A Decade Of Labour

That's right - it was exactly a decade ago on 10th Sep 1998 that I started my career in a company called Tata Consultancy Services. I was to report first day in the training center of the company in a city called Trivendrum which is almost the southernmost tip of India. Seems the extreme location of the training center was chosen more by design as they didn't want anyone to escape easily once trapped !! So there I was - in a completely new place with no known faces around. I had only reached there just a day before after a grueling 36 hours train journey from Nagpur. The place is known as God's own country but to me it seemed to be nothing more than a prosaic countryside with its people looking stuporous who needed to be shaken out of their slumber to put it that way. Well I agree that my perception may have been influenced by the fist day anxiousness and jitters but the place failed to impress me anyways as I discovered later. But back to my story - I was spent and consumed by the time I landed in my hotel from the railway station. It was around 6 in the evening and I had no idea about what to do next and more so about 'things' to come. The game had just started. In an hours time when I was settled in the hotel room, it was dinner time and I was told that the hotel would not serve us any food which basically meant going out in the town(sorry I dont' find Trivendrum be called  a city) and arrange for your own morsels. With a dead set of legs, I headed out to the market area in search of food with an acquaintance who was in the same boat as that of mine. Soon we discovered Trivendrum is not even a town-it's a Village!! No offense meant here to anyone from that part of the country but you would relate with that when you read the next few lines. First thing we observed about that place(lets not call it either town,city or village but lets just use the neutral 'place') was that the market shuts down by around 8 pm(that's like sun rise for me now!!) and nobody understands any language you speak. So with lot of difficulty, we found a dimly lit restaurant which was still open and more importantly serving people!! We went inside and sat on a table which also had a couple of chairs to park the posterior(so thoughtful of them I must say). Next thing I was looking for was a menu card and when I tried to explain that to the waiter(well, lets just say the serving person to protect the dignity of the term 'waiter'), he pointed me to a blackboard in the corner of the room which had a few words scribbled on it which I could not read for obvious reasons. Yes that was indeed the menu card of the restaurant and one was supposed to order food from those listed 8 to 10 godly items. I then saw a man sitting next table eating something similar to dal-rice. I thought atleast something looks familiar and ordered the serving person to get the same dish for myself. In about exactly 3 minutes(pretty good service time!), the serving person came with a big thaali with lot of dal/sambaar served along with something which looked like rice. I prayed to god(that was the first time I realized the importance of praying Him before having your food) and started having my food. With my first morsel just about touching my tongue, I realized that the journey of my career was not going to be a smooth one at all. It seems the rice which was offered on my plate was a variety of rice called 'Boiled rice' and it was way too tough on appetite to be even termed a food item. Kerala is the largest producer of rice in India and I had no doubt that quantity and quality cant go hand in hand. Anyways, I somehow gobbled up whatever amount of food I could from that menu item and headed back to the hotel once again noticing the deserted streets on way back though it was only about 9 pm. Next day was an all important first day of my career and I just wanted to catch some sleep before embarking on the wonderful journey.

Well before I could realize, its 10 years into my career and, believe it or not, I still go to work daily !! Jokes apart, its been an experience in itself and if I were to talk about it, I can go on and on relating those ups and downs of the decade long journey so to speak. And let me also confess that all these years have not been that easy as well though given a chance, I probably would have chosen the same path every time. Its funny but so true that any painful experience is accompanied with lot of pride and a feeling of achievement whereas anything which is pleasurable/fun giving always gives rise to guilt feelings. On this 'Pride' scale, my decade long career would top the list and I guess these 10 years would always be remembered as life defining epoch of my life. Though they say learning is a continuous phenomenon, the first decade of my career would be seen steepest on my learning graph depicting signs of more failures and less of success thus maturing up to the realities of life. But as they say, journey is important and not the destination. On this note, I am ready for the next innings(or decade) of my career with the same elan and enthusiasm as I had on my first day in TCS in Trivendrum as a trainee engineer.

Cheers to Life!! 

Liebhaberei

Apologies for using a non English term as the title of this post. That term in German means 'Hobby' and this post of mine is dedicated to it from every angle to put it that way. Dictionary defines ‘Hobby’ (seems this term was the nickname for a small horse named Robert!! Yes, I am still figuring it out.) as any activity which keeps you interested, engaged and busy for a finite amount of time and provides a healthy diversion from your otherwise routine and ‘Groundhog day’ kind of life. I still remember during my school days that there used to be an essay writing section in English paper and ‘My Favourite Hobby’ used to be a sure shot topic to write about. Usually I used to write stamp collection (philatelist) and coin collection (numismatist) as my favourite hobbies and surprisingly, I used to find that every other pupil in the class too wrote about same hobbies. I wonder if there were any other hobbies to pursue during those days!!

As I grew up, I realized there are many more interesting things which one can pursue to keep oneself occupied with. In fact Hobby in a way can have therapeutic effect on you if pursued with passion and vigor. So here I am jotting down another essay about things I would like to do or I am pursuing to keep me interested, engaged and occupied at least for a while (Geminis have a very short attention span, so any hobby can’t keep me hooked up for more than 600 seconds at a stretch!!). One more thing – I now believe hobbies change with age and time. Things which I used to like say at the age of 10 (be it stamp collection) don’t interest me anymore. Probably, it’s like upgrading your hobbies as you get acquainted more with the world though a few of them can still be traced back to your genes. Let’s see if I can discover a few of them in this post –

1. During my childhood days, I had an innate liking for toy guns. I was simply crazy for them what with dad bringing in a new one each time he used to go out on an office deputation. I had a huge collection of them. One such was really cool (I still have it though it doesn’t function anymore) – it was manufactured by Leo toys company and the model was based on real model of a semi automatic gun used by Russians during that time. To explain its functioning in core jargon, when the trigger is pulled, only the hammer and firing pin move, striking and firing the cartridge. The bolt then recoils far enough rearward to extract and load a new cartridge from the magazine into the firearm's chamber, ready to fire again once the trigger is pulled. More simpler ones like the one I used to get during Diwali time was also a special attraction for me and I used to wait for the entire year to get a new pistol gun during the festival time. Somehow the passion for this firearm faded with time, but I still cherish to possess a real one one day though I know it may not be worth it somehow.
2. This one is not really a hobby as by its definition – this activity doesn’t keep me occupied. On the contrary, it unshackles me up from all the hustle bustle of life (I know I am getting philosophical here). I am talking about a simple activity I find extremely engaging – that of enjoying solitude. Mind you, I said solitude and not being lonely. There is a difference and that difference is like the difference between being childlike versus childish (go figure if you haven’t yet). There is indeed bliss in solitude and if you know how to enjoy it, I would say you would never find yourself lonely even when you are alone (I know I am indulging in terminological inexactitude here but the description of this ‘hobby’ warrants it to some extent). Some may say this is like meditation. But to me, meditation sounds more technical in nature whereas solitude is simply being you, being in your own company and enjoying it for no specific reason. As they say, you tire yourself in pursuit of happiness. So just stop pursuing that eternal goal of being ‘perfectly happy’, take a break from your chore and just relax in nothing. This activity once mastered can then be exercised even while you are doing a passive task like watching the idiot box. Though the best ambience I would prefer to enjoy solitude is a peaceful environment with some soothing music being played in the background (of course on your home theatre). A cool breeze adds to the effect for sure.
3. It’s funny sometime to see that things you never realized could interest you suddenly start appealing you and you take an instant affinity for it. Photography is one such thing which I never took very seriously (probably for the lack of the right instrument I would say). But with the advent of digicams in the market in last decade or so, I find myself completely smitten by it and have started taking it seriously in terms of my understanding and exposure to it. As you explore it and get familiar with finer details, you realize photography is so much more than just pressing the button on your cam. I have started enjoying it thoroughly and intend to pursue it with more vigor and rigor. I started out in this world with my first cam which was analogous in technology and its film role had to be manually advanced after each photograph. The technology has come a long way today what with the advanced digicams offering almost all the possible features which one would like to see in a professional level camera. Though I am too happy and proud with my Canon S3IS which I currently own, I do intend to go the SLR way in near future, the only constraint being of course the state of my finances. But a lack of hifidelity instrument is no excuse for not pursuing this hobby in all its earnest. I have started organizing some of the best pics I have on Flickr but I am not satisfied with that site’s performance. Probably I would shift to some other photo blog site or may be have a domain of my own where I can host them.
4. This one is not really a hobby, it’s more of a fascination (you may call it ‘fascinobby’) which has kept me amused for a good part of my life (and many others I am sure as you would see that now). The fascination I am referring to here is about what we call as the Universe and the mysteries surrounding it which we still haven’t comprehended completely. Actually, we can’t even quantify as to how much we really know about our habitat, the small iota of space we claim to occupy and call ours in the Universe. When we say that the universe is boundary less, what exactly we mean here is something that intrigues me to no end. I mean come-on how big the space can be and if we don’t attach any boundaries to it, then where exactly it would lead us to. In other words, where exactly would the journey end if I were to embark on a space odyssey and continue travelling in one direction for forever (assuming I have the necessary means for this hypothetical travel).The other aspect of the universe that has puzzled me is our understanding of it, our perception of it. Think about it – we perceive everything with 5 sensory organs given to us by the god (see we can’t even seem to describe basic attributes of a human body without mention of the ‘Divine’ and we are trying to decipher universe here in a scientific way… hahaha !). Anyways, what it means is – whatever we perceive around us is basically a summation of 5 distinct sensory signals received via the 5 sensory channels or organs we have with us (of course interpreted and processed further by a beautiful apparatus called brain with which we think we think!!). So the underlying question here is – who has told us there are or rather there could be only 5 sensory perceptions any living specie can have? The god (again !!) may have an inventory of hundreds or even thousands of sensory organs and decided to give us only 5 of them! Imagine if we were not given the sense of smell, we would have till date through eons happily accepted the fact that the world is odourless or probably there wouldn’t have been a word defined as a ‘smell’ or an ‘odour’ at all in our dictionaries. All these to me mean that our perception of the universe is limited to what we perceive through the prism of 5 sensory probes we are blessed with. One less or one more (and mind you, this is our perception of perceiving that we have finite sensory organs if you know what I mean) and we just don’t have any idea what it would be like – probably we may not even exist as living beings (our definition of being alive) as we perceive it now or the universe after all may not be infinite at all (Infinite may be easily comprehensible in that other world)!! Who knows?? In fact, to put it in yet another interesting way – we just don’t know (neither we would ever in all likelihood) what is absolute reality about the universe versus our interpretation of it.
5. A few of the other activities which has kept me hooked up lately and which I would not hesitate classify as ‘hobby’ by its definition are as listed below –
1. Blogging – started my affair with it with Chiku’s arrival. As stated somewhere in one of my entries, wanted to leave a kind of foot trail in terms of my thoughts/opinions for the progeny. Would like to continue with it as long as I can.
2. Hacking – Would like to pursue with it with some more seriousness (probably sometime later in my life) but with no negative intentions.
3. Acquiring new gadgets/gizmos – well, this is only limited by the state of my finances and I would try to coincide/align its pursuit more with Chiku’s growing years so that I keep myself paced up with him in the field of technology marvels.
4. Reading is another activity I would like to dedicate more time as I grey my hairs. Somewhere I read that the amount of information a regular guy would have had in his entire lifetime around the 17^th century is available to us in just one day through various media channels. So in other words, we are given the opportunity of living multiple lives (thousands of them actually) when compared with that old guy from 17^th century (old as of now I mean).
5. Politics is another of my hobby/passion I am extremely attached with. Be it international politics or national drama (politics in our country is nothing less than drama and can give a run for money to the ‘Saas-Bahu’ dramas any day), I find myself glued to the news channels 24x7 given favourable circumstances (marriage has made them hostile you see).
6. Philosophy – I do have a flair for this ‘boring’ subject as perceived so by many and find myself inclined towards it quite often. It’s an extremely elaborate topic and I would just stop here with its mention and keep it for another post at a later point of time.
7. Music, food, sleeping, TV, movies are some other pastime activities I would like to call out here (this phrase is so oft used in my company meetings, I hate it now!) but can’t keep me engaged for more than a few units of time (characteristics of Geminis).

All the above ones are healthy hobbies I am/would pursue as life goes along. However, there are a few more which can’t be included here and define a slightly darker side of my persona. But then who is living a ‘white’ life anyways?

Chandrayaan

“So you are coming too, right? Done. Lets plan it out with the same precision details as the rocket launch vehicle would be”.

It was around the time when I was like 10 year old. We used to stay in a defense colony kind of environment having a heavy military/army influence as the area basically belonged to GoI’s (that’s Govt. of India for the uninitiated) one of the 36 Ordnance Factories spread across India engaged in arm’s manufacturing and production. The initial forming years of my life have just one memory and that is of this wonderful place called ‘OFC’. I think a separate blog entry on this place is warranted by the mere fact that I spent 18 precious years of my life in the wonderland which is so mysterious in its own way and yet has so much to relate to. But for now, back to the incident I was linking to at the time when I was a decade old. My elder bro was not keeping well around that time with his legs jammed in one position and my mom dad had to stay put late nights looking after him.

One such night, I remember my dad did not let us sleep till late midnight. The reason – there was an announcement on the AIR (that’s All India Radio for the generation born after 80s) that a heavenly/celestial body called Haley’s comet would be passing by our planet and that it would be visible with naked eyes in the dark skies that night. Now with my 10 years old brain, I really could not analyze this data much (remember no TV during that time to help depict such phenomenon with hi definition graphics) though I had a vague idea that someone called Haley would be brightly lit in the sky and everyone would say ‘tata’ to him. Sounds cute, isn’t it?

Cut to 2008 – I do think that the Haley’s comet event was indeed a big factor in shaping my impressionable mind into scientific mould and that I did develop a deep scientific inclination henceforth in my life though my exploration in this mystic world of science remains limited to reading a few good books on the subject like ‘A brief history of time’ and/or subscribing to ‘Astronomy’, ‘Universe’ kind of communities on Orkut. Though it may sound stupid but many a times I do think deeply and seriously on a few open ended questions science has thrown at us - if we still are alone in the Universe, how big is the Universe (think about it - we are a part of solar system which grouped in millions form a galaxy which in turn grouped together in millions are called ‘Clusters’ and which in turn grouped together in millions is called ‘Universe’!!) and many such questions which sometimes closely border on philosophy in terms of who is the Creator of the Universe and should we really treat science and philosophy/religion as two distinct branches of some higher discipline so to speak or should we wait for the ultimate ‘Theory of Everything’ to get materialized for piecing together all the Jigsaw puzzles thereby solving the mystery completely. I don’t think that would be possible in this birth, in fact I would rather not given a choice as they say there is bliss in ignorance and you can find ultimate bliss in ultimate ignorance!

So this time around I thought to myself – how about elevating my scientific curiosity to the next level? Instead of just pondering over such unexplainable ‘Universal’ phenomenon, let’s watch the spectacle in person and witness some of the science events which you only hear about on TV. To cut short the story (too late I know), I have been following the BIG ISRO story that India is planning its first unmanned mission to Moon sometime this year(2008). Now, this is really a BIG ‘space’ leap for the country as only a select few countries till date have succeeded in achieving the feat. When I checked out the details, the rocket launch to the moon was to take place from a place called ‘Sriharikota’ which to me sounded to be a place somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Well, it turns out that the place is very much in the same state I live in (that’s the land of migrants like me Andhra Pradesh) and it’s pretty well connected by rail/road. The district is called Nellore and it’s around 60 km from its capital Nellore city. The launch would take place from Satish Dhawan Space station which is a heavily guarded space station owned and managed by ISRO. I guess my best bet would be to find a place very nearby the space station which can give me a clear arterial view of the rocket launch.

When this thought came to my mind, I really thought it would be nice to have some company while witnessing the shuttle launch. I thought of checking with Chiku but he could not understand a word of this whole deal and kept nodding his head in anticipation of getting Gems (that’s Cadbury’s multicoloured chocolate balls) from papa and hence I had to give up soon enough before he started screaming for the chocolate (Moon can wait for him I suppose!!). But I did manage to catch hold of a few likeminded minds, some from my office and a couple of my close buddies. The opening line of this blog is what transpired when I just got off the phone after speaking to yet another concurring creature. So far so good. The dates have not yet been officially announced by ISRO and if all goes well, I will surely write another blog to describe my near heavenly rendezvous with … well Chandamama !!

Good Things in Life

Really speaking, this post was long pending and I just kept procrastinating it (I hope I have made right usage of that college dictionary word!!) for no reasons. So today I thought enough is enough, as all it takes is opening up a blank MS word document and typing in a few random letters thereby crystallizing your thoughts into writing. Simple, isn’t it? I wish I had the same level of determination all the time as I do at this moment at least when it comes to writing!!

So what this post is all about? In one word, it’s about the good times!! Well, I am not really a marketing agent for Kingfisher (‘Good times’ is their ad line as I could remember). I just thought I should pen down everything and anything I like to do/experience, things which give us a kind of feel good factor so to speak. Initially I thought I would set out a few rules and guidelines around how I would describe them but then I thought going by rules is really not me. So all I am going to do here is randomly list out such ‘Good times’ activities and post them as a blog. A note of caution/disclaimer – not all of the below is necessarily ‘Good’ as what I deem ‘Good’ may be categorized differently by different species.
So let’s get started without wasting any more keystrokes!!

1) The first one to top my list is sleeping through the weekend!! How I want to just not get up on a Saturday morning, then laze around the whole morning only to go back into being of non existence or shall I say a prolonged siesta around afternoon and then again remain snoozy through the evening. The late night movie puts the final stamp on the super slumber Saturday which I wish would duplicate itself through Sunday!! Well, this routine may sound a wishful thinking now but it actually used to be a weekend ritual for me in my pre marital days (this pre marital thing rhymes so much with something else but let’s not get there!!). Post marriage, I declare hereby that I am too happy if I get even the nominal eight hours sleep(mind you, one of the readers of this piece of writing is my better half, so have to be politically correct). As an antithesis to the above mentioned fantasy, I have discovered that a woman sleeping through the weekend is a non sequitur.

2) The scent of a woman – this is a Hollywood movie with a power packed performance by the legendary Al Pacino. But I am really not referring to the literal meaning of the opening phrase here (as otherwise I would be labeled a philanderer which anyways I am!!). So what I really am referring here is the various smells or rather fragrances which we come across routinely in our daily life but don’t care much really. To start with (which may sound a cliché), the smell of the earth as soon as the first rains hit the soil tops my list. Very close to this one comes the aroma of hot or rather garmagaram Pakoras which your mom prepares on a rainy monsoon evening with the cool breeze hitting all over your face followed of course by a hot cup of ilaychi tea. Those were the days!! Another one which comes to my mind instantly is the smell of fresh hot Pizza from your next door neighbor when you are just passing by their door. This smell is more enticing than when you are actually relishing the same Pizza all by yourself. As they say, the grass is always greener on the other side of fence. Continuing the list is the smell of laundry cleaned clothes when you inhale the clean scent of the laundry detergent through the fabric. Another endearing smell is the smell of a baby when you hold them close to you. It’s so peculiar of them and makes you love them even more. If you buy any new book, just open it randomly and immerse your nose through its virgin pages and you will be reminded of your good old childhood days when you used to attend school and used to write with a pencil on those brand new notebooks.

3) A few ‘Good things’ which I can capture in short sentences –
a. A hot bath after a hectic and tiring day
b. Getting a mail from a long forgotten friend.
c. Watching your favourite TV program on a reclining chair with remote in one hand and a can of chilled coke in the other (that’s a luxury after marriage)!!
d. Watching the value of share you had bought last week going up rapidly.
e. Writing a good blog post
f. Attending office on Fridays in anticipation of a relaxing weekend ahead
g. e-Shopping and more so researching for a product on the net you want to buy.
h. Browsing through the net for latest in newly launched softwares/ freewares
i. Reading newspaper early in the morning with a hot cup of tea by your side. As they say, news is that instrument which keeps half the earth’s population amused with other half’s miseries!!
j. Holding your wife or girlfriend’s hand (Please note that both are mutually exclusive and there are no prices guessing which one feels sweeter ;-). This particular ‘good thing’ point was written by me with a gun pointed to my temple by you know who).
k. Cleaning up my camera/laptop (or any hi-end electronic gadget for that matter) on a lazy weekend with no one to bother in between.
l. Learning a new and interesting word and its etymology. Do you know that the word Camera derives from the hindi word ‘Kamra’ which simply means an ordinary living room.
m. Reading quotes/proverbs/one liners which are subtle, witty and are double edged in their meaning.
n. Chilled butter milk or better still Chaach on a hot summer noon.
o. Getting the popup ‘You have a new mail’ on your laptop.
p. Sharing your achievements with your best friends. They are the ones who are witnessed to all the ups and downs of your life and hence would have a better understanding of what it took you to reach this milestone.
q. Watching republic day parade and taking great pride in watching those state of the art weapons which can take on any biggie in the world!!
r. Cracking a puzzle which could not be cracked by many ‘intelligent’ species.
s. Watering plants in a garden. This is something I never did after my childhood days when we used to have a garden of our own no matter if the garden contained only wild flowers and plants.
t. Clicking a great photograph with my digicam.
u. Driving a sun roof car on a freeway on a sunny day. In India, you can get a sun roof car, you can even get a perfect sunny day. But freeway – the word itself hasn’t found a place in local dictionary!!
v. Having an animated discussion with close group of your friends/acquaintances.
w. Watching a science documentary on Nat Geo and realizing how close we the earthlings are to near extinction. The narrator of the documentary is about to reveal how we can escape the apocalypse when all of a sudden I see Tulsi’ face on the screen caught in a very tensed situation making you realize that the ‘near extinction’ problem is a naught/zilch when you are already facing such mammoth issues as saas bahu!! By the way, no prices guessing who changed the channel while saving the mankind from near extinction!!
x. Watching a nail biting Cricket match wherein India is heading for a possible win.
y. Watching interesting TV commercials. Their chief USP is conveying a thousand things in a slot of 30 seconds. This to me is the height of contemporary art. I mean look at the Amul India ads, the legendary pepsi/Coke ads or the classic Nirma ad. They all have left an indelible mark on me, no matter if I ever used their products or not.
z. Googling anything about which you want to enhance your knowledge.
aa. Reading a good interesting book while lying on that cosy sofa.
bb. Watching standup comedy shows especially from the Western television. The dark humour portrayed by them is absolutely the height of imagination while indulging in semantics jugglery.
cc. Having Daal tadka/Dal fry and steam rice in my favourite restaurant.
dd. Nilgiri trees. These trees had been a part of my childhood days defining an epoch period involving initial years of my life and would be difficult to forget for the lifetime.
ee. Getting my first credit card which was from Standard Chartered bank.
ff. Tickling yourself with anything soft such as a piece of fur or a peacock feather.

Many more of these ‘good things’ which could be thought off and I would keep updating this post with them as and when they occur to me.

God of Small Things

‘Anthropological bipedal Homo sapiens’ or simply put ‘Human beings’ are a very complex phenomenon and generations after generations have put in loads of efforts to decipher it and understand it better. However, to me that’s a very Aristotelian or may be philosophical way of looking at things. I for once am interested in small things in life and would like to explore it in detail as it would unfold in next few lines.

Talking about small things, quite often in life we come across situations wherein you have to act or not act in a certain way. Then there are some scenarios wherein you need to follow etiquette and don’t know the nuances while following those etiquette and you eventually end up committing a faux pa and then looking for an excuse to cover it up, if you know what I mean. Alright, so I thought why not compile a list of such situations/life events which are often harmless but does leave one (especially if the one is the one at the receiving end) pondering over it for quite some time and may alter his/her life for better or worse depending on the situation again. A note of caution – not everyone would identify with all the situations I am going to list out as I don’t expect my idiosyncrasies matching up with everyone’s wavelength as otherwise that would mean an ideal world from my perspective! So here it goes –

1. Whenever I have to enter a room full of people be it a waiting room at a doctor’s clinic or a social party/gathering, I always get goose bumps as do most of the others in such situations. So what do I do – if I am walking in along with a group of people, its an easy way out as you just hide yourself behind a few other brave souls and you would soon find yourself in the most obscure corner of the room (safest haven in such social dos where I feel absolutely safe and secure from the afflicting xenophobia). But if I am walking in alone, my strategy is different. I will try to look as calm as possible, I often even start chewing a bubble gum so as to look ‘kool’ or look absolutely cold and phlegmatic so that no one gives a second look at you for obvious reasons. Once this part is conquered, the second biggest challenge is to find the right place to park yourself (or your derriere if you allow me to be a little risqué) in such a do. Here I utilize my glancing skills to the core as I throw a cursory look all around taking utmost care that my eyes don’t collide with others (and if they do by serendipity, it should ricochet off in a nano second!) as that would mean reciprocating back the gesture. If the other person is smiling when the eyes meet, then you need to as well, if he/she frowns/is cold/don’t give a damn, then you need to immediately cut out the flitting eye connection pretending you never saw them and so on…basically a very tedious game to play which I hate really. Having done that, I analyze the most deserted spot in the room and head towards it again taking care that I don’t look at anyone else unless there is really a good looking face around which is a different story altogether and need a separate dedicated blog. Once I am seated or standing in the corner I just made my home, I try to look around for things I can kill the time with. If a magazine is lying around, I will start reading it or at least pretend reading it but these magazines are mostly dead boring. I mean at a doctor’s waiting room, you would find something like ‘Medical Journal - Gastroenterology and its advances’ which you in all likelihood might want to keep till your next divine reincarnation. If I don’t find a magazine, my best bet is my mobile phone. Hold the mobile in your palm and look extremely busy making faces while staring at the gadget. It gives an impression to others that you are engaged in something very important. Reality is that the mobile is running Tic Tac Toe and I am enjoying it to the fullest! However at a social do, it’s not a good idea to look so aloof and disconnected, so I try my best to find a known face and while away some time with him/her. If that fails too, I just hang around with my better half (they ain’t called better half for nothing!!). As a last resort when nothing works, I just make a quick exit of course after having the seven course meal and satisfying my carnal appetite l!! One often recurring instance which happens with me is – somebody approaches me with all warmth and says hi, hello etc. The problem is the fact that I somehow am not in a position to recall his name though I know I have seen the person before. For such awkward situations, I often ask for his email id which then gives me some idea as to who he is. Pls note that this never happens with a female face since that’s how men are designed to work!! Another problem I face often is the kind of topics I can talk about with a person whom I have met say just once before. So the conversation revolves around weather, food (in the party) and at most politics which I usually avoid if the person is now well acquainted. All in all, I hate going to parties. My bigger fear now is that someone with not so close relations reads this blog and I ran into him in a social do!!
   

2. When I have to dial a telephone/cell# manually, I have lot of trouble when the entire number containing around 10 digits at a minimum are placed closely (juxtaposed!) to one another without any gaps…I mean on one hand you are dialing digits on the dial pad, then you have to look up the number to check next digits and there exactly lies the pain! You have to literally strain your eyes so much to see which was the last digit dialed in and then pick up from there. Really a strenuous job since I also have this phobia that if I delay in keying in the numbers, the phone might hang up or may mal function. I am just waiting for the technology revolution which will make voice dialing a common feature though I know it still would require me to read out the number aloud and that is equally painful!
   

3. Colour blindness – First of all, let me straighten it out – I am no colour blind. But then as my opening line of this blog mentioned - we anthropoids are a complex creature. I mean cant we keep it simple when it comes to colours? I can just about deal with the basic color god created - red, blue, green yellow etc. the ones we were taught when we were in Kinder. All my life I was under blissful belief (or ignorance as some would call it) that this is what all one should know about colours in life literally speaking. My simple world came crashing down when off late I realize how little I know about colours. Let me start with my struggle with a colour known as ‘Purple’. Is it light violet? If so, why name it differently as ‘Purple’? I mean c’mon keep things simple – that’s how men are designed for life and I have no doubts left in my mind that these extra terrestrial colours were coined and invented by women – Pls, can you ever put a stop to this brutality? Back to my story – Purple is also called ‘Lavender’ – WHY? Why on earth you have to name the same colour differently? Crimson – dictionary defines it as ‘deep purplish-red’. Amazing!! Isn’t it? Wait, the torture has just about started. How about ‘Peach’ colour? Its light pinkish yellow as of a peach. If you have to name a colour after a fruit, then why not follow similar rule for all colours? Call yellow as sun, red as strawberry or Mars (red planet), green as leaf and blue as sky. I just wish there is an international forum like ‘International Chroma Association’ governing the rules and regulations around colour naming and colour invention and everything related about colours. Well, let’s not deviate here and let me now take you deeper into the world of colours with no mercy. White – simple pure colour signifying peace and tranquility. Let me shatter it now – Ivory, Magnolia, off-white, cream and the list is endless. Another instance - Pink – a very romantic colour to me. Now see how the romance is killed when you hear – Fuchsia, Magenta, carmine pink, coral pink and what not. Some more random colours to wreck your brain (pls do not faint if you fall in my category of colour blindness) – Burgundy, Vermilion, Amber, Tangerine, Maroon, Sepia, Mustard, Olive, Saffron, Chartreuse, Emerald, Aqua, Turquoise, Denim, Sapphire, Mauve, Orchid and the list is serpentine. Honestly speaking, if you could relate even 25% of these colours, you qualify to be a genius for me. When I did some more research on colours, I was baffled further to see that the dictionary defines excruciatingly niche words just to describe the properties of these colours. Words like shade, tint, hue, saturation, contrast and so on really got into my nerves and I decided to call it peace and dwell no more further. When I was about to sign off from my lappy, I came across this line on the net – “Additionally, computer displays have somewhat limited gamut, so many colorful pigments cannot be represented on screen at all, and computer simulation of the natural world is at best a rough approximation.” So basically I am not sure how many colour I do believe I know are really the ones I am looking for.
   

As there are many more such small things in life which are vying to get some space here on this post, I thought I would pause here and would keep updating this post as and when I get disillusioned by them.