5 things I learned this week (Part 14)

Normal people categorize their working days into three - good, neutral, bad.

Well, I on the other hand have just two - crappy day & "well, it looks like everyone here has food poisoning" day.

I hope you have enough grey cells up top to know which kind of day I just had.

I would have normally gone on a rant about why, who, what, how and all, but I'm being restrained by whatever is left of my sanity. (based on the reasoning that this is the only job I've now)

Sorry, but this is not how I wanted to start off today's post. I had an entirely different and, if I might take the liberty to say so, a super-awesome blog typed in. But that will have to wait for another day to see the outside world. For now, you are stuck with bad-mood-hari.

Yes, you just saw me refer to myself in third person. I do that. A lot. It's not like there's any law in this land which forbids me to do so. I refer to myself in third person whenever I don't feel normal. So, there's weird-hari, there's hyper-hari, there's bad-mood-hari. There's also sexy-hari, but we don't him to be here right now.

This trait of mine, where I use self-referral in third person, can be categorized as multiple personality disorder. Just over the past one week, I've had more than four people I mingle with on a daily basis, say to me that they think someone else writes this blog. According to them, my personality and my blog's personality doesn't match. Some even said that my blog personality is cool, compared to my real one. (even though I prefer not to believe them)

I hadn't given a thought to whether I act different around here, but once I did, I found that here, I do do a lot of things that I normally don't.

For example, I don't normally use the words "ass" or "sexy" in my vocal vocabulary, but they have made their presence felt in the posts in this blog.

I don't necessarily talk a lot, but I do here.

I don't use, in a week, the amount of English that I use here in a post.

You get the idea na.

This outburst, this this this... I had read of a word for this thing that I do, where I turn my mind inside out in words. I'll let you know if I find it again. Anyways, as I was saying, this thing, this conversation that we just did here has purged my mind of the pains I had today. Thank you.. ;)

Anyways, it's nearly 7pm. I'm to get off from work in 10 minutes. Then I've to take my bike for service(yet again). I'll get back to you after I get home.

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Well, what took you a few  seconds to scroll through took me an entire hour and half. Just back home, and I'm already in front of the internet again. You know why? Not only because I'm a net freak, but I've to do this week's post, and I still haven't got the "5 things" for this week.

Luckily, a journey which involved a bike ride, then a shared auto ride, then a metro ride and an auto ride at the end gave me enough time to think about what to say. So, here we go.

Did you know...

1. ... that "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence in American English?

It's true only in American English, cos one of the buffalo in there is a place called Buffalo in America. To know why, how and more sentences like this, go to this wiki page.

2. ... that Mr.Dhoni has only the 'Ashes' series to win, among the major competitions in Cricket?

Obviously, he can't win that. But still it's a pretty good notion to keep in mind.

By the way, if you thought that the ashes series was called so because somebody burned the ashes into a urn, then you are partially wrong. Before that event took place, a mock obituary appeared in the British press, which said that English cricket has died, and after the cremation, the Australian team will be leaving with the 'ashes'. That name stuck when the English press hailed it's heroes for bringing back the ashes the next time.

Here's the link to the wiki page. Hat tip to Rakesh for this clarification.

3. ... that I know that you might not know what 'Hat tip' means?

Don't take this the wrong way. I'm not gloating that I've very good vocab. There's a difference between showing off and teaching, and I always try to keep myself to the teaching side of it. What I talk about in a day depends on the things I learned/found out that day. This is a word I came across today, and here's the explanation of this word, 'Hat tip'.

4. ... that I was kept really busy this week cos of work and other things?

Sorry, but I don't have any more points for now. I'm not a literary expert to churn out prose every week. I've my limitations. But I'll point you towards something I had written earlier this week, 'Aise na mujhe tum dekho', wherein I pay tribute to a musical genius.
5. ... that just cos you have a car loan to pay back doesn't mean that I've to stay for overtime?

I think I can get away with saying just that much. ;)


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Well, that's all folks!!

Have a great weekend!!!

Aise Na Mujhe Tum Dekho......

Kishore Kumar.

This multifaceted personality needs no introduction. Well, I hope he doesn't.

In case you don't know exactly who he is, Google and Wikipedia can help you in knowing his illustrious career. But here, in this post, I’ll be telling you who he is to me.

I must have been introduced to his voice very early in my life. My father had cassettes and cassettes of his songs, and he used to buy more whenever he got a chance. And since he is used to having songs playing in the background (like son, like father :P), we had the original KK's sound reverberating through our house all the time.

And what a voice it was!! He has sung songs that reflect all your moods and situations, no matter whether you are

• feeling happy (om shanti om)
• feeling sad (ye kya hua)
• feeling dejected (mera jeevan kora kaagaz)
• feeling weird (Ina meena deeka)
• feeling overzealously happy (bachna he haseeno)
• going to meet a girl (aaj unse pehli mulaqaat hogi)
• just met an unknown girl (ek ajnabe haseena se)
• thinking of an unknown girl (aata jaate khoob surat)
• thinking of the neighbour's daughter (mere samne waale khirki)
• thinking of your dream girl (dream girl & mere sapno ki rani)
• feeling lost (musaafir hun yaaron)
• nostalgic about friends (yeh dosti)
• feeling romantic (pal pal dil ke pass)
• trying to make your wife happy (raat kali ek khawab me aayi)

I know that watching all these songs are going to eat into your data usage for the month, but I can assure you, you won't regret it. I'm yet to meet a person who says that he/she doesn't like the songs of Kishore da ("da" as in brother in the Bengali language).

Well, I started off trying to tell you what his voice meant to me, and in accordance with my usual behaviour here, I've gone on and talked about something else altogether. Let me get back to the topic.

I'm the sort of guy, who never sticks to a certain genre in music. One morning I'm hearing devotional songs, the next day it'll be romantic, and the day after it'll some classic rock/jazz song. I consider myself as a nomad in the world of music - never sticking to one place, always roaming around in search of something better. But for me, when the dearth of fresh music starts to stifle my senses, the songs of Kishore da comfort me. For me, his songs are the innumerable oases I come across in my journey.

You may have already met this song I am going to introduce you to. But this is the latest of the oases that I've come across, which spawned this post. And to tell you the truth, this song is on repeat on my system. Just hear it out for yourself to find out how good it is.

I'm the kind of person who, once he finds it interesting, will keep on playing the same song over and over again. I look for the various instruments, the lyrics, the voice, the effects in the song. I then play the song till the thing which excited me in the first place becomes monotonous. It is in these dire situations that I find Kishore da's songs comforting.

But the time when I really enjoy to hearing his songs are the moments just before I sleep. I like to keep a playlist of his soft songs on repeat in my mobile, and just drift off into the dreamland. And his songs always lull me to sleep. Maybe that's cos I had them as my lullabies when I was born. Thank you  acha* for that.

*acha is father in Malayalam.

5 things I learned this week (Part 13)

What do you say when someone asks you “How’s your ass?”

I know that it is not a typical question to be included in the “English for Dummies” book. From last week’s blog, you might have come to know about my predicament, and hence, the need for me to find an apt answer for the above mentioned question. When you get asked the same question, repeatedly and from a small group of people, you would undeniably feel the need to spice up the reply.

But by the time I came up with a kick ass reply, people stopped asking me the question. I don’t know if they suddenly sprouted psychic antennas on their heads to know of my premeditated reply, but once I made up my mind to answer  the said question with “Not as good as yours.”, no one, and I repeat, no one asked me how my behind is.

Moving on to more important matters and milestones, in less than 50 hours of the official publishing of this blog, I’ll be reaching the third anniversary of the birth of my career. Three years of trying to find my feet in this big world. Three years of optimizing the way to optimize your work. Three years of waiting for increments and grading, only to reassure oneself that it’ll be better next year. Three years of successfully avoiding the thought of higher studies. Three years of convincing oneself to not resign from the job.

Why you may ask? My idea of my career was always centered in and around my beautiful city of Trivandrum. This was so that I could be lost in the surroundings that I feel reflect my inner mind - the serenity, the “laidbackness”, the inertia to change, the weather, the hartals, and from what I heard, a whole week given as holiday by the Government so that everyone can sit at home and enjoy the torrential rains this monsoon.

How I wish I was back in my room at my home. With the rain tapping on my window, some bouncing off the metal sheets over the parking lot, and with thunder flashing across the sky. That would be heaven.

But here I am, on a Friday evening, sitting at my desk in office at 8pm, compensating for the short leaves that I took this month. I got overtime tomorrow for some work. I don’t go home for another two months. There is not even an inkling of rain here, even though there seems to an unrespectable amount of it in all the neighboring states.

As I reflect on what I deem to be a cruel trick on me by my fate; which professed to me a successful, fulfilling job, when I allowed it to uproot me from my comfort zone, and plant me here; I think of the next batch of freshers joining here on Monday. And keeping in mind the feedback that I’ve received regarding my Interview tips blog, I’m going to do a “Tips for Fresher “ themed post here so that my experiences can be of some use to them.

So, let’s begin, shall we?

Did you know…

1.  …that you should be humble enough to do any work, no matter how trivial or menial, that comes your way?

“Go take that printout I just gave. (cos I can’t be arsed out of my seat)”

“Stamp these files.”

“Go and see if so-and-so is there at his seat. (cos I don’t know his extension number)”

“Count the number of pages in this set of printouts. (cos I think you are sitting idle)”

“Do this (meaningless) data entry work (that I’m too lazy to do).”

You’ll be hearing a lot of these and more. I’ve seen enough “I’m an Engineer now” egos stop the said person from undertaking these tasks. And I get their point. Fresh out of a reputed college with a B.Tech degree, you are thinking of being the next big thing in the field, working with the brightest minds on the latest technology. But, you have to understand that before assigning you to such work, those higher up in the hierarchy should be confident of your abilities to do the same. The seriousness and accuracy in the way you react to menial tasks will be used to extrapolate your performance in more serious matters.

So, please, for your own good, don’t say that “I’m too good to be doing this.”- at least the first few times.

2. …that you are better off not showing a genuine enthusiasm to the trivial or menial works?

If you follow my advice from above, blindly and indefinitely, you’ll sure enough be arriving at this one by yourself. From experience, I can tell you that any form of enthusiasm in doing the “other” work is considered as being selected as the default candidate to that work – forever. So, when you say a reluctant “Yes” to doing the “other” work, do make sure that you moan about it, so that the person giving you the work will be less inclined to do give you the same latter.

3. …that you should keep your ears open at all times?

This is not so that you can get the latest rumor scoop, even though doing this helps a lot in doing that. ;)

This advice from me is to make sure that you don’t miss the little stuff. I believe that information – of any kind, coming from any source – is valuable. So, keep your ears open and listen at all times, no matter who is talking. Let it be your CEO explaining to you how to run the company. Let it be the office boy telling you how to cure the “paper stuck” disease of printers. It always helps to have a patient ear.

4. …that hard work and dedication may not always be rewarding?

Again, this is another thing you should really be learning through experience, first hand. I’m not saying that showing these two qualities is going to always unfruitful. But remember that you got only 24 hours a day. If experience shows that something is unrewarding, irrespective of your attitude towards it, you are better off employing your hours elsewhere.

5. …that the client is God, even though they act more like Adolf Hitler?

The less I say about this, the better are my prospects of keeping this job. But you get the idea, right. ;)

And with that let me take your leave so that I can join in the banter taking place in the next row.

Oh!! And one more thing. No matter how much you hate coming back here on a Monday morning, at the end of the month, you will always love to hear the virtual ringing of cash falling in your bank account. :D ;)

So, that’s all folks!!!

Have a great weekend!!!

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....and we got 2000 HITS here...
Thank you. Yes, you. I'm talking about you only. You are the reason I churn out my mind into readable bits every weekend. After the untimely death of my football playing days, this blog post has become the reason for me to look forward to the weekend. Your responses and your comments make my work better. A few of you were kind enough to enquire about when the next post is coming - which eggs me on to keep writing. But most of all, just knowing that you read this makes me feel better.

So, thank you my dear friend.
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Identity Crisis

Suppose you are standing in the cafeteria in your office. Now, suppose someone spilled some coffee on you. How you react to this will depend on a multitude of factors:

• How much coffee was spilled;
• whether the person meant to spill it on you deliberately or was it a genuine mistake;
• who is this said person – male or female; friend, acquaintance or stranger; boss, co worker or junior;
• what your prior mood was – excited, dull or angry;
• how that person responds to this situation – is he apologizing, or playing it cool, or just walking away; etc

What happened till now was not in your hands. Well, sort of. If you had stood 1 foot to your right, or if you had come 5 seconds later, or if you were on a fast that day, then this wouldn’t have happened. But those factors are way out of your league to control.

But what happens next is in your hands. You can accept an apology; you can say “It’s all right” and go on with your life; you can show a constipated feeling on your face and snort at the apologies he’s making; you can go all “Gaali Baaz” and start abusing your antagonist’s family; you can lift the coffee machine with you right hand and the guy on the left, and start banging them together till he is drenched in coffee (remember that you are still imagining this scenario and hence anything is possible :P ).

Now let’s do a recap on our glorious history as a country. We have had kings like Buddha, who gave up everything he had – all the riches, all the glories and material festivities – to start living the life of a monk, a saint – living on alms, sleeping on rags and practicing penance. We have also had kings like Ashoka, who utilized everything available to him to expand his empire, till he could see blood no more.

Let’s move on to a more recent example. We have had people fighting the colonists for our freedom (which we now gladly misuse). The father of our nation was an exemplary pacifist, requesting us to show our other cheek if someone slaps us on one. Then there is Shaheed Bhagat Singh, an influential revolutionary, who was, to put it mildly, not entirely opposed to the idea of using force to get things done.

If we look at the effect the two people in the two eras have had on our history – Buddha and Ashoka ultimately led the society to unite and leave in peace (in their own ways), Mahatma Gandhi and Bhagat Singh were heavily instrumental in their own manner to help us gain our independence.

So, if we assume history repeats itself, let me ask you, based on the examples above, where the end result is the same irrespective of the path chosen, how would you like to live your life??

At one end of a spectrum, or at the other end?

Or would you like to be somewhere in between?

I know where I would be.....

5 things I learned this week (Part 12)

Did you know...

1. ... that there is actually something called "Gray's Anatomy"?

This is just in case you've heard of a show on TV called "Grey's Anatomy". I always thought it was a peculiar name for a show, especially since they had no interest in showing the "anatomy" of Grey (who is the female protagonist in the show). I don't know about you, but this is every bit against what you expect from the show on the basis of its title.

But I digress. Gray's Anatomy is the title of a book which was written in 1858, by an Englishman Dr.Gray. This book is considered to be one of the earliest documentation on human anatomy, and is still in print, after nearly 155 years of its first print.

2. ...that Indian doctors successfully removed tumors and performed amputations and other operations, not only over the past few decades, but also during centuries before the birth of Christ?

Indians of the ancient type were something, weren't they?
Apparently, they developed dozens of metal tools, relied on alcohol to dull the patient, and controlled bleeding with hot oil and tar.

But the coolest thing I like about them is giving "zero" to maths, so that, after two millennia, my maths teachers could give them to me. I always wondered how else they would represent the 100s they gave me?? :P

3. ...that the Code of Hammurabi included what were perhaps the first penalties for surgical malpractice?


The Code of Hammurabi was written in the 18th century B.C. It contained the laws governing ancient Babylon. According to this manuscript, doctors who killed a patient when draining an abscess had their hands cut off.

4. ...that there is something called "Perianal Abscess"?

Our trustworthy source, the Wikipedia, defines this state of human condition as having " is an abscess adjacent to the anus". Even though our source defines it in such simple terms, let me assure you, it's anything but so.

5. ...that the above mentioned disease is what happened to me this week, giving this week's blog this medical theme?

Nothing more to say on that.

Now. For this week's blog, I've gone in reverse actually. I'm done with my 5 things for the week. Now, I start on my usually digressive storyline from which I usually reach my topic for the week's blog.

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You are never going to think about modesty, when you are lying on the operation table with your buttocks exposed to one and all who might cast you a glance. The development of an infection in your nether regions is the worst kind of condition to be in, as you can’t possibly discuss its presence unless the issue becomes unbearable. And since I waited that long, I ended up with a bulbous growth on my butt. I think GOD heard my prayer to make my butt bigger, but used the wrong spell to affect it.

Anyways, coming back to the exposed situation I found myself in, I had just had one dose of glucose injected into me, some blood taken out to do a blood routine test, some antibiotic injected directly under my skin to test my allergies; well, you get the flow. It was at the end of these that the doctors decided that it was time to end my ordeal of four days by a minor operation over “there”, under full anesthesia.

But when I saw the doc coming towards me with some 5-7 syringes in his hand, I immediately felt like I was losing my grip on consciousness. Luckily, the first of those was the anesthesia. I thought I would go blank the way they showed it in the movies. You know, the “fade to black” effect. But what I felt was entirely different. He injected it into me, I looked ahead, saw some equipment before me, it faded a little, I thought “this is it”, and then it cloned into two, and ran off in the opposite direction.

And just like that, for the first time in nearly 25 years on this lovely planet, I lost my hold on my consciousness. I was flying HIGH.

And to be honest about it, I liked it. I’ve never smoked; I’ve never allowed myself to come under the effect of alcohol or drugs, but these 15 minutes of Medical practitioner prescribed ecstasy gave me a peak through the door that lead into those paths – of what makes people get addicted to these intoxicating lifestyles.

Even though I was completely knocked out for under 15 minutes, it felt like hours to me. I dreamt of stuff I’ve no inkling about now. But I remember most of what happened once I got my grip back on myself.

a. I clearly remember asking my friend to shoot this “coming down from the sky” phase of mine; so that I can study it later (he didn’t do that).

b. I also remember asking someone the time, only to not understand what he said in reply (I think he replied in Hindi).

c. I remember recording whatever I was thinking out loud into my phone, but due to my incoherent speech and the rumblings of some fan, the playback sounds more like static than the philosophical outpourings it was meant to be.

d. I clearly remember (and acutely felt) my hand slapping my face, every time I tried to swat away that dogged fly which was trying to irritate me.

e. I remember deciding to make this week’s blog about the medical condition I found myself in (Perianal Abscess).

This condition can occur to anyone, but hasn’t occurred to anyone I know till last week. But it’s a really painful situation to be in, and I felt you should be aware of it. I ignored it for two days, thinking it was some kind of summer boil, but it kept on growing, literally becoming a “pain in the ass”. I went to the doc only after it started hindering my daily activities. I couldn’t shift my posture with wincing in pain.

I’m not going to explain the location/type of the growth, as it will become too explicit, but do go through that Wikipedia page, and get some info on it. One thing that I prayed to GOD in my condition was that this shouldn’t happen even to my enemies. It was that bad a condition, and hopefully, you’ll not have to go through that.

Before I end, I would like to say a few more words about the uninhibited freedom I enjoyed in my unconsciousness. In those fleeting moments, I forgot everything - the pain, my present situation, where I was, my other joys and sorrows - my entire life, if you would allow me to say so. Even though it was quite an enjoyable state, keeping in tune with what friends of mine had already told me, I feel taking drugs is risky business.

Forget the legal problems, being aloof from the world you are in is never going to help you. People who take drugs say it is safer, less of a nuisance maker than alcohol and not harmful to the body. But it hurts your mind, and I think that is a far worse situation to be in.

Well, that's all from me for this week folks!!

Have a Great Weekend!!!