For The Ennobling Cause Of Cleaner Humankind

I was discussing work with Rajeshwaran the other night… let’s just talk about marketing here, because I know still less about Fin and other crap… how can we give our lives to the pursuit of selling toothpaste, soaps, t-shirts… yet some of these are the most coveted jobs. Being good at something doesn’t mean you should do it. Often, we mercilessly smother the part of us which rebels against such mindlessness. I didn’t have the guts to take Physics over Engineering, or a gap year over MBA.

(Pardon the generalization)

We don’t value our time, or freedom… we treat our time as a (compulsorily) expendable asset… we give up our efforts and time to corporations engaged in senseless pursuits… when I’m 70, and look back at all the soaps that I’ve helped sell over the years, I’m confident of death-by-hyper-excitation.

Encouraged by society and having pledged our lives to mindless pursuits, we look down upon prostitution.

Hypocrisy.

Oh, and all those ‘focused’ people… that goes right over my head. This is probably my confused cynical mind spewing the crap out, but listen me out anyway… I don’t understand how people know that they want to sell soaps. Sorry for being judgemental, but are these people really passionate about human cleanliness?

Selling soaps.

How romantic.

The Cubicle

I wonder how man was moved to invent the air-conditioner… whoever felt that we should cut out the breeze and the smell of earth. I guess they just reacted to the madness outside, like all the traffic in Bombay. It’s like cutting your arm off because one finger is rotting (after you chewed on it too much).

I don’t like the idea of sitting in a cubicle. I don’t like physical confinement of any sort. When these corps go out on a 17-day Thomas Cook tour of 20 countries in Europe, spending most of their time in air-conditioned hotel rooms or buses, they are fashionably said to have caught the ‘travel bug’. It’s like a cool thing to do, right… to know exactly at which table you’ll be eating what for breakfast at 9 AM on the 5th day of the trip (thanks to Mr. Cook’s itinerary)… because any form of lack of control over your life is so unthinkably absurd.

Control. Certainty. Security.

They say I need a wife and kids to understand The Truth. I shall wait.

The Pursuit Of Happyness

“Somethings are fun the first time you do ‘em, and not so much the next”

“Like the bus?”

“Yeah, like the bus”
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The next day, after work, we just went to the beach… far away from anything… everything… just Christopher and me… far away from buses and noise and… a constant disappointment in my ten-gallon head… in myself…
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“Because when I was young and I'd get an A on a History test, or whatever… I’d get this good feeling about all the things that I could be… and then I never became any of them.”

You know...

"I'm a fun-loving person." announced the self-intro, pushing the limits of redundancy. Like the rest of the world is infested with masochists.

Then there are these filler-lines:

"That's... you know... the kinda thing we're talking about.. as such."

Why... why are these things said?

All The Emptiness

We never did change the world... the sleepless nights, adrenalin rushes... the world just went elsewhere, and took us along - along and apart at the same time.

Randomness will always hold sway over our efforts. All the little things which make you believe in destiny.

I'm reminded of Ladakh... how all the emptiness made me feel like an insignificant speck on the barren expanse... who ever let us choose what we're good at... just so happened that society likes say, MBA over Machine Design and English over Hindi.

It's all random. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes I'm trashed... pride and disappointment are funny things. Stupid ego.

Blah

The wind blows the sand off my feet. I'm back in Elliot's beach, Madras. Things and people have changed. I don't quite know how. So much change that it's scary. I can't relate to it no more.

It's strange how familiarity is slowly eaten away. People come and go, and every day, a bit of the past is washed off. I miss the mountains. Those mighty Himalayas don't change as quickly as these beaches. I want to go back, to where I belong. I've had enough of the jargon crap. It's not funny anymore.

I'm a little drunk on JD. It's been a strange day. A day when the past has come back to haunt me. Sometimes, I wish my memory wasn't so good. It deserts me when I need it, like the Fin exam. Things evade you when you need them the most. It's The Law.

Cheers.

E-My Ass

Uninspiring lectures (unlike engineering, there are exceptions), mindless exams… they’re almost done for the year… Dilbert is so true… here’s a sample from a ppt for tomorrow’s Operations exam:

“Many companies are implementing ERP packages as a means or strategic objectives to reengineering its existing processes, performing supply chain management, requiring for e-Commerce, integrating ERP with other business information systems, reducing inventory costs, changing existing legacy system, requiring for multinational enterprise competitiveness, enhancing enterprise images, and enabling e-business”

Somewhere between e-commerce and e-business (recycling the same shit, like those demonic Hindi exams), inventory costs mysteriously get reduced. Oh, and somewhere amidst the shit, supply chain is thrown in for good measure… of course, this is operations management… so we can’t take a pee without a mention of inventory and supply chain.

Another one of my favorite is the impact of goddamn internet on managerial jargon… e-this, e-that… e-my ass!

That’s enough negative energy for one day. Goodnight.

The pleasure was all mine

I was going thru chellyboy’s resume the other day, where he states, with all the clarity he could muster for a fart:

Captain of the team which won the School District Football championship

Captain of the team which won the College Football championship

Now, I wonder, which son of a bull would name his tournament “School District Football championship” or “College Football championship”?

So I asked chellyboy whats his scene with football. “I did not play football in school, but I developed a passion for it once placements started. Replace football with Fin and you have my Goldman Sachs interview”

Chellyboy was tanking the interview… tanking means the guy doesn’t want the job, so he’s deliberately screwing up and making sure he doesn’t get the job. This is done to please companies. Anyway, that’s not the point.

The GS Interview:

Sit down, have a seat

Thank you, sir

(flips thru the resume)… you look like a general kinda guy.. you’ve taken courses in everything – Fin, Mktg, HR, IT…

I came to do an MBA thinking I’ll take Marketing or Fin… we Indians, as you know, don’t like risks… I also hedged.

You haven’t taken BAV… isn’t that important for your Fin ambitions?

As I told you, I was very confused. But now, in the last 1 month, I have developed a deep passion for Fin. Over the next two months, I’ll study hard and by the time I join, you don’t have to worry. I believe that passion is more important that knowledge.

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(Tech)

Ok, pick one sector

I have no preferences… I love them all equally.

Analyse the Aircraft industry… why is there free cash flow in this industry?

As the number of passengers increase, they get a lot of cash from customers… you know, people fly, and have to pay lotsa cash for it.

Do you have any questions for us?

(Thinks of demanding for equity research, push for a posting in Bangalore, perks etc... then he decides to spare the poor guy who flew down all the way from Bombay only to have nobody taking up their not-so-generous offers.)

No

Thank you, it was a pleasure…

Oh no, sir… the pleasure was ALL MINE.

Today, Chellyboy left the hostel for good. You’re a funny guy, chellyboy… tata :-)

p.s.

last year, chelly once tried a bicycle kick, while defending, kicked his teammate (Mishaal Chotani) on his face and fell on a concrete football court and broke his hand.

Work = Worship

Today, I was thinking of dingo teaching me how to make drawings… dingo and his sensitive mouse. tango used to have precisely one drawing in his comp, lost in a sea of forwards, photos, general crap and stinking documentation. His screen was perpetually zoomed in… every now and then he’d zoom out, and zoom in elsewhere, just to fool us into thinking that the guy works. I used to hate dingo, one of my main bosses. He caught me, on different instances, reading papers, magazines, playing minesweeper, listening to music, reading ESPN basketball reports saved from elsewhere, writing letters and long posts for my blog… he came close to tying a bell around my neck.

The milk break was at 9… I usually entered the place just in time to open my inbox, check the mindless fwds and break for milk. Then it was a wait till 10:30 for the exercise timepass. I used to find it funny. Why couldn’t they let us off early, so that we can play some sport. Initially, they used to frown at me when I left the place bang at 5:30 pm. With time, they just got used to it.

Back to the exercise, tango used to get up at 9:40 am and walk around, engaging in idle talk with fellow institutionalized specimens. Then he’d go to the loo and pee for a while, followed by extended reps of splashing water onto his old face. Then he’d comb his sparse hair for a while and walk towards his place. After (slowly) rolling up his sleeves and removing his shoes, he’d start the exercise routine. Following, the physical madness, he would dress up again and comb his hair. By now, it would be time for tea. This is time for the second round of gossiping for the day (remember the milk break?). I can’t recollect the exact mindlessness of their talk… anyway, once the tea has starts drying up into sticky patches in their cups, they’d slowly return to the office and go straight to the loo.

When they take their seats at roughly 11:20 am, it marks the start of the toughest, most strenuous period of their existential work lives. The clock ticks slower, the drawings stare at you with familiar menace, and everyone’s working hard. So, poor tango has to work too. This pre-lunch span is akin to the third term at IIM Indore: even the free-riders are forced to work. There is no escaping reality. So, tango calls upon his subordinates and starts his daily lecture on how to perfect the art of designing a jackass. He reputedly knew everything there is to know about that annoying piece of engineering. I shall not go into the details of the distress meted out to his poor subordinates. I’m guessing it must’ve been really tough listening to that guy talk. He’s plain boring. 30 years in that place does shit to one’s mind. In his defense, I don’t entirely blame him for his brain being the way it is.

Lunch is a big event in that place. We used to get 30 (yes, THIRTY!) goddamn minutes to walk to the mess, shove the (good) food down our throats and rush back. Next to the mental alarm signaling the end of another agonizing day at 5:30 pm, lunch was the best part of my life at work. We would all slumber back to our office. It was honestly difficult to stay awake after lunch… even we greater mortals couldn’t do it… *wink*

The Beginning

May 14^th 2002. That’s when it all started. Two weeks back, I had walked up to the front of my Mechanical Engineering class and gave out an open invitation for anybody who wished to travel to Pune with me. A tall guy named Katan came forward and we left, bunking some brainless exams. We were later suspended for the same, but we couldn't care less and we had a story to tell.

I was 17, and looked 15. I don’t blame my dad for being anxious, for when I set foot on that 6:45 train to Pune I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing. I was answering the instinctive call to break free and explore. Pardon the exaggeration, but I was the Marco Polo of my own little world.

Six months back, Bobby, who was merely an acquaintance, had said “You should definitely come back next time… and plan for a longer stay.” It was purely out of courtesy, like when you’re at some distant cousin’s wedding, some uncle, who’s even more distant than the distant cousin, walks up to you and expresses his displeasure at you for not having dropped by for so many years. It’s the stupidest diplomacy game. When my mum tells some idiot “You should definitely come home sometime!” I feel like yelling the truth and begging the idiot to never come close to home.

I guess Bobby didn’t really say that for diplomacy and courtesy. He later admitted that he just didn’t expect me to accept the invitation literally. He’s always happy to have someone to roam around with. With all my innocence, I took his words at face value, and got off the train at an unearthly 2:40 AM and greeted his sleepy eyes with a big grin. Sometimes, innocence is a good thing. Think twice before you act? My ass!

I have fond memories of railway ticket counters. That’s where trips are crystallized. When I see the ticket in my hands, with the coach number and all that, that’s when it sinks in that I’m making a trip. I remember riding Katan’s moped to the counter at the airport to get our Pune tickets. Four years later, Katan and I would go back to the same ticket counter to get tickets for our trip to Madhya Pradesh. By then, we were both seasoned travelers, and when there were no tickets to Bhopal, we requested to be put on any train that goes close to central India. The ticket guy, without intent, fooled us into thinking that Nagpur is in Madhya Pradesh. We couldn’t have cared less. It just gave us a story to narrate.

I’ll continue the Pune story some other day.

Fast forward to May 2006. Paulo, Gopal, Valya and I were having lunch at some stupid place in Spencer’s, Madras. I had just got into IIM Indore and everyone was happy that it was worthwhile listening to my perpetual cribbing about work over the past 8 months.

We were about to leave, when I asked Paulo if she wanted to watch Hazaaron Kwahishein Aisi. She sat on the fence for a few seconds, and then we rode to my place. We opened the Lonely Planet guide book and scanned thru the India map for an hour, at the end of which, we were ready to make a trip to the north-east. Oh, and we never did watch the movie.

We rode to Marina beach, and sat by the waves, sharing our excitement about the trip, changing the world and everything else. As the last rays from the sun disappeared, we signed a travel pact on the wet sand and scribbled our names beneath it. That’s how it all started.

Pune would come back to haunt me later. But that’s another story, for another day.