Tit-bits, tag-wags

Turns out there are plenty of tags floating around that I haven't done, and soon the debt will start counting as sub-prime [:p] so there's no harm taking a few up to prevent my reputation (ha!). But first, some news off the top of my head.

Last week was pretty eventful, with friends dropping by all the time, a visit to my would-be office, a creepy unmentionable incident and a rocking department party that turned out much better than anyone expected (especially me, I was so paranoid given the 5-yr history of my department that somebody would have a fight, someone would get psyched, someone would say or do something inappropriate etc) . It was quite an experience for me though, trying to get people to agree and fix it up, but eventually most people turned up and mostly had a good time. With semester entering its last month, there would be more parties and more nostalgia coming up, for sure.

Among other things, a sign of times we live in: Two more companies that had recruited on campus withdrew/deferred for 6-12 months their offers. Two acquaintances have acceptance for MBA's from Ivy League and are planning to join ISB instead. The other day, after lunch at my would-be company, the first question my dad asked me over phone was "How was it? Are they planning to give you a joining?"

A Yey for Dravid scoring all those runs this series.

A once-upon-a-time-excellent-friend advises me that hugging a friend, even your best friends, or light affectionate touches are still like sending signals and giving hints to the 'hungry' that you're easy if they are from the opposite gender. Probably it's just me, but I'm having a hard time assimilating the import.

And Aa Dekhen Zara should be renamed Zara bhi na dekhna. Super-awful.

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Achha to the tag now, let's do "little things that piss me off" by Vibhav. Rules: "Write about things that piss you off, and the reason in brief. No rants, they only make you more miserable. This will let you let it out in a civilized manner. And please, not things like terrorism, politics, poverty or moral policing. Write about small, mainly personal things, things that you directly and often come across during the day."
I'd write whatever comes to my mind then.

1. Girly gossipy bitching (and not just by girls): I live in a girls hostel and still can't stand it. Tons and tons of free-flowing gossip, mostly based on little or no knowledge. Back-bitchers, but still best friends on the face. Opinions, and ever-changing loyalties, helped by a really short memory. Maybe it's nothing evil, it's just that I don't get it.
2. If you can't follow your own rules, don't make them: This holds especially for people working with you, mostly the superiors/leaders/bosses/teachers etc who make the rules for everyone to follow and ditch them themselves. Don't demand punctuality, regularity, sincerity and commitment if you can't give in your own share. Don't expect me to know the subject if you're the teacher and don't know what you're teaching. Uninspiring unintelligent leaders piss me off.
3. People talking around me in the early hours of the morning when I don't want to get up yet: I'm so not a morning person. I hate waking up, nd for the first half hour after I wake up, my mind refuses to work, even comprehend enough of what's happening around. So people who talk around me or make noises in the same room in the last few minutes of my sleep piss me off so much I become violent.
4. Nosy neighbours: Mind your own business, check your own household and stop worrying about what I'm doing, who's coming where, what's happening in the building, who's getting married (or not), who's talking to whom etc etc.
5. People abusing power and causing harm to the larger group: Basically, I have a violent and often irrationally stubborn sense of right or wrong, especially when it comes to a large community and people who abuse power or bend rules and knowingly do the 'wrong' agitate me, even brings me to tears.
6. Not recognising the "grey" and the "irrational": It exists, whether you like it or not, whether it makes 'sense' or not. Period.

I'm sure there are many more, but I'm tired of thinking and this is an awfully long post already.
Later. And oh yes, tag to everyone who wants to. It's fun!

Reflection

Occasionally in life, drifting along with the current, you stumble upon boulders of little failures, pieces of your soul and your life from the past and sometimes, fragments of what you lost. Some of those things you knew had happened that way, some are testimonies to failures you made but you never realised. And then in that split second, shaken a little by the collision, you snap into consciousness and take a closer look in the disturbed waters. You see a new reflection, one that forever alters your idea of yourself, yet another time.

Occasionally in life, moments you had lived through and forgotten resurface with a new meaning and become your new mirror.

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The game of deception
has the side effect
of turning you into someone
if only some part of you
into someone
you didn't wanna become.
Alas, sometimes
it is the only way
you can preserve yourself
if only some part of you
it is the only way
you can survive.

Mumma should know

My mumma does not know anything. So many times, when I ask her something she just says "I don't know beta", but she still says I should ask her questions. My daddy is smart, he always gives me answers and chocolates also. But daddy has gone to far-office. I asked mumma when he will be back and did he call. I have to tell him to bring me new barbie when he calls. But mumma just said I don't know. How can mumma not know? She is big. Whenever she asks me questions, I give her right answers. I give right answers to Madam in school also.
New madam is not as beautiful as old madam, but she gives me 3 stars in my homework. Old madam just gave one. New madam asks everybody's names so many times. Sometimes she calls me Angel instead of Anjali. Mummu said Angel means fairy. Like in the stories. Mumma says I am as beautiful and nice as fairies. But mom doesn't tell me stories these days. She says I should read them myself from my new blue book. It's difficult to read words and look at pictures at the same time. But mumma does not listen to me these days. I will tell Daddy when he comes back. And mumma does not give me chocolate Horlicks in milk also. White milk is not tasty. I climbed up the kitchen shelf today to find the horlicks bottle myself, but mumma saw me. She did not scold me, but I still came down. My left finger is hurting since then, but I did not tell mumma. Mumma does not look beautiful now. She is always crying, or cooking, or sleeping. She does not go to office either. I asked her when will she go so she can bring me chocolates and new doll and horlicks on the way back. She just said I don't know.
Mumma should know.
Goodnight.

Incoherent

A lot of things aren't rational.
Yet for some reason
they believe
we believe
rational is good
but the lot of things not rational
are they all bad?
Shun them you should?

Feelings.
They are so irrational, mostly
a mad gush of chemicals
making you crazy
Making me fight
to keep them beneath the surface
making me fight
me.

Irrational isn't understood
simpler only than absurd
Fragile, yet unbreakable
into logical bits
Meaning only to a few
to the rest
Nonsensical
beyond wits.

What do I do
for tonight
the rationale in me
is weak
emotions are breathing
at the surface
my chances of survival
bleak.

I can whine
I can cry
I can kill it
at least try
Weakness
is a sin
The incoherence
needs to die

Lead India, Bleed India

With elections round the corner, political fervor has caught the virtual world with as much fervor as the real one, or at least as much as the TV/print media. Obama-style online campaigning may still be a few years away in India at least so far as effectiveness is concerned, and really, 'active' Indian bloggers alone is a relatively small 50k-ish community, at least so far as readership and impact is concerned. Still, the chatter is almost relentless, and hopefully, a percentage would get converted into real action too. The efforts of Janagraha through the Jaago Re! One Billion Votes Campaign to get people to register for voting has found a mention earlier on my blog and it is good to see that the Election Commission has done its bit by parallel campaigning of its own as well as co-operation with efforts such as these. Activity is bound to get more frentic in the month to come, meanwhile, it was amusing to look at two new related websites, both finding some advertising space on billboards on Delhi roads. One is the Times group's Lead India'09, and the other is a sorta-reply in a rather pessimistic, funny yet utterly non-constructive way: Bleed India. The former appears to be one of many such forums with limited membership/ideas that keep cropping up these days, not forgetting Advaniji's own site (which doesn't tell you too many constructive things except a complete biography either) while the latter appears to be a manifestation of a lot of energy vent out in frustration. The ringtones section is cool though.
If there's one thing really free, that's opinion, and in a free, democratic country with whatsoever ills, there maybe, each one deserves to be aired and respected.

What's yours?

Smart marketing

Saw this pic in a wonderful post at Rush.me's blog and it immediately reminded me of a conversation with a friend not so long ago. Marketing is one of the tougher jobs in corporate bizz, it needs you to actually make someone pay for your company's products and therefore requires a lot of skills right from understanding the customers, their needs and values, and matching them with your product. Another friend of mine constantly echoes the theory that every job in this world is essentially salesmanship. Everyone is constantly selling something, a product, a skill, a job, a service, your time, your attention, your knowledge. And in this world of transactions, some do better than the others because they do the marketing smarter. That, is essentially "survival of the fittest" in slightly non-Darwinesque words. If there's demand for something, there's scope to sell something. The smartest entrepreneurs tap untapped demands. The survivors in a recession-hit market will be those who sell themselves well, to the shareholder and to the customer. It's almost...obvious. :) And then I'm reminded of a certain discussion where we concluded gloomily that we (me and people like me) are so unlike the target demographic most marketers target (the average 22 yr old middle class urban Indian girl). It's almost unfair, not just crporate houses making clothes and accesories, even smart eligible nice guys constantly eyeing that demographic also completely overlook me (and few like me). Almost...
:)
I need chocolates!

A tiny hole
in the heart, now sore
A beautiful mole
wet on the shore
Bits of soul
strewn across the floor
I, whole
walk out the door

thodi si raat abhi aur baaki hai
thoda sa savera dekhna hai abhi
chhoti si ek baat abhi aur baaki hai
do nazar aur ek chehra dekhna hai abhi

The foreign hand

The 2008-09 season of shock, destruction and devastation appears to be absolutely unending. There has been few good things this past year, and while I'm thankful for the silver lining, there seems to be a grim and morose tinge in the air all round. The world continues to sink deeper and deeper into recession, and anger and frustration in people find more dangerous outlets each day. No doubt terrorism appears to be so damn recession-proof.
And for every fallacy, every blunder, there is a quick and easy tendency to find someone to blame for, someone to target all anger and frustration at, even if that is an elusive someone like the CDSs of insurance or the secret intelligence wing of the enemy country. Even when disputes in IIT boiled over around trivial things like trophies and competition to the point where things reached the lowest point ever, every single person involved continues to hurl the blame at the other side. Not my fault honey, "the all-powerful foreign hand" did it!
The finance industry shook and tumbled and took economies of several nations apart, and while banking and insurance industry as a whole will never escape the blame for it, people who got hefty performance bonuses during the mad boom will never be held accountable or imposed fines on. Afterall, who can say that the individuals did it? The blame will keep rotating until somehow some industries find a way out and a newer world order takes over in a few years. But that was just the beginning right? Inflation coupled with gloomy global forecasts gave everyone in India the license to impose high prices based on heavy margins, and when that scared away consumers, to take away jobs in bulk. And it's neither their fault, nor their prerogative to take proactive action to contain damage and work for greatest good of everyone. That just doesn't happen on Earth 2009. Greed is one of those things necessary in small amounts to enable self-preservation, but it goes out of hand too easy, and leads to scenarios where the real estate sector wants more and more rate cuts and sops, but will not cut down margins any lower from 40-50%, or when airlines will cartel to play with the masses, the govt will play with sops and policies to maximize election impact, and the rest of the politicians will be busy playing the blame game and earning brownie points as opposed to contributing anything constructive. The thing is, it's not anybody's fault, it's entirely US-imported (foreign hand) and it's convenient to all be victims.
Terrorism on the other hand seems to have grown by leaps and bounds of late, and the World War wisdom of War stimulates economy has found more and more takers, apparently, with the way the world, esp the subcontinent is burning. I wonder how much cash is stashed with these groups to continue funding terror in these times. Anyhow, Pakistan is the victim of its own friendliness with Taliban and encouragement to terror and the future looks really really grim. Yesterday's attack on cricketers was ghastly, devastating, horrific and absobloodylutely shocking. It's almost as painful as Mumbai 26/11 was, and is bound to kill cricket in Pak for a while. But just like India immediately blamed the foreign hand or Mumbai before investigating enough in her home, Pak has given the knee-jerk it's India, it's RAW reaction already. I don't know whodunnit, and whoever did has to be cruel, heartless jerks, but the only unbelievable thing about the RAW blame is that since when did RAW start doing anything, anything at all, including its job? I hope the perpetrators are caught and killed, I hope Taliban and LeT and LTTE etc etc is destroyed and peace returns everywhere, but I know this is wishful thinking, at least in the near future. The Lahore attack cannot happen without local support at the very least, and in a country half overtaken by Taliban and where nobody still got justice for publicly killing Benazir Bhutto, it's not even an iota unbelievable just like the Mumbai attack too, definitely had some degree of local support. But despite that, there will be more war-cries, Pak will make similar statements against India as India did with or without any evidence to nullify the diplomatic offensive on Mumbai and hope that there is an Indo-Pak war that will make the Taliban unite with them, stop killing them and start hurting India instead. Don't believe it?
It's all sad, and sickening, this world we have made for ourselves. What's really shameful though, is how people overlook the need for introspection entirely, and in their aim for self-preservation and greed for enemy-destruction, together become the victims as well as the perpetrators of wrong at the same time.