Monday, April 20, 2009

IPL Top 3 Battle !!!


IPL Fever has started givin us sleepless nights already...and as we all know the IPL Season 2 has begun with a bang. Yeah, its gonna b keeping many of us completely hooked onto the television for the coming 35 days...thankfully after a long time there's something worth watching for us too...;)

So, here I m picking my Top 3 for the IPL2...n request all of u to do the same...we have done this Top 3 selection already at my home among my flatmates...n guess what, the in-house battles & chearing hav begun...the house stands completely divided...(Wish the government won't b...;))

Here r my Top 3...right frm my heart...

1) Rajasthan Royals (Die Hard Rajasthani!!!)
2) Kolkata Night Riders (Soft Heart 4 Bongs ;))
3) Delhi Daredevils (NCR is taking gud care of me these days..)


So, its now ur turn 2 pick your Top 3. Lets start the battles here...think before u make ur choices...n u can also state ur reasons in the braces just next 2 ur team...many ppl wud like 2 knw tht too ;)

Those of u who have a Facebook account...click here...rest of u can make ur selections here only in the comments section...but 4 sure...this battle is more fierce on Facebook only...

So think...but try 2 make sure tht u don't join this bandwagon on the day of the finals...:P...coz u neva knw thr might b some cheers in the offing 2 the winners too...;)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Parent's Day Out...Shock n Surprise...!

Imagine it’s a Saturday morning and u r drop dead (asleep) as expected on ur bed and suddenly u receive ur Dad’s call that he is standing outside ur door...guys I know u wud think tht it’s a wild nightmare tht u r in and u wud continue sleeping…phewwwwwwwwww!!!

But that’s how my weekend almost started this Saturday. The only sollid difference was just tht even after my mom’s persistent asking me for my Noida address over the phone calls frm last 8 months, I somehow managed to dodge the question abt my exact address in the city…n that’s what actually saved my a^$e…;)

Received the call at 10:15 AM, midnight was in full swing and that was the time when all my frens at my place were cozily sleeping in their own dreams…but not any more…within 30 seconds of my informing thm abt the situation at hand…everyone was running…here n there…koi kuch utha raha tha to koi kuch theek kar raha tha…Kahi se kuch nikal raha tha…to kahi se kuch gayab ho raha tha…

Just 10 minutes after I received the call frm Paa, I called him back again, n was relieved to know tht thr were still 20 more minutes for them to reach my place…courtesy the Delhi traffic…I loved it for a moment…! Khair, sparing no more time, the mobilized frens and the “munnabhaish” hullaballo and the running around paid me a fortune in the end…

By the time my mom n dad stepped out of the car, we all had taken our bath in our own ways and the place was spic n span…literally…kudos to my frens support and our righteous actions at the spur of the moment. N so…here they were, started with a Charan Sparsh!!!

So, after the initial introductions, as I had imagined, all flat-mates went quickly in their own rooms, nobody wanted to talk much, I don’t knw whether they were shy or what but m sure they were being really very careful. Must hav been their planned strategic move so tht even a shudder of our lingo doesn’t comes out. The restraint for them, yeah, I can imagine what they might hav been goin thru…kudos again!!! :)

So, the time was running quite quickly, with lot of talking and with the mixed n more positive shocking surprise sentiments which I was going thru. Knowing my mom, I had already warned my frens, tht she wud definitely take an inspection round of every nook and corner of our place n their rooms n so she did…but we were all very well prepared for the ‘worst’ n so the inspection round too went smooth…we had a smirky winky smile on face…yipppie…we won…!

N believe me, the lunch tht we had at home was one of the most sane lunches which I was having for the first time post my coming to Noida…the plates were all flowing properly, there was a lot of passing of dishes around, there were meaningful discussions on the table and what not? We all had kept my mom (even after her several attempts) stay away from the kitchen and had served the maid-prepared food on our own…which I shud quote here as a commendable gesture frm our side…

The evening was full of showing around the Noida place with full zeal and zest, wanted to show thm around everything I cud, everything which has actually been a part of my recent past life. N yeah, I concluded the day with a visit to a nice temple which definitely had set the best possible holy chord. But this was my choice only, so no pun intended here.

The next day of “Parents day out” started with another surprise but this time, not a shocking one but a highly pleasant one. Guess a dream came true! My mom decided, that she wud cook the breakfast for us, so she asked the maid to leave tht part of the cooking for her only. N believe me tht was a TREAT for all of us! We had an amazing round of “Bread-rolls” as our breakfast, after a long long time…kudos to mom n the magic of her hands, as always!

The high point of the day was also the visit to my office, which was to let my mom-dad know, tht my company not only exists, but it rests on a nice green lush green well maintained 25-acre campus, and yeah, I hav been well taken care of, courtesy all your wishes.

Believe me what started with a shock, ended with a lot of emotions…Firstly, I had not imagined tht they wud leave my place with a smile, but they did leave with a smile. N yeah, the smile was accompanied with my mom’s characteristic tears which always trickle down at the time of parting. I guess moms are blessed to bless us with them.

But after coming back home, even I felt too lonely again and was a lill jittery definitely for the ntire evening, the smalltime which they spent here with me definitely was great, it was as if even Noida was a complete home, for some time...Having the same food which I daily have, visiting the same places where I visit, walking the same lanes where I walk…they lived a piece of my life, n even I tasted a piece of home life here at Noida...

Kudos this time, to my mom n dad for showing up with the stylish surprise…I truly loved it and thankfully made the most of it!!!

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

. . . . . . . . . . . Professional Life. . . . . . . . . . . A life full of colons : and closed braces )

We are living in a life:

Where we get more “pings” than ‘hello’s or ‘hi’s,
Where we get more of : ) than ‘real smiles’…
Where kiss has become a 5 letter word (muaah) and it has to be read not felt…
Where we have our conversations over Orkut’s scraps or Facebook’s walls, rather than over actual face to face talk which our ‘ancestors’ used to do…
Where if we are not “Online” or havn’t “Logged in” for a few days, than news starts flowing in the wired world on scraps saying…’mar gaya shayad’…
Where the long letters which people used to write have become small lettered hinglish SMSs where one can make multiple sentences with the letters i, n, u, 4, c, b...

Oh yes, we have advanced so much:

So much so…that weeks and months and ages go by, but we don’t get time to meet our friends living in the same city…
So much so…that we wait for them to come online one day rather than just picking up our phones and have a 2-minute chit chat only…
So much so…that we forget their birthdays since we didn’t login our favorite social networking site on their birthday…
So much so…that we even sometimes can’t attend our fren’s weddings as we were hooked onto some “highly important” official deadline that day…
So much so…that we actually run away from the one small phone call which our parents make everyday from a faraway place to just say Hi beta/i…as we were planning a night out in the office…

The professional life changes us…it cripples us…it takes away the life which used to run through our veins...I knw many of you won’t like this…but it makes us selfish…it makes us politically correct at every instance of life…it teaches us how to lie…how to bluff…how to dodge…and yeah, it teaches us not “how to run!” but “how to run away!”

The long and lovely discussions about the football or cricket matches in college canteen becomes the discussion about a persistent backache, the layoffs/pink slips, the recent cost-cutting campaign in the company over the same stale coffee-break which we take once every hour…

The physical stress which we used to have after our PT session in school becomes the mental tension…courtesy those daiiiiim deadlines, those COBs, those EODs, which haunt us, always…

The treat which we used to love at a roadside hangout place or a restaurant during our MBA days becomes a slice of cheesy Domino’s pizza in the office meeting room…”30 minutes...nai to gaye”…

Over and above all this, if you are an “MBA” too, than you are nothing but chained for life. You have to be over professional…at all times…in the lift, in the conference room, in your cubicle, while luking at a girl and even during the time when you are in the loo…

And if you are an “MBA in an IT company”, tab to aapko bhagwaan nai par ek presentation hi bacha sakta hai…The prize which an MBA gets in an IT company is a laptop which comes wid ur availability quotient at all times…on all days…at every occasion…on every call…and in every meeting. Ur deadlines are set according to the speed of the processor in your laptop…

Such instances are aplenty and we all think about thm some time or the other...But the end result remains the same...nobody is happy with his/her job...no point wondering why???...but lets try n do something abt it.

Lets stop worrying about appraisals/no appraisals, the swipe-ins/swipe-outs, the unread mails/forwards, the bad food/stale coffee in cafeterias, the status on gtalk/facebook. Stop worrying about everything…go offline for once and stand up on that 4x4 cubicle, luk around and you wud find eyes dying to do the same…

Break the shackles…come out of the norm of those colons and closed braces...
SMILE…
Meet a friend…
Make a call to your home…
Organize a reunion…
Shake hands with the person sitting next to you…
Plan a holiday trip…
Hug ur beloved…
Do one thing which the professional life has curbed u in doing…& believe you me…life will be different…!!!

PS: The above thoughts are inspired by a lot of conversations, chat sessions, scraps, pings, missed calls, emails, and other forms of communication, which I have come across over the past 9 months of my corporate life…They are not personal to anyone but they definitely affect the personal life of a lot of persons in the professional world...