Random ramblings

Its been quite some time that i wrote any thing. Not that i am busy with work ( would come to it later) but some how not motivated to sit and write  ( writer's block ;) ). But now and then one of my friends who happen to stumble upon my posts have a word or 2 good things to say about my writing ( they almost made me believe that i write interesting stuff :P ) ......but now i am actually a bit short of topics to write

Before joining TISS, i am quite excited to know about life @TISS and life after TISS but hardly found any blogs ( Babu Bhaskaran sir ,by any chance if u are reading this, i did read all ur blog entries :) )... and hence used to write about Life @ TISS and most of readers of the blog are TISS aspirants . Now being ceremoniusly kicked out of TISS with a degree in hand , i am fast becoming an obsolete student 

Unlike some of my gifted friends i am not even gifted with good english grammer , so won't attempt any thing closely related to poetry, story telling ( i can see the sense of relief on my friends faces who were lucky enough to listen me sing :P ). 

so here is what i am gonna write

(1) I recently decided that i would plunge full time into cycling . Did an intensive 20 days research on every thing related to cycle ( details would be part of my first post regarding cycling)

(2) here comes the interesting part .....In college there are consistently a small set of people ( quite small literally) who romance IR profile to the core ...who can be found flaunting PK PADHI ( well..for mortals, its a book on labour laws) and throwing widgets of labour laws to unsuspecting classmates ....so i would be writing of my experiences of actually working in a factory :) 

so lets see how it goes ......

The Saga of My Singing Career 2

Continued...................




Incidence 3: The young singer in me had grown up amidst many small performance in my colony ( there use to be a power cut every day evening and all the colony kids in my street use to gather at a place and play "Anthakshari" ). Its a different story that they discontinued this game and shifted to others with no scope of singing ( i don't know why they keep changing the rules ). Any how now the grown up singer in me had joined Engineering first year and its time for some ragging .
 This time i had a much smaller crowd of 4 senior girls ( heheh..they dont have a chance to escape). At that point of time they don't know what's gonna hit them , they made the biggest mistake of their lives . THEY ASKED ME TO SING" (:D :D :D)


Singing i did , but they are rather particular about minor mistakes like the lyrics ( the actual song from film "Gharshana" which says hero rose from some thing and i said hero drowned in some thing ..what difference does it make ;) )


so after few unsuccesful attempts to correct me and having laughed their heart content , they left me ( now seriously tell me , how many singers out there had this talent of making their audience laugh )




Incidence 4: Its some time during my training in Infosys and we had personality development classes. The rules of the class are simple : who ever comes late should either sing or dance. if they don't , they can ask any of their friends to do so.( wait: i didn't delebrately come late for the opportunity , u know opportunities come knocking the door to the talented)
The strength of audience this time is some 30 odd and they were all well versed with my singing talennt ( thanks to all the nights we spent in classrooms doing boring coding stuff )
Now this friend of mine came late , and the facilitator asked her to sing . My friend, who did had this uncanny ability of recognising talent better than her, suggested my name . The facilitator had no issues , but the class shouted in unison "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
I did come late the next day , but for some reason i had been excused from the rules ( might be the facilitator had deep respect for singers and hence the exception, i would love to believe so )


I prepared more vigorously this time expanding the range of songs i can sing (covering Telugu,Kannada, Hindi and English) for i am going to join TISS and i would sure get a chance during the ragging sessions  but alas, my seniors are far more intelligent or might be the word travelled far and wide from Arabian sea coast(visakhapatnam) to Indian ocean coast(mumbai)..(are the sea names correct???, it doesn't matter). They didn't ask me to sing :( :(


But as sharukh says "picture abhi baki hei" , who knows ..i will try for auditions for "Indian idol" and become popular






so my saga continues............................................

The Saga of My singing Career 1

This time , i promise . There would definitely be  a second part (as i had already wrote that too :P )


Well it might come as a surprise looking at the title of the post , but yes i did tried my hands (rather my Voice) on many platforms ,but sadly my audience do not have artistic heart ( better word would be audacity) to encourage a great talent (:D) like me 



so below are the few incidences on how an upcoming singer's dreams had been crushed, grinded and what ever ....


Incidence 1 : Its year 1997 (or may be 98 it doesn't matter). I am in either 5th or 6th standard and our school won the inter city cricket championship . So to celebrate the occasion , our entire school students (around 800, quite a good number for my first performance) had been gathered in the ground ( The concept of cheerleaders is not yet thought over by Lalit Modi then, so we rather had celebrations after the match ) . One of the teacher announced that who ever is interested can come on to the stage and sing a song . This call is more than enough for the artist in me and immediately dragged my friend (Amaresh) along with me and been the first people on stage to sing the song which i had been practising for the past 10-15 days (not for the occasion though)
   As and when we started the first few lines (its from the famous kamal hasan movie that time , "Indian" )and song goes like this "Pachani chilakalu todunte , paade koyala vintunte (which literally translates to green parrots be on our side and koyal listening to our song...:) ) , we were stopped and asked to get off the stage 


reason: they changed the rules of the game ( does we had a role to play in that , we don't know) and said we should not be singing cinema songs . so that's the end of my first performance


Incidence 2 : Its again some time in the school and this time i had a fool proof plan so that no one would be stopping me midway . I had given my name for district level singing competition ( quite ambitious considering my reputation as singer at school and at home ) . I dragged my dad to take me to the venue on a sunday ( poor dad..can't say No ) and this time i had a modest audience of around 100 people . I did complete my song this time , but i did observe that by the time i completed the song only 50 remained in the hall ( i love to believe that they had completed their singing and after listening to me , would have thought they don't stand a chance).


Result: hahaha...if u still are looking for some fairy tale ending with me winning , u should definetely give me a call to listen me singing ...On second thoughts, u can send me an SMS with ur interest of being my audience , i can call and sing for u :P


To be continued..........................

Ek Chalis ki Last Local 1

well to start , let me put the standard disclaimers


The title and content of the post are no way related except for "local" part and its just another trick to attract some eye balls :P  and this post is inspired (which in other times is to say "i copy pasted" ) by one post on similar topic by one of my super seniors


But all the contents of this post are from my experiences with mumbai locals in the past one year ( 2 field works and 1 summer internship) during which i covered Harbour,central and western lines  and hence most eligible person to pen down my experiences




Ok, now cutting long story short , let me list down some etiquetes , unspoken rules , observations and etc etc on locals

• You will never get any space to board the local when it is on the platform , but even if u manage a small 1/2 foot space , the passengers will take care of space for rest of ur body , but the next dialogue u hear is "Chalo andar chalo"
• Remember , it is customary to let the passengers board the train and then u get out of the train especially if it is DADAR or CST during the peak hours ..don't believe me ?? try getting out first and i will give u a prize :P
• Carrying luggage during peak hours is a feat worth mentioning in the guiness book records ( infact the feat deserves more )
• Don't venture any where near the seats if ur stop is in the next 3 stops ...the question to ask is " utarna hei" and wow u will be given the way
• Forget what ur parents might have said u in childhood  that don't get down from a running bus/train etc.........It is expected that u get down much before the train stops ...and definetely don't be first person at the door step , u are literally expected to jump out of a running train ...Uthuro uthuro is the war cry for getting down which is religiously chanted by all regular commuters :)
• Now some stats, the probability of finding species from venus ( the fair species) in general compartment during the peak hours is as frequent as catching a glimpse of manmohan smiling ( i know pretty poor analogy , want to mention Mamata banerjee but i don't want to be popular so soon ;)  )
• Wallets and mobiles are meant to be kept in bags and bags to be clutched close to u with both hands ..this is the norm ...want to try some thing different ( do remember to invite me while buying ur new mobile :P )

It is an experience and an achievement in itself to board a train going towards  CST in govandi station during the morning peak hours ( TISSIANS can relate with me)


Having said every thing , Mumbai locals are the life line and the fastest mode of travel in this over crowded yet charming city   and to be a true mumbaikar u should survive the locals first :D :D

Harsha Bogle at IIM A

Just watched the video on "Talent vs Attitude" given by Harsha Bogle at IIMA

There are some points which he mentioned which had a deep impact and which we pass through in daily life but dont recognise

Coming to the point:

"When there is an option of redoing some thing and when u have feeling that u can correct ur self even if u do some thing wrong, there is very good probability that u would do some thing wrong

Treat every occassion as unique and give 100% attention and dedication to the task at hand and u would do ur best

Thats what all it takes to be successfull. Giving 100% of the efforts every single time

Irony of Indian politics

I some times wonder looking at the so called politicians
they give a image as if they had dedicated their entire for the service of people
i would never say that one should give away his riches or hardwork for the sake of common man..but the best one can do is not to take from them

never we get to see the people who work at the grass root level nor at remote level..

well the below incident is just one example of how politics happen in India...

there is a parlimentary constituency called "ANAKAPALLI"(near to visakhapatnam, AP)

now 3 political parties contested for this seat (Ruling congress,main opponent --TDP, newly formed party of chiranjeevi...praja rajyam)

now in the elections the congress won the seat.....so far good

After the demise of CM. YSR, his son (who wants to become CM on hierarchy couldn't manage to do so) launced a new party (YSR Congress) and the sitting MP (from congress ) shifted to YSR congress

after the election debacle, praja rajyam party folded its party and merged into congress ..so effectively the guy contested from praja rajyam is now a congress man

so which party won the seat now????

SBI PO and how it went????

well today i had given SBI PO exam...so thought of sharing my adventures on reaching the centre ,using google maps etc etc

well i almost dropped the idea of writing any bank Po exams,but this one student of mine all of a sudden called me one day and said that he is going to buy the form and asked me whether i want one...
lazy me ,thought that any way i need not not go ,so asked him to bring one for me

never prepared and one day while going through pile of mails in FC1 (infy),in search of my XAT score card ,i found this big envelppe containing hall ticket of SBI
never bothered to open and least interested to write ,but since i already paid 500 of my hard earned money(may be a bit exageration)and center being in mysore ,decided to go for the exam

the centre is maharni college,mysore
A google search gave me historical imp of college(it is established in 1869)so thought every one in vicicnity will be knowing it

finally took the pains in filling biodata form,getting the certifcates xeroxed(why they want certificates during the exam time itself) and had a detail search in google and took 6 printouts of detailed map to recah there using google maps(in office printer ;) )
slept at friend's house by keeping the alarm for 6:20(not for me to wake up ;) )and woke up at 7:10 and out of my room by 7:45
earlier plan is to walk the distance,as i had detailed map with some 10-12 pointers on the way

got down the bus,(the driver said its just around the corner,idiotic me trusted more of google)
my plan is to try to find out the college by 8:30,if not take an auto(exam at 9:15)
started walking,and am happy that i can see all the pointers on the map ,but i completed all the pointers but still did not reach the spot,time 8:35
asked an old gentle man there,and he is very empathetic and siad the it is 3 km from the point we aree there and better take an auto(actually i walked those 3 kms and the point he is refering is the point where i started my journey ;( )
but still,trusted my gmaps and kept walking,now without to be seen by the old man

after some time,the road gave way to more like a village setup Time 8:40
its the time to panic and went to an auto and bargained for 30rs and got down at exactly same location where i got down the bus in the morning

so essentially i paid 30 rs and walked 3 kms for taking sbi po today
exam went fine
but writing 5 essays is the pain of life time ,some how wrote it ...may be who knows they might even select me

so this is how my sunday's day out for me

how i spent last 24 hrs??

well today is Ambedkar's jayanthi ,so official holiday for us.
my manager postponed my appraisal meeting which is scheduled for yesterday evening
but he gave me enough work to last for a week,and i know he is going to ask the update tomorrow morning(having given the work yesterday at 6:00pm)
ha ..who cares i will start ,but its not going to complete any time soon

there was huge rain yesterday night also,and obviously power cut.
i went to Amit's room and we watched MARINE movie till 12:00 Am in the night,then i came to my room after copying some movies
well guess what i had done then,started watching toy story -1 and then 2 till 4:00Am in the morning
so all plans of getting up early,preparing chicken biryanee (yaya i am a self proclaimed .best cook of mysore,naa my friend circle) had gone ...
so having woken up at 11:30 in the morning,started watching which movie(i don't remember now ;) ) then in the after noon watched AVATAR continued with HAPPY DAYS(telugu movie)
so finally at 5:00PM i came to office and writing this blog :)
now have plans of going to library and reading hindu editorial ,heheheh