Soul Wrenching

Finally I get to come back to this long forgotten page and blog again. The months have been crazily loaded with work and I am sometimes amazed by the amount of work I can put in without a break, 7 days a week. Over this period I have picked up something very very useful. How to deal with people next to the land of the rising sun. So this post will talk about what you should know when you deal with them and should things go another way (which they will) then how to work your way back to office the next day morning. So here goes.

First the definition. Who are they? They are generally females. I suspect they have a 1:100 male female ratio in the South and the other way around in the North. Which is why there is a lot of happiness in the South and plenty of frustration in the North. Women are never know to be frustrated by the lack..oh well..that is another topic. I must not digress. So well, they look very much like any Oriental person and speak like them. Yeah, that was a no-brainer. What makes them different is the immense pleasure they draw from applying maskara and lipstick for about 20 times during a day, irrespective of where they are seated. If they have been putting their lips to good use this statistic could go up.

Next, they are known to work for 30 hours a day and expect you to work that hard as well. Not that they accomplish anything great in this duration cos they don't know what are they trying to do. To put it short, they have no aim in life. They work like how I would surf for porn. No set agenda or target in mind. Find whatever you can and keep hopping from site to site. They also have a convoluted sense of a bargain. Most of us would feel happy if we got a tie free with a shirt. Not the them. They want the shop free with the shirt.

Now how do you deal with them? Sorry. You never deal with them, they deal with you. They love to order around and just when you thought you had enough and say no, they say.."Xcuse me, aaaa...cun you spik a leetle slouwly..aaa...you aare thoo faasth for us". Wonder where was this excuse when we were enquiring about her holiday. They call when it is late in the night even in India and get you to commit on unreasonable demands while you mumble in your sleep. Ok, here comes the ping again..Tora Tora..oh that's Japanese, but BAH!!

A Big Man

This is not like a Ruskin Bond novel. It happened to me yesterday. And for the first time in 3 years of teaching I felt I did not own the class. I got in a class just like any other class, after a full day of classes. Nearly exhausted and of couse as usual full of cheeky humour, I start my class when a student gets up and says he needs to go to the toilet. I make another cheeky comment (something that I will come to regret later), without even looking at him. He went out and later came back. I noticed he had his mother with him, so I assumed he must not be well. He sat down, and then suddenly called me, pulled out a recording device from his pocket, said "DI 1.1" and told me "Sir, can you please state your name and keep this in your pocket for this lecture. I am visually impaired".

It hit me with more force than anything has in recent past. I was speechless for a second and had no clue what to say. The class moved on and I truly found him to be brilliant. I was doing a complex data interpretation file which people with pen paper and a pair of eys found tough to even understand the question while this guy would just listen carefully and give me the logic of solving it and also calculations. His mother sat by him taking down the dicatation and the calculations and being his eyes. I dont know how I can really capture this in words. It had to be seen. Made me feel so little.

Not cos I sympathize. Cos he does not need it.

Back to Back Buck Buck

I have been away for way too long. Call it a blogger's block or lack of time, but apologies for being away for so long. January was a month of sorts with tons happening, bringing me closer to a settled status. I got my car and it just felt so good to see something purchased from years of penny pinching and evading parking tickets. Haha!! And in what has been the biggest thing I have done till date, I finally have a piece of land that bears my name. What a high it will be to see a board up on that place and read "This property belongs to Kanishka Agiwal. Trespassers will be caught and forced to spend one day with him, all expenses paid by them". All of this in a span of 2 weeks, which nearly brought me to a conclusion that a girl is just another week away, but oh well that still continues to evade me. A trip to Mumbai to attend a friend's wedding almost had me drooling at the prospects of meeting more and more girls at the wedding, but as usual none caught my fancy. Why do girls driving on some scooter in front of my car always interest me?? Cos they are too tough to pin down?? Do I like challenges?? Sudoku, here I come.

At my place finding a girl is an operational detail. But getting the menu ready, the place where they want to hold the wedding, the jewelery and dresses are critical factors. We are masters at reverse engineering. Once these are clear, the girl can just fit into the whole scheme of things.

What do you do if you have a co-passenger who is scared of flying and goes into a trance the moment the aircraft starts its engines and reaches feverish pitch, chanting "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" by the time the plane takes off. Nothing much. Carry cotton next time and eye blinds.

I spent a very comfortable night at a very close friend's place in Mumbai just when I was wondering where I would spend the night. But surprisingly the one thing that I have come to associate them is with the absolutely UP bhaiyya song "Billo Rani" that blared in their car on the way to work the next day. Why do I always catch the weirdest details when there is lot more to reminisce??

Annual Checkup

This is not a review on Taare Zameen Par. I will not talk about how the movie could have been completed in 30 mins yet 3 hours seemed like a short time. Or how the ending is so predictable yet so enjoyable. Or how the kids acted a little mature for their age. But it is more about reliving your adolescent days. Watching each antic and reminiscing those carefree days. That we have all dug our noses and wiped the wiggly gooey mass somewhere away from sight, even if it meant our pockets. Play imaginary games while taking a bath, complete with machine guns and sound effects. Sing loudly in the loo. Sit in a double decker bus, feel the wind hit you and push all your hair back.

Eat mud, fight like there is no tomorrow and come back and brush away the wound. Collect tadpoles in dirty water, feed them with wheat flour and lose interest after a week. Not knowing where to start drawing when given a sheet a paper and invariably end up drawing hills, river, trees and some birds. Bite of the black tops of Nataraj pencils. Run into the school bus and rush to the window seat, esp the rear seats, cos when the bus goes over a hump it is a nice jump. Start packing the school bag slyly when the day is just about to end, and as soon as the bell rings, race to the school gate. Get punished in class and stand out. Rub your palms together to make them warm so that the caning hurts less. Buy that colorful candy sold only outside the school gates. Get drenched so badly in the rain that the leather shoes are full of water when you remove them. Pour water on them so that they look polished and the headmaster does not catch you in the assembly.

Yes, I am playing with your emotions, tugging them where they are the softest, taking you back in time, to stop, take a break and smile. The year was a rush, now get your annual servicing done. Jump into your shorts, wear your slip-ons and walk without a care in the world. You have another year to hit soon.

Peep Into My Life

Finally a lot to cheer in life. Like I say, I always love the month of December. The fiasco not so subtly mentioned in the previous post, turned out very beautifully in my favour. What it means in material and self actualization terms, time will tell.

After plenty of research and bargaining, finally decided to buy my own car. The Suzuki SX4. Had a tough choice between Honda City and SX4 but what tilted the balance was a price differential, after sales service and ground clearance. Should be zipping in this early January next year. Next stop, an apartment. Will this impress a girl?? Or six packs still rule the roost??


After a gap of nearly 15-16 years, I fell ill for a record 36 hours running a nice temperature only because I wanted to save water and ended up washing my car in the rain, getting drenched completely. The feeling was lousy but the pampering was out of the world. No one shouts, no one asks you to run for errands and you can get the choicest things (read soups and more soups) to eat..err..drink.

Been quite away from the blogging world, but hopefully with a lighter head I should spend more time here. And all those who haven't updated their blogs, can you please do so ASAP??

I Know, Too Many No's!!

I want to write something that is meaningful and touches you deep in your heart. It is going to be an orangutan gargantuan effort but I am not one who shies away from challenges in life. While the preceding two weeks were responsible for a bulk of my hair loss over the years, the succeeding week promises to be something similar. And hopefully, if I walk this test of fire I should come out like a solid gold bar. No, am not revealing more…like I always maintain with my blog, I never want you to go without a smile on your face.

I must have seen Rang De Basanti umpteen number of times, but the finale always churns my innards. No, not as a laxative, but more from the point of partial paralysis, if you know what I mean. A state where you drop all that you are doing and start relating something in your life to that scene and wondering if you ever will get a chance to do what they did. No, not to kill!! To go live on radio and charm your listeners. For fame, for glory, for the greater good of Rome.

I am in a mood to splurge. To own assets. No, not the Pamela Anderson types, you dummy!! I want to drive around in style, have a piece on this earth that bears my name and pamper myself. It should be possible after years of evading parking fees and making dinner out of smuggled groceries from the breakfast table. No, I am not cheap. I am just being resourceful.

And finally, it is the month of Dec. Of itchy skin, good things and a holiday season. It has always been memorable since time immemorial. (Recursive loop..and a loop is always recursive). What does this month have in store, time will tell. No, I am not hinting at anything, I am just reaching out for a mint.

Globalization

So we all get chain mails. We all get mails of 4 year old kid suffering from rare heart disorder for the last 10 years. The mails are always from Zambia/Congo/some-civil-war-inflicted-nation. But what is new is that we Indians are warming up to these diseases as well. We are embracing them slowly but steadily, with the respect that begets these rare lympho-whatever dhakans. On the auspicious day of Diwali, I need to get my good deed for the day and hence this I am the forwardings this plea from my friend (No, he is not like a friend from Orkut, whom I can’t place when and why I had added him, let alone remember who he is).

My dear Friend
My name is vijayakumar from Vellore in Tamilnadu, INDIA. http://allnetinfotech.ongoingprofit.com

Ahh ongoingprofit. No no, it is fine. My name is Kanishka from India. www.google.com. I guess this is the latest thing…to drop website addresses at the drop of a hat. Very hep.

I am 25 years old, living with mother and two brothers and I am affected by the Seronegative Rhematoid Arthritis hospital number. 587799 B, CMC, Vellore. My brothers Pugazendiran affected by focal and segmental sclerosis of kidney from 1997. He was take the treatment in CMC No: 475732 B. Vellore. Another brother Vijayakanth affected by suffering Seizure disorder from 1995. He is getting continuous treatment in CHAD Hospital, Bagayam, Vellore. Tamil Nadu. Hospital No.249903 A.

Poora family in exotic disease bijanus!! Brain, kidney, knee…between the three of you the entire market has been captured with absolutely no product cannibalization.

I don’t think about your country, age, sex, race, educational, anything.

And why not. I am your friend right, and we all make friends considering a subset of the following parameters. Come on, please start thinking about me. A/S/L??

I need a help to save my family. I have an information website. Plz visit http://allnetinfotech.ongoingprofit.com. Clicks blue color text lines on the left side or top side. Search anything in the search box and click the first result and browse something. Finally forward this webaddress to your friend and relatives.

The above activities save my family brother illness. Plz Do.

That is a lot of instructions. Why don’t you instead send an address where I can send my cheque. Isn’t that an easier thing to do? Paypal/Funds transfer, anything. If you need help, I will send you a couple of mails that explain how funds transfer happen to Nigeria. I am sure to Vellore it will be far easier. Or if you know any have good contacts with Tamilnadu State Transport Corp. then I could send you some money via the bus driver. Vellore is not too far away from Blore you see, and he wont get too much time to pocket the money.

Thanks
http://allnetinfotech.ongoingprofit.com
S.vijaya kumar

Vijaya, I get it. I got this link the first time. And next time please make a nice website with a decent name. For starters you could use http://allfamily.ondeathbed.com

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Written for Jammag Blog