"Like" it or Not!

I am seriously amazed. The way the internet revolution brought so many changes in no time. Facebook, Gtalk, Orkut are the wonders which have paved their ways to our lives without any warnings. If not a red alert, at least an alert should have been issued!

I remember how writing a "testimonial" on orkut was the proof of true affection from someone. It meant so much, I had to bribe/ issue warnings to so many of my friends to write one for me! Those were the good old days when Orkut was the in thing and the madness was controlled to a large extent! Now that Orkut is passe, Facebook has taken over with fiercer effects!! 

Take for instance; I have people who are so addicted to Facebook that they can't stop uploading status message and then commenting and replying to the comments. Nothing wrong in it...what's really frightening is they are actually people sitting right next to each other in my office. They won't talk to each other because they are glued to the screens replying to each other's comments.

Facebook has recently come up with the concept of having Groups. Initially it was fun. But now I can imagine a gigantic machine somewhere and these groups being churned out of it every nano second. There is a group for everything and anything under the sun!!!

And then, people keep joining them...I don't know for what. 

• For instance this one girl joined the group "I hate Facebook groups with grammatical errors in their names" and then later on joined "I love wehn it rains in Mumbaie." (Ahem! 'Correct spelling OCD' over!)  

• This other person I knew joined " I still remember the first time we met...you're not the same anymore" "I don't miss you, but the person you used to be" and then joins " I love the times we spend together...just you and me!" (Madam, either you are dating a bunch of guys or you just suffer from multiple personality disorder! ) 

I have seen couples fighting with each other because they didn't change their status from "single" to "committed" on Facebook! Obviously when you finally find a person who can put up with you after you hitting on every guy and being rejected by all of them, you gotta show it to the world! How dare he not change his status? How will the world ever know??? 

Have to mention other "Couples" fighting on why the boyfriend didn't 'like' the girlfriend's status and the vice versa! "Look how many people liked my status...just you didn't...you don't love me!" I am telling you love stories are getting difficult to sustain if you both are active on Facebook!

Talking about status messages, people bombard your Facebook walls at times. Yeah...now what the hell is that about? They need to update the world about everything and anything they do! "In the kitchen...trying to make tea" to "Watching TV" etc. And to all such messages, there will be people just casually commenting things like: "All the best" and "Enjoy" and "Have fun". They aren't thinking, they just comment finding it to be their moral duty to do so. After all it needs motivation from your acquaintances to accomplish deeds like that! Why the hell don't these people also update as to when are they going to the loo? I am sure they will get all the "All the best", "Enjoy", "HAVE FUN" comments out there too. I would also like to check how many click on the "Like" link there!$%!#%&(#*$

The craze is going out of hands. IT department of companies are actually demanding security arranged for themselves because they run the perpetual risk of being beaten up. Blocking Facebook in office is their job after all and nothing gets employees more irritated than this. The day it was banned in my office, a day long silence was observed! We observe 2 minutes silence when a national leader dies!

I am not talking for everyone here. But I am sure...most of our worlds have entered Facebook. We have to get Facebook savvy if we want to live a normal life. After all, if you ain't on Facebook, you can't expect people to wish you on your birthday. Your closest friends these days rely on Facebook birthday updates and don't bother to remember it themselves. You can't expect people to know what are you upto because your friends keep a tab on your life through your wall posts!

If you’re still not a part of this crazy world…get going people! It's the digital era after all. If you are not on Facebook, you're not in! 

The Immortals of Meluha - The book I just read!

I am not an avid reader. However, being surrounded by ultra passionate readers is always an advantage. One of such avid reasons and a treasured friend recommended the book to me. 

There is something different about this book. As far as the premise of the book goes, it simply is based on the belief that the Gods we worship as per our mythology aren't some fictitious characters imagined by some great writer of the past. This book says they existed, and lived on this very earth as mortals. Like you and me. They got elevated to Godhood because of the extraordinary deeds and accomplishments they carried out.

Now wait. Before you start rolling your eyes and cringing your nose, let me mention that the story is no typical philosophical ramble and NOT AT ALL BORING. Our generation is born in an era where philosophical and spiritual content is simply taken as the next worst thing to read after our Course books for exams. But this book is not about any "gyaan". Trust me the language is so simple and modern that I actually took time to imagine lord Shiva using the expression: “Dammit”! So now you know how easy the book actually is to go through.

Basically it's a work of fiction, several mythological beliefs put together weaved into a story. But the way they're brought together is what I was impressed by. 


The book is a story of a tribal, Shiva, who lived on Mount Kailash in Tibet. He comes to the land of Meluhans, the empire of Ram. The book describes his journey as to how he is led towards his Karma, as he becomes The Mahadev, The Neelkanth! 

A splendid story, this book showcases each and every aspect of Lord Shiva we know, a ferocious warrior, an ardent lover and a skillful strategist. I couldn't help smiling every time the time Lord Shiva's character unfolded as this carefree person with a wonderful sense of humor, tremendous strength in his personality and a big heart. Not forgetting how the author intertwines all our mythological character right from Nandi, Veer Bhadra, Sati and carves out the story!

The story is really fast paced. Once you start to read, you can't wait to know the rest of it. Every now and then, you come across a fact and you immediately relate it to some mythological aspect that you have heard about earlier.

Now it's not about justifying if the faith in Shiva is absolutely right and other faiths aren't. No. It's about getting our minds open to the fact that the lords we worship today are worth worshiping because of the rarest of strength, power, and greatness they showed.

I am not really a religious person. I don't believe in worshiping idols either. But I do believe, that supreme power exists somewhere which leads us all towards the path that is right. 

The story goes on to tell you that several 'Avatars" of Lord Vishnu and Lord Mahadev were actually titles given to people who rose to supreme levels of excellence. As per the author on the website “I believe that the words Vishnu and Mahadev are not individual names. They are in fact titles, given to those persons who are the greatest of leaders, who become god-like." After reading the book it dawns upon you that the near perfect empire of Meluha – the Ramrajya is actually the Indus Valley Civilization that we know. Every fact is simple and so believable.

It actually tells you every one can become God. Each one of us can be a Mahadev. Yes, there is where “Har Har Mahadev” phrase actually emerges in the book. “Har ek mein hai mahadev”. Nice!

The author, Amish, struck a chord somewhere in my head through this book. May be because his beliefs are absolutely like the ones I have. I am happy I was forced to read this book. Thanks Irfan! :)

Yo' Brainz and My mind!

This post isn't going to get much admirers. As such I don't expect much, as far as my blog's publicity goes, I have been clicking on the "Good" and "Interesting" buttons all this while to reflect that I have readers. 

I would like to talk about the most irritating habit out of my several obsessive compulsive disorders. And most of you have been victims to it and at one point or the other have cursed me to burn in hell for inflicting such pains on you!

To start with, how many of you have I reminded that you never ever use the past tense of a verb which is prefixed by a "did" in the sentence! (It's not - "I did went there". It's - "I did go there!") YES! I am talking about my (in)famous "English Correcting Disorder". You must be hoping this post is about apologizing for all those bugging unsolicited grammar lessons!

Don't get too happy. Getting a sorry from me on this issue is just as difficult as getting my boss to like me! 

I have recently awakened to the fact that using wrong English is a trend today. And I am just too obsolete to be able to catch up with the latest fashion statements! 

For example: The obsession with the word "Ma"? Somehow everyone is using instead of "My"! I don't understand. Because as far as I know, we are supposed to use 2 alphabets for both of the words. So, is it that typing the letter "a" is easier than typing "y"?

And has anyone tried to read how these sentences sound? "I told ma mother to gimme ma money cuz I want to buy maself a bike of ma own"!! To me it just appears that you stammer a lot. What is this "Ma" fetish? Is it some way to say you are much more cooler? "Ma world"! "Ma friends" "Ma family"...

Trust me every time I read these irritating expressions and sentences, all I can do is say out a hindi expletive in my head which also apparently starts with the word "Ma****"! 

I am not against using short forms, they in a way are easy to use specially in text messaging. But then, the examples here aren't short forms. I am talking about original English terms being twisted and turned and thereby made absolutely ghastly to hear or read! For eg. When everyone around you uses 'Lol' as a shortcut for 'Laughing out loud' it's okay! However, these days I have come across 'Lol' as an expression used very differently. If something very funny happens to someone or someone suffered an embarrassing incident, we use: "Uske saath aaj mast lol hua"! Even when you're embarrassed, they would use "Lol" instead of "Damn" or "Ohh Shit"! Also, these days, youngsters have started saying 'Lol' instead of laughing at your joke! No comments! :-S 

Moving on, recently, one of my friends buzzed me on Gtalk and it read: "Dhappp??" I couldn't  really get that and thought it was a spelling error. However, later on I got enlightened that it stands for "What's up?". Yes. "What's up?" as an expression is outdated. It is now "What Up?" (Thanks Barney!) which has further got transformed into "Whaddduuuup" and hence the short cut - "Dhapp?" As long as an amateur English user like me is concerned, that "Dhapp" is simply one of the expressions used by Diamond comics I read as a child where there were also other sounds like "Dhadaam" "Kadd Boooooom" "Dhamaka" etc. 

Anyway, now that I am trying to get trendier, I have recently realized, all we need to do is use stuff like: "Yo man", "Bro", "Ciao", "Dude" and bingo! It doesn't matter if you are incapable for formulating a single sentence in English. All you need to do is add a "Bro" or "Dude" and you are all hep now!

Amidst all these "Friggin wurdz which neva eva make ny sense to ma mind" all I can do is pray that one fine day I "rise" to these levels and am able to inculcate the latest trends to be one of those "Yo" types! 

God help me! 

About 'piece of land' and 'peace of mind'!

10 followers! Guys before I begin with my new post, I must warn you, don't have too many hopes from this portal. It too has an expiry date. Someday somewhere God will decide to stop making my life miserable cum interesting and that very day, my friend, I will have nothing more to write. (This means no more pestering you to read my posts…So keep praying!!!)

My recent-most adventure was my "apartment hunting spree" that I resorted to, along with my roommate in "Amchi Mumbai". Having done our homework right from calling brokers and finalizing places, we started visiting the places we shortlisted!

The first place was in Bandra at a perfect location. The moment we got down from the rick, we saw the local station right there, main road right there and a market right there! I was happy and elated. Who said apartment hunting is tough? We had a winner already. I was still happily waltzing in my thoughts when all of a sudden, I heard some voices.

The voices sounded strange and unfamiliar. They brought me back from my wonderland and I tried turning around to check what are these voices afterall. Right at that moment, many things happened. My roommate realized I heard the voices and am about to witness what is happening. So she ran from where she was towards me so as to block my vision. While I tried to understand why is she running towards me (as if trying to save me from a bullet that has been shot at me), I heard the actual voice again: "Khachaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak" and simultaneously saw a heavy knife going down in a swift motion. All of a sudden my world fell. I hit rock bottom. How the hell didn't I see all these meat shops before? Right here in the lane where I stood. My roommate and I already knew it’s a lost cause. I have never been able to stand these meat shops and I, till date for the record, have always thrown up if exposed to them for more than 60 seconds. We went upstairs to check the apartment anyway, and I specifically checked out the bathroom! ('Coz I had been exposed to those meat shops for more than 60 seconds! DUH!)

Moving on, we saw several other places. I remember one of them being shown to us and I getting shocked, the same way Circuit said," O teri!! Bhai yeh room toh shuru hote hi khatam ho gaya"!

Also, there have been places in areas which were wonderful but lonely. There were areas that stank so bad, a skunk would have thought twice before living there. There were houses where the Pervi Perverson (Read: Pervert) Makaan maalik simply wanted us girls to give him the privilege to come check on us every second day! We also had houses that belonged to unknown parties. Those whom the neighbors have never ever seen in person and have only dealt with the agents. Quite spooky!

Anyway, we finally settled for a nice place in Khar. The only problem, it has no water storage tank. The solutions: Either buy a tank or keep a big drum in your bathroom where water is kept stored for all purposes including drinking!Dreaming about having to manage water from the drum every time we need to use the loo was frightening. Not forgetting imagining what would happen if someone is suffering from diarrhea!

So, having left with just 3 days to go before we are kicked out of our current house, we decide to simply freeze the 'no tank' place and pitched in money out of our own pockets to buy a tank. Suddenly we realized there are no connections in the bathroom also. I seriously wonder what kind of people lived here before us. For a person with such fertile imagination like mine, I couldn't help cringing at the thoughts that hogged my mind. Anyway, having no other options, all I could do was insisting on getting the entire apartment painted and sterilized before we can move in.

Anyway, the apartment has been painted & sterilized and we have moved into the place. Contradictory to how the finding process for the same has been, the place is really cozy and beautiful. I guess it's all about things and how they end beautifully before they show you a bad...sorry...ghastly times. This post had earlier almost got me into sheer depression but then again, the news of death sentence being given to Kasab came in at the right time and cheered me up all over again. I wish they make him undergo apartment hunting in Mumbai's slums if possible before hanging him.

In the end, I would like to conclude, may the caretaker of this house fall in love with both of us utterly sweet, immensely good looking and absolutely harmless inmates of his apartment and never ever ask us to move out of this one! (Also praying may he never get in touch with the owner of our last rented apartment...Amen!)

Of Mirrors, Ghajini Effect & Viagra!

There are instances where I can imagine God with a bored face and trying to find out which one of us can He use for a bit of entertainment. No hard feelings, He is the creator after all and He too needs a break once in a while...

So, in one of God's recent stints of entertaining Himself, I would like to describe this incident which happened to me. Read on for more!

I went to an interview. The company was one of India's reputed PR agencies which has an expertise in handling clientèle from the IT sector. So I, went for the interview basking in full fledged confidence, having handled an IT client herself for the past 1.5 years. (Those who know which client it is, shut up. Even if negligibly small, it still IS an IT client).

PHASE 1: THE MIRROR CRASHES!

Before I start...are you guys aware of the situation when you hear a big mirror crashing somewhere in your head, the moment you realize something miserable or horrible about yourself? Well, this interview was a "Mirror Crash" marathon for me.

I sat down, and I was looked upon as if they made a huge mistake by calling me. I was asked, "So what client do you handle in your current job?" And I played my winning card! I told them the IT client I have worked on for more than a year. And she looked at me with a raised eye brow, saying: "That's it, that's the only IT client you have handled?" CRASH!

I was then asked questions like "What's the stock price for Infosys?" "What is the latest on Wipro & TCS Quarterly Results?" "What do you think Cloud Computing is?" "What do they mean by Wave 3 in Indian IT?" CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! & yet another CRASH!

PHASE 2: THE 'GHAJINI' EFFECT

By this time, I'd already realized that I have entered the fight with a small kitchen knife and I have an entire Army in front of me! However, that army decided to torment me instead of going the "mercy killing" way! Hopelessly waiting for my death and meekly trying to regain my ground, I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. However, I might have inhaled something weird in that 'Deep Breath' because I remember things only in bits and pieces from there on. And yes, I suffered from short term memory loss or more commonly known as the "Ghajini" state of mind.

They wanted to check my knowledge in other sectors like Retail, Telecom and Pharma. They simply asked me which are the existing groups in Telecom sector in India. And TRUST ME, I could only say: (after much contemplation that is) 'Airtel?????' Yes the Question marks are apt because that was truly the tone I had! She gave me that "who the fuck called you here" look and then asked,"I just want to know which groups these service providers belong to". I said, "I don't know, I guess Bharti...ummmm...I can't recall right now"!

Then she asked me, what do I know about the Pharma Industry and if I can name a few players...And I just had one name in mind...'Pfizer'. She asked who ARE the competitors and I could only come up with Glenmark. And the worst part was, while dealing with one question after the other, I was still thinking how come I got stuck with the 'Telecom' question. And then, all of a sudden, from nowhere, Vodafone- Essar, Idea- Aditya Birla, Reliance - Dhirubhai Ambani et al started cropping up. So now, I guess, while she asking me questions about Pharma, I was answering her questions about Telecom in my head and wondering how the hell did I forget this basic info in the first place.

PHASE 3: THE ONE WITH VIAGRA IN THE END

Well, seeing my lost look, she must have felt some pity towards me. She tried to give me something I can talk on, so she went back and said, "So, you mentioned Pfizer. You can talk about it. Can you name some products by the brand Pfizer?" And all of a sudden, I, who got overwhelmed seeing her pity towards me, again got lost and tried to remember her question. I remember the voices in my head again going, "Product?" "Pfizer?" "How could you forget Vodafone Essar"? Then all of a sudden, I again took a deep breath (Big mistake, again!) and tried to deal with the present question.

Well, I started thinking. And I almost jumped off my seat because I KNEW the answer! Well almost. I couldn't remember the name. And the Ghajini struggle started. "Come on Suruchi, you know this" ... "Abey tereko pata hai...the one which enhances sexual stamina...what is that drug called?"

Yeah. I remembered the function of that drug but didn't remember the name! I thought of telling the HR that I know the answer but am unable to recall the name. But what would I tell her? The drug that stimulates your hormones and takes care of cases with erectile dysfunction? DAMN! Another answer, which I had to let go despite being so close!

This time she yawned, and asked me what do you know about the retail industry? And I of course didn't hear the question because I was still trying to imagine what the earlier product was. So I hopelessly mumbled something about Pantaloons and Wills Lifestyle. At that very moment, something struck me! "VIAGRA! YOU LOSER HOW COULD YOU FORGET VIAGRA?" Well, Kudos to my memory, I remembered the answer but it was too late, the HR was on the question related to Retail! And things would have really been beautiful had I not yelled "VIAGRA" at the top of my voice the moment it struck me. YES! She asked me something about Retail and I answered VIAGRA!!!

I don't remember what happened after that. It must have been the air of that room which I inhaled. Everything after that is just a blur!

Anyway, the best part of that interview was, I realized where I stand in this fiercely competitive world (Rock Bottom perhaps) and how much I need to work to become one of the knowledgeable ones in the industry. The "Overconfident attitude" was brought back to "New at work, keen to learn" attitude and I haven't stopped thanking GOD for choosing me as His Bakra for that day!

So at the end, I have a few tips for those planning to appear for an interview.

1. PREPARE WELL

2. DON'T OVERESTIMATE YOURSELF

3. DON'T INHALE TOO MUCH OF AIR!

Situational Friends!

Friendship - Have read, heard and probably talked so much about this in life, that perhaps this post might just be a lame attempt in discussing something new. Nonetheless, I can give my share of "gyaan" to this world and torture everyone for a while.

Whenever I have read about "Friendship", the word "Beautiful" & "God Sent" have always tagged along as adjectives. I don't negate them, but I don't agree completely.

Friendship, once again, as per one of the most bromidic phrases used, is the only relation that you make by your choice. And I always lived in the same world, where friendships are supposed to last for life, bring memorable moments to be cherished throughout your life and what not! Honestly, life was really good when I still could stand by these notions regarding friendship.

Today, friends can be categorized in so many different ways.

There are the ones who are there for you "ALWAYS" and would expect you to be there "ALWAYS"! And yes, even a moody and 'I need my space' person like me has a few friends like these. And now I am wondering why!

Then comes the variety of friends who never wants to stay in touch. I mean, not exactly never, because they will turn up exactly at the time they need you. Do expect a phone call or a text message saying, "Hi, how is life?" from them a day or an hour right before they call you or show up at your door asking for help and you are stuck because you can't even blame these jerks for not keeping in touch all this while. (They called you yesterday...remember?)

The next variety: The "Forward" friends. You will always see emails or Sms forwards daily in your inbox. Most of the times, you read the PJs or bugging "shayris" or "Forward this to 150 people and a you will get laid tonight" mails from them. In bulk. Thrice a day. Every time I look at them and try to remember the faces these friends had, I almost never succeed. And yet again I wonder, why are they my friends and what am I doing in their friends list. Not forgetting cursing myself for being such a loser, big enough to open these mails and messages!

The next type is very common. We all have dealt with them at one point or the other in our lives. They are your friends, always with you, committing yourself to you till death tears you apart! However, before death another tragedy strikes them. They fall in love. And then, the object of all the commitment and togetherness and 'Will be there for you till death tears us apart' promises changes. You are just left behind calculating what went wrong and where and by that time, they are already happily married and probably planning kids. (You never come to know what exactly happened to them, they never sent you a wedding invitation.)

The next friendship is the one-sided love. You just can't stand these folks. You know you don't want to be with them or talk to them. But then, just because you never could be very rude to these ones, you have to put up with them. And no, it's NOT that easy. You try to ignore them, but they ignore the fact that you are ignoring them. Pathetically optimistic about their importance in your life, they stay and stay and they STAY!

Then of course, we have the "Whiners"!Describing them, they are really typical when it comes to this trait. Well, first of all, they simply are in love with themselves. I mean, I how else do I explain the super duper obsession towards whining and crying about how life has been unfair to 'THEM'. This category has all the "Why me?" and "Enough is enough" "Life has always been cruel to me" slogan holders. They are so self obsessed and busy crying around, they even ignore the solution to their problems which might be lying in front of them since the time the problem surfaced. And yes, in extreme cases, they tend to refuse finding out a solution, because according to them, they are too unique and important to ever have a solution. In these cases, they chose the problems, the problems don't chose them. And they feel comfortable only when they have issues to whine about. Give them a reason to smile and they will be lost and don't know what to do. I have a handful of these "Friends". I think I came into their super important life thinking they need help. Apparently, it's the other way round now. It's better to leave them alone. Problems are their only partners, friends, lovers...etc.

There are loads of other categories. The flaunting ones for example. They don't flaunt themselves, they flaunt you. They love being seen with you or being associated with you because you might be one of less moronic idiots in their circle of otherwise chronic ones.

Then we have the obliging ones. They tend to ignore you completely when in a group. But they behave as if they are your soul mates when meeting you alone. Yeah, you feel you are important all over again, while all they want out of you is to be a good listener to them because none of the sensible ones could put up with their bragging.

We also have the birthday friends. The ones who remember you on your birthday, promptly wishing you exactly at 12:00 am and of course expecting you to wish them on theirs. Miss one of their birthdays and the trail ends. It's a give and take relationship after all. The same thing applies to all your facebook and orkut friends also. They will "Like" your comments if you "Like" theirs and scrap you back if you scrap them. Again the trail will end the moment you miss it once.

Well, writing this post, I have taken a big risk. I know you all are currently categorizing me in all of the options above. And I know I alone can give rise to at least 50 newer categories. But then, what the hell, this is my post. You can write about me in yours! :D

I can still go on with this never ending journey of categorizing my friends. But I have to stop and come to the last category. I would like to call this - 'The ones who can't be categorized'. I am extremely lucky to have a few of these people in my life whom I would never be able to put a label on in any way possible.

They are rare and precious. They are the ones who really matter to me. The ones whom I can be an utter nuisance to and still expect to be there. The ones whom I can be every trait I mentioned in my post above and still expect to put up with me. I won't name them, but I somehow know they realize what they mean to me.

They are also the ones whom I expect to read this blog till the end for sure and hence mentioning them in the last line... I LOVE YOU GUYS! :) :*

P.S. The entire work here is pure work of part bored and part sleepy mind. Any resemblance to any person in my close and far off circle might be a coincidental and exaggerated form of my opinion about them. ;)