Ten Minutes

I wrote this while going for a meeting to Faridabad (some 35 KMs from where I stay). I was driving in my dad's car and like always, had put on a CD with my favorite music on it.

First ten mins. OMG. Its very far. Next ten. Nice music. Next ten. Yawn, bored of listening to the same music again and again. Next ten you curse the traffic. Wonder why you dint notice the traffic all this while. Next ten you realize its close to an hour since you started. And you are surprised that you managed to kill yet another hour of your life while driving. And you never realized it. And next ten, you dread the next thirty or so minutes that you will take to reach your destination.

Compare this to this post I wrote on three phases that you go through while you are biking.

Late Night Shifts

Love working at nights. No phone calls. No pesky bosses. No door bells. No girlfriends. No traffic. No Aaj Tak. No breaking news. No where to go. Nothing else to do. Work. And bliss.

While writing this, I was in the middle of composing a long email (to VP and RK), working on a sitemap (for SS), a phone call (from VG) and a session of poker (on FB).

Written at 1:31 AM, Friday, December the 4th, 2009.

Then We Came To The End

Joshua, in his painfully funny book, Then we came to the end, says

Some people would never forget certain people, a few people would remember everyone, and most of us would mostly be forgotten.

How true. The quote.

Links

• Mini site for the book
• Wikipedia

84 Fucking Lakhs

This day on, my blog will start featuring adult content. Reader discretion advised. If you think am getting offensive with what I write, please move on.

I am pissed. Very pissed. Furious. Raged. And all those adjectives that the creators of English language created to express an emotion of extreme anger, frustration and helplessness. I am all of that. And more. More than words can express. More that I can put in shape of words. Wish I could write better.

And why is that I am all of the above? Because I just came back from a wedding where the groom was "gifted" a BMW. From what I heard, the car is about 84 lakhs INR in Delhi. Can you believe it? 84 lakhs? A gift. I dint even know a car could cost that much. Not even in my dreams.

I thought people like that only existed on Page 3s. And if they were for real, they had to be bollywood stars, cricketers and/or politicians. But now I officially know a guy, firsthand, who has received a preposterous amount as gift. For his wedding.

I have always know that world is unfair but it suddenly looks lot more depressing. The battle with myself look pointless. The reason to exist and go though all the agony look pointless. All the effort that I am putting in, all those things that I am doing, all the flak that I have been taking from friends, family, neighbors etc seems going down the drain. All the promises I made to myself look like mirages.

Imagine there are some people, that have enough free cash to be able to gift their daughters 84 lakhs. I am not even talking about other expenses that a wedding entails. Fuuck!!!

In my 27 years, my total earnings, ever, collectively is less than half of that. And I am an MBA from one of the top ten BSchools in India. Come to think of it me, my dad, my sis put together do not make that kind of money.

How the fuck am I supposed to compete with people who have all the money to do what they want to do? I couldn't launch a business for want of bloody 10, 000 rupees. 84 lakhs is 8400 ten thousands. This dude can launch 8400 of these businesses before I even dream.

And if I asked that guy to make that much money without using any influence, power, contacts, friends, how many years, wait, how many lives would he need to reach a tenth of that amount? O, this is debateable. Forget this line. But its unreal the kind of opulence that some people live in.

How did guys like Dhirubhai Ambani manage things? How? Some divine intervention? May be. Mera kya hoga? Suddenly I am worried. And how.

Life suddenly looks so so unfair and so meaningless. Why the fuck am I even trying? fuck. One of those days I guess ...

Initially written on 3rd Dec 2009. Gave myself a break of few day before posting this to be able to look at things rationally. But more I think about it, more sick I get.

Sweet Home Alabama

One of those night outs with guys from MML, MDI introduced me to Lynyrd Skynyrd (wiki) and Sweet Home Alabama (wiki). Awesome song. Pure bliss. Here is a video.



And after thoughts, I think I went into a mini-depression when I read that the lyricist and the lead singer died in a plane crash. And they crashed because they ran out of fuel. I mean WTF !! He was all of 29.

All items (1000+)

All items (1000 +) is what Google Reader tells me when I have more than 1000 items that I haven't read.

I use Google Reader to track news, blogs, friends, updates et al. I am subscribed to 465 sources (blogs, magazines, websites etc), divided in 66 categories (or tags, folders). Whoa! Till the time I was with CLA, it was all fine. I could read as many items as the reader would have because I had that disciple of sitting in office for 8 hours and I could read at my convenience.

Ever since I moved out, things have been different. I spend most of my time meeting people and traveling. And this leaves me with very limited time to spend online. And as a result the time I spend on Google Reader has also reduced proportionately. Like few days ago I was cribbing on twitter that my Google Reader has more than 1000 unread items. Today, morning I was surprised to see yet another update with 1000+ unread items. Wish there was a job that required me to gather, categorize and collate all this info.

And coming back, I think I need to trim down my reading lists. Why so many? I believe I should not miss out on any news. Information after all is the edge. I need to be able to know things happening around me, to be able to harness em.

All said and one, there is no way I can keep doing this for very long. I need to trim the lists.

Acer = Awesomeness

Kunal and me Cyntax were looking for cheap laptops. He had killed his desktop with all the overclocking and CS kills. My Thinkpad finally died on me after 4 years of painful struggle. And since we dont have a lot of money, we were looking for cheap machines that would work for next year or so. After some bit of research, we settled on Acer 5738. It cost us about INR 32 000 each. Bought two machines from Nehru Place.

Very very happy with the purchase. Its got 4 gigs of RAM. More than enough to run CS and Q3. And obviously it can run *other* software. The keypad is awesome. As good as Macbook's. Added feature is the Numpad. Helps while working with spreadsheets. Has 4 USB ports. I can now connect my pendrive, external hard drive and a mouse at the same time. Then the sound quality is super awesome. Has got 8 channel output. Coupled with my Sennheiser (love their logo) earplugs, its awesomeness. Right now I am listening to Sweet Home Alabama.

So, coming back to Acer, as life has it, my machine had some manufacturing defect. I was told to contact Acer support call center. The staff their was knowledgeable, courteous and was able to give a solution quickly. I was asked to visit the Acer service center to get the part replaced. Even at this franchised service center, staff understood the problem fast. They gave me a deadline and delivered by that date. In fact I picked the machine after business hours and they dint mind that at all. They dint create any fuss and bent to help me with the machine.

This is a typical case where I had not expected a brand to perform and it surprised me with its performance, customer service, willingness to understand a customer's view point, deadlines and host of other things.

I would recommend Acer to anyone any given day. Thumbs Up guys. Other companies ought to learn from Acer.

One Life

Another gem from Charles Schulz.

Sigh!

I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure.

From @aparnaandhare

I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.

Marilyn Monroe

I (too) have (had) a dream

THIS IS A REAL STORY. Of a dream I saw. Yesterday night.

I am in a building attending some talk or something and suddenly a guy comes and whispers in the ears of someone important. Like they do in President's ears in most movies. And since I observe people, I understand that something is wrong. And then someone announces that we have been surrounded by terrorists. I guess (in the dream) that they might take us hostage but I get this feeling that I am going to die. I check out. There are two escape routes. I peek through the window on the left. I see one guy dressed in a pathan suit (images) and crouched near the wall of the courtyard. Yes there was a courtyard. And a wall. And yes I get these many details in my dreams. I get vivid dreams. (Not that vivid). So I see that there is a terrorist. And he was talking to someone on the phone (or was it a walkie-talkie?) and making gestures towards someone on the other side of the wall. I then go and check the other entrance/exit. I dont remember what I see there. And then I realize that I am going to die. I think that what a waste. A life where you promised a lot and ended by a gunshot. Without a warning. Aint that how most lives end? Anyways so once I realize I was going to die, I try to find places to hide (yes first thoughts were to find places to hide). I also think about possibilities of locking the building down. I also think of ways to control the people there and use their help to save ourselves. Now that I am writing, somehow the thought of calling for help dint come that time!. And then, I have no clue what happened. Next thing I remember is my cellphone buzzing and showing that its 5:30 AM and time to get up!

Thats it. Short and simple. Sans climax. Any interpretations?