking, it’s almost time…

I’ll surely flunk this exam of mine!!!"

But what am I doing? I am writing. What am I not doing? I am not solving the problem.

To be honest, the ordeal began some 3 months ago (Three months is such a convenient duration…fits both work & Trimesters in college) I had a problem; I had a solution in mind. Two months later, today came. And, I have the problem, I have the solution.

Once upon a time, I was a bright student! I used to spend reasonable hours studying! So what if they were not course books that I read? At least I had an objective…3-4 novels a week was good enough. After all I would have anyways forgotten whatever I did study beforehand. Of course…otherwise wud I not remember what I studied for my smaller unit tests when I went to write my finals? Sometime in those days, a unique theory entered my mind…that all chapters should be put to music! :D No one forgets songs completely; I don’t! But then, as one of my tiny friends aptly put it, philosophers who are broke cannot sell their philosophy…so the mug up that of others for survival (in exams)

School education is a unique experience! The bliss however is tarnished & marred by the unkindly lashes of expectations! Expectations to do well in exams, maintain a high score if already achieved, attain the cut off score to get into a univ of choice, & personal ambitions. The evils of competition & comparison also pop their meddling heads. Alas, children aren’t selfless. Another unique phenomenon is that by the time one is past an exam (even the one which he/she barely managed to pass) the exam looks so crazily simple. I for instance never knew that the sentences I used to read in standard II would become paragraphs in IIIrd, Chapters in IVth & subjects in VIIIth. (YES, I browsed through my univ scores a while back & wondered why I dint get an A+ in everything… :| :|) There was a thing we read about the Peter Principle…or was it Paul? Anyways, it said, everyone rises to their level of incompetence! The first time I read it, I identified with it!!! :D I knew I was there! But then, college selections happened. So I told myself maybe I was there now & not then when I thought previously I was…Alas, then happened placements, & finally 6 months into the job I think I am “there” now ! It’s nice to be lazy actually…even if u flunk or get a bad grade…you can argue you aren’t dumb, I dint study & still I scored better than X % of the dweebs&swot Inc.  :) :) :)!!!

I am too lazy to complete this now…I am…ahem…BUSY…!

I like him!

Mathemagics!

I have always loved Mathematics. Mathematics, in turn, has always hated me.

It started somewhere in Junior school, somehow of all marks in my report card & of all test-copies that were to be signed by parents, it was the maths column/copy I hated the most, & my father waited the most for. I was a scorer in Science, Economics & English & my eagerness for the English grammer & literature test copies was matched by my papa’s for my maths one. I remember fervently praying before I even opened my copy…even as I type this, I can feel the flexible copy between my fingers…I can smell it K

My earliest introduction to the subject dates back to those dumb(YES DUMB) dodging exercises in school. For the unenlightened, dodging was an exercise to rewards the magus   of the batch…those who by-hearted the multiplication tables n puked the answer as soon as the “13*9” escaped the teachers mouth… There was no time for the 9*3, carrying over the two n adding it to 9*1…I hated dodging…I dint have a choice L

After these pre schooling years, Mathematics graduated to another level. The next memory I have is of HCF & LCM (HAHA :D) I always forgot which one is which… & resultantly, many a times calculated HCF correctly for LCM problems & vice versa. They said I was careless…I wasn’t. Even in grammar I could not tell past perfect from present participle…but I got those correct. Unfair again…I dint have a choice L

Then arrived unitary method, time & work, percentages & linear equations!!! I loved them. They made sense to me! And papa was happy with the scores. Come standard 8^th & the choices I did not earlier have started to show. I did not like the teachers I got & they helped kill the remaining interest I had in the subject. I liked geometry & algebra, I did geometry & algebra. Period. Needless to say, my basics got all ruined by the time I reached standard 10^th. Lemme digress a bit here & discuss about my reading habits. I was a voracious reader (once upon a time) & comics of the like of chacha chaudary were never a part of my life, except in the early years of school life when socializing meant eating mango bite hiding one’s face during a class & exchanging comics. So things like “chacha chaudhary ka dimag computer se bhi tez chalta hai”, “saabu Jupiter ka niwasi hai”  were not hot favourites with me. Anyways, coming back to the topic, it was during my standard 10^th board exams that ghosts from the childhood came to haunt me. And what better time to choose than when I was sitting struggling with my exam paper. For a moment I felt everything was going darker… “din me tare…” situation from those comics came alive in front of my eyes. I went blank…!

I was surprised when I reached a decent score (even half convinced my paper got mixed with someone else’s!)  Anyways, being left ‘starry eyed’ shook me bad. I decided to make scores even with mathematics J I took up maths in 12^th. As they say history repeats itself. Horrible teachers, topped with focus on engineering competitive exam levels shook my confidence yet again. I even copied homework once from a classmates notebook L

Have you ever heard of guardian angels? No? I saw one! Two months before my exams began, a lady who just shifted in my neighbourhood decided to teach me of her own accord. I distinctly remember…she had asked me, “How do u like Vectors, should we start there?”,and I had replied,  “I do not know Vectors, you can start wherever…”  She wasn’t startled. She taught me. And for the first time in my life, Time fell short for answering that standard 12^th paper. I was happy J

I also continued with Mathematics in my graduation (thanks to that teacher) liked it, & moved on. Then XLRI happened…& QE happened alongside it L The teacher was a fine one, he loved his subject, appreciated it, but I lost it someplace, & never caught up…I was wrong, I never raised a hand to say I don’t know. Mansij taught me, those were the first night outs in my life…crazeee…Mansij, Karishma & me, huddled in our room… (No. 310) solving solved examples :D: D Now when I think of it, I can’t help grinning!!! Life is funny!!!

Why am I going on & on about Mathematics & I today? I was trying to solve an equation :P after an hour’s struggle I figured what variable was wrong where…& I thanked my stars I never wanted to be an engineer! One of my dear friends has a set of fancy statements he makes two among those are: “You would have made a good engineer”… “Mathematics is beautiful…its like economics”  I can only (stage)manage some expression before I purge the first statement from out of my head…as for the second is concerned, I don’t agree! (We can discuss this maybe if u happen to read this!)

Now I don’t know how to end this long account. Maybe I can quote another instance that just struck me! :D

Once, I got so enthusiastic about solving fraction addition, subtraction & division, that I solved all division questions like the addition one’s (you know, took a common denominator & all) Gosh! I hope my employer does not read this :D :D :D

Loony!

One day I,

With spirits high

ANd bubbling mind

Decided to paint...

I started right away...

Painting in a haphhazard way...

And ended up making a mess...

What it was, none could guess!!! :D

Greek...or Japanese?!?!

As I have mentioned before too...I hate getting up mornings for work :(
Morning today, nevertheless, I got up...pulled myself outside the quilt n zombied to the wash basin...Robotically, my left hand held the tooth-brush while the right squeezed out paste from the Colgate tube...
And I started brushing. I looked into the mirror at my swollen eyes...n I read something in the periphery...I tried to make sense of it..."JINOBO" it read n under it was scribbled weN!!!

I thought it must be something Chinese or Japanese n continued to brush...Now awakened by the minty toothpaste, I turned, n to my amusement it read... "Odonil...New!!!"
Guess when one is sleepy...everything seems greek...or was it Japanese?!

The Predicament of a soul who loved Momos & hated Momo(tadi)!

up soon...!

Developmental Politiconomics

Once upon a time on a tree there lived a squirrel. 

Us gilahri ke ghar pe sab kuch tha, bas ek inverter ki kami thi. Load shedding se pareshaan ho ke usne pichle hi saal apna electricity connection katva diya tha & apne padosi bandaron ki tarah raat bhar illegally bijli ke liye taar lagati thi. Aise me ek generator ya inverter bad investment hi tha uske liye! Pichle kuch mahino se TV pe nuclear deal ke baare me sun sun ke uske to kaan hi pak gaye the. Uske favorite 'India TV' ne bhi apne regular honi-anhoni series ke beech me is news ke pop up dene shuru kar diye the. Gilahri ko ye bilkul bhi pasand nahi tha...afterall un serials se dukhi hue logon ki kahaniyan likh ke hi to vo apni rozi-roti chala rahi thi!!! Magar kal ab kitty party me usne Mrs' Bandar ko kehte hue suna ki nuclear power ke use se bijli sasti & consistent ho sakti hai, to uske mann me laddoo phootne lage. Cylinder ka kharcha, geyser ki electricity consumption, sabhi kuch sasta ho sakta hai, & vo bhi legally!!!

Tabhi uske dimag me chamka...zaroor in politicians ka vested interest hoga isme...nahi to aaj achanak unse logon ka bhala kaise ho gaya? Gehri soch me pad gayi gilahri...tabhi ekdum se phone baja...doosri or koi bol raha tha, "Madam, I am calling from O*&^(*^ bank...would you like to apply for a credit card?" Jawaab diye bina hi phone rakh diya usne & apne kaam pe lag gayi. Article ka topic tha..."Kyunki Government bhi kabhi bhala karti hai kya?"

 Raging hit hua vo...madam ko best journalist of the year ka khitaab & opposition ko ladne ka mudda mila! Sabka bhala hi hua in a way...!!! Chalti rahi ladai & ghar ghar me bijli aa gayi. Technically vo idea ke against nahi thi....Par politics hai bhai...baakiyon ka bhi to khayaal rakhna padta hai na...