Carry on...

Song for the mood: Yeh Shaam Mastaani - Kishore Kumar

Yet another day have I soldiered on

Across another bend have I passed
but the horizon is forever away; and still
the road seems to end there atlast

The dusk sets, as it does always
hurrying away from the sun
Such times when the day elopes, I wonder
does it too have a loved one?

A million eyes of a shade of silver
seek to enchant and to mesmerise
with the sparkle of a fine diamond;
when I shy a look at the night skies.

Must not I give into their sparkles
It is only deceitful appearance
It is not the shelter I seek, to rest
I need warmth, not the fireplace

My eyes still seek the shining glow,
a solace; far from the night shadows.
What's but in this weary path?
Why tread over these million stones?

Oh! the life I seek, is but a long walk
It is not a stop on these plains.
Where truth is learnt and dreams are fulfilled
Is on the journey; wait is in vain.

I must carry on! For the night hides
the truth; and the road that lies ahead.
The world won't stop, it will carry on
with me or without me instead.

We need an office boy?

Song for the mood: Brain Damage – Pink Floyd

“We need an office boy around here…”

A conversation I witnessed in office yesterday. So, my office (I’m an intern) is a small place, people wise. We are 15 of us, roughly, and all of us sit in one big room. The place is newly bought, and quite a few renovations and additions to the office place are going on. About 3 days back we had a security system installed and so now we need access cards to get in. Owing to the new system, a few people were left knocking the door to get in, since they didn’t have the access cards (the cards came yesterday morning).

“Wasn’t some office boy going to join? What happened with him?”

“No, he didn’t turn up even the first day …”

15 people … 1 room … what is the office boy going to do here? Ok, so now go figure: when there are a set of access cards for the security system, and you don’t have an access card, what do you do? Simple, you go and get yourself one of the access cards …

“I am going to remain stuck outside … (casual laugh) … We need someone to answer that door …”

Still clueless … anyways … me and few others felt later that we can get the office boy a laptop and teach him some stuff, simply because there is nothing else he can do here (we feel so). The risk is getting a mail from the office boy in the morning saying, ‘WFH today’ (WFH --> Work From Home)

“Hmmm … we can get a door bell installed …”

“… Oh yeah, doorbell would be cheaper…”

Sorry Mr. Office boy. Better luck next time ...

... eyes of the Beholder ... ears of the Listener

Song for the mood: Yeh hain Mumbai meri jaan - Mohammed Rafi Saahab

Yesterday evening I witnessed an interesting conversation between two people on a bus while on the way back from work. The 'guy who was doing most of the talking' was sitting next to me and was chatting away with the 'guy who was doing most of the listening' who was in the seat just in front (he was looking back ... now read on).

For the most part, I could not understand what they were talking about, because they were talking in Kannada. I can't make sense of more than 10-15 words of Kannada; my vocabulary is limited to oota, maadi, yenoo, beku, beda, illa, yeshtu, channagideya and some simple questions like yenoo helaitidiya? and yenoo madtaidiya? alongwith some counting: wundu, yerdu, mooru STOP. Whew! I need some water now ...

Anyways, so the conversation the way I understood it was a comparison between Bengalooru and other prime cities of India, moreover the references to Mumbai were dominant ... "Mumbai blah blah samudra beda" and "local train beda" (beda means I don't want ... wonder who gifted him the sea). In the very little that I could garner or grasp from his talk was that Bangalore ... sorry, Bengalooru has people from so many different linguistic backgrounds like Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil apart from Kannadigas and people here speak English also. Meanwhile, Mumbai has people who speak Marathi and Hindi only and English is a rarity. Marathi yenoo helaitidiya? Numbers simple ... ek, do, teen, char (these are in Hindi mister, and not Marathi)... three-hundred illa (illa means nothing) ... I guess he was saying that he doesn't know how to say three-hundred in Marathi and not that Marathi doesn't have a word for the number three-hundred :-). Yes, and there was an interesting comment Idli beda, Bengalooru best ... Mumbai idli bad ...

The comparisons continued ... Mumbai yeshtu sweat (yeshtu means how much... I think). He also ... ahem ... mentioned more stuff, words which I will refrain from using here forget elaborating. A sore point, since he sounded angry at it, was about the police in Mumbai ... his hand actions when he spoke about them suggested the following: catch by collar -> handcuff -> kick -> beat with danda -> throw in jail -> lock and then ... beat.

Well, one thing is clear, the person is very happy to be in his own home-town which is good for him. His views about other cities ... well, he would've probably seen a small part of Mumbai city whenever he was there and judging by all that he said, he found traveling, communicating and eating to be a problem ... which is the case with any one going to a new city. I doubt he went anywhere outside Kurla (a place in Mumbai, and something he constantly mentioned when speaking) and hence his ideas about Mumbai are pertaining to that place alone.
Any Mumbaikar will tell you that these views are lopsided, but the fact remains that to a newcomer who probably got beaten up or witnessed someone getting beaten up by the Mumbai Police, all this would've caused little comfort :-P

Not too different is what happened to me when I came to Bangalore nearly 18 months ago ... food, language and travel were a pain. But thankfully for me, I was and am still living in a comfortable hostel with like minded students around me many of them from Bangalore, courteous enough to give short guided tours of the city along with adding 10-15 Kannada words to my vocabulary (hee hee!). The guy on the bus probably had not such a great experience ... and I never go beaten up by the Police.

Everything around us can be understood in so many ways at so many different levels ... it depends on what level of understanding prevails in the end. I can say with great confidence that his views on Mumbai idli would've changed had he eaten in some Udipi restaurants of Churchgate or for that matter tasted a wada-paav ... but that was beyond the experience that he had. Just for the record, in Mumbai you get superb South-Indian food, again, looking at it the way I look at it.

The title ... in its completion is ... Observing lies in the eyes of the Beholder and Understanding lies in the ears of the listener. Given my limited understanding of Kannada, who knows, maybe I interpreted whatever he was saying in the not so correct way ... or did I?

Any other day...

Song for the mood: Running to Stand Still - U2

Over a month into the internship now, awaiting my first paycheck. Have quite many plans what to do with that monneey at least whatever remains in hand after treating friends - the way the mathematics works out I have to give 4 parties atleast - then something for my parents and sis (I have no idea what to buy) and then yours truly. I feel it would be a better idea to wait for the second paycheck and then buy for me an electric guitar, yes that is what I am gonna buy. First paycheck ... wow ... didn't think I would be wondering about that anytime soon, but I am eagerly awaiting it; especially since everyone else has already gotten their cut. Whew!

Lot has happened in the week; Ravikanth and Durga (friends and classmates here at IIIT-B) started taking guitar lessons from me this friday. I hope they stick to it, especially since the first 2 months tend to be the difficult ones when you are finding your touch on the fretboard. Speaking of guitaring, my own hopes of playing everyday seem to be going nowhere. Fact am hoping the two of them continue coming for guitar lessons so that I too can play along...

Today I played cricket for Rakesh's team in the ongoing intra-college sports event SPANDAN; I was the substitute for the team, and with Ranga away for the day I was drafted (ahem) into the side - no fancy show, Mr. Santosh knocked my door half an hour before the match and told me, "Get ready you are playing today" - and it turned out to be a good match. I bowled an over, thankfully not bowling too many wides (which I am famous for) but our batsmen had earlier done enough by belting the opposition for 104 runs in 8 overs. We won by a convincing 48 runs. In the afternoon as a last minute entry me and Ravikanth decided to try our hand at Doubles Carrom. We actually won the first board and pocketed 6 points but finally lost 22-13 to Durga and Reddy in a marathon 6 boards session. (Ravikanth was considering a forfeit at the end of the 6 match, irrespective of the result, citing "I am getting bored" as an explanation) Well, alls well that ends well.

Weekends and work don't match ... all my efforts (snore) to do some weekend work are buried Friday afternoon and are reborn not before Monday afternoon. Sigh ... will see how that goes ...

Here's to just another day ... cheers!

Signing off ...