The Deadly M Word !!!

Let me narrate what happened last Wednesday while I was in Jaipur. It was my cousin’s engagement, a full family, big time gala party with about 500 people at a 5 star. Festive moment, fun evening, I was enjoying my time with my cousins and relatives...and pop came the call from Paa. Asked me to meet one of my uncles whom I call as Doctor Mama.

Now, let me give a brief description about Dr Mama of mine. He has a kid who is in his Class 10th or 11th, so till date mainly the discussions we have had in the past surround his school, his subjects and his career counseling, etc. etc. like what subjects he should opt for, what are the various career permutations and combinations which he can pursue and all…

So, you can imagine, during that party, who would like such a discussion, yet again! But then Paa’s order and so I followed. There sounded nothing sneaky about the meeting at the outset. Doc Mama was sitting with my Mausaji and another uncle whom I hav met before, but I didn’t remember, when and where?

Doc Mama (With an astounding energy and smile on his face): Hey Akash! Wassup! Just pull a chair! Sit Sit!

(N so I did, sat down facing the three of them, smiling socially. Doc mama introduced me to the unknown uncle, his name was Sitaramji…:))

After the normal Namastes n all.

Sitaramji: So Akash, Where are you working?

Me: I’m working with Perot Systems in Noida, unc…(He didn’t let me finish :()

Sitaramji: Acchha, kya karti hai aapki company? (I hate that question, as always)

Me: It’s an IT company, unc…(He didn’t let me finish yet again :()

Sitaramji (With all the more excitement): Acchha, aur tumne MBA kaha se kiya hai?

(And there I thought, finally we are again heading towards another career counseling session)

Me: Uncle, IMT Ghaziabad se, it’s been a year now. (This time I smartly put the word in the start only, I win! :-))

Sitaramji (came the next question): Acchha, age kitni ho gai aapki?

(Wat the F? ^^&*&$^…Those were the first words which came up in my mind and I soon realized that boss this is leading towards a big trap…beta Akash jaldi se yaha se bhaag le…nai to pata chala Sitaram Ji ban gaye aapke Uncle se Relative…!)

I mean everything was fine till the MBA question, but this last one took the all steam away from my smile. And it took me a fraction of a second to realize that this is leading somewhere else, this is not one of those normal career counseling sessions which I used to give. Yaha to boss koi apni hi lene pe tula hai…

Me: Uncle, abhi poore 2 saal aur hai…! Tension naa lo!

And as they all broke into a big laughter, I was vanished from the scene in no time, much before they could come back to being normal selves.

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So now you can imagine, what life is turning into. It’s quite wierd...I mean I don't belong to all this...Why the hell...!!!

To be very frank, I just don’t understand the logic of arranged marriages, I mean I think I am not cut out for all of these arrangements. I don’t know what’s in store in the future, but one thing which I don’t want to happen is this important decision to be an arrangement for me and there are reasons for my saying that and explaining the same to my relatives.

Marriage I think is a sacred phenomenon; it’s something which can’t be imposed on anyone. Also, I believe it’s a trap in which one should fall only when he or she wants to be fallen into the same. I mean when I see people around me, the married ones somehow don’t look that happy and the unmarried ones are always so full of so much more, so I just think that why is it that I get into that loop and kill the happiness which surrounds the unmarried, at least for now, when I can be single and happy.

Let me make it clear that it doesn’t mean that I won’t get married, Yes I will, Yes definitely. But that will happen, when I would make a decision to get into the mould of not being just happy but where I would rather start giving happiness to the girl who would give me the responsibility for keeping her happy for life.

Ideally, as they say, when I would make myself necessary for someone and would have someone without whom life will be nothing, that’s the time, when I should be tying the knot and that’s the person with whom I should decide to spend my life. But before that, I am sorry. All my relatives, mom-dad, mamas and their Sitaramjis of the world, it is not gonna happen so easily!



PS: On deep thought I realize the reason for this anxiety for getting me join "the league of married gentlemen" is just that all the married ones in the family are somewhat jealous of my freedom ;-)…hmmmmmm…caught the motive folks…I won’t let u guys catch me so young!!!


PS2: The highest record age of any male getting married in my Rajanthani family stands at 23 and guess what, I’m the “Change Agent”, having survived 25 years of happiness, I would say, my education saved me till last year. But, now the talk of the town is, “you’re next!!!” And I loathe even the shape and size of this M word completely! My success depends on how far I can evade it n still live Happily Freely Smilingly Livingly 'Unmarried'!

Here comes the PM...

With no Bollywood flicks around, the only three things which I’m engrossed with these days are nothing but IPL, Zoozoo ads and Elections…

Having already created a lot of buzz on the former two via Facebook messages, Gtalk lines, blogs n what not …, today, I’m making an attempt to talk about the latter one, which actually is a story that’s gonna impact the maximum part (hopefully next 5 years) of our upcoming lives…n yes, it is more influential than any of the Zoozoo’s antics and Cheerleader’s latka-jhatka…

So, the match or the mis-match begins this Saturday i.e. the May 16th and believe me or not, I am waiting to watch this one much more than even the next Rajasthan Royals match…

But let me get this straight right away, that I call myself a nobody when it comes to politics and I even couldn’t vote this year because of our sheer archaic system where even if someone who wants to vote, he/she can’t since they have a Voter id card which belongs to their hometown, but beyond all that, still I can say it out loud that it is the first time in my life that I hav found myself having a newfound interest in the Indian elections and this is first time I hav a real enthu to know its outcome too…!

So whatever gyaan I hav borrowed with this diligent followership, I wish to rage a young debate to know who will be the better PM of our country, some say that the current elections makes us choose the best amongst the worst two candidates which I don’t really agree to…

So, out of the options we have on cards, the following can be the PM of our country this year…

1. Singh Saab: Some call him weak, some the best economist, some a rubber stamp…whatever he might be, I think he and PC are still the two best economists in the country…wasssay? However, they can form govt. only with Left’s support or if they can manage a single majority party. The second option even sounds like a distant dream and the first one will again be like “a bird dying to fly yet caged”…end result…no reforms…a repeat of last 5-years dismal performance???

2. L K Uncle: He can come with the support of Mayaji and Jayaji only. And believe me or not, it might be worse than Option 1. These guys might try to act bold in the beginning but with Jayaji and Mayaji’s persistent tantrums for becoming the PM, the govt. might even not last its full term…what say?

3. Lefty Karat: Faaaaaaaar chance, but believe me, if any of the leftists come to power, than our economy will be down to the drains and the first thing I will do is to sell of all my stocks…:)

4. Five PMs in 5-years: Oh yes, that will happen if Third Front comes to power…Oh, you guys don’t know what third front is…even I don’t know…so plz…don’t take ur slippers out…, lets say, this is NOT happening, for now!

So, while we wait for our own Obama of Change, I think that’s what’s on cards for this year. Now, I wish to understand what do you guys think, is the sentiment against the incumbent orrr the Gandhian Surd will rule the game again orrrrrrrr there will be some1 else, the unexpected, who will make us Dance on the tune of Democracy…what’s your best bet?

Whatever it might be, m ready with my popcorns n couch to watch this piece of action which starts this Saturday…what about u…???

Jai Ho...!

Why the debate? It’s a given that we are definitely way far away from Hollywood…definitely their cinema is much more advanced n classy than ours… Howmuchsoever our very own Aamir keeps trying, it will still take us much more time to win that coveted something christened as ‘Oscar’.

But mahn, watched Slumdog Millionaire just sometime back and cudn’t stop myself write the title of the blog “Jai Ho” coz the words are still echoing in my ears as they will surely do when you will come out of the theaters watching this movie. I truly loved it and it purely touched my Indian heart.

Watching Slumdog was just like eating the delicious “Bombay ki bhelpuri” with a lot of masala which makes u relish its taste till the very last bite. The characters picked have acted so realistically and have been depicted so believably…u start feeling that u r actually watching some Jamaal’s life and that’s what makes this movie truly magical.

An Indian writer, an Indian setting, mostly Indian cast, the ace Indian music director, Indian co-director Loveleen…the complete package is truly a tribute to India from the creative filmmakers of Hollywood. It is definitely the style & portrayal where these Americans steal the show away from us. The screenplay and the depiction of their movies is always so mesmerizing which keeps their movies so much more engaging and mature… Even in this movie, the way Jamaal’s life unfolds with each question of KBC is truly loved by me as an amazing concept.

I wish to sight just one scene from this movie which every Indian will hate but still contemplate a lot about it. This is scene where “a bit of real India” is being compared with “a bit of real America” through an American tourist couple. I personally feel that they got a lill overboard with ths one! Not sharing the scene to avoid spoilers, but all of you who have seen the movie, any comments on this ;)?

There is no point why there is a debate going on about what’s been depicted in this movie. It’s a shame to slam the Slumdog by setting the thought that it depicts only the slums of our lovely country, if u have the balls to either remove this dark truth or depict the better part of our country to the world, then the world…an open stage…is waiting to get entertained, show them that we are much more than this. We have not been able to do that from past 50 years and when one foreigner comes down to depict his thought of entertainment, all we argumentative Indians can do is to slam them…it’s shameful. Guys, this movie uses the slums of our country as the setting coz a guy from slum can’t be shown living his life in a five star, please grow up at least in your thoughts. Fine, slums are a part of ours only whether it’s fractured or burnt, but it’s our body part…isn’t it?

May be Danny Boyle himself has to come down again sometime to shoot another movie which depicts the non-slum part of our country coz we still can’t do that…is that what we want to say…I mean how many times we have told the small kids that the movies are meant for entertainment and not to set debates and arguments…

Khair, chuck the debates…enuf of it…lemme “Jai-Ho” Slumdog Millionaire for the beautiful entertainer to the core which it is,

• Jai Ho…to the truly miraculous love story based on the premise of “Destiny”…being a true believer of destiny…I truly worship the words…“It is written” which sum up this movie for us.• Jai Ho…to India coz it is for our country and the existing slums of Mumbai which made this movie possible. We are a long way to go and for the love of our country it calls for a Jai Ho…

• Jai Ho…to the amazing original score by A R Rahman, I think his music has put in the life in the movie…and that calls for a celebration for India.

• Jai Ho…to the small kids who have played Jamaal and Salim, their innocent yet naughty faces can’t be forgotten for a long time even after watching this movie. Their acting was truly brilliant.

• Jai Ho…to Danny Boyle for making such a true to heart movie depicting India and a part of its Indianness.

• Jai Ho…to Anil Kapoor, Irfaan Khan, Mahesh Manjhrekar, Saurabh Shukla, Frieda Pinto and every Indian who got a chance to act this movie not for their presence but for their true blue acting making all characters appear for real.

• Jai Ho…to Dev Patel who has played the character of Jamaal, the guy’s expressions were flawless and the love in his eyes was so true.

• Jai Ho…especially to the Indianness which keeps us apart and which is also portrayed as a very true subject of the movie which says…”Never say die and always keep trying!” and so shall we.

I am truly waiting and still trying to make my destiny work for me so that even I can say with élan one day that, “It was written!”.

The Satyam(?) Saga and Me: :) & :(

A lot of hullabaloo happened over the Satyam fiasco last week, many lives have been affected due to the entire crap that happened. I wish to share my story associated with Satyam(?).

As mentioned in the title there are two parts to this story: A Happy part :)…and a Sad part :(. Since, I don’t have the option like the movie stars do have in asking people, “Which one should I start with, the SAD part or the HAPPY one”? I will start with the HAPPY part; after all, it’s my first blog of the year 2009, isn’t it!

The Satyam Saga and Me: The Happy Part :)

It was the Day 0, Slot 2 of our placements, back on 19th December’07. The campus was all charged up, after all the Day Zero of placements in IMT Ghaziabad brings with it a war of emotions. Those few days of placements are marked with joy, celebration, tears, hatred, jealousy, fight, gloom and what not; in fact, you name the emotion and you can find loads of it exhibited.

Oh btw!...don’t lemme digress from the topic and rather hit straight out that the first day when I sat for my placements, I had two offers in my kitty :), but the number two always comes with a dilemma, when you have to make a choice out of them. Khair, the offers I had were from Perot Systems and from Satyam (Can U Imagine?).

Back then, both were very pretty identical offers on various standards, hence the choosing part was helluva tough. Naturally, I had to consult several people to guide me on my decision. The first person definitely was my Chairman Placements who surely shares deep respect from my side. I remember his words, “Chose Satyam…aankhen band karke”!

I was just thinking that today, after the mad Satyam burst, if I would have chosen Satyam offer that day, aaj meri aankhen band hi ho chuki hoti. But my thanks to everyone, who had asked me to join Perot Systems, oh yeah, all of you deserve a treat from me...;)

The Satyam Saga and Me: The Sad Part :(

Well, as you might have read in my previous post, I have started dribbling in the stock market, was pretty satisfied with the kind of investment decisions I had made till Jan 5th. I was making a slow and steady rise in my portfolio. But the storm pounded upon me right at 12 noon on the 6th of January.

I had received a call from a close person asking me to sell my Satyam stocks coz I was earning a small profit, but sheeeeeeet, I just said, “Let’s wait!” and went straight into a meeting. What was profit at 10:30 AM the same morning had converted into a big…mind you…BIG loss. :( :( :(

Down by definitely a few thousands, I was reeling with just one satisfactory story on my part, that Thank God, I had not joined Satyam back then. Well, a lesson for life…stock markets is a ZERO SUM game, U win some and one fine day, you lose all of it!...Hehe better stay away from them ;)

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Now, this is just my story and I can relate to it. But, can you imagine how many similar stories might be floating into the fathoms of the world. All because of just ONE BAD APPLE, just one person full of greed!

There are some 53000 employees in Satyam, out of them many are my friends who had accepted the Satyam offer that day. I definitely can imagine the grief and uncertainties through which they might be going at the moment. Studies say that there is one person associated with every three employees in an IT company. With a company of such a stature going burst, it is gonna effect the peaceful lives of so many effected ones. The entire ecosystem will be badly affected.

I wish to call this a heinous crime, how can someone go so much insane out of greed. Someone who is the CEO of the fourth largest IT company of the country, who is a celebrated public figure, who shares respect in the eyes of the world, who is a self made man. How can he not foresee what affect his greed can create in so many lives? It’s shameful Mr. Ramalinga Raju…may be you’ll get bail in few days, but I wish the corporate world learns from the nuances of the effect such an act has on the ecosystem from the Satyam example so that at least that hinders the future in not seeing such a ghastly act again.

I appreciate whatever government is doing to get the situation in control and I wish Satyam gets back to normalcy with the power of its associates, their talent and their ongoing hope. I am with them, after all being part of the affected, I wish all our hopes bring something positive in the end.


Wish to end this with a celebrated beautiful line from the movie Spiderman which I love, “With big powers, comes big responsibilities”!

Strengths Finder...!!!

Here I’m…yet again…after a long time…but this time I’m not talking abt my favorites Nikhil or Bhargavi, neither m I talking abt Terrorism, nor m I talking abt Bollywood. Guess what, for a change I am talking abt “me”. Now, this might sound like a narcissist trying to satisfy his ego…par kya kare, when its helping me get out of my writer’s block n time crunch…so be it…!!! :).



We all have come across various interviews during our lives and the most favorite question of the interviewees have been…”Talk about five strengths of yours?” Some people spend hours looking for their strengths, searching for them, copying them from friends, creating them from dictionary and much more…but today I’ve got to share what Gallop Uncle says my strengths are…

Recently, the HR team at Perot Systems conducted a special psychometric survey called Strengths Finder accessible only to the 13 management trainees christened as LEAPS (Lead Effectively @ Perot Systems). The half an hour online test sounded pretty bugging initially to me here at workplace I have everything but time…Anyways I had to take it…n so I did…!

To set a background, I must tell you that the test is created by the pioneers in human behavior Gallup and it brings out the 5 most suitable Strength themes out of a list of 34 strengths showcased in the book named Strengths Finder 2.0…all 13 of us got some glaring results and that’s made me share mine with ROW…I would recommend this test to everyone who is reading this blog, coz it might finally let you know ‘what makes you what you are…’

My 5 strengths, right from the Strengths Finder 2.0 result, in the order of their appearance are:
1. Competition: People who are especially talented in the Competition theme measure their progress against the performance of others. They strive to win first place and revel in contests.

2. Achiever: People who are especially talented in the Achiever theme have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive.


3. Strategic: People who are especially talented in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.

4. Relator: People who are especially talented in the Relator theme enjoy close relationships with others. They find deep satisfaction in working hard with friends to achieve a goal.


5. Command: People who are especially talented in the Command theme have presence. They can take control of a situation and make decisions.

The idea behind letting people know their strengths from the book actually is to make individuals hone their strengths once they realize them…and the only key to job satisfaction as the book says is to work only on your strengths…to stay satisfied…

Now the challenge for me is to find out an area/field/job/profession which can provide me with an opportunity to hone my above mentioned strengths…well, I am looking for an answer…Can anyone help me...! Meanwhile if you get a chance to take this test or have taken it already, try sharing your results...Also, it wud be gr8 if you will mark your comments, share, or compare your own strengths in the process...:)

What Struggle is this???

So, This time its Mumbai, attacked again and we all have a topic to talk about with all the pangs and emotions, I was just wondering how long will this discussion last, my previous experience says 5 days…that’s the max, and then we will all again get back completely to our usual gossip and wait for yet another Breaking news…I know this might be hurting many of us but we all, including me, are like this and that’s what life has made us.

First it was Indian Mujahedeen and now its Deccan Mujahedeen, these things made me wonder what the hell this word Mujahedeen means and you all would be shocked in knowing what it actually means. Well, this is what Wiki says about this terror word:

“A Mujahid(Arabic مجاهد, muǧāhid, literally "struggler") is a Muslim involved in a jihad, who is fighting in a war or involved in any other struggle.[1] The plural is Mujahideen[2] (Arabic: مجاهدين‎, muǧāhidīn). The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad ("struggle"). In Islamic scripture, the mujahid contrasts with the qaid, one who does not join the jihad.
Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as Mujahedin, mujahedeen, mujahedīn, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn, and variants.”

If this is a struggle, then bloody hell, what kinda struggle is this? Can anyone think of any reason of this kind of terror trail which is being wrongly named under ‘struggle’? Struggle to me is something which is done for a cause which positively affects the lives of a large audience. Killing over 100 innocent people out of no reason, is that what these young spoilt minds call struggle. I think all the people behind this so called Mujahedeen gang are a coordinated group spoilt by some coordinators who instills in them a psyche of menace. These minds are so depraved and cracked up that they are driven by the immature feeling of killing innocent human beings. Their mind can be compared to a kid’s mind who enjoy killing terrorists while playing computer games like Counter Strike, Half Life etc. I don’t know but this is the most insane thing happened ever…

Also, the kind of jolt these attacks are have always given us are tremendously sad, first we lost our top cop in Delhi Shootout and now we lost other top ATS cops and many more. We all should definitely salute these Shaheed’s of nation, I salute you from the bottom of my heart…you walked the talk…you lead by example, but all I wanted was to see you alive. I wanted you to plan this in a such a way so that you act as a mastermind against their mastermind. You have an effective young and brave team of cops just like you who could swamp all the terrorists with the valor like yours and emerge out winners where the at least our country doesn’t lose the most efficient of its cops which may lead the misnomer Mujahedeen celebrate in their own way the death of peace…

I wish this is not a new different style of terror attacks where the targets are the top brass, foreign tourists and many others staying in luxury hotels being hostage, mercilessly shot down creating such an unanticipated chaos and spilling the sad and gory pictures everywhere…

I know I who is just writing a blog sitting on my comp can’t actually decide the way-out from all these chaotic situations which are happening every now and then in our country, but I can at least ask you all the solution to come out of this terror trail.

The first one comes from my side only. Firstly, we should start respecting and believing in the police force of the country and instill our confidence in them so that they are charged up and ready to fight any situations. The can become valiant and cautious at the same only with our appropriate support. We all are young and we have to have the eye and poise to trace out wrong or suspicious movements happening somewhere in very close proximities of some of us. We should take the initiative of being the informers of the nation. We might go wrong at one or two places, but I’m sure we will be right one day and that day we will surely be saving lot of lives and grace for the nation. We are the only ones who can catch them young and nip in the bud.

Another way of winning this war is to let the terrorists inane purpose of these attacks defeated by not showing and sensationalizing this chaos, but keep living and spreading happiness everywhere we can. Their purpose though no one knows about it but might be to spoil the regular peaceful lives of ours and we can deter their purpose only by continuing our daily peaceful lives as we always do, in fact spreading more happiness in the world we live in.

Was talking to one of my mumbaikar friend and she said eloquently that Mumbai never stops…everyone is back in action as if nothing had happened…Kudos to her…and all the mumbaikars…I am with you…the entire country should stand up together to fight this attack..Let us all be brave…Let us kill the terrorists purpose by showing the true spirit of being an Indian…Lets be unfazed…Lets be calm…Lets keep smiling…Lets keep winning…

PS: I was kinda disturbed, I don’t know why, may be coz of this entire mayhem in Mumbai…but I might be feeling better after writing this blog…I don’t know why that too? But, I am still waiting for some young ideas which we can contribute to the nation to stop these serial terror attacks being edged upon our wonderful nation…so think if you can…!