The Moment

Has it ever happened to you that you are in a situation, where everything is perfect and you are just sitting back, enjoying the experience, and suddenly, out of the blue, something trivial simply ruins it?

For example, it’s a weekend, you are watching a classic test match being played at Eden Gardens or Lords and India is batting and Dravid and Laxman are batting, and just when you think it can’t get any better, one of them gets out, and Agarkar comes out to bat! I mean, can you even comprehend how utterly pissing off it is?

Or take another example. You are in a movie theatre to watch that one movie which you had been waiting for, you just got your reclining seats and popcorn and you are all set for the next three hours, ready to be blown away, and out of nowhere, a trailer of Happy New Year pops up, completely killing the mood.

Even worse, you are out shopping, just the way you love it: alone, in comfortable loose clothes and flat chappals, looking forward to revamping your wardrobe, and suddenly, you run into some long lost college acquaintance, who, surprise surprise, sticks to you like a leech for the rest of the afternoon, making you wait impatiently outside the trial room, while she tries out multiple outfits and whines.

And don’t even get me started on the times when you are having the time of your life traveling across a new country, soaking in a new culture or talking to random strangers, when an Indian family approaches you and asks you in loud Hindi, “Do you know a good Indian vegetarian place here?”

But in my experience, the worst of them all is when you are in a nice restaurant, enjoying the good food, the serene ambience and softly singing along to the tunes of Bruce Springsteen or The Eagles, thinking to yourself, “Boy, this place has taste”, when suddenly, they start playing, “I want it that way”. Yes, Backstreet Boys, leaving you no option but to hurriedly call for the cheque.

I mean, talk about the moment that ruins the hours…

The Unshushables

Ever since I started living on my own, I haven’t really “celebrated” Diwali. Honestly, I have never really understood WHY I need to celebrate it, especially in the way it’s usually celebrated: crackers, sweets, rangoli, lights and the other elaborate and intricate rituals that come with it. For all I know, give me four days of break from work, a couple of friends, pizza and some good movies with really good print, I can spend every day in peace and quiet, not to mention, complete darkness.

Now there is something very fundamental about Diwali which I hate: NOISE. For someone soft spoken, understated and restrained, I am very Bengali when it comes to day-to-day habits. You may call me pretentiously intellectual, but I simply hate loudness in any form, including its literal rendition. Be it the strident jokes/discussions at work, blaring loudspeakers during festivals, deafening music at a pub or simply Arnab Goswami being himself, I can’t bear anything which hurts my ears. Or as Jerry Seinfeld would say, I am a shusher who is always killing the mood, by shushing people around her, when they are just enjoying themselves: by shouting, or singing loudly, or talking on the mobile in a movie theatre, or bursting crackers.

But this is where you underestimate us, Indians. No other nation holds a candle to us when it comes to making noise. It’s part of our competitive streak. Go to any group discussion for a business school or campus interview and you would realize how 21 year old Indians prove themselves. When you grow up in an environment of unhealthy competition, there is no way to get noticed: to be heard, you need to be the loudest of them all. What you say is unimportant as long as people know you are talking. Nobody is listening anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand the unbridled joy in wasting burning my money in the most literal way possible, but of course, that’s not enough. Others should also KNOW that I did it. So, unless I burst that particular cracker for which the noise travels the farthest or breaks all the decibel related laws, it just doesn’t give me the same pleasure. Diwali is nothing without a bunch of old people sitting in their homes, shutting their windows and pulling the drapes and putting on Times Now at maximum volume to drown the noise outside.

Now it feels like Diwali. Move over the Untouchables. It’s time for the Unshushables…

The Ra.One Way

The last few months have been quite crazy, and it still hasn’t quite ended yet. For all I know, it’s Durga Puja and yet I haven’t had the chance to reflect upon it, let alone shop for it or actually go out and celebrate it as it should be done.

But tonight, I leave for Sri Lanka. Bit of an irony, isn’t it? Spending Dushera in the land of Ravaan, but I am not complaining.

Time to live it up the Ra.One way…

Rotten Tomatoes

It’s been a while since I talked about one of my pet peeves on this blog, i.e. my love for lists. So my regular readers (all five of you, or have you also disappeared?) would already know some of them, like my favourite tourist spots/books/music/movies/sportspersons/actors/TV shows and so on.

But let’s do it in a slightly different manner this time and focus on what I DON’T like instead.

Places: Being an Indian, I might be committing a national heresy here, but I really don’t like visiting religious destinations, which are usually overcrowded and reeling with various types of crooks who make a living by ripping people off and exploiting their weaknesses. While I have visited places like Angkor Wat or The Vatican City, the key drivers of these trips were purely history and architecture rather than religion.

Books: I don’t like the Harry Potter series. There I said it. Kill me. And of course, contemporary Indian literature is a strict no-no. In fact I can’t even consider these books as ‘literature’. I also don’t like the mushy stuff marketed as chick-lit. So no Mills and Boons or Fifty Shades of Gray or P.S. I Love You.

Music: Call me old fashioned, but I still like the 70s and the 80s stuff and none of the current hip-hop or pop music. And definitely no Honey Singh.

Movies: No Salman Khan movie please. I get no kick out of them, nor do I like the 100 crore blockbusters. But I am no intellectual either, so keep those sci-fi movies away (Inception included). Also super heroes mean nothing to me. So all your movies on the Batmans and Spidermans and Supermans or any other hero who is so insecure about his manhood that he has to keep it as a title can take a hike.

Actors: I like actors, not heroes. So give me a Rahul Bose or a KK Menon or a Nawazuddin Siddiqui any day over a Salman Khan or a Shahrukh Khan. And no, pulling weird expressions faces doesn’t necessarily make you funny. Jim Carrey, are you listening?

TV Shows: Ok I admit it, I haven’t watched Game of Thrones yet. And oh, I am not a fan of Modern Family either, especially Gloria. She is too loud for my subtle Bengali sensibilities.

Sportspersons: I have said it before, and I shall say it again, even at the risk of endangering my life. I have never been a big fan of Sachin Tendulkar. And Luis Suarez, I love your game, but please get some psychological help. I also didn’t like Pete Sampras though I don’t deny that he was one of the greatest tennis players of all times. Just that I preferred the volatile brilliance of Agassi over the clinical robotic precision of Sampras. In sports, I have always been on the side of the exciting and flamboyant underdog.

Food: I avoid vegetarian. As much as I can. And I can’t drink beer. It’s my biggest failure till date.

But what I hate the most is pretentious affectation and I stay away from all things which have the slightest hint of it, no matter how popular.

Confessions of a Closet Nerd

This blog has seen multiple posts where I have mocked humoured the quintessential nerd male engineer. However, truth be told, I am somewhat of a nerd as well, notwithstanding my pink clothes or matching shoes/hairbands/accessories. So the time has come, to, behold, unleash the nerd in Nefertiti:

I enjoy writing competitive exams. Ever since I was a child, I have been brought up in a typical Indian middle class household, where we look at competitive exams as a panacea to all problems. Want to go for that exotic vacation? First clear the JEE. Want to marry the pretty girl next door? Write CAT. Want to find the dream job? Don’t even dream about it till you have taken GRE/GMAT, however irrelevant it is. Bored on a Saturday evening? Take IQ tests online. So, yes, I secretly like solving useless Math problems or sentence corrections. In fact, it’s such an integral part of my life that I find grammatical errors in emails sent by senior management, who probably didn’t even write the mail in the first place.

I wear thick glasses. While I wouldn’t be caught dead in my spectacles, the truth is that I have been wearing specs ever since I was 11. If you manage to catch me in a compromising situation (with glasses and a heavy book), rest assured that it’s not an accident. I am NOT as cool as I pretend to be.

I identify with Sheldon. Believe it or not, there are traits in me which are distinctly Sheldonic. Not only am I socially awkward and prefer the electronic mode of communication to personal interaction, I don’t even feel the need for human companionship and would much rather spend my time in pursuit of knowledge wasteful self gratification (Scrabble anyone? I shall beat you hollow).

I use words like “agnostic”, “hypothesis”, “exponential” or “sample space” as part of a conversation if I am not careful. I also play word games on my phone when I am bored or in a party with too many people.

I like being organized to an abnormal extent. Even though I rarely order for home delivery, I maintain a folder with menu cards from all restaurants, arranged in alphabetical order. I have done it ever since I started living on my own five years back, and I am extremely proud of my collection.

I read history because I WANT to. And I find it fashionable to badmouth popular literature.

Oh, and most importantly, I hate the iphone and I am proud of it.

It's time to come out of the closet and embrace the nerd in me...

Blondie

My deepest darkest secret in life is that I am an intellectually stunted Arts graduate. As the dear readers reader of this blog would know, I am the untouchables of the academic fraternity and the banking industry. Now if you walk into my department which has about 50 people, you would mostly see bespectacled men who are engineers+MBAs+CFAs who would explain to me that + here denotes the “and” function and not the “or” function.

A typical new hire would walk around the bay, explaining that he is from some IIT with experience in VBA/SAS/Python/Matlab and I would sheepishly look at him and mumble, “err… sounds impressive. I am more into literature and philosophy and political science.” He would immediately recoil in disgust and look around surreptitiously, making sure that nobody sees him talking to me.

So, over the years, I have been a victim of discrimination and low self esteem. Here are some reasons why:

As an Arts graduate in an investment bank, people mostly dismiss you as HR/Admin, who is only responsible for looking pretty, arranging parties and hosting big shots…

During most meetings/calls, you are not expected to participate or say anything remotely intelligent, because you know, what can an Arts graduate possibly have to contribute when “the men” are discussing ground breaking stuff like quantitative easing, predictive modeling or valuation of private companies…

Whenever there is an event/networking session, everyone would gather around the visitor who is typically a Director/MD/Board member, seriously discussing world economics, share prices or debt markets, while the Arts graduate would hide in one corner, picking at her food, waiting for the ordeal to be over. When the said Director/MD/Board member asks her “so, what are your views on this?”, all she can do is smile brightly, and say, “is this your first visit to Mumbai? You MUST visit Colaba Causeway.”

When you tell an outsider where you work, he gets all excited and asks random questions like, “oh, my batchmate from IITX is also working there. Which IIT did you go to?” When you hesitantly respond, “err, actually, I didn’t go to an IIT or even an engineering college”, he gives you the Rahul Gandhi look, and says, “Lucky you. In India, references can take you anywhere.”

Finally, every time you have any discussion with your superior, he would dumb down the conversation as if he is speaking to a five year old. So, while a fellow colleague would be told, “we firmly believe that you have the potential to make a paradigm shift to our metrics milestones by breaking the silos and introducing a positive momentum which can revolutionalize the end-user perspective”, I would be greeted with a kind here-comes-the-retard smile and told, “You.are.doing.a.good.job. Keep.copy.pasting. Soon.we.will.give.you.challenging.work. You.may.even.be.asked.to.change.the.colours.of.all.our.presentations.from.red.to.blue. Was that too fast? Should I repeat?”

Each time you read an article about how MNCs are aggressively pushing corporate social responsibility, you know they are talking about hiring Arts graduates like me.

In college, being an Arts graduate was a synonym for getting married at 21/aspiring for a career in showbiz. In corporate world, it’s a synonym for being the department blonde…

Dilbert Diaries

I passed out of B school exactly five years back, which means I am now five years old in the corporate world. I still remember that hot sultry day in Hyderabad, back in May 2009, when I joined company D as a campus hire. Of course I was super excited about my new job, especially since it was a well-respected MNC and voted as one of the best companies worldwide to start your career. But I was more excited about my brand new laptop, crisp new clothes, the ID card which proudly displayed my name, the good food at the five star hotel where we had our 2-week induction and most of all the promise of “good life”!

Five years later, let me take a quick walk down the memory lane about my journey through this phase:

Now that I have survived multiple meetings, year-end appraisals, office parties, trainings, team bonding events and networking sessions, let me highlight the top three entertaining aspects of the office culture:

1.Skip level meetings: I simply love the concept because it opens up the can of worms (the pandora’s box if you will), where for a change, managers are under scrutiny instead of the employee. For a change, it gives the usually suppressed young employee an opportunity to speak up without worrying about getting penalized for doing so. And for a change, it questions the authority of the manager and puts him/her under the radar. It’s just about as empowering as it can get in the conservative corporate world. Most of all, it’s fun to just see grown-ups hyperventilate.

2.Resignation and farewell speeches: Having witnessed my share of resignation instances, where a fellow colleague has put in his/her papers and come out smiling, it’s indeed a Kodak moment to see the relief and happiness, no matter how transient it is. This is the platform to vent all the pent up emotions and grudges against the organization, its policies, managers and quality of work, even if it’s only a matter of time before you move on to another “bad” organization and start complaining about its policies, managers and quality of work. But what amuses me more are the farewell ceremonies, when the employee graciously sugarcoats his/her experiences while the others do their best to put up the façade of happiness, while secretly planning their own farewell speeches. I have had mine ready for four years now, but I am still waiting to use it.

3.Relationships: My biggest takeaway from the five years of corporate life has been the people I have interacted with, as surprising as it. A lot of my closest friends are my colleagues from the two companies I have worked in, irrespective of our career choices and current organizations. Being in a role which requires me to work with complete strangers in different countries, I have ended up forging a strong bond with people with whom I have nothing in common, and yet, they have graciously kept in touch with me or taken me sight-seeing in a new country or forced a new cuisine (which I could barely pronounce) down my throat. Finally, I have been lucky to work with some of the best managers, who continue to support me despite moving on to different roles/organizations.

At the end of the day, if I look back, I would summarize my journey as: “I get mail; therefore I am.” (Scot Adams)

Walk On

There are crises situations and then there are crises situations. And then there are existential crises. Like the one Rahul Gandhi is currently going through. Or even me. You know those times, when your life suddenly flashes in front of you? No? May be the last time it happened to you was when you filled out lengthy forms in B school during campus placements, where each company would ask you your deepest, darkest secrets. Incidentally that was also the last time the company showed so much interest in you. Over the years, your appraisal discussions have been reduced to vague banalities which mean nothing, and neither you nor your employer even cares enough to pretend otherwise.

Questions like “What are your strengths and weaknesses?”, “What are your short term and long term goals?” or “Where do see yourself five years down the line” seemed inane at a time you were too busy figuring out the rich friend who would sponsor your next beer or wondering if the professor would notice if you bunked the next lecture.
But with time, you begin to ask yourself these questions, wondering what your next steps would be and how differently your life has shaped up from what you had imagined. Like David Moyes.

If you ask me, “existential crisis” is a big word for “bored out of the mind.” Most of us, cushioned from the REAL problems in life, are really LOOKING for ways to make our own lives sound more important than they actually are. Let’s face it, we are not life savers or geniuses or even stand-up comedians: if we stop going to work one fine day, the world will function just as before, companies will go on selling soaps and politicians will continue to steal. The point then is to stop being pompous and do things which make a difference to us, irrespective of how insignificant it might be.

So the million-dollar question is what is it that makes a difference to me? The million dollar answer is "I don't know." What I do know however, is it's not what I am currently doing.

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

And just like that, there is a time to walk away, a time to walk off and a time to walk on...

Imagine

It’s Election Day in Mumbai today. I remember 10 years back, when I had just been old enough to vote, I was so enamoured by the charm of being part of the largest democracy, I was completely overwhelmed by the dance of democracy and I was all about being a responsible citizen. Being part of a college where moral science was more important than science, it was considered an embarrassment if you didn’t know the who’s who of the political world. Voting was important, but more important was voting for the right candidate. Naïve as I was, I actually believed that there was indeed a “right” candidate and all I had to do was educate myself, read, follow the news and make an informed choice. So for six months, I sacrificed my academic obligations and chose to pore over newspaper editorials while having animated discussions in the canteen, as I bunked one political science lecture after another. The “India Shining” campaign was at its strident best, and for all of us, the urban Indian first-time voter, the NDA was an automatic choice. But of course, the reality was something quite different, and the UPA came into power, and a decade later, they continue to be in power, albeit with its share of detractors.

2009 was less significant for me politically, as I was pre-occupied with recession, placements, new job, new house and new-found independence. Besides, UPA I had a fairly successful term, so the country wasn’t exactly up in arms in the anti-incumbency wave as it is today.

Five years later, as the UPA II stares at a hostile electorate: a country exhausted and disgusted with the multitude of scams, mis-governance, inflation, unemployment and slow growth, I have grown into a more mature and pragmatic citizen from the idealistic teenager, who strongly believed that democracy was indeed the solution. But with age and maturity, also came cynicism and a bit of helplessness.

Today, as I fervently scan the political space, looking for that small window of hope, all I am left with is disillusionment and an aching desire to press the NOTA option. But I also know that the NOTA option is not really an option, but more of a tool to run away from the reality: the reality being we are a billion plus population, young enough to move mountains, gifted enough to take the world by storm and intelligent enough to pose a serious challenge to the best, but also crippled by an ageing, regressive and rhetorical set of political leaders. A few months back, when the AAP party swept its way into power in Delhi, for a brief moment, I was excited, or even optimistic: not because I agreed with its ideology or its manifesto (both of which were still ill-defined and incoherent) but because it was something I could identify with: young, educated and clean. I was willing to give it a chance despite its relative political inexperience. But of course, six months down the line, I am back to square one, still looking for that one candidate I could put my trust into, I could see leading the country as it deserves to be led and who could rise over politics and get along with governance.

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

Today, on Election Day, I imagine about the day when politics will stop making me cringe as it does today…

The Colour of Freedom

It’s been over five years since I last celebrated Holi the way it is supposed to be celebrated: I don’t mean the sophisticated socialite celebration splashed across Bombay Times (yes, I still read Bombay Times; judge me), but the raw, uncouth and extreme form of festivity, complete with the most hideously obstinate colours, balloons and mud. You heard me right. MUD.

As a kid, Holi was always one festival which gave me the license to go totally berserk: from being a closet painter who sometimes experimented with colours on a piece of paper, I would assume my most notoriously uncivilized and crude avatar during Dolutsav (as we call Holi in Bengali). For two days I would refuse to lay a finger on my books (and Holi usually fell in the middle of annual exams) and I would devote myself religiously to preparing for the grand festival: pestering my mom to buy me the most obnoxious colours, then pestering (emotionally blackmailing) my dad to buy me the most obnoxious colours when my mom refused to do so and pestering our maid to help me with the balloons, “pestering” being the key word. On the day itself, I would wake up all excited, put on my most tattered outfit and swathe myself with a generous dose of olive oil, ready to conquer the field “where there was no mercy”. Usually, a gentle and soft spoken child, I could be very aggressive during Holi, but my friends were no better. No matter how crude I was, they would somehow manage to be cruder. Long story short, by the end of the day, we were all ready to participate in a game of “Who is the Mamata Banerjee of them all?”

Then came college: my first experience away from home, in a new city and in a hostel full of airheaded giggly teenaged girls, most of them as stupid as I was. As hard as it is to believe, my species is abundant in nature, especially in South Bombay. And somehow the lack of parental supervision made us even more airheaded, even more giggly and even more stupid. This was also the phase when we were running high on hormones and Bollywood. Each of us secretly dreamed of being Rekha serenaded by Amitabh Bachchan in the song Rang Barse from the movie Silsila. So what was limited to close friends within the boundaries of the garden now became a no-holds-barred display of hooliganism on Marine Drive with people I barely knew. But somehow, it was a little more fun, a little more liberating and a little more refreshing.

Next was B school: a time when I believed that I had my feet firmly grounded, I knew exactly what I wanted from life (i.e. a career in Consulting/Investment Banking, like most MBAs) and I was completely focused on the “important” things namely placements, CGPA and backstabbing fellow students, or as many would call it, “getting ready for corporate world”. I also had this misplaced air of superior intellectualism, a trait that runs in most Bengalis in close company with people from other states (like the North). For us, “North” is a state, much like the south of Maharashtra is “Madras” to most people from the “North”. It was with this air that I grandly refused to celebrate Holi, preferring to “read Karl Marx” in my room. Looking back, I realize that was probably the biggest mistake of my life. Ever. As soon as word spread, my room was attacked by an avalanche of people who couldn’t be distinguished from one another, as they simply picked me up, carried me downstairs, rolled me in mud till I had dirt in my eyes and then threw me into a tub of coloured water of the worst variety. Suddenly all the horror stories I had heard about Holi seemed to pale in the light of my experience and it took me a couple of days to recover from the shock or recognize myself in the mirror. But of course, if there was ever a Holi celebration worth remembering, this had to be it.

Over the last five years, the festivities have become considerably toned down and I no longer play with wet colours or balloons, but when I look back, I am overcome with a feeling of completeness as I tell myself, “If there is ONE thing that I have gone the whole hog for, Holi would be it.”

Mundane reality may be considerably more colourful than fiction, but once in a while, you are tempted to give yourself a little more latitude and pretend that artificial colours would make you a slightly more colourful personality, a la, Deepika Padukone, who miraculously turned into a swan from an ugly duckling in the song Balam Pichkari in Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani.

Just once in a while, you want to let go of your inhibitions and play Holi the way it is supposed to be played: dirty, disgusting and downright obnoxious…

The African Fantasy

Did you have a happy new year?
Did you dress up, drink and party till the next morning?
Did you look back at 2013, set your FB page on review and write long, meandering and incoherent status updates?
Did you make unrealistic resolutions, only to break them in the first week itself?
Did you send season’s greetings texts to random people you barely know?

If you did, then tell me all about it till I kill you slowly and painfully by making you watch Dhoom 3. I have somehow never enjoyed “celebrating” a new year especially in Bombay, especially with all the crowd and noise and mostly because I have never found anything to really “celebrate”. For me, it doesn’t change really change anything drastically and life goes on just as it did the previous year. So no, I don’t have much to look forward to in 2014, except may be some specific goals, i.e. vote a new government to power (if only I knew which one), watch a few live matches of the soccer WC in Spain (preferably one in which Spain is playing) since Brazil is no longer an option and of course, find the dream job now that I am on the verge of completing five years in the same industry following my MBA. These are more fantasies than actual concrete goals, and like all fantasies, they are more attuned to the imagination than the reality.

And speaking of fantasies, I ended the year by watching Chander Pahar (Mountain of the Moon), the most expensive Bengali movie ever made, based on the fantasy fiction of the same name by Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhay. Exclusively shot in Rhodesia, it’s a visual delight and a traveler’s multiple orgasm. For someone who has always wanted to visit Africa, this was my three-hour journey through the continent in all its glory: the Victoria Falls, the Kalahari Desert and of course the African safari. While the movie itself was long and tedious, it just sparked my fascination with Africa even more.

If I ever had a fantasy, Africa is definitely one…

Country Roads Take Me Home

If I look back at 2013, despite all the personal and professional milestones, the one thing that stands out would definitely be the amount of traveling I have done this year. Eight new countries, fifteen new cities, close to a month of traveling across Europe and Asia in different modes of transport, with different kinds of people, under different circumstances and extreme weather conditions: it has indeed been a year which opened my eyes to the wider world out there. From the human atrocities in the Killing Fields and Auschwitz, the architectural wonders of Angkor Wat, the old world charm of Prague, the artistic appeal of Vienna, the historical allure of Berlin to the natural intimidation of the snow-clad Matterhorn peak in Zermatt, I have been to some of the remote corners of the world which didn’t even exist in my narrow world defined by the borders of Hirandandani.

Appropriately, a year which began with an impromptu trip to Ajanta Ellora, ended with another quick getaway to Himachal Pradesh over Christmas. For someone who is extremely accident prone, I have been blessed with friends and family members who simply love to get behind the wheels, put on some good music and drive for miles, while all I have to do is peacefully sit and criticize.

The moment I reached Delhi on Christmas Day, my kid brother (no longer a kid) took charge of the proceedings, as the two of us, along with a couple of friends, hit the road, and for the umpteenth time, I realized that it doesn’t really take much to be happy: good company, good music, good alcohol and good humour will do the job more often than not! The six-hour journey to the sleepy town of Kasauli was a breeze as we swept through three states, stopping by the occasional roadside dhaba for chai, parathas and lassi. My last roadtrip was almost two years back from Bangalore to Mysore and Coorg, and I couldn’t help noticing the great divide between the north and south of India at so many different levels: be it the food, the people, the landscapes, the weather, the way of driving or the choice of abuses.

Kasauli was pretty much like any other hill station: a heady mix of cold weather, warm people, long walks, breath taking views, lots of food, cheap alcohol, bonfire, music, “deep” conversations and the lamest of jokes. Being the prejudiced Arts graduate who looks down on engineers, it wasn’t easy being the only non-programmer amid a bunch of software geeks, but this was our very own desi version of the Big Bang Theory. (P.S. I even got a BBT tee shirt as a birthday gift)

The next day, we drove further north for a day trip to Shimla, my second visit to the place after a decade, when we had traveled across Shimla and Kulu Manali. While I was captivated by the first signs of snow, it was still not my idea of the perfect paradise on earth: somehow the crowd, the commercialism and the touristy nature wasn’t something that I cherished on a holiday. To spice things up, we lost our way while returning and as my brother navigated through dangerously sharp bends in the dark, I held on for dear life, wondering if I would safely reach Kasauli for my birthday celebration.

Once we managed to reach our resort, we went berserk, so thrilled were we to survive the highway to hell, piling on the cheap local wine and plates of junk food till it was time to unleash the cake.

Except for a quick trip to the police station for unlawful parking and some damage to the car after being hit by a truck, it was a fairly uneventful trip and we all returned back to Delhi unscathed and in our senses.

Each time I have got lost this year, the country roads have always taken me home; eventually…

Finding Neverland

It’s been ages since I blogged. It’s been quite hectic lately, what with work and elections and year-end plans and resolutions.

So what’s new?

Ishant Sharma got wickets. Plural. Really. Not on Faking News.

Central Banks are united in their efforts to provide thrills in an attempt to surpass Dhoom 3. RBI kept policy rates unchanged, but Fed started tapering.

Indian diplomat in the U.S., Devyani Khopragade, got the rough end of the stick and all hell broke loose. If there was ever a case of Maid in Manhattan, this would be it.

AAP made a “sweeping” statement. For someone who was never an advocate of the “NOTA” option, this made me slightly less cynical about politics, it restored my faith in democracy and it assured me that may be there is still some hope.

Nelson Mandela passed away. Of the few international political figures who touched a chord, Mandela would be right up there. If you haven’t yet watched Invictus, do it now.

At work, I got promoted to one of those impressive-sounding designations which mean nothing. Now I that I am in that “elite” clan of AVPs, I feel like the Rahul Gandhi equivalent of my company.

P.S. “Elite” here refers to the handful of people, like say, the number of fans Justin Bieber has.

The holiday season is upon us, but like every year, having exhausted most of my leaves, I would be the lone woman standing in office, though I would sneak out a couple of days next week for a quick Delhi trip.

For all the possible new-year resolutions, the most important will be finding myself, because Neverland looks farther than ever…

Food for Thought

So a few of my colleagues, including men and vegetarians, are crazy about Masterchef. Now I have never understood this fascination with a cooking show that has the power to unite men, women and children (now that they have a Masterchef for kids as well) across the world for a common cause: watch random people cook random stuff and get judged over it. That’s like getting a hangover by watching a bunch of people drink Coke!

Now I have never been much of a cook, and here I use the term “cook” loosely. For me, cooking is usually limited to frying/boiling/heating stuff with an occasional chicken curry thrown in. So when my dad visited me last week with an optimism that would put an incumbent UPA government to shame, he was duly disappointed when I served up Maggie/fruits/cornflakes/omlette as meals. Of course I made up for it by starving him for an entire Saturday morning and then treating him to an unlimited buffet a Sigri Grill. When he dared to suggest that I COOK a proper meal, I promptly called up my uncle (who stays close by and happens to be a decent cook) and outsourced the activity to him.

For someone who loves to try different kinds of food, I am staunchly lazy when it comes to cooking. I would rather survive on Maggie and bread for days rather than cook for myself. So yes, I do not understand how people can voluntarily spend time watching a cooking show. But then, what do I know? I eat Kurkure for lunch.

As many a Masterchef fanatic follower has pointed out, the show is not JUST about cooking, but about competition, suspense, drama and emotions. Dude, just go watch a Suraj Barjatya movie!

But then again, for all the brickbats garnered by reality shows, at least this one gives you some food for thought.

Food, in exchange for thought…

Criminal Minds

The results of the Crime Writers Association (CWA) poll were announced earlier this week, and much to my delight, Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best crime novel while Agatha Christie herself was voted the best crime author and Sherlock Holmes the best crime series. Having read devoured ALL of Christie’s books as a kid, I do not quite subscribe to her accolade as the best writer, but I do agree that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is one of her best works, if not the best.

Now blame it on my upbringing, but I have always had this morbid streak in me which led me into the world of crime fiction at a very early age, both Bengali and English. While I never enjoyed violence, I was simply enamoured with cold blooded murders which were well planned and well executed and which challenged me as a reader as much as they challenged the sleuths in the novels, be it Holmes, Poirot, Marple, Feluda or Byomkesh. This obsession often found me awake through the night before an exam, secretly finishing off a mystery novel rather than studying for a Chemistry paper the next morning.

The fascination with heinous crimes only deepened when I discovered shows like Law and Order, The Practice or Boston Legal while I was still in school and later with Castle, Dexter and Breaking Bad. Even now, I am guilty of blowing off social engagements on weeknights, simply because I just CAN’T miss the rerun of the season finale of The Practice after work. Exaggeration? Not really. Crazy? Probably.

But lately the lure of barbarism has taken a more serious turn as I have now turned to history to walk through some of the real-life atrocities committed by leaders across nations. While my travels to some of these places touched me deeply, what shock me are not the events themselves which are out there and well documented, but the people behind these tragedies, their thought processes, their justifications or simply their denials. May be these “leaders” don’t even deserve a chance to have their say, but nonetheless it makes for an interesting read. Which is why I first picked up Hitler’s autobiography and then Pol Pot’s biography: just to understand how someone can possibly sleep at night or look at himself in the mirror every morning, knowing the genocide he has sponsored among his own people.

History does what a crime fiction can’t: it leaves a legacy of the murderer long after the crime has been committed…

Women are from Venus

As per Bacchi Karkaria, the noted TOI columnist and one of my favourites, “If you key in 'Women cannot' google will obligingly come up with such sexist options as 'drive', 'be bishops', 'talk in church', or even 'be trusted'. 'Women shouldn't' will produce 'vote', 'work', and even 'box', which would make our million- dollar baby, Mary Kom, kayo her computer screen.”

So these are some of the much talked about stereotypical allegations made against women. Add to it a couple of others which I have noticed which apply to me as well: “read maps” and “work on excel”. And as much as I hate to admit it and as much as I rant against stereotypes, there are some things we are, how do I put it delicately, “not the best at”. And yes, driving, reading maps and working on excel feature high on that list.

Every time I have got lost while traveling in some European city where people would not/could not speak English, I have been left helpless staring at some godforsaken map which stares back rudely at me, without telling me ANYTHING, pretty much like a French guy. And each time I have asked a kind passerby, he/she had looked at me condescendingly as if to say, “But it’s RIGHT.THERE. How can you not know?” Well, I don’t! Doesn’t make me stupid. I am just bad with maps.

Same with excel. I don’t like spreadsheets, I don’t like the way they look, I don’t like the way they automatically populate themselves and I don’t like the way they program you to become a trained monkey repeating the same task, crunching numbers and making graphs. With each day and with each worksheet, I feel like the last bit of creativity is being sucked out of me, which is when I open a blank word document and start typing: randomly, desperately and furiously, trying to hold on to whatever is left over of the girl who churned out editorials at will, completely oblivious of all the accounting jargon around her.

Again, that doesn’t make me stupid, only “differently-abled”. 'The consumer is not a moron; she is your wife.' (David Ogilvy)

Women ARE from Venus; they don’t need to drive or read maps to get there…

To the Moon and Back

Yesterday was Karvachauth. How do I know this when I am a staunch opposer of any form of rituals? It’s not hard when you have close to 400 ‘friends’ on FB, many of whom are newly married and therefore enthusiastically celebrating the occasion with the gusto of James Faulkner against Ishant Sharma. Further, one look at the ladies at work, casually loitering around in their bridal finery in office, and you would not be allowed to forget the fact that the singlemost sexist festival is upon us.

Now I have never understood how it would enhance the lifespan of a man if his wife fasts for the day, dresses up and stares at the moon once a year, especially if the man in question continues to lead a sedentary lifestyle, smokes and drinks excessively while stressing about work. If all it took was an annual fast by the wife, then most women in India would be outlived by their husbands, especially since there is no reciprocal ritual where the husband fasts for the wife.

If you ask me, this is more a festival for the mom-in-law than the husband. Or an excuse to wear that insanely expensive bridal outfit you bought during the wedding and haven’t had the chance to wear since. Or like most rituals, an attempt to conform.

My mom never keeps a fast for my dad though she goes on a liquid diet every week to detoxify her own system. What she does make sure though is that she cooks healthy food at home, minimizes eating out, hides his cigarettes and screams at him every morning to go for a walk. Most importantly, she shares both financial and emotional responsibilities at home, she listens when he is having a hard time and supports him thick and thin.

It’s not an annual exercise but a daily rigour year after year after year, which if you ask me, is much harder simply because it involves being patient and understanding with another human being rather than looking at a far-off celestial object which doesn’t argue back.

Now, not for one moment am I suggesting that women who believe in Karva Chauth are not good partners, but being a good partner requires more than just an elaborate annual ceremony.

To all the women out there, look at the moon all you want, but do so with a pinch of salt. Posing against the moon in bridal wear makes for a wonderful Sanjay Bhansali set, but if you really want a long life for your husband, drag him out of bed for a run in the morning and hold back that extra piece of butter chicken. Even if it makes him angry.
The moon has its blemishes so don’t rely on it to add years to a human life.

The annual trip to moon is a feel-good exercise, but it’s time to get back to earth…

Ten Days of Being a True Bong

Like a true Bengali, I went on a 10-day hiatus during Durga Puja to, surprise surprise, Kolkata!

Like a true Bengali, I refused to do ANY work during this time, which means no blog posts either!

Like a true Bengali, I shopped in the shady bylanes of Kolkata and picked up some awesome stuff at throwaway prices (suede boots and a couple of sarees)!

Like a true Bengali, I watched Mishawr Rohosyo (The Egyptian Mystery) as soon as it released, and then criticized it as it fell short of expectations. Let’s face it, Kakababu would never be able to dethrone Byomkesh or Feluda, but Prosenjit as Kakababu is sublime!

Like a true Bengali, I lounged around the house, watching TV, reading and discussing with my dad about the most evil men in history as we watched the documentaries on Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Nero and Idi Amin!

Like a true Bengali, I feasted on the home-made preparations of my favourite dishes including fish fry, fish chop and chilly fish which my mom served up every day!

Like a true Bengali, I snacked on chanachur, churmur and cha (tea) while abusing Ishant Sharma for the collective stupidity of humanity!

Like a true Bengali, I gorged on the Arsanal mutton biryani and chaap and the Bijoli Grill delicacies while stopping for puchkas and egg rolls that only Kolkata can make!

Like a true Bengali, I went to a random barir pujo just to savour the delicious Pujo lunch on nobomi!

Like a true Bengali, I walked in heels for hours, pandal hopping through the streets of South Kolkata, so that I don’t miss out on my childhood favourites: Durgabari (opposite my school), 23 Pally, 68 Pally, Ekdalia, Babubagan, Samajsebi, Bullygunge Cultural, Bosepukur Sitala Mandir, Badamtala, Suruchi Sangha and many others. It was my first Pujo in Kolkata ever since I moved out of the city and I was holding on to each day, knowing it was too fleeting, too transient and too ephemeral!

Like a true Bengali, I visited as many relatives we could cram in during the short visit, as they all asked me the same questions, as I smiled sheepishly at each one of them and as I quietly polished off the platefuls of mishti doi and sondesh, while protesting vehemently!

And like a true Bengali, I bid my parents goodbye once it ended, too soon and too incomplete, all of us wondering if I would ever be able to come back to my roots and live in the city which shaped my childhood.

Like a true Bengali, I wanted nothing more than the simple pleasures of being with my family, eating with them, talking to them and criticizing the government with them…

Renewal

After three months of struggle, multiple visits to the Passport Office and the Police Station, numerous phone calls and emails, my tussle with the combined force of the bureaucracy and the police has finally come to an end.

I have finally earned the right to freedom without having to pay any bribes, even though the amount I spent on documentation, phone calls and traveling to aforementioned offices was considerably higher.

I have finally renewed my passport…

Good Cop Bad Cop

It being a long weekend due to Ganesh Chaturthi, when the rest of the Mumbai people were either traveling out of the city or celebrating the festival, I was spending long hours languishing at the Powai Police station or making small talk with the policemen. Yes, I have their landline AND mobile numbers (plural); yes, they dropped in at my place for a casual chit-chat and yes, now I have new powerful friends.

It’s not like I have committed any serious crime (ok, I may have, but I am definitely not talking about it on my blog) and the entire exercise was part of the police verification process for the renewal of my passport, the first part of which can be read here. Now, it’s like I am new to the Mumbai Police and I have already visited the police station a few times, and the experience had been quite harrowing to say the least (like here). So I was dreading the ordeal all over again, as I waited with bated breath for the random check at my house.

But after two weeks when there was still no sign of them, I decided it was time to take things on my own hands and I visited the police station along with my 6”2, 90 Kg relative, whose mere presence ensured that the policemen at least heard me out, instead of just dismissing me. On my part, I was my politest and patient best, using phrases like “commander” and “sir” at a drop of a hat, instead of trying logical and moral arguments which had clearly worked against me in the past.

As expected there was the initial resistance when they made us wait for over an hour, pretended to have lost my papers and sent us shuttling from one policeman to another, but in the end we persisted and the damned paper was finally located. The guy promised to finally come home for the verification, but I was not satisfied with his verbal assertion and insisted on having his mobile number (a personal low considering that I have never needed to work so hard to get a guy’s number). I waited for a day and still there was no sign of him, so I started calling him like an obsessed girlfriend/wife, till he finally relented just to get me off his back.

On Friday evening, he came home while I was still at work and I missed his four calls. Eventually, he was nice enough to come again later in the evening and there he was comfortably sitting at my place, chit chatting, as he filled out the form. In his plain clothes and outside the dreary and intimidating police station, he could well have been just another friend, and I stopped short of offering him a drink (he guzzled the Fanta I did offer). He promised to process it immediately, well ahead of the four-day official deadline and told me to call him if I faced any problems when I visit the police station for the verification of my papers. I was touched by his kind offer since it was beyond his area of responsibility, especially since he took so much trouble to visit my place twice, that too on a weekend, well after his work hours. So I offered him some money more as a token of my gratitude and definitely not as bribe which he refused steadfastly, saying he was only doing his job. I was pleasantly surprised and quite embarrassed.

The next day, he called me up, informing me that he has processed my application and I could drop in at the station with the papers. This time I was confident enough to go on my own and it was evident that the kind policeman had told his colleagues about me. The guys in charge of verifying the papers were extremely co-operative and even though I did not have some of the papers, they gave me easy alternatives and after my third visit, I was laughing and joking with them like I belonged there. On a Sunday evening, when the rest of Mumbai was spending time with their families, they were still hard at work, pushing files, signing papers and listening to hapless citizens. I was waiting my turn, observing the people: the elderly Muslim lady whose house was taken over or the woman who was beaten by her husband or the young girl whose husband had suddenly gone missing- stories of everyday life which plagued the policeman irrespective of a weekend, a festival or a holiday.

Finally it was done and done without any bribes/influence and before the four-day deadline, but my biggest takeaway was my new-found respect for the police. All my life I had avoided the bureaucracy and the police like a contagious disease and this entire passport renewal saga brought the two forces together, but my experience belittled my preconceived notions.

Not that I would be any less critical about the bureaucratic red-tapism that plagues our country, but at least I would be more careful about the blanket generalization that goes with it…