A Contradiction!?

Today in the morning I read an article in TOI by Subroto Bagchi titled Life & Its Contradictions …
Let me quote some interesting things from it before I start….

“Faced with a contradiction, most of us usually look for the truth, instead of dealing with the contradiction itself. The truth is always much more comfortable. The difficult but inevitable thing in life is that the truth always reveals itself in contradictions. The packaging never gets any better.”

“Who must guide us in moments of indecision? The concept of the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna is symbolic. Essentially, every one is part Krishna and part Arjuna. The Krishna in us is the voice of reason. The Arjuna in us is about the responsibility to act. Without one, the other is incomplete. Action without reason and reason without action are both inherently destructive.”

“The interesting truth is, when you clean the ink, it is just a transfer of the mess to another surface. In reality, it is impossible to clean anything in the world without making something else dirty in the process.”

When I read this, I was totally mesmerized by it. What he said made so much sense to me. It was happening to me. A Contradiction!!!

My contradiction about work:

My Principle: In any organization your work speaks for itself and you need not go around blowing horns about the work you do.
Reality: You need to do the latter and do it always. Blow the damn horns about your work.




I am or rather I must say “was” a narcissist. You can read that between the lines of my principle. Today I did the unthinkable. We have an automation tool in place for making some folder which is later sent to our onsite folks (For non-IT guys generally Onsite is a jargon used for people in the IT industry operating at client locations). I was supposed to use it from today. So I made some enhancements (For IT guys, I enhanced to get latest versions of files from VSS which is like a small script of say 5 lines thats all). Then I did what I thought I would never do. I mailed to the whole team about this enhancement; well okay that’s fine since the team needs to know about this… But then I mailed my Project Manager also!!! I don’t know why I did this. My principle says I must not do this and then I do it. Did my reading of the article trigger this? Did the Krishna in me outgrow Arjuna?
And then Do I still Love my self? If yes then how could I do this? These are unanswerable…
The truth is Reality Bites and bites hard. I know what I did is not considered wrong in the industry. But why am I feeling the guilt, the damn guilt that made me write this post?
???????...........
I don’t know…... hmmmm.....

Holi Hai….

Dam, Jalali, Bedi, Amit and Jeetu... Wild!!!!

Holi, the festival of colors, one of the most awaited festivals in India. I was also waiting for this festival. This is my first holi without my family. I did miss holgi (a sweet dish) that is specially prepared during Holi. But otherwise it was a great Holi this year. My holi celebrations started on the eve of the day of colors only.
We all…. Amit, Sid, Jeetu, Jalali and Sangu went to Amit and Jeetu’s place that night. We had decent food and then started playing cards. We played mandigoat… I don’t know whether I have spelled it right.. But it was too good… We played up to 2 and then slept off….



From Left: Santanu, Mayukh,Debu, KT, Amit
and Jeetu trying hard to come in the foto...

The big day of holi came…. I had brought my dress for Holi already….Colors were also arranged a prior. Even we had Bhang ready with us…. At around 10:30 in the morning KT and Sid came home… (Sid went home that night for mysterious reasons yet to be found out JJ)… They had been colored already…. We sat for some more time and then went out to eat something… After eating we first put colors on each other and then embraced each other shouting… “Holi Hai”… It was amazing… Suddenly I felt a gush of energy in me with all the colors on me… Then we went around KD road which was a waste… Then we decided to go back home… As we started to leave… I got a call from Mayukh saying that Debu is in his home… We all rushed to his home and Dam was colored from top to bottom… He was in santanu’s room… The room was all red, green, blue and what not… It was just too good…. Then we all decided we need to go to some water place… We decided to go to Balmuri… So all of us went to Balmuri… There was a long discussion as to where we will get down in water… Finally a consensus was reached… Half of us in very shallow water and half in pretty deep water…. At the end of if all were in deep water… The best part the swimming or whatever by Sid… He almost drowned me and KT with him!!!!... And then the expression on Amit’s face once he came from his daring venture into Kaveri river was too good to miss…. Mayukh and Sangu were the stars, swimming, diving and motivating me and jeetu to follow them… Finally we came out from the water and went to have tea…
I had started the process of “Tearing Clothes” on our way when I tore a piece from Sid’s kurta and tied it on my head… That was wild… But something more wilder was yet to happen… When we came for tea I continued the process by tearing amit’s RBK shirt and then Jalali’s shirt and then Sangu’s shirt also… How can then I be spared… Sid pounced on me and started pulling my shirt… But unfortunately, again I got hold of his kurta and tore some more part of it….. But then the in evitable happened… Everyone pounced on me and tore my shirt into pieces… Literally there was nothing left of the shirt!!!
Just take a look below…

On the bullet with my Torn Shirt... I drove my bike 15 Kms wearin this...

We went back home and had lunch… Jeetu prepared Bhang, which was pretty weak.. We all drank Bhang and started waiting to get high… Well it didn’t really happen… But for a brief fifteen minutes we laughed like crazy… was it Bhang or not I don’t know…
I never imagined Holi being so fun without family… It was a great experience… Thanks to all my friends... Grazie ..


Practising American Football...

Sleepless at 4 am

From my archive of lines that I write when I am really upset…

Sleepless at 4 am

25th Nov 2005, I am sitting in my bed and wondering “what am I doing?”
I look at time in my mobile. It reads… 4:00am!!!
I wonder what was I doing till all this time. I haven’t slept!!!
Then I remember I was thinking about life. What exactly? I don’t know… I just sat wondering what is going on in my life currently. Am I happy with the way I have treated myself? Where am I heading towards in the future? Do I have a goal? Do I have friends who care for me? What will my friends remember me as? What will my family remember me as?
God and what not… The point is why was I getting all these thoughts on that day and was sleepless. I have suffered from insomnia in my earlier years of life. But this was different. The answers I gave myself sent a chill down my spine!!! The questions have been troubling me since then every day in and day out. The answers are more frightening.
I have been seeing 4:00am on my clock almost every day.
I don’t know where this Insomnia is going to lead me!!!!

God help me!!!

God did help me I guess… Today it is 14th Mar 2006…. Its 104 days since I wrote this. I think back and wonder why I wrote this. I was upset because I was thinking about the things around me that were not under my control. Today as I write this, I still feel sleepless at 4 am, but there is a difference…. I am not frightened by the answers that I am getting to the questions I have now. I hope I am going on the right track….

Go on… And the Faith will return!!!!.....

Pan Wala

March 5th 2006…
Arif had come from banglore. So we decided to roam around play pool and then watch a movie. We went to watch Taxi No. 9.2.11. It was a 6-9 show. We were three of us; Arif, Anshu and me. So after watching the movie we decided to shop a bit and go to dinner. I suggested we go to Hotel Green. So we went there. First something about the Hotel. Hotel Green was a studio before named Premier Studio. This was the studio where the TV Soap “The Sword of Tippu Sultan” was shot. After a fire incident in which the producer Sanjay Khan also suffered severe burns; this Studio was converted into a Hotel. Okay lets get back to the mainstream. So we three sat and ordered for the food. It was already 10:20PM. I love pan (Beda). So I decided to get pans for all three of us. There is a pan shop in the hotel premises itself. So I went to this Pan Wala and asked him to make three pans. He said, that the pan chatni which gives the typical taste to pan is over and hence he cant make it. I said, I have to eat pan and so asked to make pan without the chatni.
So I am standing there and waiting for him to make the pans. He had the radio switched on and it was playing great Hindustani music. I love Hindustani music. It has always happened that I go to this shop and always Hindustani music is being played. So I commented on this. He said he is also a classical artist. I wasn’t really sure what to make of it. Suddenly he opened a container and out came the most beautiful flute I have seen in such close vicinity. It was a marvelous experience. I was elated to see the flute. It was a beauty. I asked him whether I can touch it. He obliged. My hands were shaking when I took that flute in hand. I handed it back as soon as possible. I was afraid I might spoil the beauty of the flute. The pan wala then played a piece for me. Even though it was not a great piece but surely it took me to cloud no 9.
Then we talked for 10 minutes more and one more surprise was waiting. The pan wala was from Orissa but knew kannada very well. He had studied in Gadag!!! Best part he had studied in Sawai Gandharwa Aashram…. I was startled. The pan wala had leant flute in the aashram where the likes of Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Gangubai Hangal have learned there ABC of music.
I thanked him for the pan and went back to my dinner.
It was a great experience I had. So much of music is filled in nuke and corner of India. Just we need people to appreciate it. I will try my level best to do it.
I slept the most sound sleep in last 6 months that day!!!! Thanks to the Pan Wala!!!