Saturday, February 26, 2005

Reminders galore

Shame on me!Shame on me!It took me reminders from 4 people to get back to blogging.....the 'reminders' as I'd like to call em, ranged from "Y the hell haven't u been writing of late?Iam a regular reader.I'll keep a TAB ON YOU thru ur blog after u move on from this job" to "pleeeeeeeeeez write one today na":) n then there were the 'reminders' in the actual sense of the word blarin out loud "ur resolution#2 is broken" :( So Dr.Maverick's back to bandage the broken resolution.

Well, I just completed reading 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' by Harper Lee.I liked it,especially the character Atticus.I'll need some time to get back with a review on it.Just to 'remind' myself,I've got the foll blogging tasks pending:

1.To Kill a Mocking Bird
2.Black

The past few days have been terrible at office.I've had to slog like hell.......felt like I was a handicapped child of God coz I have just two god-damned hands.I badly felt the need for 6 to handle the workload that was pouring in all at once.To add to it,I've been on a signature campaign to get my no-dues form signed.It needs not less than 25 items to be signed and I've been scampering around like crazy, trying to get that done.When you join a company,they make you fill 101 forms.When you leave you need to get 101 forms signed.The best part is the in-between part - all day tp,have a jolly good time.

Discussed my tour plans with pop today.Alas!bro can't come.I guess it'll be the me+dad+chubs tweety threesome again.Plan to drive down to Mahabaleshwar,Lonavala and Panchgani.I heard it is an awesome road to drive on.Craving to go on this 12-hour long drive.My 15 days' break wil be a welcome breather, Iam sure,considering all that I've lined up for myself for the pampering-myself-period.Travelling to Mysore tomorrow to see poor ol' granny who had a fall and compressed her spine :( Also have a wedding to attend.Back to EFFECTIVE blogging from Monday onwards :)

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Loafing on Saturday...

The jobless moron suddenly seems to have lots to do on weekends.Watched 'Black' on Saturday.Poor Sammie missed out yet again.I won't harp about how the movie was.I've a separate movie-review section in my blog for just that.I should say I was touched by the movie though - just as much as the lesson 'Hellen Keller' (upon which Black is based)had moved me when I was a kid.Later joined darling Sush at Transit.Met up with Savvy,quickly exchanged greetings,some short general chatter and then took off in Sush's car to Suvarna.Oh man!shopping's always fun with Sush around.Between the two of us, there's not a minute's silence that the shopkeeper can seize to put across his points and practise his marketing crap.Whether it's shopping things as silly as guavas or going to down to Santosh to get our salwar suits stitched or shopping for Shwe or popping in popcorn with no general purpose of shopping, Sush n I r adorable company to each other.You better not write nasty comments contradicting my self-proclaimed adorable company if you ever read this,Sush.Having bought a couple of dress materials and having yapped our heads off about everything that mattered to us under the sun,we finally parted at my doorstep but not before deciding upon a date for our next night out.The rest of Saturday passed off in flaunting my pretty selection to mom,dad,bros n everyone who cared to see.

Thought for the day:"Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent." - Marilyn Vos Savant

Carrots,eggs n coffee

Another nice mail.My pal laughs n scorns when I neatly copy-paste something onto the blog like this......says I do it just for the heck of keeping up the "one blog a day" resolution,tries to make me feel guilty n all.But no,this is just the second time Im doin it n Im not collecting every damn forward here.........just the stuff tht I find really really nice.n Iam gonna write a diff blog for "blog for the day" anyways,so no guilt pricking me pallie.....betr luck next time.

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A carrot, an egg and a cup of coffee...
You will never look at a cup of coffee the same way again.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling.
It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water
And placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil.

In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the
Carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me, what do you see?"
"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied. Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft.

The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee.
The daughter smiled, as she tasted its rich aroma.

The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, mother?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity ... boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.
The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter.

"When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?"

Think of this: Which am I?

Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor.

If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level?

How do you handle adversity?
ARE YOU A CARROT, AN EGG OR A COFFEE BEAN?

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy.

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything
They just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can't go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling.

Live your life so at the end, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Book Review - Sack the CEO

Title:Sack the CEO
Author:Jeetendra Jain
Number of pages:247
Price:Rs.245/-
Copyright:Vikas Publication House
Published in:2003
My Rating:****

'Sack the CEO' is a fairly humourous book on corruption and hunger for power in the corporate top-brass,offering innovative (but what I would also call a little far-fetched and slightly impractical) ways to oust such an epidemic from the organization. The book is organized into three parts.

Business at Twist In the Tale Limited(TITL),a company that manufactures computer mouses for the rat-race, is going haywire.Corruption is rampant.Topgun,CEO of TITL is quick to pass the buck.He enjoys fat kickbacks and plays smart in the affairs of TITL where fraud,bribery and sycophancy are the rule of the day.

Part 1 introduces the three main characters - Smallfry is a modest plodder with great moral standards but no great educational credits to push him up the ladder.Fastrack being an MBA grad knows how t rope up the ladder,has an amazing knack of numbers,social networking and strategy but cares a damn for ethics.Takeiteasy was a trustworthy, 9 to 5 guy who wouldn't get hyper-excited or crestfallen about anything.Pipping out a thoroughly sweated-out genuinely good deal in favour of a lower quality one brought in by one of the CEO's corrupt contacts,denying a deserving guy of a promotion at the last moment even when everyone else literally swore by God that he'd be the next one on the cards for a mouth-watering promotion and promoting a more favoured dolt instead,cancelling a deserving guy's trip abroad just when he turns up all set for the promised trip and sending a CEO's-hot-favourite instead,transferring a guy who refused to fudge accounts - these are some o the incidents that get our terrific trio to spring into action and do something to check the rampant corruption.The description of characters is pretty humourous and any employed guy/gal would be able to relate well to this.
This whole part about how top-level corruption takes its toll on honest employees who either do not know the nitty-gritty of the trade or know it all but do not adopt it,thanks to their always being charily perched in the shadows of their moral hats has been presented well and makes for good reading.

Part 2 talks about the varied multitude of ways in which corruption manifests itself amongst CEOs - supposedly the most powerful people spearheading a company.In part 1, the reader gets a taste out of how the character is going by the name of the character itself.Sticking to the same style of nomenclature in part 2 to describe different kinds of corrupt CEOs makes the whole description very guessable and devoid of any surprises.Halfway through the second part, the reader begins to feel a slight pinch of lack punch.The description gets unenjoyably long.It runs into pages despite the fact that the reader can get the summary of each character's description just by looking at the character name and reading a para or two.Eg:Crony Capone has a bunch of sycophant cronies boot-licking him,Talk-the-Talk doesn't quite do he talks about doing,Volte-Face does a U-turn on his decisions,Siphon De Cash loots the company for his own selfish interests,Next Job is more interested in leveraging the niceties of his current job in order to get him a better job next,Family Man builds a dynasty rule by getting his family members juicy jobs in the company and so on.I personally found this part extremely boring especially when I was through with the descriptions of the first two or three CEO types.

Part 3 provides some enlightenment on how the ouster plans can be implemented to get rid of Topgun.If the CEO has a sweetheart,work your way through her.Track his phone calls and emails,give this info to the press.Give crucial info about him to the competitor company,distribute this info to the head hunters and watch them vie for him.Last but not the least,choose a vice-captain and help him groove into the new CEO spot.Using these,our three heros oust Topgun,administer a new guy in his place and then start a consultancy of their own called Yestecee,which ofcourse has NO CEO.

Some of the ideas presented are so risk-prone and far-fetched that it wouldn't even be on anyone's remote dream list to try stuff like that!All in all, I would say 'Sack the CEO' is worth a read.I could relate so well to the happenings at TITL,except that I had to imagine my TL in place of Topgun.Isn't really hilarious but it definitely is enjoyably comical,except for a boring part 2.

Excerpts:

(1)So what constitutes the board of directors?(besides some octogenarians with one foot in the grave and the other in your company)

(2)You might be tempted to apply for the CEO's job at Yestecee.Don't.Summarily,you will be rejected.They don't need one.

Other stuff worth a mention:Check out the bookmark that is provided with this book.It's a pretty creative and cool one.There's a tie that's shaped like a noose.

Author Profile:Jeetendra Jain is an electronics engineer and an MBA (Marketing) from IIMB.He has worked with big brands like GE Capital,Thomas Cook and Ogilvy & Mather.He has a rich experience of over 13 years.He has been a cartoonist for Indian Express and has been writing marketing literatire for Business World,Business Standard and Brand Equity.Can be reached at jeetendrajain@hotmail.com

Quarter life crisis

I still find this mail nice....must've come into my mailbox as a forward,atleast a dozen times by now.

"Being Twenty-Something"
They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.
You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and they aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.
You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.
Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure.
You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused.
Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.
You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you.
Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better.
Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person.
One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.
You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!
"What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it" We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.
Think abt it...maybe it will help u out to come out of confusion and feel like you aren't alone in this state of confusion.....
GOOD LUCK TO ALL OF US!!!!!

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Last few days in lazy bum's paradise

The nth time Iam listening to "performnce appraisal isn't a numbers game here in this great org" from my mgr.When the appraisals do come,they speak for themselves n numbers r all tht matter.If someone were to hang a loose noose around my mgr's neck n tighten it by a millimetre for every lie he blurted out, he wud die in less than half an hour.God bless!

Was browsing thru some science n tech stuff on New York Times today.Scrolled thru this article that spoke about how Pentagon is gonna have robo soldiers replacing human ones by 2010.They're spending a whoppin $502.3 billion in 2010, excluding the costs of war!!!That's when my bestessssst buddy came up with a snide remark "n we still call humans the most intelligent species!".Humans.I learnt today,are infact the 3rd on the list,behind dolphins n one other species.This reminds me Iam yet to make a post on my views about intelligence per se.Was also supposed to pen a review of Sack the CEO today but my machine's gona get relocated now n I'll do it tomorrow w/o fail.

The way these stupid relocations work!It's so ridiculous n funny......When something can be accomplished in simple ways,these damn processes that keep an organization functioning smoothly turn out 2 b double-edge swords.For instance, my team's relocating today and I got to move to a cube that's 3 cubes away from mine.Since the whole team's relocating,they couldv'e just sent 2 guys to help with moving the machines n phones.But no!!The process says you should log separate requests for PC relocation,local phone relocation and ISD call phone relocation, note each of the request numbers for future reference,get each of these requests approved by the manager,call the admin guys to speedily attend to the request,give them details of the desktop's CPU number,monitor number n whatever pther thousands of numbers they ask for and finally drag your b**t out of the god damned place!!Well, now that Iam done with it,I'll have Kamble n Priya for new neighbours.Priya is an extreme introvert,Kamble n I r non-stop yappers when it comes to fighting wid each other.So will hopefully have fun here for the remaining 12 days that Iam here.

Quip for the day:A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

Links

Found a whole lot of interesting links today.I'll keep adding to this list when I find good ones.Reminds me of Karthic's "You idiot!!!!!u save all your links like this!?! There is a new technological wonder called FAVOURITES on your browser" :) Well, I don't surf on the same machine always, u c....

Too stupid to try n compile links when u have google but these r a few that I particularly liked:

Science and Technology:
http://www.technologyreview.com
http://howstuffworks.com

Vocab:
http://hyperdictionary.com
http://wordanywhere.com
http://www.m-w.com

Learn Langs:
http://www.studyspanish.com/

Comics:
http://www.ucomics.com/calvinandhobbes
http://dilbert.com/

Miscellaneous:
http://www.hookedonfacts.com/index.htm
http://www.kubik.org/lighter/think.htm

Junk fun stuff:
http://www.nortie.com

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Resolutions n targets

1-Jan-2005 is history now but it's neva 2 late 2 make my resolutions.Quantifiable resolutions r wat Iam lookin at this year.Otherwise I'll have no way to check whether I've lived my resolutions.So will have to bear with the metrics that I so terribly detest.

Set 1:
------
Aim:To revive my hobbies and interests that aren't getting enough
-----
attention these days n r facing the threat of becoming extinct.

Hehe I find it so stupid n funny to set quantifiable targets even in the 'hobbies' n 'interests' area but then
(1)bein the typical Virgo that Iam,it's no surprise tha Iam a lil hyper-orderly n meticulous about every damn thing I do.I do enjoy being meticulous n being v v clear about what I want outa life.
(2)I used 2 do a whole lot of all the below-mentioned stuff but now,I've become a pretty sad time-manager.I love these activities very dearly so I got 2 pick up on these n set aside some time consciously before I wake up one day n realize I've totally given up wat I like doing.

So here goes:
(1)Will read atleast one book per week and write a review.
(2)Will not become alien to the happenings around me - will keep in touch with the daily news,spending atleast an hour on it each day.
(3)Will watch atleast one movie in 15 days and write a review.
(4)Will play the veena for atleast half an hour every alternate day.
(6)Will play atleast one game of chess and/or learn one new chess funda every four days.
(7)Will blog every week day."Nothing to write today" not counted :) , book n movie reviews counted.
(8)Will sketch/paint/complete atleast one artwork (have loads of them half-finished,dumped under the cot....remember?) once in two months.
(9)Will practise Reiki for atleast 15 minutes everyday.

That sounded so much like a 5-year old kid's imposition book!

Set 2:
------
Aim:To have better emotional control than the good level of control
----
that I already do .

(1)Won't react impulsively especially with not-so-close people when Iam pissed off.Will instead keep mum for a while n tell myself 5 times to treat em the way I'd wana b treated if I were to be in their place.

Rest will be updated tomorrow,dear Bloggie,for I got to go home now.

digging astro stuff

TraditionalVirgo Traits:

Modest and shy - modest yeah but shy????me????hehehe ask my frenz

Meticulous and reliable

Practical and diligent - practical yeah,diligent no

Intelligent and analytical


On the dark side....

Fussy and a worrier - yeah :(

Overcritical and harsh - this is reserved strictly for people who r v v close 2 me.

Perfectionist and conservative - perfectionist yeah :( conservative 2 a wee extent

http://www.astrology-online.com/virgo.htm - This ws a fairly accurate listing.Looked up some of my frenz' signs too n quite a number of crosses matched.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Humour

Now, this is what I call corporate humour....

Sifting thru my cluttered inbox was a pain this morning.Mails had bundled up since I was on leave on Friday.Found a mail sent in by our senior VP.It was regarding some nonsensical guidelines for effective and accurate written communication.Here's what the post scriptum of the mail read:
NB: Before sending mail – Please use spell check to avoid miss communication
hehehehe!Reminds me of a pick from Dilbert,that I have rephrased to add some spice - "The incompetent slugs who are deprived of matter up north are carefully picked up and promoted to be managers" :)

Spoke to my HR and dished out the "reasons for quitting" for the nth time in a row.My manager seems to be creatin problems with my relieveing dates :( He wants me to either stay for the whole one month period or pay up n get lost!Come on Mr.Manager,a 3-day waiver is all Iam askin for.

Thought for the day:"Before seeking revenge, first dig two graves." - Chinese proverb

Fun oer the weekend

Had been to the orphanage the other day to check out if I could contribute towards adopting a kid.The kid will be solely my responsibility,except that it won't stay under the same roof as mine.I'll have to cater to its food,clothing and educational expenses.But daaaaaaamn!i was in for some disappointment.Those guys at the orphanage said:(1)You can't choose the kid. (2)You just got to pay 15k a year n forget abt it.They'll use it for the betterment of all the 58 children in the orphnage.That didn't sound too interesting to me.Got to go hunting for another orphanage that doesn't have such restrictions now.

After some unwelcome weekend bores,I finally stepped outa home as usual to go loafing.Mom keeps sayin I was born with wheels under my feet!"U r all the time all over the place" is how she describes this loafer.Missed the ISC family day function....or should I say swapped it for an awesome time at Amoeba?Bowling was fun,especially for someone who bowls PEOPLE over ;-) :-p Won a cute lil penguin in the counter-stopping video game.I find ice-hockey eternally amusing too although the board clearly reads "Only for kids" :) V,J,RG,Sundy's company was fun.Wound up Sunday with a long game of chess.It always gets so long when I have dear lil Chubby for an opponent.Was fun.I won :) That marvellous chess board that V,J n RG presented for my bday seems to be a sort of a lucky charm for me.Haven't lost a single game on that board.
Before I sign off,here's a small piece that i picked up from the impressive old Vaswani's discourse:

God answers all our prayers in one of the following 4 ways:
(1)He says YES n grants us what we wish to have.
(2)He says "No my child, i won't give u this.This isn't for ur ultimate good" n he doesn't give us what's not good for us.
(3)He says "Not yet my child, just wait n I'll give it to you at the right time" n finds an opportune moment to grant our wish.
(4)I forgot what this last one was! :(

Book currently reading:To kill a mocking bird by Harper Lee

Monday, February 07, 2005

Aamchi Mumbai

Mumbai,here i come:The vey next day started off with a scare from people who were saying...."oh! did they ask u to reconsider?then ur notice period hasn't started yet".Clarified the point with my mgr n ws finally at peace with my move.It was a day of tremendous activity.Thanks to my persistence and convincing powers,dad had finally given in to my requests of letting me go to Mumbai for my SP interview.Got a few calls in the evening and one really really unexpected one - she ws a friend with whom my reln wsn't exactly great after all the breach of trust tht happened.As I picked her call and faked some courtesy-sake excitment,came the real "matlab" of the call n it ws time for me to get skeptical abt people ever wanting to give pure courtesy "how r u"calls.....some people never call w/o a reason n I might as well live with this truth.Was reminded of the 'doormat' funda of one of my best frenz who used to whine "i was just used like a doormat when i was needed n then disposed off"!Well, thanks to the emotional detachment that I have consciously n successfully been practising for quite sometime now(I have a very select few friends with whom I know I can let my guard down n get as emotional as I want.With everyone else it's 'emotionally distant for our own good'),Iam now in a position to successfully ward off such victimizers.They dare not treat me like door mats.
Dear C came home in the evening to gimme as much gyaan as he could abt current affairs.This guy has a pretty impressive GK.Started packing at 11:30pm n had to leave home latest by 6:45am.Drew some quick cash n set out on a drive to the airport with mom n dad.After some hugs,"all the best"s n "take care"s,I nearly lost my boarding pass at the luggage check-in!C n Shoum were there 2 see Nan n me off.Squeezed into the window seat with a lota trouble cz of the really really huge guy occupying the aisle seat n comfortably settled down with the newspaper.Breakfast came in flashing "TAJ" on all containers n I knew I was in for some free laxatives for sure.The two dosas were no bigger than two botis straightened out n upma was awful.The pleasant sight of the clouds below and the highly handsome hunks who were our air hosts more than made up for the bad food though.At a certain point,the clouds below looked like a huge bed of cotton and ice with a few punctures made here n there,revealing some awesome scenic landscape below.The last time I flew was to Hyderabad n Inidian Airlines had definitely made it a flight to remember.Hopped off at the airport onto a rick n headed straight to Bhavan's.Checked in,submitted our DDs and were led through a labyrinth of construction work,stone-n-mud paths and hedges to finally reach our accommodation.The campus was not what I would call beautiful.Just as we thought Nan n I wud share a room n chuck the other seemingly boring kid i(DebLeena) into another, the co-ordinator announced "there r 10 beds in there,u can share em'.Shux!!!our idea of a hostel room was not exactly a dorm.But on stepping in, we saw tht it was a pretty neat place,with the bedding all white n clean.Crashed for a while,made a few calls,hogged at Vrindavan and spent a major 5 hours at a cybercafe,researching for our interviews.Not an iota of effort put in until then n it felt funny to try n cram like this - back to the good ol engg exam days!Whether I would get thru or not,the fact that I persuaded my parents 2 let me go n chuck their supposedly awesome groom who didn't want his wife 2 study,gave me a lot of satisfaction.After cribbing a little about the disgusting campus,we visited a temple on the campus on our way back.Found the delicate Deb there....her dad,right from the start,treated her like she was a 2-year-old kid who was learning to walk.Nan n I began missing home like crazy.We must've blown atleast 500/- calling our folks :)
Ints - our purpose for visiting Mumbai: Interviews were a roller coaster too.....1st round ws pretty awesome for me,then the MAT test ws ok,the second round of int ws horrible - wasn't upto my satisfaction atleast but Nan kept saying I ws jst being overcritical as usual.There was one response that I would particularly want to remember:about job changes, the interviewer questioned "u deliberately don't expose ur weaknesses to ur interviewer...isn't it wrong to lie like this?Our scriptures say "Satyameva jayate"" n I retorted "but the scriptures also say "satyam apriyam na bruuyaat"Ur approach in such a situation should be focus-and-goal-based.Since the goal here is to market urself well, u should be talking about ur USPs and not weaknesses ".Good one!Online test followed n I ws glad we were finally done,glad 2 get back home.Met up with Sin n Ash,shopped,hogged the famous Mumbai ka paav bhaaji.My Shakespearean English didn't go well with the waiter and we had a hilarious scene with his local Hindi countering my supposedly accented English.Nan had 2 intervene n bail me out by placing my orders in a language tht the waiter understood.She still pulls my leg big time for being such aan Angrezi mem joker.
My opinion of Mumbai:(1)Rick meters function crazily.We travelled for half an hour,meter showed Rs.4.70 and we paid up 50/- Go figure!
(2)Wil vouch for this- this city NEVER sleeps.Dinner time's 11pm.Thot we'dget a glimpse of Mumbai at night n went out to dine at 11.Golly!The restaurant was so crowded,no place to sit.In contrast, when I returned to Bangy at 10:30,all shops were closed n I had to go home all starved :(
(3)Hopelessly overcrowded streets.Iam still amazed by how our rick puller waded through the endless stream of people who were millimeters away from being knocked down.
(4)Awesome food.No two ways about that.....especially the paav bhaji has definitely EARNED its fame here.
(5)Amazingly impressive n efficient public transport system.The local trains are so very well-managed n punctual.Learn Bangy learn.
(6)Pretty helpful and cordial people.Rickwaalas generally don't cheat outsiders like they do here n people don't guide u the wrong way like they do in TN.
(7)99% of the buildings present a miserable old-fort kinda picture.They very badly need the due-for-50 years white wash.
Learnings that came out of the Mumbai trip:
(1)Rather than my "no reln cz of a subconscious fear of break-up" stance,it's wiser to adopt a "take it in ur stride" attitude n let ur guard down a wee bit when ur fairly sure.
(2)Be more careful while uttering stupid things in front of people who aren't all that close to you.
(3)Communicate with people in a manner that THEY feel comfortable with.
(4)Equipping myself with knowledge gives me the best feel-good feeling about myself.I feel the best about myself when I feel Iam smart n well-informed.
(5)Should sharpen my presence of mind .....dreamgal needs a shake-up.Shouldn't dream away 2 glory atleast during an interview!
Book: Sack the CEO by Jeetendra Jain
Thought for the day:Life is about chasing the things you think are truly worth it, even if they don't happen, I'd rather have nothing but know I didn't settle for something I didn't want!
-Selma Hayek