“Aapko kahaan utarna hai?”

“Aapko kahaan utarna hai?”
“Chembur”
“OK”
Nod.
Nod.

A conversation of this kind with an absolute stranger won’t make any sense till the time you are sitting in a II class Mumbai local train. The system carries more than 6.1 million commuters on a daily basis and constitutes more than half of the total daily passenger capacity of the Indian Railways itself. It has the highest passenger density of any urban railway system in the world.
And trust me, mutual understanding can’t get better. The nods are an agreement saying – ‘After you get down at Chembur, your seat is mine.’

I used to find it silly. Why not simply sit when a person leaves? Why tell her? Why ask him?

But one is a fool to think so. You will probably be beaten up if you sit without ‘booking’ it with the ‘lender’ beforehand as someone else would have already done so. Sitting on someone else’s booked seat would be a crime bigger than land encroachment in Kerala.

Approaching a (sitting) prospect is like approaching a super-hit movie ticket vendor on a Saturday night. Most probably sold out. Most probably booked. But we thrive on hope. For all you know she may be your fairy god mother, she may be your lender. Getting a lender is as good as getting a PPO. There is assurance. There is security. There is neighbor’s envy. There is owner’s pride.

I call all of them survivors. If you drink only mineral water and always used dad’s car for school, you probably don’t understand Darwin’s theory. Spend one hour at Kurla Harbor Line station and watch people get in and out of the train, you’ll know what survival of the fittest actually means. Its as difficult as a wedlock – andar jaana mushkil, bahaar nikalna aur bhi mushkil.

So what does one standing survivor say to another?

“Aapko mila (lender)?”
“Haan”
“Toh phir, Aapko kahaan utarna hai?”

I can’t handle alumni meets. For various reasons.

Everyone comes in cars. I felt like a lesser mortal. I and Divya grandly entered ITC Grand Maratha in a black and yellow auto (as a tribute to the auto-rickshaw community). After the meet I decided to be good to all the car-owning acquaintances in and around Mumbai. I also plan to start a All Mumbai SIBM Alumni Car Owners Association on Orkut (... a post-Kerala symptom).

Then again, I can’t handle them coz I don’t get as senti as I am supposed to. I start faking it a little. When they show old pictures I make a stupid sad face and groan a long ‘Ohh Yaaaaaaaar..’. That’s what I do when I am actually missing my friends. A long ‘Yaa…aaar..’ and then another ‘Kyaaa yaaa…aaar’. I keep moaning yaaaar-yaar till someone asks me why am I not on the dance floor.

Thirdly, I can’t gulp that I am an earning corporate now. Living with the fact that I am an alumnus forces me to act mature. It’s a burden I tell you. I wanted to ‘boooo…’ something going on stage. I suddenly realized that I was coming from office and if someone from my company is present here then it might just be one more career limiting move.

Then I had to hug people whom I never bothered to smile at in college. Worst was banging into people from other batches. We exchanged numbers which, I for sure know, will occupy space in our phonebooks for no reason. We exchanged greetings after which we appreciated the paintings on the wall as we had nothing to talk about. I would have preferred meeting a wholesaler. Atleast he’d have something to crib about.

Worst of all. It made me miss all those people who weren’t there. I really missed the yeda gang. Had they been here, we’d have either spent time sitting in a corner playing Bingo or copying each others dance steps. But we would have had fun. The kind of fun I can never have with any other set of people in the world.

Miss you guys. The alumni meet was great. It would have been greater had you been there. I just got a little senti later that night (and that weekend). That’s the only real reason I can’t handle alumni meets.

I am a loser

Everyone in the world specializes in something....My mom in scolding me, my sister in mocking at me, my dog in licking, my friends in making fun of me, Air Deccan staff in stealing........ I specialize in losing.

I look at a loser when I look at the mirror.

I lost my phone again.... :(

Dad said, " are you sure, you lost only the phone...?"

O kerala!!

I’m sad.

I’m leaving Kerala tomorrow and, I don’t know why, its hitting me bad.

Some things I’ll miss:

Uncle, Aunty and Kalyani

Watching the backwaters from the bus window

Getting drenched everyday

Kerala rice and avial

Weekly strikes

The smell of fresh banana chips

Ayyappan temples

Cocoa Tree, Cochin

The Mundu Mafia

And the zha zha zha

And lots of other small-big things. I know I’ve missed a lot of things. Hope, God’s Own Country gives me a second chance.

Control Engineering

Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters.

After three months into my first stint, I realize that meeting sales targets traveling all day in KSRTC buses, in tiny villages, in this ceaseless rainfall, in places where all you get in the name of vegetarian food is a Kerala porotha and pazhampuri,,,, ain’t easy :(

Esp. if you’re in a country where you don’t know the language. Esp. if you are a girl. Esp. if you’ve screwed up habits!
Lore says, Control is the key to success. I don’t disagree.

• I love drinking water. I used to drink lots and lots and lots of it before I realized, I was searching for a clean loo every two hours while doing the market. The thought of using a public toilet killed me. Once I made my salesman sit in a coffee shop, while I used the washroom. My (water) drinking habits were getting too much to handle. Mornings would be spent answering the million dollar question, "where would I get a clean place to pee in this little town if I need to??" Thus, I decided to control my water intake. Now my early mornings and late evenings are spent savoring the liquid :) I hate to admit, but I envy indian men when it comes to this. They pee anywhere, everywhere. Shamelessly. They don't even need a clean place (I've never met any guy searching for one!!).
  

• Another place where I quickly need to get my control mechanisms working, is my back slapping habit. I somewhere am of the contention, that if people are really relishing their work, they’d do a lot of real hard back slapping to each other. I realized how culturally insensitive I was the first time I hit my mallu salesman on the back. He instantly moved away several meters and till date refuses to work with me coz he is a brahmachari!!

• Thirdly and most importantly, it’s the parlance. They don’t understand when I ask them for directions in hindi or english but they’d give me a dirty look when I use the F word. I’ve learnt that there are some not-to-be-uttered-words (even when you know the other person doesn’t know your language) like sex, daroo, love, kiss to name a few. Hindi Gaalis like BC, MC, C*****, G***** should never-never-never be used. They eat drink sleep in Malayalam but abuse in hindi. And I..., gotta control baby!

I listen to Janet chechi’s song, for inspiration nowadays:

This is a story about control, my control
Control of what I say, control of what I do
And this time Im gonna do it my way
I hope you enjoy this as much as I do
Are we ready? I am? cause its all about control
And Ive got lots of it

- Janet Jackson, Control

Oft repeated words of wisdom

"fat rahi hai..."

"mara raha hoon..."

"kat gaya hai..."

"baja di..."

Golden Rule : Don't ask 'kya' after anyone says any of the above

Thanks to sales.

What is the only 'dry' thing left in Kerala?

Humor, perhaps.

J’ai 23 ans!

Aiyyo!

I’m gonna be 23 in a couple of hours and I have lots to whine about.

1. No family and friends to celebrate with (not that I’m crazy about cutting cakes but now that I’ve nothing else to do, might as well whine)
2. I’m factually penniless (my wallet’s destiny was similar to my mp3 player’s and Nikhil’s phone’s – all got stolen)
3. No plans for tomorrow (thanks to the never-ending downpour– viral fever is in vogue and I joined the club today!)
4. My cumulative sales achievement in the last two weeks is 88.5 % (I don’t need help from people to get completely f***** if I don’t do something about it)
5. I’m in Kerala for 42 more days! Everything about me is becoming Malayali by the day. I go to ‘affice’ in ‘odos’ and ‘besses’. My name is ‘Pervel Serme’ and my real name is ‘Parvathy’. And I sell ch‘o’colates (‘o’ pronounced as ‘oa’ in Boat).
6. Damn it, I’m single!! :( :( (I shouldn’t be expecting any flowers, gifts, cards…boohoo I’m such a loser in life)
7. From tomorrow, my parents will suddenly start their ‘groom-finding’ exercise with full force, which I had requested to put on hold till I’m 23.
   
8. The word 'base' doesn't hold any hidden connotation anymore. (I'm in BASE business:))
   
9. I cannot find many people online to whom I can crib. Hence, this post.
10. I’m so bored I can’t find a 10^th reason!

Mundu Mafia!!

One of the most noticeable and interesting things about Kerala is the mundu men wear and the way they wear it. It is supposed to be graceful and all but frankly, it looks like some shady lecher’s wrap around esp. when they fold it up to their knees and ride bike or sit stiff on a platform with their legs apart....!!!

Worst is when they start scratching their crotch or they lift it up to wipe their faces.

Here is a picture I clicked when I was ‘doing’ the market.

And they thought they were leching!!

Choosing Choicelessness

Visiting parents is fun! Especially when you do that in 4-5 month gaps (and not for more than one week). My aim is to savor as many homemade sweets as possible in that little time. My mum, on the contrary, has a well defined agenda of ‘topics to discuss’. Now these ‘topics to discuss’ are forbidden territories which will remain untouched in the normal course of time.
But things have changed now. As I’m done with my studies, I’m working and I stay in a different part of the country altogether, these topics have gained undue importance and HAVE to be conferred on atleast once in my visit to Jaipur.
What I fear most are the ‘talks’ of ‘mutual agreement’ which are nothing less than traps I fall for. I very well know that my mom’s perennially worried about me and is out of answers when our relatives ask her about my plans. While talking to me she acts like one of those super cool moms and what I do with my life is the last thing on her mind. Her initially indifferent facade with hidden anxiety is truly commendable though it starts to wear off as the conversations progresses. But with her experience in dealing with me over the years and a couple of nods from Dad, she regains ground and fights back!

You can read the rest for yourself.

Few days back..
Mum: Parul, what are your plans?
Me: As in?
Mum: See, we are not in a hurry
Clueless me!!
Dad: She should be making her own choices
Mum: Arre… that’s what I’m saying. Let her take her own time. Parul you have full one and a half year! If you have someone in mind let us know
Me: What the f….hell! Just 1.5 years? Nanana… I’m out of the conversation already
Dad: Your mom’s crazy. You chill. You should make your own choices
Mom: Ya ya..we have never stopped you from doing what you wanted all your life. Just be sure this time.
Me: Aaarrree meri maa…kkkya zabardastii hai?
Dad: We are ok with anyone you’ve chosen or will chose. Make sure he is dependable in terms of job and background.
Mom: Just make sure he’s a hindu …Not only a hindu, we need a Brahmin only. Nahi toh what will others say?
Me: Anything else?
Mom: Don’t get so worked up. We know where you’ll adjust. You’ve been in Rajasthan most of your life. You won’t gel well with a southie.
Dad: So you want a north indian Brahmin?
Mom: No I want a Rajasthanii… preferably from Jaipur. Our Parul will be close by and she’ll have no culture-issues:)
Parul: Waah waah... so you want a guy who has first-class degrees and a first-rate job plus a cultured family and no bad habits and happens to be a north-indian preferably a Rajasthanii brahmin and that too from Jaipur!! I thought I was the one making choices!!
Mom: We’ve given you our requirements you are free to find one for yourself. Stay within these limits if you actually want to see us happy!!

I only know how much I detested this topic before the conversation started and how glad I was towards the end (not because of the playground I got but because the conversation ended). No marks for guessing that I’ve asked mum and dad to do the needful as my playfield in the Venn diagram is too small for me to exercise my options.

In other words, like a lot of other times, I fell for it, I chose choicelessness.

Of Should Be and Shouldn’t Be

Coming home to Jaipur after staying in a city like Pune for two years is like sitting on a bullock cart after driving a Ferrari. Worse is the thought that your racing days are over and now you are expected to tune yourself for something called ‘Real Life’. I use the term Racing Days because of two reasons. One, I was against time…trying everything I could in the little period I had. And two, I was enjoying the wind hitting my face. It gave me a birdlike feel.

The first few days at home were full of revelations and nostalgia. After that what hits you is the clause of social appropriation (or misappropriations) of your procedures. Invariably, a Shouldn’t Be pops up more number of times than a Should Be does. I shouldn’t be calling my friend at three in the night. I shouldn’t be using the F*** word. I shouldn’t be passing sarcastic remarks in this gathering. I shouldn’t be asking him to not bore me. Once one passes the shouldn’t be stage, should be becomes easier. I should be dressing in a salwaar kameez. I should be appreciating her miserable sense of humor. I should be hiding the contempt while they show my horoscope to the pundit. I should be earnestly interested in her choice of car. I should be…..I shouldn’t be….I should be…

When I get up in the morning I see tea by my side
I enter a clean bathroom with a towel fully dried
No bets No frets No brawls over bikes
The cosmos conspires and reality strikes
Soon I shall witness an office table full of files
A milieu of scathing words and plastic smiles
A neat pile of ironed shirts and socks kept bordered
It hits me bad, its gonna stay sad; this isn’t the life I ordered

And hence…before I forget and get lost in the myriad of excel-sheets, in the never-ending chase of targets and responsibilities and the innumerable social and personal expectations, I am going to make a few things public. Here’s a list of things I want (read have) to do in my years to come.

1. Learn to ride a bike
2. Go for 3 month backpack trip (Cover: Incredible India)
3. Work till 70 (if I’m alive)
4. Read Mahabharata and Geeta at least one. Read Ramayana again.
5. Attend one Aerosmith concert
6. Do Masters in Economics
7. Teach my kids
8. Sleep for one full day without disturbance
9. Dub for animation
10. Fly

And if I happen to disregard them, it’s the onus of the reader to remind me from time to time. Hope you do your job well!

It ain't the age. It's the mileage.

One thing I particularly dislike about some elderly men is that they think they are all Eugene Levys from American Pie. So according to them they are cool, chilled-out gentlemen and their age gives them the license to do/say what they like.

I can’t understand why they can’t act their age, why do they have to share weird jokes with young females and why they do all the unmentionable things they do.

Some years back I met this pot bellied 55 + colonel at my cousins’ regimental dining-in party. He’d greet you very nicely by shaking hands and would keep shaking till you fall below your decencies and draw your hand back. When I got tired of his patting my back, his unnecessary flattering talks and his cheap preposterous jokes about desperation levels in the army, I asked him what his age was.

“FFFFFifty eight…. But I am so young at heart!!” responded the colonel reluctantly. He said ‘Fifty’ as if it were the ultimate F-word on planet.

Young at heart and slightly old at other places.

“But see young lady I am still in shape”

Yeah, and round’s the shape.

“Yeah colonel, you look 18, with 40 years of experience” I said.

Next he asked me if I had met other officers of the regiment.

Railways Always

One of the beauties of student life is traveling back home alone. The fun increases when the carrier is Indian Railways (My father made it very clear that he cannot afford my monthly trips home by air).
So, no matter how much you enjoy your privacy, like to read when traveling or are a strict follower of mamma’s pointers (“Don’t talk to strangers!!”) since the age of four - The cosmos conspires against your abstinence and you find yourself making lousy conversations with people whom you’ve never met before and might never gonna meet again. As a matter of fact, the designing is done in such a manner that the compartment resembles a typical indian drawing-room. If you don’t wanna talk, jump to the berth on the top and sleep (we don’t care if you snore), If you wanna stay here…listen to us…Listen to what my sons do…where they work….what my sister-in-law’s daughter pay package is…hear me today like there’s n tomorrow..

13th December, Mumbai-Jaipur Express
Coach AS 3, Seat Number : 35

Aunty 1: Dhokla?
Parul: No thanks aunty.
Aunty1: What do you do? Why are you going home?
Parul: MBA, Placements over, Break, blah blah ….
Aunty1: Oh good. By the way my sister-in-laws daughter also did MBA…her package is in crores.
Parul: Where does she work?
Aunty1: York…New York
Parul: York or New York?
Aunty1: Somewhere there.

Zoooperb! York’s close to London and NY in the US…
Just note the level of know-how of a far off relative she’s so proud of!

Uncle 2 jumps in the conversation with slightly more articulate facts.
Uncle 2: I also have a cousin who earns in crores. She works in California and is above 35. We can’t find a groom for her.
Aunty 1: Ya…ya… you are right. These girls these days, aiesi hi hain yeh ladkiyaan… na ghar basana chahhtee hain na ghar basega..
Parul: hmmmmmm..

Unable to make any kind of contribution to such a conversation, I shifted my attention to a four year old who started screaming as soon as I put some music on my laptop.

“KhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiKKKKKKKKKKeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”

Everyone started staring at me in the compartment as if they had seen me snatching a chocolate from the child. Not knowing what to do I gave my typical I-haven’t-done-anything-god-save-me-look to the kid’s mum. The unforthcoming mother then requested me to play the inscrutable request of her son– ‘Khaike paan banaraswala’ from Don.
The child went into hibernation half an hour later… Phew!!

Another funny sight was two boys who had brought stuff from home to make sandwiches!! Raw tomatoes, potatoes, cucumber, butter and a packet of bread!!!

These are few of the many encounters I’ve had in my trips to and from home to Pune. Train trips all in all are an amazingly interesting peek into dissimilar POVs, psyches and lives of so many different people.
For most of the people they are just to be forgotten conversations in trains, for some these rendezvous are a pastime, for some they are pure bullshit, for a marketer they are consumer interaction, for the talented - an audience, for egotists they are agreeable listeners and for people like me they are another reason to write a blog.

Experiments with Bubba - No men or two!

Her introduction would take too long but it should suffice that Bubba is close my heart and we call each other for counseling for all the major and minor ****-ups in life. What is of even more importance is that this is her first relationship and she believes in giving 100% (of what… I don’t know).

I’m neither trying a Salvador Dali here nor is it an effort to kill Bubba’s little-of-what-is-left called love life. It’s her final resolution after due consideration of not receiving adequate attention from her beau. Well, as far as Bubba is concerned two catches here:

One, the final resolution is often followed by a Final-2, Final-3, Final-Final, Super Final and Master Final (like Transcend ’06 budgets) resolutions.

Two, Bubba’s definition of ‘adequate’ differs from most of the species in most cases. When it comes to food, one idli would do. When it comes to romance, 10 hours on the phone wouldn’t be enough. You would have guessed it by now, Bubba is on a LDRP, generally known as Long Distance RelationshiP (read Love Decreasing Romance Perishing).

Scene 1

One day when Bubba Boy came to meet Bubba (they were not on talking terms as usual), I was dragged along as the mediator. I sat pokerfaced in a corner as there was hardly a conversation to mediate on. To get a little attention Bubba Boy took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth like Bond.

Bubba: “What are you doing?”

Bubba Boy: “Sorry I forgot to ask the ladies…Do you mind if I smoke?”

Bubba: “Why are you doing this to yourself….and me? What’s wrong? Are you OK? When did you start all this?”

Bubba Boy: “Why don’t you talk to me? What else could I do?”

Bubba: Oh baby!! I’m so so sorry! Trust me I’ll never be angry again. I love you!

Bubba Boy: I love you too baby! (Throws the cig away)

As always Bubba fell for this cheap tactic.

Meeting ended. Vacation ended. Bubba Boy returned to Delhi. And with that he returned to his old self too.

So after a lot of ‘missing him in his absence’, and repetitively telling him the same with no visible outcome, Bubba decided to **** all thoughts about him, **** his case and give **** to what is called relationship ethics. After due deliberation and deceptively pleasing abstinence from other men, she settled for the very popular, “No men or two” strategy and ended her play with chastity. Everything changed – from her attire to attitude.

Scene 2

Bubba Boy has come to meet her again.

Bubba Boy: “Do you mind if I smoke?”

Bubba: “I don’t mind if you burn”.

End of meeting. End of Love life. End of story. Suggestion to all my girl friends….

Follow Bubba if you wanna give them a hard time.

Don’t listen to ‘White Flag’ by Dido. Not worth it.

Mom-isms

“Don’t ask me why the answer is NO”. I got this one some ten minutes back.

Man, I don’t believe it, I’m gonna be 23 next year and I still call her up for the chindiest of things in my life. The one above is one of my favorite mom-isms….cuz I know when she says this she means that I’ve irritated her to a level where she’s pretending to be radical, rational and show that she can handle one more idiotic-n-whimsical fancies of her daughters by sheer pressure with a very motherly do-this-or-you-are-gone stare and I also know that if raise my voice by 0.5 decibel, I’m dead meat.

Some more favorites of mine in the same category that I’ve been hearing since I realized I could listen:

1. You're the oldest. You should know better.
2. Your father is going to hear about this when HE gets home!
3. You just ate an hour ago!
4. Why? Because I SAID so, that's why!
5. Now, say you're sorry...and MEAN it!
6. Go to your room and think about what you did!
7. Going to a party? Leave a phone number in case I need to call.
8. How do you know you don't like it if you haven't tasted it?
9. I don't care what "everyone" is doing. I care what YOU are doing!
10. You won't be happy until you break that, will you?
11. Enough is enough!
12. When I was your age...

This is to all my friends below the age 12..my little brother Manu, cousins Nehal, Devan, Mansi, Raghav, Aryan, Keshav, Gaurish, Ravish……. Next time your mom uses some of the above, ask her to be original.

With love,

Parul Jiji.

“Silly shrewd pointless nothings”

That’s what Gaurav called us, MBAs. Understood. When you are in your final year of engineering, you tend to say such things to your friends in final year of management education. He wasn’t entirely wrong.

Last night I was up till three for some stupid report because I was busy all week. Busy in trying to take away the priceless movie marathon crown from the fierce violently aggressive competitors called roommates.

So, coming back to the report… Did I say I was working?

Dhanya would say, ‘Yeah…right’

I was netWorking! And multitasking too!! Networking on G-talk contemporaneous with networking on orkut! But I needn’t renounce G-talk, curtail my visits or orkut or abnegate myself from reading and writing blogs so soon….specially after asking a friend, working for a bank who is also a product of management education about his dormant blog. His reply was, “all you wanna do is bitch about bosses and sick sales target-obsessed attitudes whereas we are kids of faff-rich wombs…. So it is better to nurture a dead blog rather than pouring your heart out on it and get kicked out the next day!”

Hence, celibacy for me shall start when I’m earning …Money you see is like exam forms….you need them but don’t wanna work for them.

I have this silly habit of digressing from the topic. Where was I? Yeah, Gaurav.

“Gaurav, what else do you do apart from scoffing derisively at managers, ridiculing management institutions and ludicrously jeer at MBAs?”

“I prepare for CAT”.

Well well my love, come along, we are waiting.

It's OK, It's Life!

Often in books and magazines that I borrow from libraries, I find some paragraphs, some pieces underlined or highlighted with fluorescent pens…and I never skip a chance to make fun of such morons who take all the effort for the book which isn’t gonna stay with them anyway.

But this one about life is a good one.

“Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it’s to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?”

“I do” says Dunbar.

“Why?” Clevinger asked.

“What else is there?”

Since a long-time the idea of having a good time at home for me was sitting and sulking and sniveling about something or someone with roomies. Not that I didn’t enjoy it but each passing second felt like ‘eleven times seventeen years’ as Dunbar says....

I couldn’t stop thanking whoever used his fluorescence on this dialogue in Catch 22.

No matter how unfair, crazy, lopsided, cussed, messy, turbid and sad life is…..it is coz it is. And as it is what else is there to ask if not for these ups and downs?

When I look back at my twenty-two years and try bringing back all those moments in which I was embarrassed, tired, ashamed, mistaken, failed, beaten and mocked at, I can’t stop feeling lucky as maybe all these incidences in life have made me the person I am. Now, this doesn’t mean that I’m super successful and everyone’s envy or anything….just that I’m happy the way I am and hopefully will always stay so.

And after thanking all my friends in my last blog entry, I now wanna thank all those people who lied, hurt, made things difficult, wished bad luck, cheated and sneered at me at some or the other point in my life…. for the most valuable learnings in life have come through them.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

I have weird friends.

They’ll get pissed with me when I’m in a bad mood so that instead of sulking I divert all my energies to get them back on talking terms with me.

One will write a mail apologizing for ditching me in a research paper competition and if I throw attitude he’ll not take even one second in throwing it back to me with a ‘balls to you’ look.

One’ll start telling me about the great moments he shares with his better half and takes pride in the understanding they have right after I tell him about my break-up.

One of them will ask me to join the gym as she’s getting butter cookies home and the other will take me to the gym even without asking me (straight after the SCM class and that too in formals!!).

There is one who blasts me for not keeping in touch and says we should split and there’s another one who messages me one night to remind that I have to write a testimonial for him the next day.

One of them will give me an eGonomics (read ego) lesson over the phone and sermonize ‘what losers men are’ and the other’ll message me saying, ‘I know he’s a bastard but a cute one’.

Man!

No matter how crazily unreasonable and indecisively dominating these berserks are…. they are my friends and I totally love them. They are the ones who come up running when I have ants in my cupboard and ask me over the phone if I was crying ten minutes back. They just know it.

Today I’d like to thank all my friends for being there and not being there (at certain times – it really helped), for letting me cry and sulk for hours together (I can imagine how boring it could have been), for cleaning the bathroom after I’ve puked, for apologizing to others when I fall below my decencies, for calling me back after getting missed calls, for telling me that I’ve a sad sense of humor and shouldn’t crack jokes in public, for bearing with me all these years and years to come. Thanks!

Marketing Myopia

After Summit ended on Sunday I realized what joy vellagiri is. Life is so much fun without sponsors, banners, delegates, alti..,speakers and scanners...

With the 50% attendance that I have (or don't have) attending classes is a compulsion.
I decided to attend all classes Tuesday onwards as Monday mornings are meant to be spent in slumber koochikooing with pillows:(
And then Mr. Mayur Jain calls up..."Avalon Exec Summary.Deadline 2.30".
"Yeah right...now that you don't have any deadlines to give to the I - team... i'm the scapegoat"

Reached college at 1 pm only to realize the deadline was 2.30pm,the next day...Ghhh...mayur...ghhh...

Next morning CRM class.
PPT ready...cases read...i was never so prepared for a class..
Mr. Joyanto Sengupta, " what are you selling if you are the CEO of Kingfisher airline?"
My marketing class at its best....

" experience"

" the brand "

" beer through the airline"

" the airhostesses "

" No. No.No. Please think simple.."

" sex "

"NO! You are trying to sell a seat in an airplane!!"

Ha.This is what one year in marketing does to you.Sex instead of airplane seats.
Thankgod i wan never regular in classes.

Thinking Munnabhai

I saw Munnabhai a couple of days back. Great movie! Kudos to Vinod Chopra…To make a hit you don’t need maple leaves rustling in New York, you don’t need stars in designer suits. All you need is a genuine thought.

This movie made me wonder why can’t we be direct. Why do we have to roll over the same story a hundred time to make others (and more importantly ourselves) believe it.

I need to share this with you. Though I hate Nikhil for the pain he is but I adore his frank, straightforward, candid style of speech. This morning he made me think of Munnabhai, once again.

We were all seated in Mr. Panda’s retail management class (even I was there!!) but Nikhil wasn’t. The late-comers came prepared with their stories and were seated after a sardonic reprimand.

I was hoping he comes soon and has a strong alibi.

Knock Knock

“Sir may I enter?”

“What do you want?”

“Sorry, I’m late”

“Sit”

Period

No justifications, no long stories, just a plain truthful answer. The whole episode made me wonder if I learnt anything at all from the movie. Before Nikhil entered the classroom why did I hope he has a good excuse and why didn’t I wish he says the truth.

I think it will take some time for me to start thinking Munnabhai.