Its that time of the year again!

So as the year meanders towards the end, you see and read the top 10 abc's of the year! You know, the 10 best/worst movies/songs/actors/politicians/pet dogs/ wardrobe malfunctions. (Hold on, did 2007 had a wardrobe malfunction? No wonder it was a boring year!)
I have my own top 10. The 10 quotes/lines I will remeber the year for. Some of them are contextual, some eternal, but if you are still reading, it wont be a bad idea to continue doing so.(Unless, of course, you have Katrina Kaif waiting for you! Trust you me, she is the only one worth missing this blog! Okay, lets get on with it!)

1. "Motherhood is a biological fact, fatherhood is a matter of belief."
-Proff Vidyananad Jha in the class discussion
VidJha, as we call him, has been witty but this one takes the cake. I am not very sure if this belongs to him, but I will give him the benefit of doubt.

2. "Kaamna, give me a kiss. ...... 30 saal bad tum apne grand children se kahogi ke yeh woh jagah hai jahan tumne Kabeer ko mehsoos kiya tha!"
- Jimmy Shergill in High on the Highway
The story has not went down well with a lot of people but I liked the story. yes, the actors could have been better, but this line and the way he speaks it, made it worth watching! 'Shafak aankhein, tez roshni ....' was another good line but I will stick to the mehsoos one!

3. "Dil ko banade jo patang saansein yeh teri woh hawaayien hain!"
- Vishal in Om Shanti Om
I am not a big fan of Sharukh Khan or Farah Khan. Both of them, in my opinion, are good, but not as good as they are made out to be! But this line, and the way KK sings it, makes me thank both of them for producing this bit of magic! Awesome lyrics by Vishal. Thank you! (I made corrections in this part, thanks to Pranav who corrected me that the lyrics were by Vishal, not Javed Akhtar as I thought.)

4. "Yeh dialogue to kissi film ka hai na.....abhi nahin hai, magar ek din ho jayega!"
- Sharukh Khan in OSO
What a spoof on bolllywood! I don't know if this movie is a tribute to bollywood, but if this was made with an intention of making a spoof on Hindi films, you have done a tremendous job Farah! Awesome!

5. "Wahin kahin shab kaatenge, chilam chataayi baantenge"
- Gulzaar Sahab in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom
I have always been a fan of Gulzaar's imagination and play of words. These lines take a complete different meaning for a college student. You spoke for us in these lines! Jhoom Barabar Jhoom!

6. "Growth is a political process."
- Proff Sudip Chadhuri, in World Eco discussion
Beautifully summed up the quandary that we have in many countries, and a more glowing example is West Bengal. RESPECT!

7. "Class mein kone ki seat mein sabse peeche kyon baithe ho, film dekhne aaye ho? Maje karoge?"
- Proff Prashant Mishra to a couple in Marketing class
I had never laughed so much in all the classes put together till then as musch I laughed then! Imagine a proff saying that in a post graduate class to a couple! Proff Mishra's classes were always full of such witty lines, but this one was in a league of its own!

8. 'All the truth in this world adds upto one big lie!'
- Bob Dylan, 'Times are changing' soundtrack
Its an old track and I have heard it this year itself! Brilliant lyrics, this is just one of the so many beautiful lines in this song!

9. "Tumhare dimaag ka antenna noise bahut capture karta hai!"
-Proff Ashish Bhattacharya to a batchmate of mine in class!
Dismissive. Thats the only word I have to describe this comment which was made in response of a question. I can assure you, the question was really dumb! AshBhatt, as we call him, is not as bad as this quote makes him look.

10. "Shit yaar, top 10 lines mein meri ek bhi line nahin hai!"
-Amitbikram Acharya, in a not so sober mood
Things that you have to do for friends! Sigh!

In case you have read it, please feel free to post your comments. Bouquets and brickbats, both will be entertained!

Wedding Invitations!

"Hey Abhishek,
The time for the invite has dawned upon us - so here goes : It gives me great pleasure to invite you to my wedding reception on the XXth of December, 2007 in ABC.
It would be great if you could make it. Please consider this a personal invitation and I do look forward to seeing you at the wedding.
Regards,"

When you approach the top of the normal curve of your life ( I mean 25 years for the statistically illiterate), every now or then, you will get these mails! I have mixed emotions when the sender is a male(lucky guy, poor chap, gaya saala!), and confused emotions when the sender is a female.
Mixed and confused might sound same, they are not! With a guy, it depends on : love or arranged, lass or no-class, by chance or by choice. So it gives to a decision tree with varying probabilities( I had my Risk Management paper today and you have not so I will simplify it further). It is like the magician's hat, you don't know what he is going to pull out, you see and react! I am a nice guy, nicer to married couples with pretty ladies and nicest to couples with arm-candy girlfriends.(Now that it is my only chance to be seen in company of any pretty gal is a different story altogether). And hence, mixed bag emotions!

Confused: You cant help feeling happy for people when they are getting married! That is the natural reaction but then, it adds to my confusion! Along with the mail there is also this attached pdf with the details of the wedding and I wish it had my name and not the other guy's!
So here comes the sadness part! You look back on all the coffee cups that you left behind along the last few years, of the last desks of the class and those arbit conversations, of the moments when you tried to catch attention, and of those when you seeked none!
The coffee cups in savvy cafes will be replaced by tea in the drawing room, those "If I was not in a relationship, I would have asked you out"- fling will give way to "XYZ is a lucky guy to have you", "You are looking gorgeous/hot tonight" to " you are looking pretty" a casual wink to a polite hello, things will never be the same again!
No matter what people say, life is never the same after marriage and everyone around you will have to make adjustments if you are getting married. Friends wont make sly remarks in front of you and you will wonder what happened to their sense of humor!
Now I understand why they call it an institution and not a relationship!

And you would think I would learn when this has happened to me once! Ha! This is some 7th such mail and there I go again!
My life has the Markovian property! (Click on the link only if you have nothing, ABSOLUTELY nothing else to do. Don't blame me!)

ramblings after the end sems! and playing 'losing my religion'

It has been a term, 3 months and the days have flown by! I will not say it is all fairy tale 'coz it is not!
"It has been an extra ordinary journey" Ha! That is one learning that I have, in last three months, and that is to shy away from superlatives. Life is ordinary! It is the people that make it extra ordinary! :-)
No, I am not in the oxymoronic state that I would revert to using superlatives immediately after dismissing them! It is just the kind of statements that you get so used to, things that are so heavy on the ears and the mind, and sit below the tree in the comfort of rising smoke and the warm darkness and you would see that these words are so meaning less! (So is this post! Why are you still reading it?)
You hear of competitiveness so often that you loath the fact that you ever competed to get here! You hear of relative grading that you might puke when someone says,"is he your relative?' (Okay, I am stretching it a bit too far, but I dont care!)
You see personalities and how much you would yearn to see human beings! Human being, I always find this word funny! What is more important, the being part or the human part? When you try to be human, to do you really 'be' and when you want to 'be' dont you sell the the human part? Yes, I know there have been saints and all, but it is not about them, its about you and, hang on, its not even about you, its about me!
But what it is about me? Why does it have to be? And even in case there is, why do you have to be a party to it?
I am not insulting you or trying to prove anything, but this is incoherent, illogical and it is written precisely to be that!
So many times, we try to make the sense and we fail! Ever wondered what sense the gibberish of a child makes? But then, isn't it the most comforting thing to hear!(One of the most comforting things, I must say. Another comforting thing that I like to hear is that there are sweets in the menu today! WH mess sweets rock!)
Ever seen the smoke that rises from the ciggeratte. It touches you, runs on your face, and rises up, as if it touches every pore of yours, and then dissolves in your blood. Then when you just let your head fall back, you spiral through your own thoughts, trying to hold on to a thought and then follow logic and make some sense!
Making sense! NONSENSE!!!
Coming back to being and living( see, it is so much well woven into the thought process that you try and 'make' some sense when all you are you doing is 'not making sense'!), ever wondered what it would be to pass through a day, not living it? A day which gives you no joy, no sorrow, no heart breaks and no memories! Hmm, may be a day like that would be a souvenir in itself!
May be, some day I will climb at the top of a mountain and watch the clouds having an affair with the peaks( another example that the things on top have very 'volatile' relationships) and just reflect! crib and dissect, dissect and crib, in whichever order.
And that brings me back to REM:
Every Whisper
Of every waking hour
I am choosing my confessions!!

Good night Abhishek, sleep!! The fucking majors are over!!

Erased!

Today is my last day in Kanbay!
Things are happening at such a fast pace that I am not really able to contemplate on what is happening.
Am I sad? No, but I never hated the organization that I am not ecstatic about it either.
So what happens to you when you quit an IT organization:
They take away your photo id card and all you become is a number. A nameless, faceless number. The best time to tease a girl in your company. Before she can find out who you are, you are out of the company!
One a more serious note, it takes a bit away from you. Your identity is not entirely based on that card but it is one of the things that you look back with pride.
I always did. I loved my access card. It was a symbol of my existence as a professional, a word that I take a lot of pride in. It was my certificate of financial independence. And also, that I am an eligible bachelor! :)

Then your office extension is blocked. The company does not allow you to have the access to the resources like the free phone any more. Too bad you have to pay out of your pocket to call all the local friends you have to say that you are leaving!
You look at the instrument and think of all the times that you called your girlfriend. You think of arguments you had with your friends on that free phone. You look at the printer you used to print the stories and wallpapers for your home.
You start to wonder what a daughter who is to be married in a few days feels like.

Let me put it honestly, I have made more personal calls then official ones from my extension number. I have used the printer extensively during my GD/PI preparations. And now that I am leaving, i hear, 'Baabul mora naihar chhooto hi jaaye!!'

Then you get your exit interview. An opportunity to be as venomous as you can. talk about everything that bothered you.
I guess it is a window that provides the opportunity for organization to see how they are perceived by the employees.
it is up to Kanbay to make use f my 40 minutes of feedback. But I am not going to get an award whether they use it or not, so it is part of my history. Don't ponder, move on!

Then the office people come and deletes your personal folder on the server. Your access to the knowledge portal is revoked. You do not have the access to the intellectual property you helped in creating. 'The IP that you create is owned by the company'. I hate capitalism!

And there is one more thing that happens to most people but never happened in my case: Knowledge Transfer. No knowledge, no transfer!

And thus you are wiped off from the records. You become a part of the memories of the people you worked with, for good or bad reasons, but not a part of the organization.

But then, as they, this is life. As i move on in my life, I thank Kanbay from the bottom of my heart for the wonderful people that I met here and the things that I learnt. It is my personal blog so I don't have to be nice at all and I am not getting paid to say this either.

Now I am feeling sad! Is it for the seperation or for not getting paid?
Anybody's guess!

Slow time!

Ever gone through slow time?
You thinking slow motion replays? Well, in that the motion is viewed for a longer duration making it relatively slow. Naah, I am not talking or rather writing about that.

Lets take a basic example. Say you are travelling with speed X, covering distance Y in time T.
Time= Distance/Speed
Life is normal.

But if you travel with the same speed X, and do not cover any distance, then the time must be zero!
The pure physicist would say, not possible! That is why we have metaphysics mate! ( And I am no Australian, I just realized that mate and meta are anagrams!)

I have done all I could, and I have not made any progress, so where lies the fault?
One waits and waits and waits, and the destination does not arrive. You wonder, is life moving at all?
The time slows done, becomes viscous, does not flow, like blood, which is about to coagulate! Imagine passing through that! The webs, the darkness, the 'bloody' density! You try to swim, the hands are moving, the feet too, but you are there where you were! So much for the efforts yielding!
You choke, you feel like shouting, you open your mouth to shout but the slow, viscous fluid fills it! You drink, but there is so much! You give up and then there is nothing to hold on to!
And then, having humbled you, time starts flowing again, smoothly as if it just exists to flow, like an innocuous bird which just exists to fly!
But you do not have the strength, you do not try to swim, you just float. You tend to think that it is nirvana, the moksha, you have been through all that there was, and you are past it. And then again you are deceived. You can still think, and you will dream, and aspire. You will swim again, and then time will humble you again!

And if it has not happened to you yet, remember, time is in no hurry!

A song, for me!

I just heard my friend singing! No names, because I do not mean to offend him, after all, he is my friend!
So, my friend was 'singing', no, I think he was trying to sing. I guess the last sentence should tell you how good he was.
But then, does one need to sing well to sing?

A want a song, for myself, a song of my joys, my emotions, my ambitions, my success and my failures. If I sound like an egoist, I bloody am!

Why should anybody sing to please? I mean, cannot we be a bit selfish and just sing for ourselves once in a while? A song to mourn, to celebrate, to cry , to laugh, to express what you feel.
So what if I am devoid of a smooth and silky voice, I am not devoid of feelings! I am alive, and that is good enough reason for me to sing! Too bad you do not like my song!

Why should my poems make sense to you? They are mine! You were not there when I fell in love and cried the whole night, or when I first felt like hugging the banyan tree in my backyard.

And I want everybody to sing. Everybody has a right to be happy, or as Will Smith says, pursue happiness. Everybody has a story, everybody has a song.

I have a song! And I will sing it!

Education and Reservation

I am not throwing brickbats on Arjun Singh or nor against the reservation. I am just trying to see things my way and sharing it! ( In case you do not want to read, you have the choice, so that makes me better that Arjun Singh, doesn't it?)

Education is not just a means of livelihood, it is about creating better citizenry, a more informed, active and aware population which participates in democracy constructively. (Am I asking for too much? I do not think so.)

The idea behind reservations must have been providing opportunity in a legal set up, one to which the society and the social structures has to abide by. ( Again, this is what I think, and I may be wrong.) The social conditions at the time the idea of reservation was coined need not be elaborated here, anybody who has read about the UP and the BIHAR society or has lived in them would know all about it.
Society, left on its own, would not have allowed the equality the architects of the constitution envisaged and hence, they made it the norm. And here comes the sorry tale of brilliant ideas executed badly!

The issue for me not whether the OBC's should be given reservation or not, but are we doing it the correct way?

Issue 1: Reservation in higher education to bridge the gap:
The gap is created from the day a kid goes to a primary school in remote village. He is told so many times that he belongs to this caste. Will him getting a seat in the IIM would help to erase the deep rooted caste structure? No!
But it would help his next generation. Yes, he would have better opportunity and thus, would be able ensure that the school his kids go to, they do not suffer the way he did.

Issue 2: Creamy layer should not be excluded:
Now, this is a bone of contention. The kids of the guy who went to the IIM, study in the best schools because their father can afford that. They get the opportunity to be equal. Now, should they get the benefit again? What about another kid in the remote village, who has suffered enough? Aren't his own caste people who have risen to the top blocking his progress, denying him of the opportunity to be equal? Yes.

Now the problem is defined, the solution?
Making it mandatory to quote the PAN CARD of the parents when requesting reservation. The income for a period can be checked, and hence, it can be decided whom should the seat go to. Neat, and efficient. There is a way of excluding the creamy layer, but is there a will?

Now, some more to add.
Lets make the reservation mandatory at the primary level, even in private school for say 30 years.
Now a kid from backward class gets admission to a good private school if his parents cannot afford a seat in the general quota. The kid gets his share of opportunities, he passes out from a good school, at par with the general category candidates, and then competes fairly in for the IITs and IIMs, with no reservation. That ensures that we get the best of doctors and engineers and managers. The society benefits as a whole. In 30 years, two generations can get the benefit and the society would move to a more equal platform. The rich will not block the way for the poor and we would have a fair and just system in place.
After 30 years, re-asses the situation and remove the reservation if the need be. We would be able to achieve what we have hoped for but have not achieved in last 55 years of reservation.

To do so, we need more primary schools, more teachers, more books and more scholarships, not the reservation in IIMs and IITs.

Mr Arjun Singh, are you reading?

( The views belong to the writer and are not intended to offend any caste or creed.)

Beginners guide to Pseudo Intellectualism

5 Rules to become a Pseudo Intellectual.

Now don't ask me what Pseudo Intellectualism is all about? Incognizance is something, my friend, pseudo intellectuals are definitely against!
I searched the web but there was no definition available so I decided to define it. (One more thing that I have done to save this world !...and the Noble Peace Prize still eludes me!)

Pseudo Intellectualism:
Function: Noun
Meaning: Devotion to the exercise of Pseudo Intellect or to Pseudo Intellectual pursuits.
(If you have not understood the meaning of Pseudo Intellectualism by now, that means that you are looking for intellectual content in this article and hence, by the power vested in me as the head of the Pseudo Intellectual council, I deem you unfit to be a part of the Pseudo Intellectual community and hence bar you from reading any further!!!)

For those who have understood what it means, you need to know what is expected of you as a Pseudo Intellectual. It is about appearing knowledgeable, when you know nothing. It is about being able to argue with out having any stance, it is about being able to talk on matters you have no idea about and come up with catchy lines which have no relevance to the discussion at hand but still leave people in awe.

Let us now go through what it takes to become a Pseudo Intellectual.

Rule 1: NEVER READ A BOOK.

Gaining knowledge is against the basic spirit of Pseudo Intellectualism. It is a total NO-NO. Books make you wise. They make you think and they show the path towards intellectual enlightment and away from Pseudo Intellectualism. Wise guys are not eccentric (and I am using the 'guys' word to refer to both men and women) and that leaves the world such a bland place to be. The intellectuals are the one who look for logic or abstractness in the forms of expression. Now logically that means that any expression is either logical or abstract, either black or white? Why a thing can't be both, logically abstracted or have an abstract logic?
Now as, you might have noticed, it makes no sense at all and that is the very crux of the Pseudo Intellectualistic philosophy.
And now you know why we are against the books. Books will get a sense of logic in you, which is like poison for the Pseudo Intellectual in you.

Rule 2: ALWAYS READ A BOOK REVIEW.

Unawareness is something we cannot afford. The beauty of being Pseudo Intellectual is in being pseudo and yet appearing intellectual. Confusing? Let us see how to do it.
Read a book review and you would know about the writer's style, the pros and cons, the plot and the characters and that is all that you need to know to talk about over a cup of coffee/a mug of beer/a glass of wine.
Agreed that what you be saying or talking about is going to be the reviewer's understanding of the book, but then, you don't need to have a understanding of your own! You are a Pseudo Intellectual, not an intellectual, remember! Let the intellectuals do all the dirty work and we would just reap the benefits. And who cares about the originality?
The above argument holds for all sorts of means of expressions, not just books.
Never visit an art gallery but read about the art reviews. Do not watch a movie but read the reviews. (Incase you are reading rediff reviews, make sure you read the comments put on Raja Sen's reviews. Raja Sen is a Pseudo Intellectual; you do not want one Pseudo Intellectual to influence the other!)

Rule 3: SPEAK IN A LANGUAGE ALIEN TO THE AUDIENCE.

Now you might be wondering that you would need to learn a new language all together. If yes, then you have not yet realized the spirit of being Pseudo Intellectual, say one thing and mean the other, and when you master the art of being a Pseudo Intellectual, you would say one thing and mean nothing.
Read the subject again. If I meant what I had written, I would be writing this is the language which only I can understand. What I mean, and I am explaining this only for the purpose of you budding Pseudo Intellectuals, is that speak in a language which is difficult to understand.
Use a quote no one has heard before by a celebrity about whom no one has heard either. That will leave no one but you to vouch for its authenticity and you would be an expert on the life and deeds of that celebrity. So, you would become an expert without even doing anything. Now you know the advantage of being a Pseudo Intellectual!
Use very heavy words. Make a list of words having more than 15 characters, remember them by heart. Use them as frequently as you can. Most management articles are full of such words. They look glossy, and they make very little sense to the average people. So, when you use them, everybody would perceive you to be smart and intelligent.
Have as long sentences as possible. People have short memories. So, when you use long sentences, then whatever little sense it was supposed to make, would be lost in the middle and it would have nothing but a list of heavy words perfectly intangible for the average intelligentsia and the minds devoid of ability for concentrating for long periods of time. The last sentence was an example. It has 51 words and 242 characters to convey the fact that all you need to do, is to speak bullshit!
Statistics, my dear friend, are like magic tricks. Always useless, but they leave the audience in awe. Just take two numbers, divide one by the other, the order doesn't matter, get a percentage and use that in the discussion irrelevant of the context.

Rule 4: VOICE MODULATION IS IMPORTANT.

Always remember, a Pseudo Intellectual is someone who is pseudo and is perceived to be an intellectual. People who speak slowly and in high base are considered intelligent. Look at the politicians, who speak at the top of their voice, do you think they are intelligent? No.
Remember Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Mohan Singh? Now you know what I mean.
When you have nothing to say, think of something which makes no sense, lower the volume so that is just about audible, speak slowly so that it takes longer amount of time, lower the base and say it. For example, dreams are flight from the known to the unknown. You say it normally, and you would realize that everybody knows that! Say it the way I have advised you, doesn't it sound very intelligent?
Low voice, slow pace are the hall mark of a brain which spends most of the time thinking and less time speaking. So, you can create that impression even if that is not natural to you. That is the whole idea!

Rule 5: LEARN FROM THE MASTERS.

Read the interviews on page 3. Watch the one on one host shows. Observe bollywood actors and cricketers.
Always answer in English even if the question was asked in Hindi. Everybody understands Hindi, so why make yourself accessible to all? You have worked hard to get the knowledge (or the lack of it), why share it easily.
Observe actors telling you how much research they have done for a role when all they have done is to visit the parlors and the saloons. Who cares about reality, the perceptions matter.
Use the history well. Speak of great leaders as if you know them personally, even if they were dead three centuries ago.
Blame it on the USA whenever you can. The reservation system is responsible for the death of Kalpana Chawala in the space mishap. Relate things even if they do not have any relation. We thrive on spontaneity and scandals. Create them if necessary.

The last and the most important tip, have an opinion even if you do not know about what.
Even if you think that this blog is trivial and not worth your comment, put it. And you can use the content of this blog in your own name. Nobody will be sued! Pseudo Intellectuals are magnanimous. They don't care!