Monday, February 05, 2007

Branded Marriages

Generally, marriage is a costly affaire and a cost center in accounting terms. I believe there is an immense opportunity of using a marriage for advertising. Today, when media have so much of clutter, it is one space which is still not at all explored.

I am thinking of getting my marriage sponsored (after 2-3 years) by some matrimonial site. Jeevansaathi.com presents Shakun weds XYZ. Sounds crazy Na. But it is a win-win for both parties. My cost center i.e. marriage will become a profit center and Jeevansaathi.com (or any other brand) will get a lot of publicity at very nominal prices. I hope local dailies will cover it and that again will help the brand.

There is a possibility of other sponsorships. Like for food sponsored by some rice brand, Orchestra sponsored by a music company, games sponsored by a gaming site, makeup sponsored by loreal, and photography by Kodak and there are a lot of things that can be sponsored.

Also, a new marriage t-shirt can be released. It can be bought at a nominal price. Accessories related to marriage. I mean marriage will also become a shopping place other than the rituals in which people are least interested.


Disclaimer: This article has nothing to do with me being a bania. This is just a crazy idea.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Blah Blah.......

It's all crazy stuff. Wrote Sometime back.

All oldies are jealous of the gen-nex guys. In the past, they hardly got an opportunity to observe and enjoy opulence of human anatomy as we do today. I doubt that there is any instrument to measure eyeball movement. Probably it is difficult to device one as oldies eyeball defies all laws of kinetics on seeing a babe.

Indian cricket team is more unpredictable than monsoon. Its performance can be used instead of a binary random function.

What it takes not to perform in a cricket match:

tummy equivalent to a 3 months pregnant
alertness of a person waiting desperately to sleep
tension of an ad shoot next day
Style to justify fielding
Readymade reasons to blame pitch
Paramount importance for time.


Year 2050, Pan Shops are the most attractive business proposition. A recent survey reveals that 80% of pan shops are owned by the people from general category. Panwaalas are hindering India’s quest to achieve equality in its social structure. All political parties are in favor of reservation for pan shops. They are also demanding not opening up this sector for MNCs.

There is perceived danger as the rate of spitting at public places is reducing and entry of foreign companies can further have a negative impact on it. Few parties are taking it in a big way .They never filled any color in their posters and used pan spitters instead. Almost 87,000 people are employed in this activity. FDI in pan sector will endanger the bread, butter and pan of these people.
No offences Meant
Shaks

Saturday, November 25, 2006

10+ ideas to propose a girl

Warning: Resemblance to any character living or dead is purely coincidental. Author does not hold any responsibility whatsoever. Read at your own risk.


Credits: Team Midnight Masala( Heman, K-Arthi -K, Raj"KMC"esh and Myself)

A guy likes a girl and plans to propose her. He goes to consult some of his gurus. Replies are as below:
P1: There could be 4 scenarios. First find out you want to be in which quadrant. Once you are clear it is very easy to act.

P 2: Have a FGD in boys’ hostel and identify the variables. Now make an exploratory questionnaire and ask her to rate these attributes on a scale of 1-5. Now do factor analysis and find out the factors. Prepare a final questionnaire and ask her to fill it up. Do the analysis and you will come to know whether she loves you or not. (And he did it). Then go and propose her. If she tries to say anything, you ask her “Quite Please”

Earlier years I use to propose on behalf of guys, but now due to lack of time and theme system, I have stopped. May be if time permits, I will start it in the future.

P 3: Weather is bad today. It may rain. So wait till sky clears. By the time, Go to page number 412 question number 213 of “Love ke liye kuch bhi karege” authored by love guru and try to understand it. You will get the solution of your problem.

P 4: It’s like this; in G2G (Guy to Girl) context the power rests in the hand of girl. So you ask her to issue a tender. Then you bid your proposal. You never know on the day of bid opening you find other lovers of that girl, waiting in the same garden. So quote your best proposal and pursue it aggressively.

P 5: This girl’s tips I have given in the last class. How to propose her friend, those tips I will teach in the next class. In today’s class you will be presenting BSA on proposal layout, and scheduling.

P 6: By and large, first tell me you want “a” girl or “the” girl. Have you done self exploration? First find out your anchors. Then align these anchors, with your values. Your values do not change so is your MBTI type. See whether your values match with her values.

P 7: What Amma!! All Big words. Tell me the name of the girl amma. I will go and propose (Profound propose amma)

P 8: Please enlighten me. May be it is my ignorance, I don’t know how to propose a girl. I believe because of influence of many western companies we are loosing the indigenous knowledge of proposing girls. Anyway, take her to Kerala and gift her 1 KG of Tapioca, she herself will fall in your arms.

P 9: Proposing a girl is highly technical. Let me codify it for you. First you come out of your shy ego mode. Then use your antenna to send her signals. If her antenna is strong enough, she will catch your signal.

P 10: First ask her WHY Love? Then keep on explaining her till she says yes

P 11: See, the logic of proposing is very simple. But you have to be very very careful. First you do a literature survey, 25 research articles on proposal minimum. You can take help of your friends and acknowledge them but they must contribute significantly and genuinely. Now you prepare a draft copy. Everything should be in one paragraph. No bullet points. Then you explain the conceptual framework of proposal. Then do an empirical analysis on how many proposals were successful and you see the efficiency of that girl whether she reacts instantaneously or she takes some time to react. Look at Beta, sensitivity of that girl. If Beta (sensitivity of that girl) is high then it means girl will fall in love with you (as returns are higher) but you may land up in hospital as risk is also higher and vice versa.


P 12: S e e ..........f I r s t.............. appreciate .............h e r ........then ...............pro..pose

P 13: Love per se means nothing. First you should segment the market, then target a girl and have a solid positioning with clear PODs and POPs.

P 14:

First learn how to propose a girl in French.

Calculate how much environmental waste will be saved because of your love affaire.

Start a program to save environment.

She will be impressed by you and will propose herself.

P 15: Feedback. Keep on asking her for feedback till either she suicides or accepts you.

P16: It’s a question of inter-temporal choice. You do not propose today in the anticipation that you will gain in the future by getting a better girl. But if your future outlook is not very good then you might as well propose today. You might also consider options and swaps also because it is a question of futures.

Shaks in Good mood

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Kudlu Falls

(This is one of the very few veg pics that I can post)

I have also uploaded a video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG8pQHOvNv8.

Praveen has recently posted description of trip to kudlu. Not much elaborated but then I dont know how could somebody describe a 6 letter word call Heaven.

Will soon try to post detailed version of my trip to Chiplun, Marleshwar and Valveashwar. May god give me enough patience and time.Amen

Life is on

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Forgeteos

In a failed attempt to glamorize my habit of forgetting things I thought forgeteos would be right title for this post. My friends keep on suggesting me numerous possible ways not to forget, but I am more comfortable in forgetting those tecks than probably my innerwear at my friends place. I was always confident that I can’t loose anything special till I forgot my wallet in the pocket of my pent. I hope that I haven’t reached that stage where losing a wallet having some glued notes, is not important for me.

Thanks to my promptness that helped me in entertaining my batch mates with a satirical mail directed towards an unknown thief. But the replies were even more entertaining. (Yet nobody suggested for a marathon to recover that money). On the other hand, I didn’t block my debit/credit cards in a hope that the resultant of my forgetfulness and laziness can be assumed as smartness if an irrational soul stirred by my strong words and moved by my unintentionally torn jeans returns it back. My time table now looked more filled with timing for cursing the thief twice a day first before dinner and second after dinner. I never knew god is listening to my words so carefully, till I was bereft of almost all of the pleasures of life. All this aroused my hidden treasure. Before you start imagining something else let me tell you I am talking about my commonsense. This arousal was shortlived as my commonsense was on casual leave. Amidst all this, I saw a ray of hope in an advertisement of Mentos. Thanks to my smoker friends that I didn’t have to undergo agony of begging in front of temple to buy a Mentos. Mentos supplied required electricity to light up my mind. The ray coming out of my mind struck my purse. My life would have been easier now but thunder short-circuited my dimag again and what more this time, fuse was gone. For last few days, I am waiting desperately for my commonsense to come back and takeover my mind.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Better be a Jackass

Veeraj says “You should be a jackass to get what you want!!!” I wouldn’t have agreed to it a few years back. But now after wasting so many years on mother earth, I can very well understand the underlying concept, coming from his wisdom.

Sometimes one is conscious of what people will think about him if he does certain things. Self- Image thing comes to mind. He tries to act in a certain way only to address his own comfort with all the people around. This translates into not taking a stance, dilution of passion, hesitation to approach etc. After all this conscious approach he still ends up annoying few people; forget his own ambitions in life. He is no better than an asshole.

It is better to pursue what you want with unmatched passion and no care for what others will think. If you want to pursue something you should be mad after it. For such an approach to things, one has to be fully convinced. It is our inner self that we are not able to convince most of the times. You should have faith in what you want to pursue. There should not be any inhibitions for exploring uncharted spaces.

Once you feel you are convinced, your next job is to induce others. You should have passion to persuade others to favor you. It’s a small and only life and there is no point is bowing down to stubborn outlook of public. You should be a Jackass in short. You should not try to be nice to everybody. By doing this, you will end up nowhere. Here one must is not to make everything an issue of self esteem. Nobody else cares for your self esteem; it’s only you.

Bill Gates has rightly said “The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.”

Monday, September 25, 2006

Muted Admirations


At times, you meet few people and become admirer of them. You love doing whatever they do, you understand their actions, you can’t listen anything against them and have all your arguments ready to defend them in public. We all are fan of one or another celebrity but they are out of reach to us in most of the cases.

Things are different when people we like are within our reach. Sometimes they are none other than the people we meet in our day to day life. I could be die hard followers of one of my colleague. Anybody else may not consider him/ her to be attractive enough but then as a matter of fact we all have different tastes. Such closes by contacts are personal most of the times (so called spiritual love, best friends, one night stands etc). Once in a blue moon, you just see few people and want to talk to them. You may get a chance if you are lucky enough or you can create a chance. But there is always a fear that these meetings may change your perception of that person. He or she may be totally different in his/her personal life than what you perceive his/ her to be.

One way to avoid this disappointment is that you don’t approach them. I will call it Muted Admirations. Firstly, you may not have any intention to have any personal linkages. Secondly, you don’t feel need of telling it to others and then justifying your viewpoint. Thirdly and most importantly, you are not ready to break this delusion at any cost.

Till date, I had 2 such admirations. The first one when I was in Ninth standard. This guy use to be my college mate and tuitions mate. I had my own circle of friends and he had his own. I rarely chatted with him but I admired him from the bottom of my heart. I liked every aspect of his personality, from hair style to the way he used to talk. To be frank, I wanted to be just like him. I tried to imitate him. I used to listen a lot of things about him some positive and others negative. The day I tried to befriend R, onwards was painful. Now I came to know how wrong I was. I forgot all those good things about him. I paid for not keeping my admirations muted and maintaining the distance.

My second admiration is from work-ex. In DAKC, I saw this female quite a lot, serendipitously most of the time. I don’t know but I liked everything about her. I made a mistake by telling it to my friends. Then my daily classes started. But I was pretty sure this time that this is more a respect for her than anything else. I didn’t have any intentions for friendship, love or any professional relationship. But, I admired her like anything. To mention a few, I liked her dressing sense, composure, smile and activeness. I never got (and created) any opportunity to talk to her as I was very fussy of not breaking this delusion of mine at any cost.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

NOISE n SPIKES


Listening to “Sach ye hai bekar hame gam hota hai”. Whenever I feel empty and feel like losing all my energy, I take shelter of gazals, my bad times friend.

Today, I am getting a feel of losing something/ someone close to me. Don’t know why?? No reasons as such. My actions are dull, life boring. Every second of this eve is killing me from inside. I am in no mood of sharing it with anybody.

Monotony is killing me. Life is going straight. Nothing great is happening. Everything is as usual.

At times I behave like a guy who is just 16 years old and will do all nonsense and at times I am a mature guy getting ready to become a professional. One side is what I love doing, and what I have to be.

I do not understand why people loose there innocence with the passage of life. Is it really difficult?? I don’t think so.

MBA is commonsense. Can somebody teach you? You can only be informed.

I feel most of the people around me are doing all possible non-sense to get some grades. Very few are really trying to shape their thought process.

I have always believed in reconciling opposites (Eve in temple and night at bar)

I have got so many ideas but no time to write. On top of it my pathetic writing skills. It pains when somebody says you write well because I know It is not the writing, it’s the idea which people generally like.

Never believe in any personality test. They make u believe that you can never do certain things which otherwise you would have done.

Sometimes, disappear in the crowd, go to some place where you don’t know anybody and nobody knows you. It is a strange feeling. It is fun especially when you can’t speak local dialect and place too is scenic.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Indie Marketing Guru

Monday, August 14, 2006

I Quote

“It is better to pretend like a fool and fool other rather than trying to be smart and getting out smarted.”

Management in Practice :-)

I am not sure how much one can learn from books or journals. But yes I know a lot of tricks to cope up with ever increasing pressure of assignments, quizzes and pre- reads. Some of these techniques are awesome and really works.

Rule of 2354: This funda is specifically designed for objective question papers. When ever you are in the midst of a storm called ignorance, use it. First solve all the objective questions you know (if any). Now take the first unanswered Q and mark 2nd choice as answer. For next question, add 3 to 2 and if there is a fifth choice mark it otherwise deduct the number of choices given and whatever comes mark as the right answer. And the process goes on.

Some may doubt but it works. Every time I don’t use 2354. Sometimes I use 2534. It all depends on mood. Believe me it has worked and I have never got an F in any quiz whether I have studied or not.

Two Minutes: It deals with problem of pre reading the case. Few minutes before the class go to any sincere type guy and ask him to explain summary of the case in 5 statements. It hardly takes 2 minutes. Again spend 2 minutes in scanning the headings of the case and reading last paragraph. Now approach a few gentlemen and explain them a “out of the box” interpretation of case. That’s all; next few minutes just listen to them and keep nodding your head. And you are ready for case discussion.

Role Play”Moderator”: This idea is similar to the two minutes but more useful when case is huge and/or has a lot of numbers. First get a place in CC around 9. Open Orkut and start scrapping your friends. In half an hour around 9.30, you will find except you everybody else in CC is working on case. Now it’s action time. Start a dialogue by saying “The case is really difficult”. Your question will evoke various responses and all those sitting there will start a discussion on the case. Whenever you feel discussion is not moving, steer it by giving some points. Here the fruitfulness of discussion is based on your moderating skills. As soon as discussion finishes, comment “When will I do it?? I am yet to start?” and leave CC. ( It works at other places too)

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Height of

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Laziness

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Few Interesting Characters

I am surrounded with so many great souls that I can write a book on each of them. Here a very brief info on some of those (all despos)

I wanna be your Un*******

This guy is a chupa rustam. Some of his contradictory statements are “I don’t like gals” and “I want a girlfriend”. This fucking asshole will go for jogging in the rain in a hope to impress a girl.

Jab bhi koi ladki dekhhoon

This guy has had around 6 accidents in last one year. This fucker is so fortunate that every time he escaped without a single injury. Its other thing that now his vehicle is no better than a cart. Reason for accidents??? This so called “not interested in girls” type was so engrossed in admiring beautiful kanyas that he forgot that he is driving on wrong side. Interesting part is that recently he had an accident where he got hurt badly and this time there was no girl around.

Lovology mein First, Baaki Sabmei Fail

This guy has conducted more surveys than any Brandscan Project lead can think of. In every 15 days, he will prepare a questionnaire and go to some college. No points for guessing that questionnaire is related to some girls’ product. He is so regular in some colleges that some people think he is a student of that college.

Aaja Meri Gaadi mein Beth Ja

Biggest despo. A fin guru. He openly says “I want a GF desperately”. His timings are all planned. He knows which girl is attending which lecture and when she will be free. His entry and exit in a party are very well planned. Good in befriending girls. But sadly lacks energy/ strategy to convert. Probably, The best business plan he can think of is EFGA(Exclusive for girls Auto). The song he hates most is “ bhaiya mere rakhi ke bandhan ko nibhana”

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

"We R GR8" Syndrome

After long time. This post is dumbest( Arrant NONSENSE). A bed time childhood story. but it has many hidden clues within it. I wont tell what and their significance. Kinda Puzzle. Find out on your own. Above all that, it's moral is appealing( atleast to me). I am fed up of meeting such "Gr8" personalities in my life.

Long time ago, there was a village say X. People in that village used to live happily. In that country there was an annual wrestling championship. People from X were regular participant in that competition. Although they never won it, at few occasions they were able to reach semifinals. The competition had many competitors so even reaching semifinal was an award in itself especially when a lot of prestige was associated with this event.

This year wrestlers of X started their preparations quite early. They were aiming to win that competition. Wrestlers had total support of village head. Village head(Y) was a good person. He observed that wrestlers in his village were similar in built and used similar tactics like their counterparts in other villages. Y thought probably his wrestlers are less motivated and emotional training could help them in winning. So he came out with a ruling that all the wrestlers were supposed to gather at the bank of river every Sunday evening. Whole of the village gathered. Y narrated stories of their great ancestors. Wrestlers and villagers felt proud after listening this. Wrestlers were highly motivated.That night, everybody was talking about greatness of their ancestors.

It became routine. Every now and then these motivation sessions were arranged. One day a villager took one of his friends from other village to this meeting. Head of the village greeted him. During the course of meeting, head asked the person from the other village to say something to motivate wrestlers. That person happened to be a veteran wrestler. He started informing them about new techniques in wrestling. Head stopped the veteran and asked him to say something about the greatness of his village instead. The visitor complied to Y and spoke about a range of great thing about the village, its traditions and whatever good he knew. These things continued and whenever there was a guest, he was invited and asked to say something great about the village.

Wrestlers were highly confident of bringing trophy this year. Competition started in the Month of March. This year none of them were able to retain their earlier positions. Whole village was dull. Nobody was ready to accept defeats. Head didn’t come out of his home.

Next day, all villagers met at the same place, same time and started same stories again. They started blaming the wrestling championship officials for their performances. The village in few years time stopped participating in these events. They started their own intra-village championship. Reason " We R Gr8 Syndrome"

Shaks stopped for a while

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Type of Guys

I knew 3 types of guys: Saturday Must Shave Type (SMST), Monday Must Shave Types (MMST) and Saturday- Monday Must Shave Types (SMMST) and then I met the fourth types who don’t bother to shave ;-)

Saturday Must Shave Type (SMST): These guys are happening types. Who cares, fuck the world, Let me live my life are the typical phrases of such guys. SMSTs in principal wanna have a new girl on every weekend (sadly laws of economics don’t permit). But still have a modest attempt to impress girls. Although it is too late till they realize, that they were jumping (not dancing) in the party. Generally they will have at least one girl mad after them whom they believe is substandard as per their expectations. SMSTs perceive Study/ Job as a waste of time and if given a chance will change office/ college dress code to never- washed T-shirt, torn jeans and no socks (it neutralizes deodorant effect). Some of these beautiful souls are philanthropist by nature as they use perfumes to the extent that nobody else in the party needs to use any. SMSTs love boasting about their alcohol consuming capacities till they start vomiting.

Monday Must Shave Types (MMST):
MMSTs are sincere types. For them Boss/Profs comes next to God. Their targets/ assignments are their life. They can’t think anything else and prefer checking their mails 10 times than going to cafeteria. MMSTs are so formalized that you have to take appointment while they are using next urinal. Life for them starts in morning. Few of these nuts, smile to every female colleague in a hope to shatter their cold blooded image (by default usual male desires). They will forward some mails in order to impress some lady after whom whole office is mad (I pity her mailbox).
They are so enthusiastic to attend office/ college that they are not able to sleep properly. Weekend for them is a hell and they come to office/college on weekends too to the extent possible.

Saturday- Monday Must Shave Types (SMMST): SMMSTs are union of first two except the negatives associated with other type.

Don’t bother to Shave Types (DBST): DBSTs have attained nirvana. Nothing stimulates them other than memories. Life is a pain for them and they pain others by their appearance. They are generally pessimistic. One good thing about DBSTs is that they can be trusted as they don’t have drive to cheat others. They don’t care for girls and cant get away from the passion of using abusive language while talking to gals. They hate these SMST, MMST and SMMST’s to the core. The greatest timepass for 2 DBST’s is to laugh at other types. They got an alien feeling at any high class place and they try to run away from such places. Otherwise they will behave aberrantly and spoil the party by some senseless stuff. Office, parties are not their cup of tea. DBSTs are useful only for nothing.
Shaks on the move

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Pain is Life

I know I am gonna have hard time convincing readers that “Pain is life” is an appropriate title. Some will say “Life is pain” could have been better. But I am totally convinced that current title is better.

We recognize importance of anything when it is not available to us or it is in trouble. It could be money, home, love, an injured finger etc. When we have everything what we expect from life, we live a life of repetition. We struggle to get more out of such a life by squeezing as much happiness as possible out of our present.

There is a period in ones life when he wants to discontinue the repetitiveness. Take a case of a rich guy who has all the facilities of this world and has got caring parents unlike what happens in movies. Due to enough of money, he is not interested in more of it. He moves towards art and wants to lead a peaceful life. Money is a pain for him, not is absolute sense but in relative sense. This pain is what leads his life and he starts experimenting. (I don’t remember who said: first generation goes for knowledge, second money and third art)

The problem is that the period for which a person tries to change his life, from what he has led in parental custody, is generally very small. Sometimes one never gets an opportunity and he lately realizes that he has wasted his life. Following established order is a most usual way in almost all societies. Although it’s not that bad as it seems because it helps in propagation of tacit knowledge from one generation to another. But that will also kill any god given talent of new generations.

Repetition is painful. We all feel that pain but to satisfy ourselves, we start rationalizing our thought process. At the end we find ourselves convinced. Sooner or later many of us realize that we haven’t done anything exceptional in our lives. Why? Reason is simple because we always run from ourselves. We know that we are not doing anything great but we portray our circumstances to rationalize our thinking. That’s how we live. Better we would have lived pain. What’s wrong in acknowledging that I am not doing anything great and feeling the pain of it? If that’s what reality is. Closer to reality better is the future. We, try to run away from truth because, it’s painful. But that’s what life is. Life is pain. My topic was “Pain is life. “ I think better I should accept the defeat of my earlier reasoning. Although it’s painful but having an open mind has helped me to improve it all on my own. That’s the crux.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Vo kahna sir ka "Get Out From the Class"

In one lecture I was without any reading material and was totally new to the subject. I was prepared to be thrown out of the class but I got a chance. Prof was really cool. He unlike many others understood that throwing a guy out of the class was not a solution. Throughout the lecture, I was busy(for a change) applying my understading of the concepts and got the following " Equation of Learning "

Variables:
LRN = Total Learning one can have in class
PR = Pre reading
MAT = having the material in class
MDEL = Quality of delivery of instructor
I= Individuals (students) ability to comprehend

Relations

Taking PR and MAT as an independent variable and LRN as a dependent variable.
The Equation for class learning will be

LRN = I* PR + b* MAT + c --------------1

In case PR=0 and MAT =0 LRN=c

But in case someone is thrown out of the class

LRN =0

But if he is allowed to sit in the class, in that case

LRN>0,

Here we can introduce 1 more variable
That is MDEL

So LRN becomes

LRN = I*PR + b *MAT + I*MDEL + c -------------------2

Here if PR=0 and MAT =0

It implies LRN = I * MDEL + c

This equation may be true for one time event.

Generally a student is thrown out assuming that second time variable PR and MAT will be 1 and they will contribute positively to the LRN. But other factors are ignored. In this case we need to check whether there is any significant correlation in the LRN and PR/MAT. Prima facie (MDEL * I) seem to be better correlated to the LRN than other variable. One more aspect is important to notice; PR can have limiting effect on I and can limit the total value of I * MDEL.

In such a scenario, expelling someone out of the class may not be the right thing.

Monday, May 08, 2006

A Love Story

First time in life I tried writing a love story. Even after 4 months, I was not able give it a proper direction. But now, I have got an excellent ending and will complete it one day (don’t know when). I would like to thank my friends who gave their valuable inputs (Sudeepta and Pady). There is an indirect contribution from karthik and Rajesh, a dialogue when Kabir proposes Sanjana. We had a cool discussion on that a long time back. Topic was “Essentials to impress gals” HAHAHAHAHA

Chapter1: Journey of a lifetime

I was standing at Heathrow waiting for my flight. It was 12.15 PM and I still had 4 hours to pass. My Business Meeting was a total disaster and I was not able to clinch the deal for my company. I was very tensed and tired at the same time. I thought of taking some rest and started moving towards rest room. “Excuse me are you an Indian”. I raised my head. A beautiful young lady was standing next to me. I was having severe headache and was in no mood of talking. I nodded positively. She said “You look like a gentleman. Will you please listen to me” The gentleman word did its magic and I stopped on the aisle and asked “What For?” “My name is Sanjana. I am from India.” She was polite in her manners. “Kabir. I am Kabir. What do you want?” I was trying to behave like a rude gentleman. “Actually I forgot my purse in a taxi. I don’t know anybody out here and I got a flight at 4:30 to India.” This statement reminded me of Mumbai. You go to any market and you will find people stating the same reason and asking for money. I was always cautious and never got fooled. Once, a stupid friend of mine gave some money. After that event, he got famous in our friend group as “Daani Baba”.

I put a hand on my purse as if I was checking it’s out there or not. “But why do you need money? Don’t you have your ticket?” I was trying to be sympathetic.
“I have it. But it is something else” She was speaking very slowly, Stressing on each word. “I haven had anything from last 2 hours and I am feeling hungry. Will you pay for me”. She looked genuine to me. May be my long association with a lady of the same name in the past, forced me to help her or It could be because of her beauty. I wasn’t sure but I said” Yes, No problem at all. I started taking my wallet out” “Why don’t you come with me? I am also feeling hungry. If you don’t mind” I thought it was not a bad idea when you had a long time to pass. I took her to Costa. Costa had been my favorite place at Heathrow. She went to the ladies room for some time. In meantime, I was observing the grand ambience. It was nicely decorated. The design was Italian but some touch of French was also evident, in particular the furniture. By now I had forgotten all my tension and tiredness and started enjoying atmosphere. She came back after 10 minutes. I observed her closely for the first time. “Simply Awesome” It came out of my mouth. “What?” she asked. “The ambience” I tried hiding my feelings for her. “Yes, I liked it too. The design on the walls is very attractive.” We ordered tuna mayo, pastries and hot chocolate coffee. As usual, it was an awesome combination. On inquiring, I came to know she was here for a design competition. She was a student of a fashion institute in India and wanted to open her own fashion house. We spent next few hours together. Although, very short time but long enough to befriend someone. In my whole life I always have a strong belief in coincidences. And whenever I have asked god for something desperately, I have got it. Probably that might be the reason; we got our seats next to each other in my journey of lifetime. I was not able to take my eyes out of her. We chatted on sphere of topics started from general, social, political and then personal. She was a chatterbox but whatever she spoke was sensible. She was a nice combination of beauty and brain. I was so happy, when she said she was looking for someone, that I could have jumped out of my seat. I thought I should not waste this opportunity. At the time of landing, I decided to reveal my feelings to her. But there was a fear of rejection. At last, I made up my mind. Our flight reached at 6 AM in the morning. It was cold in Delhi but less than London, off course. No sun light, only fog on the airport and in the backdrop some flying lights. The ambience was not perfect but unique enough for one, not to forget. As soon as the bus dropped us, I took her to the corner of the platform. She asked me “What Kabir?” I said” I don’t know how to sing, dance or play guitar, I don’t know how to play basketball, not a formula 1 maniac” “So what? Are you mad?” I realized that I am doing all that what I am not supposed to. It may be, because of my habit of spoiling things at the right moment. I composed myself to make a point “Hey will you accept me as your lover boy without all those things?” I saw a little smile on her face. We forwarded and hugged each other. She said “I liked the way you proposed me.” I was in Seventh heaven. That’s how a new phase of my life started. Here On I will rewrite


Here on I will rewrite

I reached my apartment at Rohini before the first ray of light. I slept till the afternoon. When I woke up it all looked like a dream? I called her and confirmed it wasn’t a dream. We had our dinner together at Parikrama. I dropped her to home at gurgaon. These meetings continued but meantime I was transferred to Mumbai. Phone was the only medium but I used to go Delhi alternate weekends. I was planning to talk to my parents. But destiny will take such a sharp turn, I never imagined. I called her on that unforgettable evening. Her mother was on the other side. The news from other side was shocking enough for me that my tears started flowing, voice mumbling and hands shaking. “She has got Blood Cancer.” That’s what her mother said. I asked “What? Sanjana. Blood cancer. Does she know”? Her mother started crying on the phone. I tried to console her but of no use. I informed my colleague to take care of my work and to inform the boss. I took next flight to Delhi and was at her home by 9. Whole house was gloomy. She was sleeping on her bad. I saw her face. It was bright like a goddess. Nobody could believe after seeing her that she was a patient of cancer. (To be cont…..)

Thursday, April 13, 2006

My room in TAPMI

Hey all,
See the video of my room, one of the most dirty room. But that's what motivates us to come back to it. We have instructed sweeper not to disturb us. Still he keep on bugging us till we allow him to sweep . And next few days will be unbearable. how the hell one can sleep, watch movie in such a clean room. And then starts a journey to bring it back to chaos. ( And they lived happily thereafter :-)

U can dload it from the following URL.

http://rapidshare.de/files/17903402/room_of_a_bachelor.AVI.html

Shaks as usual on the move