MERRY CHRISTMAS to all of you.

I just read my last year’s Christmas post. Last year, I wrote I was happy as I had two job offers and was serving my notice period with my employer. This year, I find that I am still looking for a job change. This time I want to go abroad and earn in foreign currency which can make my future better in India. So, basically nothing has changed. Why I didn’t do it then (what I am doing now) is a valid question and I don’t have any answers to that. If any of you has ever job hunted, probably you know then, what a big pain it is. And for the records, I have been doing all through 2010. Some year it has been. I don’t even have a count to the number of interviews I have appeared and taken too, for my firm.

It’s 25th December and I didn’t had the blast I always want to, on Christmas. I went to the church to see Christ, burned candles and came home and took my parents for dinner outside. Another year down and I still have my dream with me, untouched and pure. The dream to spend Christmas with my love amidst snow falls and freezing temperatures in some far off land amidst a lot of Santa’s…. :D

Well, with no idea when that’s going to happen, let me wish all of you once again…MERRY CHRISTMAS. And I hope Santa makes his presence felt for I still believe in his magical presence at the North Pole. All I will do now is to go out in the cold and stare at the star studded sky…it feels magical and I find myself a little more away from reality, closer to Santa….I find peace.

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My Happiness: Decoded

It’s Christmas Eve and I am sitting at my room, alone. As I take a bit of a dark chocolate, I can sense that I am elated. At this point, I am really feeling good. It seems to be a perfect time to have a look at things that really do or can make me happy. Here they go…..

Chocolates and Ice Creams: For me, always a mood lifter, a welcome anytime and satisfaction guaranteed.

Nights spent outside: My night affairs with nature always gear me up. Even if it is one of the deepest lows ever, I get the zeal to jump back. The cold breeze, the silence, the darkness and the awkwardness of the hour makes me feel more in tune with myself. It has always been a mood booster.

Trip/Travel: They are fun to plan and they are the best way to unwind. Though currently I see myself doing that once a year, the target to have them quarterly. Trekking and photography are tightly bound to it and all of it always is very exciting. It’s definitely something which has kept me in motion.

Coding: It is just a 4 years old love story. But it takes me off to another vertical. I feel much more at ease and in control when I see a system or a problem in front of me that needs coding. Java is the city where we first met and it has been all love since. Nothing like a busy day at office, coding the time away.

Games: I love being a gamer. PC Games kill time like no other. They distress me and I feel creatively engaged in something heavenly and unique in a masterly skillful manner. I just love them. Period.

Electronic Gadgets: Whenever i get one, i feel atop the world. I don't have a huge set of them but i do remember the way i felt when i got my Laptop, Digital camera and Phone. Its an occasional indulgence, but worthy enough to last long.

Movies/Blogging: They aren’t a regular always welcome and that’s the reason I name them at the last. But they do have the power to dress up my mood sometimes. Movies have always been a favorite and blogging helps a lot in putting my mind in place.

That looks like a small list. They say i am materialistic in nature and may be i am. But its all of the materialism i care for. :)


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My 2010

Another year comes to an end. The habit of putting in 2010 has to end soon. There won’t be another chance to re-live it. It would forever remain a special one for me. As I always love doing, let me retrospect and try revisiting all the major turns and corners of 2010.

The good ones go as below:

1. I got recruited. I got offers from multiple organizations. I successfully shifted whenever I needed to. To add more to that, I had shifted twice this year. I know that is bad. I say that is good because I ended up in one of the major Investment Banks of the world. I know where I started and I know where I am today.

2. My love got recruited. Believe me you all, this is the best part of this year. This singular fact makes me say that I am never gonna forget 2010 ever in my life. You say it’s no big deal. I say it is. I know what I was into, what we were into and what she was into. It was so big a relief; it was so much needed, it was so essential for us that I don’t even mind terming 2010 as the best year of my life till date.

3. This year gave me football. I was always crazy about it. But in the past few years, I wasn’t living and thinking it. Now I do. I always love madness. Today when I stay awake till 3 AM in the night for matches of Barcelona, I really feel good. It makes me feel I am alive. I have even surpassed my English Premier League fan-friends in covering La-Liga and Champions League. I must Seria-A and Bundesliga are in queue too. The passion for the game which the world cup ignited doesn’t seem to end.

4. I was never appreciated at work. Today I am. I have also been asked to visit US and Canada. That’s not a biggie. Well, it is. It is so new to me that I am not going to let go the feeling. I must admit that it’s very dear to me. I am not someone who can manipulate and oil people up the hierarchy. And when being the person that I am gets things because I deserved it, it deserves to be remembered.

5. I traveled a lot this year, for fun. I had been to Bhandardara, a beautiful hill station near Mumbai and Goa on an official team offsite meet. While the earlier was really crazy with all friends and love and trekking into the hills and having good time, the latter was all about boozing carefree, exquisite lodging experience and flight travels for free. Had it not been for my documents, I would also have travelled to Canada and US this year. Nez…

The bad ones go as below:

1. I scheduled my GMAT exam, forgot the scheduled date and wrongly thought it to be the next day. No one does that. These days, something pretty wrong is on with me and dates. I keep messing them all the time. I lost a good deal of money and my 2 Months. It was hard to get over it.

2. I gave up MBA. Today I can say a NO to an MBA for at least the next three years. I would have loved to do that. But I realized the hard way that I need bucks to take care of my dependents. MBA needs motivation. Motivation is the last thing you can expect of yourself when you have money and responsibilities at hand. The hour asks me to make a difference. I have to try. I had to give up on my MBA dreams.

3. At the start of the year, I moved out of a brokerage firm and got myself into a service based organization. That was a huge mistake. I should have expected bad things to happen when I am moving out of a product based firm. I got amongst people who played politics, who never cared for what I know and soon I found myself doing work which ideally suits graduates fresh out of college. I gave my days and nights for accusations and manipulative mails undermining my merit. I had to give up. I gave up in 3 months, much sooner than what I had expected. I got into a major investment bank. It was great but I did that at the cost of another organization experience on my profile and with a 0% hike. To the people who see my profile today and to me, we only understand how all of this looks today.

4. I got my parents over to stay with me. I always thought that my being the only son added to their woes and left them lonely. I was wrong. They stayed here for six months and they are worse here. They miss their place, they don’t have anyone to talk to, they feel being caged and all of it makes them behave in weird ways. So they are going back. All of this was a big mistake. I did it as I thought of saving bucks as we stayed together. I never thought that staying together was the last thing on their minds.

5. I have become possessed about money. My needs have taken care of me. I always used to be the one who joked about going abroad and my friends know how badly I hated the thought of being left alone in a far off land. I have given them nightmares with my logic and views over the same. It’s the same me which is now in the cat race of going onsite, working abroad and earning bucks. Certainly it’s not the old me anymore. The currency seems to matter a lot to me now. Staying alone doesn’t scare me anymore. I am excited and hopeful about my new thoughts but I am scared too. On the whole, I feel the change which has come in me, is bad. Who likes being driven by money?

That was 2010 for me. I always get emotional and sentimental about the year coming to an end. It always reminds me that nothing stays the same, ever. That change is the only constant makes more sense during this time of the year. But I also wonder what all of this is about. I hope that I am able to do all of this the next year too. And I wish the same for all of you too. Life is strange. As one of my favorite movie quotes go "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you get".

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Why/How to Blog?

Let me try to address the question “Why/How to Blog?”

Many are there who question the same, and many start a blog and give up someday. As I reach the 150 post mark (nothing great but feels great), I thought it would be apt to pen down a few pointers as to why we blog and how we should. Hope it helps someone, somewhere, someway……

1. A blog isn’t only about writing. There are blogs about everything that you can think of. Blogs range from photography, cartoons, movies, wines, cooking, jokes, self-learning, technology, travel, politics, current affairs, share trading, business ideas, books, games, MBA, sex stories, school days, memoirs, fashion, festivities, hobbies and anything that you can relate yourself to. The trick which makes a blog tick is to choose and blog about what you feel for. It need not be words and words only. It can be anything. It can be anything that you want to keep an online journal about. The more you fit in to this road, the longer you shall last. It’s about being YOU, online.

2. A blog isn’t about followers and comments either. When you post, mostly you love it when someone reads it and follows your posts. Comments do feel motivating and are inspiring. But even if you don’t have whole of the world with you, who has? The number you see there is just a number. Blog for yourself and you shall rule. Whenever you feel you don’t have ample readers, remind yourself, you blog for yourself. Doing it matters more than to have people seeing you do it.

3. Blog is highly beneficial. For me, a post helps me when I am high and happy and when I am low and sad. It helps me getting my mind in place. It helps me gauge my direction and the distance I have covered. It helps me question myself, my beliefs, my thoughts and my days. It engages my mind in something I call as “being creative about ME”. It feels great when I see words from my life out there in the World Wide Web. It reassures me of my presence. And above all, it is fun and satisfaction, guaranteed. On another note, I gathered information about GMAT, MBA and schools which i never thought i could. It wasn't Google. It was blogger.com.

4. A blog helps you connect. Believe me when I say this, bloggers are just awesome. I have hardly come across a blogger who isn’t being real out there. For if you aren’t being real, you can’t last. And that’s what makes this whole of blogsphere so cool, so real, so good and so true. I get a positive vibe when I visit pages. It is wonderful to sneak into the lives of people around you. You connect to souls living god knows where and share. Visit any blog placed randomly in some forum, go through the pages, hang around there and you will realize.

5. Blog only when you want. Get over that habit of posting every day. There is no compulsion. Stick to one most important motto: post only when you really want to. A blog shouldn’t be about writing something about something every day. It is also about making others know were there. It is about enjoying and experiencing all of it that is out there. Don’t forget to be a honest reader/follower, if you are.

6. A Blog is simply you. It’s expression online. So try to be “YOU” in whatever ways you can. Only you can feel yourself. Get those feelings onto your blog. Let the blog be what you are, what you were and what you can be. For example, don’t just post something about the Christmas coz everyone else is doing that. Post about what you relate to. Honesty matters most.

7. Publicize your blog, if you want to. These are the days of facebook and twitter. When the social connectivity is THE THING, it’s normal to see peers bragging/sharing/talking about their blogs. Its publicity and it does help. But not everyone. If you aren’t comfy with publicizing your pages, don’t do it. There is no rule. Being you is the rule. And the same applies to the tons of tools out there like monetizing your pages, feed burners, blogger forums, contests, do-follow blogs, blog networks etc. The point here is not to burden yourself with things which isn’t you. It may cloud you blogging experience.

8. Visit your blog. You should be your best reader and follower. If you don’t find yourself doing that, the case might be that you don’t really like what you do out there. I often visit my blog at work. It makes me wonder if all that is mine. It’s private and confidential, yet for display. And to be honest, I find my blog always the best. :)

9. Blog isn’t a necessity/compulsion. If you can’t relate to it till now, don’t blog. Having a blog just because everyone has will get you nowhere more than an additional web link that you need to log into. With life going crazy online, there might be things which are for you. An unfinished venture hurts more than the one you never started.

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Top Se7en reasons: Why DECEMBER.

1. I love the night of 31st December and the morning of 1st January. The end and the start, they both make me feel very different. In India, a new year usually means no more than a night party with all the boozing and friends around. Some go on for vacations and some spend it at home with their closed ones. But for me, when I say it makes me feel different; I don’t refer to any of these. I like stopping and looking back. It always makes more sense; it enables me to see where and how I was and where and how I am today. It’s a feeling which encompasses nostalgia, memories, past aspirations and plans and dreams. It feels good and bad, alike. And it is this time of the year that makes perfect sense to be chosen over the others.


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2. I love Christmas. I am not a Christian but I make it a point to visit the church every year on this day, wherever I might be. I was operated at the age of 10 in a Christian hospital and from that very age, I am aware of the Bible, Christianity, churches and Christ. Strangely, I never find peace at a temple. I always find that at a church. It’s too personal a view but that’s how it happens with me. For others, how can you turn your back to those beautifully decorated churches, the candles, carols and jingles, the rum cakes and the star which never fails to catch attention? If you have never been to a church, be there and you will see for yourself.


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3. I proposed my love on 1st December. She means life to me. So, I am alive since December.

4. My love got her job on 10th December, this year. I cannot be happier and never have I ever been.

5. I am an Information Technology guy and my clients are almost always based in the US. This time of the year is a sure holiday for them. At my level, it means more peace at work, easy hours during the day and less burden. It is live and let live, but practical and for real.


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6. Do you believe in Santa? Whenever I tell myself, there is no Santa, I remind myself of the “Polar Express” and those countless times I have seen and heard of him. Snowfall without him makes no sense. And although it might sound childish and silly, at night when I stare up at the sky and wish it would have been falling snow, Santa fits in the best in those starry skies. So, there it is. Even though I know that he doesn’t exist, I love believing that he does.


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7. I love nights. Cold nights are the best. December guarantees that it would be the coldest. Go outside, roam around, listen to music and feel that breeze all over your face through your hairs. Its solace redefined and fulfilling.


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My love got a job.

The news is just in and 10th of December, 2010 would forever be in bold letters henceforth in the pages from of life. My love got a job placement through campus and this marks a successful end to her MBA. It also marks an end to the long journey she had till today, we had till today and I personally had till today. To see this day, she had been through all that could possibly go wrong for her in all the corners of her life.

She didn’t sit for the placements during engineering because I wasn’t fine with her doing a job as I was an over possessive lover. Day by day I was becoming suicidal and things trivial were enough to put me onto depression. Still, she stayed with me through all of that and spent another two years at home trying first six months for her tuitions to work followed by a GATE preparation phase marred finally by her sudden illness and a year preparing for her MBA with all that she had left in herself. She finally made it to a college as countless nights of fights, tears, loneliness and frustration came to an end. But it was just another start. One year rolled by and for the last five months we have brainstormed about masking her almost 3 year break in career while she stayed at home. We have failed countless times with things getting worse as companies visiting her college campus refused to take her in. She got rejected several times in the final round and all we had to blame for was the gap she had. It was logical to do that. Yesterday night was no other. We discussed hours trying to look at the case from alternate options.

As I always say, destiny knows when, how and what. And none the different has it been. She finally got through today and I thank you GOD from the bottom of my heart with all that I have. Today I feel relaxed off a huge burden and guilt. I know what has happened because of me can never be compensated but still, I am happy. Today I won’t complain. Saying it once didn’t work quite well, so here it goes again. I am happy. I am more than happy. I am so happy that I haven’t read anything since I heard the news. And I am so happy that I really don’t care what happens tomorrow as I sit for my technical interview written test. And I must say, I am proud of my love.

This has been some journey.

Cheers.

It just happens...oopss..

Whenever I head towards something with focus, things happen. It’s a rule which applies only to me. Over time, I have adapted myself to it and now all I do about them is to face them and smile.

On Saturday I am going to appear for a technical test for an opportunity at another Investment Bank and I have high hopes that they can pay me more. A high pay, onto the scale which I am looking out for, would solve many a problems for me. It’s another topic all together how I realized that it’s almost a year since I started looking for a change. It surely has been a year, endless nights of preparation and two companies which got added onto my profile and I am still there in the market, dreaming and trying everyday for a better paying job. Anyways, onto the story at hand, I decide to take a day off from work and prepare at home. My manager calls me up and asks to come over to work in the evening as my business head from U.S. is in the city and an all hands meet has been planned across teams which report to him. Bored with myself, I head for office, sit and hear him happily wondering about the things that are left to be read and I get a recognition award as he announces my name and in the next 20 minutes, I am told by my manager that I would be rated as an exceeding expectations candidate in the appraisal which is one month down the lane and that she has already decided the ratings. I head back home with so many good feelings. And that’s the problem I was referring to.

When you are a hopeless void (i.e. an empty black hole sucking in everything around which is not just good but all the bad too) and you try day in and day out to make things different, something which can put you off your tracks or makes you feel better is actually deceptive in nature. Staying focused and doing what you were becomes so much more difficult. That’s bad. That’s fate not playing fair with you.

Playlist 2010

The year is rolling towards an end. It makes sense for a list of songs that rocked my days the whole year with an assumption that something new won’t come up in the days left and sweep me off my foot. And the list goes as below...

Just the Way You Are - Bruno Mars
Baby – Justin Bieber
Somebody to Love – Justin Bieber
My World - Justin Bieber
Need You Now – Lady Antebellum
American Honey - Lady Antebellum
Love This Pain - Lady Antebellum
Only Girl (In the World) – Rihanna
Teenage Dream – Katy Perry
Last Friday Might (T.G.I.F.) – Katy Perry
California Gurls – Katy Perry
Firework – Katy Perry
The One That Got Away - Katy Perry
Alejandro - Lady Gaga
Mine - Taylor Swift
Back to December - Taylor Swift

A special mention for the two albums which were simply amazing as a whole…..

A Thousand Suns – Linkin Park
Dark Horse - Nickelback

That summarizes the music of the year 2010 for me. :)

A NEW me.

There are things in life which I want. I want to have a better life and enjoy the so called materialistic world. When I was yet to start working, I always felt that there was nothing I can’t have. That belief is still there. There are friends/people around me who often wonder if they would ever own a BMW and Europe trips at leisure. My response to them has always been a “Why Not”.

During the last few months I can see that faith in myself dwindling like never before. I am working in one of the biggest Investment Banks, I know what I do and I am better in what I do than people around me. I also earn decent bucks. Ok, to answer where the problem lies, my responsibilities are huge. And as I head towards a 30 and a marriage in coming 1-2 years, I question myself about what my friends used to wonder a few years back. It’s pain that I feel inside. I am not afraid of losing. I am afraid of not having tried.

It has been a year. Never did I have a day when I could come back home from work and enjoy myself. It has remained a relentless journey to excel and better my situation. In these four years of work, I have read more than anyone can during their four years of engineering. And all of that hasn’t gone futile. I have been lucky with interviews, jobs and employers but not with money. That defines what my problem is.

An Indian Information Technology Male who used to be onsite-hater and mock people dying to travel abroad is today seeing that as the only way ahead. I ended up at the same corners. That’s life. It always asks you to portray how badly you want things in life. Rest, in some cases only, gets taken care of.

1-12-2010 (Now a seven year story...)

1st of December: A day destined to be, a day I chose to be as the day to propose my love. Seven years have passed since then. It seems long and short. I often wonder is it me. Me being the last person on this planet to stick to something, being the partly true Gemini that I am, being the ever fleeting wind and being the change lover always, is here, scoring good. But isn’t that’s what love is? It happens and when it happens, there is no denying it.

The years have not been all the rosy ones. No one ever gets all the roses only I guess. So, quite unexceptionally, the same ups and downs of which we all know about did indeed happen with us too. And like all of you, I too feel proud that we are together and it’s still “US”. This is the only thing I ever got right in my life. When the day is a long one and a bad one, as I take a break from work and call her up, I realize how tougher it could have been had she not been there for me.

Today, as I sit here writing this post, I don’t feel the need of writing anything else. Putting down anything as to how much I love her and how we can rock together and how happy we can be etc makes me wonder if it would belittle the event, its story and its importance. I just want to be together.

@GOD: Thanks...once again. :)

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The Barcelona Life

My love for football is an old story. I still remember my father eagerly watching the game being played while cheering and commenting about his favorite, the legend named Maradona. I also remember the year when Germany lifted the FIFA World cup for the year 1990, those white and black colored demons who side lined every team out of their way with their saga called “Counter-Attack”. And how can I forget the color Yellow which soared so high along with talents like Romario & Ronaldo.

But that was all I knew. I was quite unaware of the other worlds named the champions league, the la-Liga, the Bundesliga and the likes. I met them as I started my job. My peers were eqully enthusiastic about the game. Names such as Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal were new to me but the passion was the same. It didn’t took me much time to pick up with others around on the happenings. But I lacked one true genre: I didn’t have a favorite to cheer for. Watching a game being neutral is the worst way of watching it. I always missed the energy, the adrenaline, the inquisitiveness, the expectation, the prayers, the songs, the feeling, the life…

Messi mesmerized me. The legend as he already is, took me off my ground as I watched him on YouTube. It had always been Argentina and Germany for me at the world cups. Even the recent one had me in tears as I watched my factory of players, Higuain, Messi, Klose, Oezil, Podolski etc head back home. The difference was, I mapped Messi all the way back and found Barcelona. Oh boy, what a team that was. They had everything, the history, the records, the players and the best of them all, they had Pep Guardiola and Messi. That marked the end of my aloofness. I finally belonged to a club. I could finally cry and smile, together….a sense of belongingness was here….

Yesterday, Barcelona played their biggest rivals, Real Madrid. While both the teams were in the top of their forms, anticipation of the game was huge. It was a tough call and as like others, I love being modest and a low profile till the final thing happens. But in India, the match was telecasted on Ten Action Plus, a channel which sadly isn’t provided by my T.V. channel provider. With a heavy heart, there I was, sitting with coffee infront of my laptop, refreshing the Live Score page every 10 seconds. After many a ones, finally it was a 1-0 for Barcelona as Xavi scored and a second one came in too in another eight minutes. There on, it was just a wait and watch for the final moment, Victory. But hardly did I knew that I was being a part of history. Barcelona won 5-0 against the so called Real Madrid and names like Ronaldo, Di-Maria, Oezil, Benzama and Morinho were capped the clowns. We had won the last four of them. This was ours biggest victory against a team which boasted of form and capacity to deliver. Having cherished all of it, I finally took a 4 hour sleep to hit back at the post-play relaying of the game today morning. It was another chance to relive the history. And the whole day seems to have been spent quite befittingly reading the articles of THE WIN all over the World Wide Web. It is months since the world cup fever is over. I got it back Yesterday. :)

A few links that you may cherish reading as i did:
Great Acievements of real Madrid

The Thrashing of real Madrid by Barcelona

CHEERS !!!

Groupless

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Does it matter having a group of your own, a bunch of human heads whom you know and feel like flocking together. May be it does and maybe not.

I know myself and I am a group person. I have always been the one connecting dots from different circles and making a line move. But today, I see myself belonging nowhere. I don’t belong to any group. During my engineering days, I was a loner. I never liked the people around and vice versa. Presently, in my work life too, I am a loner. Every day, the toughest part me is to have lunch alone. Not that I don’t like interacting, but that I don’t like talking to just anyone and having a time out of it. And the people with whom I might like to, well, they seem to belong somewhere else. If I take a detailed note of my life, in a day, I talk to my love and that’s it. Why and how it is all that has become of me is beyond my comprehension.

My love says, if I am to play my preferences this way, we would never have a group. To take a case in point, my closest friend being in touch with his college mates, often plans things together. I had been invited a few times and I had declined. They all stay in the same city and I never found myself invited. If that happens for a trip, that too from my closest friend and not from others, I feel bad. She may be right but I am not wrong either.

When you plan trips and when you plan fun, you do need a group. I do love to be in a group. But should I pay for being non-responsive to people who spend years putting my existence into question, I better pay.

A Hacker

Ever wanted to be a hacker? I always and shall. The beauty of this word lies in the fact that even today, the more I want to understand it, the more mysterious and vast it gets. Many often think of hackers as people with a high degree of “computerness” in them and some even perceive them as breakers who smash systems down. Well, that’s really melodramatic. The reality and gist of the term is more vast and ideal.

My understanding defines “hackers” as people who want to understand everything they are interested in, try playing with the conventions of the system that surrounds their interest and often tweak their practical object of focus and interest in a never thought of way to realize a betterment and deeper understanding. It is this deep understanding that differentiates a hacker from the mass and also quenches the so called “thirst” of a hacker. The realization of this satisfaction gained through the knowledge acquired is a motive of truly a supreme kind. And if you stare from these nooks, you would find them not only in the world of 0’s and 1’s but also all around yourself. As an example: To me, even a passionate driver who drives in the big cities might qualify for a hacker for he has mustered the roads of communication. And if he is what I think he is, I would often see a look on his face, as he discovers a new sub lane which might gain him a few minutes, and believe me, it has always been infectious.

World has always merited the hackers and shall continue to do so for their brilliance remains unquestionable. Deep down, it’s the hunger and the focus which is the real winner. Questioning the existing is the rule which rules them, as says Albert Einstein “The important thing is not to stop questioning”.

Few are those who can see with their own eyes and hear with their own hearts. - Albert Einstein

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Never Ever Ever Give Up ? ? ?

Presently, if I were to replicate my situation, I would choose a dog in a boat amidst the ocean. The only way for it to survive is to hold on to itself till the boat reaches some friendly shore with time. My intellect can’t think of anything which might draw a better analogy to my life at this juncture. A curios mind may ask "WHY". It goes as this...

My love is depressed and frustrated and is badly in need for a job. And with her, I share the same concerns. The problem is that she is having a tough time for a gap she has in her career which was due to me. And that makes things as complicated as watching the movie “Inception” without the sound or the subtitles. She is down and so am I. And to make things worse, we are in a distance relationship. All your care and concerns and love are supposed to follow the protocol “cell phones”. It feels like a pain in the (whatever...take your pick), the place where it hurts the most.

I have my parents as my dependents and as I struggle harder to make things better in every possible way, their complaints and views on life still remains as a never changing weather. Nothing can make them happy. It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to stay at home. My words are often assumed as an offense, my behavior constantly criticized and monitored and my views, all together impractical. It is now like this: I am reduced to stay in my own room in my own house. I seldom go out of my room. My cell phone and Internet connection are the only channels I have for outside communication. I don’t feel like confronting them for whatever.

My job too, being the bitch life is, resonates perfectly with everything else that I have been just scribbling about. I am a 4+ years server side developer doing what a fresher out of college is supposed to do at work and I am hugely under paid considering that I work for one of the best investment banks. I often wonder why i was recruited. And on top of it, I have people in my team who are politically active, culturally racist and professionally moronic in their behavior. There seems to be no way ahead for me to rise here. I am stuck once again. It’s the same quick sand story.

On a personal front, my ambitions to get an MBA are now looking like day dreams. An MBA, the way I want it, needs dedication, motivation and a constant strive to improve on a lot of grounds and to have some substantial leadership experience which is a must needed aspect of my profile. But, being a human that I am, I am unable to muster anything to get me going. A cat not even able to go for the cat race…....

The only solace I now-a-days find is in peeing when I want to and sleeping when I feel tired. Apart from these two I don't identify with any other joy that might exist in this so called world. And I hurts the most when I remember the words...



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GMAT

While I am on my way to be done with my GMAT and get eligible to write “my GMAT” story, I thought of contributing as an introduction, information which many to-be-gmat-givers may find useful as they start on this journey. I would address the most often asked questions and the best way to approach the exam and resources which are of help.

GMAT differs from CAT. This is especially for the Indians to understand. Indians consider CAT as the only examination possible of the highest caliber and often wonder whether GMAT is tougher. While CAT may be ranked amongst the most competitive examinations around the globe, GMAT is certainly tougher. The duration of the exam and the adaptive marking process makes the GMAT score more over the CAT. This is an exam which requires speed as well as accuracy, but both along with tenacity. That makes all the difference. While questions may appear from any topic randomly for a section, their difficulty varies depending on your answer and it is mostly said that even the top ACE candidates find it hard to answer 8 questions correctly in a row in the GMAT. A single question correct may get you a coveted 760 and the same one wrong may put you into the average 710 bracket. While luck does exist everywhere, a human brain usually finds it tough to focus with time. It is this aspect of the exam that expects you to perform after 4 hours, at your peak with 5 minutes of breaks in between sections, which makes its comparison with a marathon race inevitable.

Don’t refer to any GMAT material sitting out there on the World Wide Web. There are ample questions and materials available for Critical Reasoning (CR), Reading Comprehension (RC) and Sentence Correction (SC) to be more precise, but hardly the owners know what really is checked during the GMAT. The choice of topics, the language used and the concept tested are often different.

Apart from using Quant materials to increase the mathematical skills, don’t even think of using IMS and TIME materials for CAT in place for GMAT. CAT passages are often detailed and the questions refer to answers which are direct. GMAT has more variations and uses passages which are dry and often structurally different than the English we read. For the same reason, make it a habit of reading the New York Times or The Economist as a routine especially the “Opinion” section.

If you haven’t appeared for any CAT examinations before, please make sure you go through the GMAT review book available from Princeton Review. Though the book is targeted for an audience who target 650+ scores, it is the best in the market to introduce you to GMAT across all the sections. Complete it once before moving on with the Official Guide and other materials. Consider Kaplan only when you are done with your preparation and you feel a need for an extra practice and curve in your preparation. Of all the books from Kaplan, Kaplan 800 is the best and is a very good collection of tough challenging problems. The 7 books, 5 on Quant and 2 (one for SC and one for CR & RC combined) from MGMAT (Manhattan GMAT) is a must. I would reiterate the fact that a GMAT preparation is not complete unless you are done with at the least the 6 from MGMAT series. The one for CR & RC can be an exemption. Official Guide (OG) and the official guide reviews for Quant and Verbal are a must. Their importance has been stressed upon again and again in every book written for GMAT.

From a test series point of view, MGMAT seems as a sound option. Their questions are tougher than the real GMAT and give the best review analysis of your exams. The type of metrics they provide for every test you write is something you should see to believe. Giving thought on those reviews is what pushes you up the curve from a 650+ to a 700+ achiever.

Two websites in particular, Beat the GMAT and GMAT Club is of immense help. Both have a huge list of followers, varied questions get discussed during a day which is very ideal for ample practice and both have people from all the test preparation companies to help you with your doubts and preparation process. You can also view threads where recent achievers and losers discuss their plans, what worked for them and what didn’t and also the exert advice offered by the real time professionals.

Rather than going for a 6 hour or so taxing schedule for the preparation, a healthy effective focused 2 hours a day schedule can work out more in your favor. Typically, candidates need anything from 3-4 months to be ready for their target score. Starting with the GMAT exam provided by Official GMAC Website is a great way to gauge where you are and plan the way forward. Needless to say, a candidate placed at 650 at the very start of the preparation stands a better chance of soaring up to the 750+ mark, but examples of even a 200 points progress is all over. Consistency matters more. Nothing can harm you more than a 2 days break in your study plan. The plan has to be followed religiously and quality of questions should be given weight age over quantity. The same reason goes in for the fact as to why so many professionals would always ask you to keep out of the so called 1000SC, CR & RC question sets.

Review is more important than study. A day spent in review after every 6 days of study can ensure that you don’t falter in your work done till date. Keeping a track of the errors is very important and often keeping an “Error Log” is suggested. Pondering over the concept tested against the number of questions answered should be a priority. Timing of 2 minutes per CR, 1.30 minutes per SC and 1.45 minutes per RC questions is ideal. Data sufficiency is trickier than it seems and Quant often involves tricks than calculations.

That is all I can share as of now. I am yet to take my GMAT, as said already and if destiny has it, I will surely let all of you know how my GMAT journey was in a more minute detail. Hope this post was long and of use to the new GMAT-takers and feel free to comment if you need any further help.

The Social Network & Marc Zuckerburg

I saw “The Social Network” today. I can’t say how much I loved it. It was the second best movie for me this year post “Inception”. The movie was a justice done to Zuckerburg’s character and “facebook” being the buzz word these days across many Asian lips, gave the required marketing and promotion. I always love movies which are based on the generation greats and the hackers and the coders and the ones who changed the way the world would have been and is. I didn’t know that Zuckerburg ditched his best friend and that the idea behind facebook wasn’t solely his own. But I also didn’t know that he coded up the impossible and hacked into the Harvard systems and got 22000 hits for “facemash”. I can’t help but salute his prowess and the coding genius in him.

There are people who say that facebook isn’t going right with privacy and that many a features as suggested over a course of time are yet to be implemented and new features get added without any notification system caring about the users. They all are right. Post the movie, many who are now aware of the way facebook was formulated, do blame Zuckerberg’s actions. They are right too. But what all of them forget while holding Zuckerberg accountable is that he might have done something which was someone else’s idea but he did it in a way which no one ever could have done. Isn’t that what we all consider as the act of the master? Google’s “GMAIL” wasn’t the first mail provider over the World Wide Web. They became the market when they came up with a new world for mails and that’s what made Yahoo and Rediff pay. Skype wasn’t the first voice calling service available but that’s what we all are turning towards with Yahoo messenger and Rediff bol and Gtalk still hanging around. Often, the master is the one who walks the same path but with difference. Zuckerburg might have travelled the faulty ways to reach where he is today, but that’s not all about what he is. There is more to it. While you choose to consider the other half, make sure you do give him the half that’s his own. Be fair.

And when he flips his card which reads “I am the CEO, bitch”, I can’t agree less.

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Marriages

Everyone is getting married. Everyone eventually does. But when you see everyone around, going for it, that’s when you realize that someday you are going to be that everyone.

I still don’t understand marriages and more so when it’s a love marriage. It always looks to me as a social mandate than a personal fulfillment. Nothing changes after marriage. We love each other, we believe each other, we know and understand each other, we fight each other and we can/can’t stay with/without each other. None of it changes with marriage. Then why the marriage…?

Of all the reasons that I have come across the most popular one’s have been “it enforces faith, togetherness and security of a relationship”, “it is a social ritual”, “it takes one to be old to realize it’s true meaning” and “it is necessary as at least my parents or my partner wants it”. Read each of them carefully. The more you dwell on them, the more you feel like they all imply the same message: marriage isn’t necessary, it’s just a habit. If a social ceremony is going to get us the faith, the bondage and the security of my relationship, I don’t belong to this century. If a social ritual is what I have to care about, I would like to see how the society cares about me after my marriage or has been caring about me. If I need to grow old and realize the true meaning of marriage, I better die than waste my years waiting to understand something at an age when I am supposed to lose majority of my brain power for understanding. If all I care about is my parents and my wife, I should do it, but I also deserve a fair explanation for the act.

Some other reasons that I came across are “it’s a singular lifetime occasion to celebrate” and “it’s a dream”. For the former I would like to say that just as a mortal is unable to stop himself/herself from marriage, no one would ever stop him/her from such multiple occasions. When someone gets married, I always see the people who attend being happiest of the lot. They come, they enjoy, they eat and they leave. No where on earth can you get a better deal. As for the latter, I wonder how the celebration of an occasion can be dream. The word “dream” gets belittled when you use it for marriage. The occasion is that of union and getting together and being bonded and love is what it amount to and you already have it. Love as a dream sounds ideal and real. Marriage as a dream sounds as a one-liner motive explanation of some marriage organizing committee. “Wish” would have been more apt.

I am not aware of any other reasons as to why people marry. If anyone of you knows of any other reasons as to why marriage is so huge a necessity, please chip in your comments. I would love to enlighten myself…..

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Me & MBA

I became an Engineer without a thought. Becoming an engineer here is easy and has remained the preferred choice for graduation as all that is required from you to get the degree is to fill up the examination forms. With a sea of colleges at your disposal, getting into an engineering stream isn’t hard at all. This country has a place for you as an engineer and you are at your own will to grade yourself as either the high scorer or the mediocre or the below average slow minded.

Once you are an engineer, the case that often takes shape is that you end up in Information Technology: the country’s biggest job market. Irrespective of your stream, IT offers you the chair. Often people lack guidance, vision and understanding of what and why they are doing during their engineering days and a job from welcome-all industry can hardly be overlooked. Being an Electronics & Instrumentation engineer, I ended up in IT too and today, I am a software developer quite proud of my technical skills. A matter of joke/shame that still remains is that till today, no one ever asked me “What is a Process control?”, something basic of my engineering stream. Neither did I ever bother about it.

The way forward into the top bracket of management or a fat salary or a role of your choice with challenges that you may be ecstatic about brings before us another often pursued engagement: an MBA. Though I always felt that this country needs a break from the huge crowd of MBA’s that graduate every year, today I find myself in the same race. Unarguably a rat race, my expectations of myself has never been the less. I expect myself to make it into one of the top 20 MBA schools across the globe. Feel free to hit the LOL or a ROFL status. :-)

I am a huge reader of blogs and I really feel blogs do make a huge difference to this world. As I scanned through 100+ blogs of MBA aspirants of the past, I can’t help but feel their pain. The journey which lies ahead is an uphill task. It’s one which even might not have a destination. And as I start upon this road, I am scared and at wits end to justify myself and my actions of the past. I have always been someone without a plan. Today, a plan for everything needs to be chalked out. This sudden shift from my comfort zone and my gears have left me wondering if this blog would also add onto those numerous ones which ended up being an MBA-journey blog.

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Toastmasters & Me

Going to clubs alone for the first time doesn’t feel nice. Someone by your side always feels better. But not every time people around you share what you might be interested in. In those cases, venturing alone is the only option.

I had heard of Toastmasters a lot. I had read about it all over the blogs. And if you are one of those souls who are dying for an MBA and know what profile building is all about you better go and read about it. It’s a non-profit organization that targets improvement in your elocution traits. You also get to know a lot of people, you get to know how your body language is, how your eye contact is while you are speaking and you also get an opportunity to do something somewhere where there are no bars. It runs on the “everyone learns from everyone” model. Typically, they meet twice a month. Every meet has three sections: prepared speeches (people give prepared speeches related to their level before everyone and their assigned reviewer), impromptu speeches (people are randomly chosen to speak for 2 minutes on any topic decided upon) and review session (the reviewers discuss a critical analysis of their assigned speakers’ speeches and suggest as to whether they cleared their level). For those who find 2 hours a long stretch, they do break in between for 10 minutes for snacks.

It was nice out there. Although being there for the first time, they didn’t make me feel the same. I felt pretty much a part of the group. People are nice, eager learners who work hard to achieve and prove their cause for their presence perfectly. It is inspiring and a lot is in store for people eager to master the art of speeches. Personally, I am not a public person and I do share the same cold feet as others. I went there with no decisions made and tried exploring what they do and what it is all about. I am convinced now that it would be great to join them. But before I do that, I need to ask myself more about it. With me, things always start but sadly, they just start. I never reach the end. To reach the end is what I am looking for this time.

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My Winter Trip: Canada

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The current cloud on my mind has “Canada” written all over it. Ideally, if you are working in IT in India and you have 4+ years of experience and you haven’t visited the US/Other lands, people often conclude effortlessly that something is wrong with you.

I had the opportunity to become sane and belong to the common crowd, thrice. But I didn’t have a passport. It took me a big 7 months to get that. And when the fourth opportunity came for me to go abroad, recession became a hero. I never died over these as I never felt the urge to go.

Today I need bucks. Love for other lands and foreign currency is growing day by day. I seek a good 4-5 years abroad. With no idea how, I am asked if I would be fine for a month’s trip to Canada during Nov-Dec months at work. I aimed for years and I got a month. I asked for options, tried declining, stated issues and failed. I had to be there. I was required for a server side change to the application which has to be done before the Christmas. A chaotic 10 days followed until I submitted my passport for VISA approval yesterday.

The wait begins. The wait for something I am not interested in. No one is sure if a VISA to Canada is possible this sooner. But if it is, I am really scared about quite a few things. Firstly, Money: I wonder what good would I make out of the heavy winter clothes I would be buying for my travel once I am back to India and I am staring at a big shopping list. Secondly, Winter: Of what I have heard, I am lost as to how I would survive those freezing temperatures. My body never works well with cold.

Apart from a good exposure to my Canadian counterparts, I am at a loss to figure out any other good that this trip might do to me. Being opportunist isn’t easy.

Fever

I am having fever and had to take a break from work. And being sick makes you long more for the loved ones. So, I missed her badly today. There were many a moments when I just wanted to be lost somewhere with no one to track us without any idea of where we were. But, I had to satisfy myself with my mobile as she tried spending as much time as she could have. I still don’t know whether I will be good tomorrow morning. But I better be as a trip planned after two weeks is on the cards. I have got my manager approval and don’t want to be absent from work before that. An interesting fact that i would like to mention here is that this is the first time i am taking an off from work since the past eight months. That seems huge...LOL

Tomorrow Hindus celebrate a festival known as “Raksha-Bandhan” which basically is meant to highlight the bondage between a brother and a sister. Sisters tie a thread termed as “Rakhi” on the wrists of their brothers. Since childhood, I was unaware of the intricacies involved as I am a single child. And I never had any sisters. I had friends and that was enough for me. But over time I have encountered many a ladies whom I would like to term as “Chance-Sisters”. These are the people who cropped up at different phases of my life and have considered making me a bro’. They tied the thread on my hand and time has always removed them. Whatever be the reasons, they never have come back. Even today i have a "Rakhi" with me which i need to wear tomorrow. I will do that for the sender believes in such things. But really, for me, its just a thread and A thread can never mean bond a sister and a brother in a relationship. People who matter to each other, as brothers and sisters, surely feel it and that’s what matters. Still wonder why to have a festival in place except the fact that many a people get a holiday……..

Finally...

The best part about today was that I kept my word and went to the GYM. As I have never said that before and I am back after a long time, I have started hitting the GYM. It began getting impossible to get over my shapes. They kept on growing. Though people had been saying since years, I never really do something with whole of me unless am convinced enough to feel the same way. It has been two weeks or a bit more. And, believe me; I can feel things happening to my shape. My love played a great part in helping me with a lot. She is on the same quest and she had some valuable advice which I couldn’t help following. We often discuss GYM now a days and I do text her and one of my friend about the number of calories I lost on the cardio program. One thing which often becomes a problem for me is that once I am at the GYM, I am no longer the same Garfield fan and I end up spending as much as 3 hours on some days. I love sweating and feeling the muscles pain. That gives me a satisfaction of having done something worthwhile and the best part comes when the next morning, I feel a bit of pain in those same muscles. That’s typical of me. But it is also a thing I love about the GYM. That is all about the two and half hours of my life….four/five times a week……these days…

Me and the GMAT Episode -1

Hey all…It has been long. All I remember is that I stopped blogging because I wanted to focus on my GMAT. And as has always happened with me, I often fail the first time. This time I didn’t fail but I had to quit.

I was 100 points below my expectations on the tests that I gave and as was suggested by the experts of the subject that I needed another focused study, refreshing everything and pinning down my exact weak areas and blah blah…so I log into the GMAC website to cancel my exam and postpone it for two more months. It was supposed to cost me $50 for a cancellation but instead I saw it charging me whole test fee amount. I stopped and rechecked to see the same thing happen again. Searching for the test cancellation FAQ’s got me the fact that I needed to cancel an exam sitting at least 7 calendar days before to be charged $50; else GMAC would charge me whole of it. It was 3rd AUG and my exam date was 9th AUG. I missed it by 24 Hours. DAMN ME!!!

After a lot of effort from my side, support from my love and with words of encouragement from friends I decided to take on the exam and rebook another sitting later to attain my dream score. It felt logical to face the real exam once. My brain had it embedded deep that the test was on a Tuesday. So, on the Sunday, I went with my friend to check out the Pearson test center. On Monday I went to work thinking about the leave that I was about to take the following day for my test and when I came back home, I realized that it was the 9th AUG. I had screwed up the exam date too. Seriously, everyone is welcome to screw me verbally for this. DAMN DAMN ME!!!

That’s it for the GMAT. I screwed up everything about the test. But I am not yet done. I am at it again. Let’s see how it goes this time.

A Story...

Today I will tell you a story about a person who has nine years of working experience and is presently my onsite coordinator. Be seated, have patience and bear with me as I try to unfold before you a serious case of genetic malfunction:

To start with, he is presently at US and his wife called him yesterday and since he didn’t pick up the phone, the call got auto forwarded to my friend sitting here at India as a part of or offshore team. Yeah, my friend’s number is set on his handset as an auto forward option. That can give you an idea of how frequently he calls us. While US calls are common and almost an essentiality in IT, here we are dealing with a calling maniac. He feels comfortable being on call and we spend four-five of our working hours with him. As for the details of the call, well, better let’s not go into all that. I say that because whenever he fails to get what we are saying or explaining, he would say “I think I am doing too many things at a time…give me some time”. He is a person with a skill set of 2/10 in core java and believe me, fresher’s out of college come with at least 5/10 expertise. That is where his nine years becomes questionable. So, amidst all this when you try to communicate and work with him, you will often find him doing an FTP to move a log file from the server to his machine and when you ask him why, the answer comes “I thought it is a java file yaar”. Only a blind can have that freedom. Even a fool looking onto a system is able to make out a “.txt” and a “.java” file extension. And as to why he expects a java file sitting under a log folder is beyond the capabilities of human logic to understand or reason. Now, when you try to answer his queries, as he shoots at you all possible combinations of “How & Why” before his call with managers, he often maintains “I am better when I see code…logs doesn’t make much sense”. So, you move on to explain him the code and in the process all you deal with is his simple innocent futile foolish dumb basic java fundamental questions. If you make him realize that he forgot something or misunderstood something which he had said earlier he prefers saying “You can ask me as many times you want and I can ask you about the status of work as many times as I want. I don’t know why you are asking me the same thing again and again”. If you set up a call with him and your manager in loop, he maintains “I don’t want to waste time on call with managers”. As to his performance, he is giving us a single SQL select query for the last two months and he still isn’t able to complete and get us the final one. The query changes every two days and without testing it, he would send it to us via mail and ask us to test it. He often displays a high incapability to understand questions too. Like when my manager asked him about the final date by which he would be able to complete his SQL query, he replied “this query is supposed to pull all the data based on a date”. He feels power in making us work on weekends, quite pointlessly though. He maintains “our project is in a red state..we need to put in efforts to make it go to a yellow/green state”. And he is proactive enough to send a mail asking offshore to work even if there is no work to be done. Since I have put down my papers, I refused to do so and he was quick in sending out two escalation mails highlighting the fact that he isn’t getting the needed support from offshore. He would often comment about this to my friend as “If he had been under me, I would have taken good care of him”. He is supposed to understand the business requirements and communicate the same to us. On the contrary, he is busy feeling a lead and someone who watches over us and inspite of several mails, long hour calls we have failed time and again to make him understand the very same requirements which he was supposed to understand and communicate to us. Before the start of the project, we highlighted a couple of issues that we may ran into while moving to production and he gave all of it a deaf ear. Now, he is asking the same things and wants us to own the whole show and explain as to why these were not highlighted earlier. Any efforts to make him realize as to the fact that these were already highlighted gets us a response “see, I can very well remember that I have never heard any such thing” and any effort to get to a solution gets us a reply “u guys have the code yaar…you are supposed to tell me what has to be done but ideally you should have told it to us long time back”. As for a mark of his individuality, he spells "Google" as "Gugul".

Well guys, this is him. There is so much more to say about him. He is a genetic malfunction born to exemplify fools with dumb brains and is here to stay and make life miserable. These are the kind who makes things difficult and pose real challenges during the lifecycle of a project. My four years of experience rates him as the worst that I had ever seen or heard of before. This makes me wonder the quality of product and commitment these companies and clients are now a day’s fine with. And if you are from US, well, beware if you work in IT…you may come across him one day and if you are reading this, you will be the first one to identify him with perfection. And, he is enjoying the so called glorious much wanted heart throbbing “Onsite”. LMAO.

WC 2010.....a dream...

I was unable to get up in the morning and we missed our plans for the trip. We had plans to bunk the night and start early in the morning. But my study plans are keeping me asleep during the night. I tried putting in as many hours I could for my GMAT preparation. I struggled though, a lot with my focus. It gets difficult to give away your limited weekend hours to studies when you always know how bad Mondays are. I somehow managed an average pace. The most remarkable event of the day was however Germany beating, sorry, thrashing England out of the WC. I am in for GER & ARG and it’s sad that they would meet in the quarters. Anyways, ENG deserved the loss. It is high time they start thinking of as a team. And pace and agility is something they always need to learn from the German team. The Germans are probably the best European soccer team ever in the history, all through. But when it comes to Argentina, it’s the “Messi” factor which makes me set a 60-40 priority. Nez…hope things sway in my favor…when they meet…I just hope that the best one goes ahead and it does win the WC this time. To see your team win WC is a dream. I would count it as one of my gifts of life.

Throwing off the rust..

Life has become rusty. As the loop runs, with the same set of operations, I am tiered mentally as I fail to apply myself at my purpose. Parents are now staying with me and my friend. As for my parents, they seem to be the way they were except that they are feeling a bit bored now. They don’t have people who belong to our caste and are skeptical about the ways the IT world behaves and functions. Apart from that, my friend deserves big thanks for the way he has adjusted himself to such an arrangement is marvelous. Life now has more visits to local stores and grocery woes have increased. Every morning has an added responsibility to check if anything is required at house. It is still a care free mad world except the fact that the madness is now configurable and can be switched on/off whenever we want. Yes, over time, after having been involved in numerous feats of extreme madness, we have been able to tame it. Well, after a long time, we have planned a trip to Bhongir, a nearby fort of the famous Kakatiyas dynasty. Plans are to drive till there and trek and enjoy nature till evening. Nez….it is getting late for me to go the new flick “The A-Team”…will be posting the pics tomorrow.

Lets Sleep

They are so heavy. They are coming down. It is such a pain to keep them apart. It’s kind of funny, the way world looks right now. Everything seems trifle and futile. A shadowy era in front of me makes me realize that I don’t want or need anything. All my hunger to grow or to evolve or to survive can sleep for the time being. I am in no hurry. Something inside whispers to me and asks to let things go. Never did it seem so easy before. There is pain and yet, it has the pleasure. My mind is going slow. I can see myself through the lanes stacked with to-do of the day. They can all wait. They have to. I had seen all this coming. I was intentional in letting it happen to me. It’s peaceful and human that I am, sloth isn’t uncommon to me. I am sleepy. I am about to sleep. And to let you know something, quite proudly though, I am at office. It is time for my afternoon nap needs to be getting fulfilled duly. Lets sleep…

Its pissing..

At work, I am trying hard not to do anything. Some people get it but never me. Peace at work and a smooth project with an understanding client have always eluded me since four years. For giving all of you an understanding of the position am in, I have put down my papers and thought of it as the right time to prepare myself for the GMAT as I have two months notice period with me. As if by miracle, the day I booked my dates for the GMAT, work started becoming hectic. The slope is ever increasing and I am ending up being at office for more than twelve hours. All my preparations have gone for a toss. I am always bad at saying “NO” and it’s the need of the hour. Nez, as my friend and love pointed out correctly, bigger things are at stake this time. This post is one of those efforts to stay away from work and not to get involved in the activities going on around. Internet is the only thing that sparks a fire when I am at office with such intentions. Sadly, I am in no mood to read anything today. I give a damn even if Germany looses today to Ghana or another minister gets killed. I am dead. To wait for the day to end so that you can come back and read and to repeat the whole of it every day is a real pain in the A**. Right now, that’s what I am going through…..

Happy Birth Day To ME (16.06.2010)

I was born today. It’s the day of bumps and cake-faces. Sadly or luckily, I escaped both. As I sit here, at office, there is no one around who knows about it except my manager who is on leave. And as I have mentioned countless times before, something happens to me on my birthdays. This birthday was probably the dullest ever. Nothing strange, unique, sad or exciting happened. That doesn’t make me sad. I don’t know what makes me sad. On a different note, I sometimes feel that I am not a living entity. I love memories of life more than I love life. Nez..this is my space and I haven’t wished myself yet. Happy birthday to me.

A Choice.

I am just being selfish and I chose to be that ways. Bigger things are at stake this time. A 100% commitment to the organization after you have put down your papers is always difficult. In the past, I have done that just to fight my guilt and to be decent in my exit. But this time, my GMAT exam is at stake. Considering that my academics are average, I am in desperate need to ace it. My failing in doing so will cost me a year and may be a drop of my plans to do MBA. Re-appearing the exam also doesn’t fit in as an option as I am already in a huge debt. My credit card is screaming at all time high levels due to the numerous needy swipes it has encountered.

So, my dear colleague and friend, I am really sorry for doing this to you. I know I have starting neglecting my work to leave a bit early and have been shunning away from responsibilities. But staying till two in the morning and slogging for a person who doesn’t even care if I had my dinner or is not capable enough to make out what it takes to put in twelve hours of work, makes me feel real bad especially more so when I know I am running on my last chance. You aren’t aware of my issues but I hope that you will try to understand me and behave with maturity. I have done my part in making you understand the consequences of your decision to stick out here. That is the most I could have done to show you how deep the waters are. I also gave you a helping hand to pull you out of it.

Eight Months

It feels so good to be back to blogging. If you ask me what kept me away, its issues at work and not the work in itself. Gradually over the years I have become a person who now firmly believes that if you don’t get what you want, go and get it. The moment you decide to wait for it, a few moments pushes you back the queue significantly. I was denied a promotion. I was denied a project of my skill set. An organization which I still feel is one of the best around in terms of almost any parameter that I can think of, sadly, offered me my skill set assignment I was looking for once I resigned. Although they ended up promoting everyone, they failed to even commit ten percent on my promotions. Considering the fact that I was a near to excellent performer as per my ratings for consecutively two years, nothing swayed my way. I left and landed onto a place where a even bigger pit was awaiting me. I didn’t get what I was promised, neither on the pay terms nor on the work front. Now a day I am working with people having ten years with them and still, they sound, behave and talk like a fresher out of college. It’s back to the old corporate jungle of politics, racism and undervaluation of one’s efforts. I am leaving again.

That I got through one of my dream orgs and how all of it happened is another story. Even if they didn’t pay me a hike, I still feel good about joining them soon. If you ask me why, it’s just not the dream that makes me say so. It also has a lot to do with the culture which I strongly feel and can sense have always remained a big concern of mine. I can’t work for/with fools. I learnt something which I must say applies to all of you who work: Work at a place where majority of the people know better/more than you. The eagerness to learn is infectious. If you have the hunger, which can’t always be self driven for long on a lonely island, you will enjoy the food. The hungrier you are, the tastier the food is.

And now, it seems a perfect opportunity for me to go back onto an unfinished journey which I left midway. After two organizations and two resignations, several interviews and eight months of job hunt, it’s time for me to devote as much as I can, of my time, towards GMAT. My date is booked for 9th August, 2010 and thanks to my love for that. She rightly identified the procrastinator in me and pushed me for it. Hopefully, this would mean an end of an era which was the most disturbing ever for me in my four years of work experience.

I was never a career oriented guy. Today, I feel I have become one. Time makes strange things happen.

Past & Me

Moving ahead with life anticipating what lies ahead is something I have always been unable to connect with. They say that people who look and plan ahead are the ones who really reach somewhere. Strangely though, I have always looked behind and have been able to move ahead. And I have ample proof to say that I have not lagged behind. My journey till date might not have been one of the success stories you read about but it is certainly not a fail-tale either. I always get a strange power within when I look back and analyze and try reliving my past. Be it the one with the smiles and sunshine or be it the ones with all gloom and rain in the world, I always find myself lost in those lanes, quite happy. Reliving them in my mind and soul not only gives me the power to face tomorrow, it also gives me the power to laugh at fate and accept the power of destiny and time. Those memoirs are and shall always remain dearest to me.

Today, I stand at another corner of my life. Today is my last day at this apartment. From tomorrow, I will be moving in to a new house with my friend. Simple and common…..Isn’t it? Yet, it is a big day for me. As I sit here writing all of this, I can still remember how I came here. It was four in the evening and we hadn’t been able to find a rented space and the next day we were supposed to vacate our flat. We got this one through one of my friends. We didn’t like it at all but we didn’t have a choice. The next day was one of the longest and toughest days I ever had. It took me fifteen hours of hard work and fight to finally get a bed to sleep at four in the morning, the one on which I am presently sitting on. I was so tired; I wasn’t able to sleep for hours. And today, all of it has changed. The people around, the bonding with the ones I was staying and the ones with whom I am supposed to stay, my personal life, my career path, my pocket, my choices and my priorities. This change, which is almost always unavoidable, makes me sad and happy. I am happy for I am better today. I am sad for a phase of my life stays here. From tomorrow I would never be here again. I won’t have this roof over me. It won’t feel the way it feels now. From tomorrow, this night and this house and these last hours in this house will remain inside me and become my past, a part of me I always have cherished.

The day isn’t far when I will be crossing these roads and the localities around on my way to some place and I will try to feel and think of how it was in here and what all I got and lost during my stay. Many who know me say, I get way too nostalgic and some feel, I am a fool of present living in the past and some opine that I overdo things. They might actually be correct. All I can say is that I try to gather as many memories as I can. Feelings, moments and people…aren’t they all that life is about? Just because I am done with all of it doesn’t mean I will let go off them so easily. They happened to me. They are a part of me. I am not dead with what I have today. I shall die with all of what I had too.

A sad tale of many a weeks.....

A few weeks back my job search was spoiling my weekends and now it’s the house hunting. While my job search has put me into a dead end wherein I am waiting for an offer letter from one of my dream organizations for the last three weeks, my house hunting has finally paid off today. After daring the summer heat from ten in the morning till three in the afternoon on the last two weekends, soaking ourselves in tons of cold drinks and water bottles, we finally got the space we wanted. Though we have declared ourselves to be the so called “family” instead of “bachelors” believing in the plan that my parents would come and stay with me and my friend, we still need to make that happen. Here the way a house hunting works is you see a “To-Let” board and walk inside and the first thing that comes towards you is a question; “Are you are a family or bachelor..?” Their concern as the owners is understandable but just because I am a bachelor doesn’t imply that I believe in thrashing my landlord’s place and creating havoc at night with booze parties and spread unnecessary unsocial clutter. It would be a risk that they would be taking but they could rely on other means to make sure that their worries are ours. It felt as if I am sinner if I am a bachelor. And even if you don’t want us for we are bachelors, at least you can get some manners in your talks to make a point. That isn’t the case either. I don’t have the power to choose my landlord’s nature and behavior. Wish I had that. The way you speak to people, even more so when you are talking to people you don’t know, speaks a lot about your family and culture and mannerisms. Isn’t that what you seek when you plan to go for families for renting out your space? In near future, I guess District 9 would become a reality for the bachelors. While many deserve it, a few like us don’t. And there is no system in place that I can prove my uniqueness. Whatever…..i am done with all this. Next in line is packing up my stuff and settling over at the new place. And guess what? It is supposed to happen on the coming weekend. Arghhh….all my weekends are getting spoiled with all the Mondays unperturbed. :(

Morning Dilemma

Going early to office is not that bad and I have my own story to tell. As is always the case with me, my eyelids remain half closed even after I have brushed my teeth, washed my face, had coffee and taken the bath. Every day, I hang in the mid-air at the front seat by the auto driver trying the best out of my hands, with the other commuters looking to see how dearly I love my life and want to be alive. Girls always take the back comfy seat and daily, I listen to different voices swearing, gossiping, claiming, sharing, laughing, complaining and GOD knows what not. But surely, it turns out to be the last thing you would expect someone to talk about that early in the day. And my mind enquires, what are these people made of? Morning, wind and silence go so well all together. It stays a morning and the wind flows by and if only I would have had silence…….

One of my biggest motivations to go to office early and leave my bed, sad and desperate to have me again is my morning coffee at the IT park garden right after my morning onsite call once I reach office. It is the transit time when I get the freedom to start the day by cursing my lead and wishing all the bad that I can for my manager. It is only then that it feels that I am at office and I am ready for the day ahead and the sleep in me fades away. And after having five such mornings comes the best one, the Saturday morning when I have all the time to make it up for the lost. But after five weeks, with immense sadness, I would like all of you to know that I don’t feel that sleepy in the mornings on the weekends. It’s the weekday that creates the want and the need…. :(

Not fair :)

That I wrote things positive in my last post and went out to have dinner with my love and friends and my love lost her mobile and we searched a lot to get it back without any luck is tough for me to forget. Not much that I can do there. :(

Yesterday morning till three in the afternoon and today morning till two in the afternoon, all of it went to search for a rented space. I and my friend will be staying together and we need to move out before the first of the next month. Weekends are all we have. Sadly, heat and soaring temperatures are also a big part of what we have. I could see the surprise even in the eyes of a stray dog as we were going to take a look at a nearby apartment with the brokers at two in the afternoon. Well, he never can really understand the meaning of staying together and that too at one place in something we call a house.

My mother has been detected with high sugar levels in blood and my father isn’t doing very well either. It seems like I will be moving in with one of my friends soon to a fully furnished two bed room house back at the locality where I had spent more than a year of madness. A quick thought which I am considering now as a solution is that I make them stay here with me and my friend. He doesn’t need much space either. His days are all about T.V. and his mobile calls to his love. Most part of our time during the week is spent at office and we would be having a few hours at night everyday and mainly the weekends. We don’t mind having them around for a movie too. My major concern is whether they will be fine with such an arrangement and if they would find it good being here. Time holds the future and the answer to all my concerns and all that has already been written down in some unknown book hidden somewhere. All this isn’t fair guys. They have laid down everything named future and it’s all about us and we are not supposed to know it. The rules should have been like they have it written down the way they have it now and we get to know what happens next (or the supposed to be ‘future’) and we try to change it all and if we fail, we get what’s written and if we win, we change the course and from there on, the future gets re-written again for us. Nez…..that’ all for now…but do think about the rules part…..all this surprise and unknown stuff is ok but they aren’t fair.

It's New

My days are going on pretty well these days except the heat of summer. I am learning to swim and my four day presence hasn’t gone to waste. I am becoming comfortable with water gradually. It feels fine now to exhale inside water and when it’s dark outside, water doesn’t scare me that much. I am confident enough to freely move around the pool with a little support these days. On the flip side, I am playing Dragon Age: origins, which is unarguably the best RPG of 2009. It has been a long time that I felt like completing one I started. You have to play it to see how detailed and near to perfect the work is and what a great work the guys have come up with. Though sometimes I feel bad that I don’t have enough time to play it daily and my work timings are the one to blame. And lastly, I have cleared all my interview rounds with one of the largest banking concerns in the world and I am eagerly waiting for the offer letter to come. I am meeting my love everyday and she is here to stay for another month. Now I can hold her hands and see her smile whenever I want to. One of my best buddies is back to the city and here to stay. Now I can have my nomadic mad night life again on the streets. But apart from all these, I have many a bad things going on too. But since I am just back from swimming and one can always choose, I prefer not going into those lanes as of now. Happiness is so short lived. Let me try to live it as much as I can for those tensions and depressions are never far from me......