A Weekend to Remember

On an impulse, I decided to drive down to Orange County (OC) with a friend from PFC for the weekend. Was looking forward to a great time at the PFC Headquarters (Oz’s house) meeting fellow movie fanatics and possibly shooting a short film. Reached there way past midnight and but still received one of the warmest welcomes ever. Sat chatting about movies, music and all other random things over a nice chilled beer.

On Saturday, the PFC-USA gang decided to convert the HQ (the bathroom to be precise!) into a studio to shoot the ad for PFC.

As we wrapped up, I left the PFC HQ to meet my oldest buddy and his family. Had a blast with his kids. His son, who is the elder one, totally impressed me with his ability to identify different makes and models of cars, SUVs and minivans. Just to put things in perspective, he is not even 5 years old! However, it was his younger kid, his daughter who completely bowled me over. She had me totally wrapped around her finger by her charming sweetness. These girls sure learn their tricks at a young age (she is 3-4 months shy of her 2nd birthday)!

Sunday afternoon, I was back at the PFC HQ and the gang had started working on shooting the short film that was scripted by our friend Striker. I played my part in the shoot by holding up a green background for a scene depicting a news telecast and by throwing around some random, completely useless ideas! Hey, I tried! I don’t know anything about movie-making…LOL. But just watching the gang in action helped me learn a lot of things about the entire shooting process.

If only had I not have to go to work on Monday, I would have loved to stay over for some more time and have more fun. Thanks to all the PFC guys from OC for the wonderful weekend.

P.S. though the weekend took an ugly turn about an hour and a half after we left OC, will write about that in another post.

Passion For Cinema

For all you movie lovers, do visit this portal: http://passionforcinema.com

And for the fun what we are all about, check out our ad at the end of this post on the above portal: PFC commercial

The Missing Coffee Cups…

This is a follow-up to my previous post about some ridiculous company policies. Here’s one more that takes the cake (or coffee??).

A few months ago, coffee vending machines were installed at our workplace to provide free coffee/tea to employees. In an “unrelated” incident, a week or two ago, small, pathetic looking cups with our company logo were distributed to all employees. Last week, a rude surprize awaited us as the plastic, disposable cups next to the vending machines suddenly disappeared, never to reappear again.

After asking the administrative department, we realized that the “unrelated” incident was not so unrelated after all. The new “protocol” was that employees were supposed to take their own cups to the vending machines, have their coffee and then wash their own cups during working hours and then enjoy (yeah right!!) another cup of coffee later on. Maybe its part of their training for employees who have to travel abroad on deputation and suddenly find themselves having to learn to wash their own plates and cups.

If you are familiar with or have ever had any experience of village life or life in chawls in Mumbai, then the above scene of an employee carrying his own cup to the vending machine …. is similar to carrying a tumbler of water to the common restroom, doing your thing and returning with an empty tumbler! Damn!! We are really living in a high-tech society aren’t we?

Osho and the word ‘Fuck’

The following is an exchange between Osho and one of his followers regarding the word ‘Fuck’… 

Q:
Beloved Master,
I feel shocked when you use the word ‘Fuck’. What to do?

Osho :
Sargamo, it is one of the most beautiful words. The English language should be proud of it. I don’t think any other language has such a beautiful word.

One Tom from California has done some great research on it. I think he must be the famous Tom of Tom, Dick and Harry fame.

He says – One of the most interesting words in the English language today is the word ‘fuck’. It is one magical word. Just by its sound it can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love.
In language it falls into many grammatical categories.
It can be used as a verb, both transitive (John fucked Mary) and intransitive (Mary was fucked by John), and as a noun (Mary is a fine fuck).
It can be used as an adjective (Mary is fucking beautiful).
As you can see there are not many words with the versatility of ‘fuck’.

Besides the sexual meaning, there are also the following uses:
Fraud: I got fucked at the used car lot.
Ignorance: Fucked if I know.
Trouble: I guess I am fucked now!
Aggression: Fuck you!
Displeasure: What the fuck is going on here?
Difficulty: I can’t understand this fucking job.
Incompetence: He is a fuck-off.
Suspicion: What the fuck are you doing?
Enjoyment: I had a fucking good time.
Request: Get the fuck out of here!
Hostility: I am going to knock your fucking head off!
Greeting: How the fuck are you?
Apathy: Who gives a fuck?
Innovation: Get a bigger fucking hammer.
Surprise: Fuck! You scared the shit out of me!
Anxiety: Today is really fucked. And it is very healthy too.

Surviving Taliban

No, I don’t live in Afghanistan or anywhere close to a nation run by religious fanatics. In fact I live in Mumbai, a city that’s as cosmopolitan as they come. But even in this crowded city, in one small corner of a bustling suburb, there is a place whose policies are inspired directly by Taliban. That place is my workplace!

I work in an IT company, that too in one of the most technologically challenging and fast growing domains. And like almost all of us in the IT industry, I cannot survive without trolling various technology forums to keep myself updated with the latest developments.

You must be wondering by now that how does this in anyway relate to Taliban?

Well, I like challenges and my company does its best to keep throwing new challenges at me. Here’s how they do it:

1. You cannot send/receive mails to/from yahoo, hotmail, gmail and a gazillion such mail programs from/to my work email. Brilliant I must say! It doesn’t sound that bad right now, but remember this point for later reference.
2. Came to work last week and saw my colleagues discussing something. I thought it must be some client issue. But what do you know? The USB ports on their work machines had been disabled! What the fuck? The hardware team had raided our machines overnight and blocked the ports. Great! So I can’t transfer the documents I had laid my hands on while surfing at home.
3. I don’t have any internet access from work! Holy shit! I pinched myself enough to bruise both my forearms. The last time I checked, I was working in IT and I DON’T HAVE INTERNET ACCESS? Oh wait! I’m sorry, I have limited internet access. I can open Google and Yahoo and any search engine you can think of. Cool! I enter a search term…and wait. FUCK! I can’t open any of the result links. So what do I do with Google and Yahoo? Stare at the screen and wonder what theme Google will have on the next major holiday?
4. Now let’s combine points 1, 2 & 3. I cannot mail any interesting thing I found while trolling the tech forums from home to my work email. I cannot copy it onto my pen-drive and transfer it to my work PC since the USB is disabled. I cannot access those forums from work as we don’t have internet access.

And then I’ll have my seniors telling me during my appraisals that I do not contribute towards knowledge sharing!

Apart from this, we also have a dress code. Employees are supposed to dress in appropriate business attire. No jeans or t-shirts. Now who the hell decides “appropriate”? Is a bright orange or flourescent green shirt acceptable over my dark blue polo t-shirt from Gap just because it’s a shirt? Is a black belt worn with brown formal shoes acceptable? Since when did corduroy become formal wear?

I won’t be surprized if in due they time block guys and girls from emailing each other! Forget that…they might just shutdown emailing altogether. You have to write letters, then take a dozen permissions before you can affix a stamp and mail the letter to the client to report bugs or status. They will have a team to open and read all communication travelling back and forth from the employee to the client. For all you know, the employees will be given huge books and pens or blackboards and chalks to do their daily work. No PCs! Naa rahegi baans, naa bajegi baansuri!

Phew! Are those American troops that I see caught in the traffic jam headed towards my workplace?

10 Reasons why you should leave work at 6:00p.m

I got this in my mail a couple of days back. I found it quite funny as well as insightful and above all, very true (especially point 5)! Here you go:

1. Employment letter stated that working hours finish at 6:00p.m

2. Work is a never-ending process. Even if you stay back till next morning, you will never finish it.

3. Humans are not robots. Even robots/machines need rest to prevent a breakdown.

4. You love your career, but your family is even more important in your life.

5. If you fail in your life, your boss is not going to be the one who gives you a helping hand whereas your family will definitely offer help.

6. You do not want to screw up or make your life miserable because of your job.

7. Monthly salary = Work from 9:00a.m – 6:00p.m

If 6:30p.m = $0.00 + 0 bonus + 0 appreciation + bad health + bad social life + poor family relationship

That equals to: Unproductive employee + performance drop + company reputation drop + increase in retrenchment rate + increase in resignation rate

8. If any person disagrees with the above formulation, we think he/she is a LOSER who has no life, is heartless, doomed, workaholic, etc. He/She deserves the “Best Employee of the Year” award!

9. You don’t give a damn if your boss fires you.

10. For the chinese, remember this “If the house in the East no longer keeps you, then just move to the West house” (apparently in Cantonese its stated as – “Dong Ka Umm Da, Da Sai Ka!”)

Rock is Noise Pollution

So often we come across “music aficionados” (I’ll refer to them as MA through this article) who always know anything and everything about music. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, these conversations are quite intriguing and enlightening. I had one such conversation with a MA.

Dinner was done, people were sitting and enjoying dessert and our MA was charged up. He starts off quoting some great singers, giving details of their songs, the music, the ragas used, lot of trivia about the song, singer and music director, etc. Folks were mesmerized by the abundance of information that this MA’s head could hold and recall at the press of a button. There was an occasional input from someone or the other, but mostly the response was just of tacit approval and appreciation.

I barely had any response because the MA was talking only about Hindi and Marathi music. Yes, I listen to a lot of Hindi music and occasionally some Marathi stuff too, and I know who Lata Mangeshkar or Kishore Kumar is, but that’s about it. MA was Buddha delivering his sermons under the Bodhi tree while I was a starry-eyed disciple.

Things were going good until MA decided to enter the touchy territory of Pop and Rock music. At this point, MA started to take liberties in defining music itself. It was time for starry-eyed, long-haired, black-tee-clad disciple (i.e. me) to shine and teach the master some lessons. Here is what followed…

MA: …and this pop and rock is crap. It can’t be called music. That Jackson fellow just keeps shouting “oww” and grabs his crotch as if he has ants in his pants. And those rock guys make so much noise and just scream out loud.

me: Jackson is a multi-platinum artist! And what you call noise is distortion. It’s an effect to go with the intensity of the song.

MA: Why do you need intensity in music? Listen to how melodious Lata sounds even at this age. (He always refers to these great singers by their first names as if he was their langotiya yaar (underwear friend i.e. childhood friend))

me: She sounds like Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler in Veer Zaara! (Ha ha! Got you there didn’t I buster? Do you call a rocker bad now or good? Coz you are definitely not going call Lata bad! me:1 MA:0)

MA: (neglecting my previous statement) They just jump and run around on the stage screaming and making noise.

me: You expect a rock band to sit cross-legged and perform? How do you think “Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh” would sound if Lata didi jumped around the stage? Wouldn’t look good right? So you have to give a performance that matches the genre of music.

MA: Are you trying to say Lata is not good?
me: Hell no! I respect her and she is hands down an amazing singer. But that doesn’t mean that other singers are not good.

MA: Rock and pop stars are not singers…it is not music!

me: What IS music?

MA:  ummmm….errrr….songs that have melodies and rhythm.

me: The black metal band Children of Bodom uses keyboard melodies and rhythm! (me:2 MA:0)

MA: (after a long pause) I mean…uhhh…well…they don’t use ragas and don’t have control over their voices like Lata, Asha, Kishore, Rafi…

me: You are kidding me right?? Heard about chords, keys, modes?

MA: (oozing sarcasm) Right! Rock bands use notes and stuff to create noise.

me: Man! Do you even know how hard it is to actually co-ordinate the lead, rhythm and bass guitars with the drums? It f——-riggin (checking myself as parents are around) takes years of practice!

MA: But…

(I am in high gear and cut him off and continue)

me: Do you know how much stamina it takes to play a 2-3 hour show shredding your guitar, plucking those bass strings and pounding the drums at speeds reaching 200+ bpm (beats per min) at times? Do you know how difficult it is for the singer to keep jumping around and still having enough breath to sing in tune? I’m sure Lata didi can’t do that and most importantly, I wouldn’t want her doing that either. She is a great singer…possibly the greatest, but she is not a rockstar. Period! That doesn’t mean she is not good. She is good at what she does and rockstars are good at what they do. You definitely wouldn’t want to hear Alanis Morissette singing “Didi Tera Dewar Deewana”, do you??

MA: …ummmm….

(Cut!!)

me: Learn to appreciate all forms of music. You love the Hindi oldies…more power to you. But that doesn’t give you any liberty to criticize other music forms and musicians. I played drums and bass in a rock band and I know how many hours of practice I put in to go and give my best on stage. You won’t find me sitting and listening to Hindi songs, but you won’t find me criticizing them either. Because I love music! And to truly love, appreciate and enjoy music, you need to open up your mind and free it from your biases. It’s only then that you can truly call yourself a music aficionado. I’m done!

An eerie silence was followed by an approving nod from MA and smiles and murmurs from the other folks present out there. I winked at my brother as the topic shifted to cricket and I took a backseat.

ROCK ON!!!

To Kill a Manual Transmission

I love driving, but once in a while, I prefer to just take the backseat and be driven around. It’s a welcome change when you ride along turning your head from side to side watching that tree in full bloom or the beautiful colors in the sky at dusk or staring at that beautiful girl in the car you just passed. However, as much as I would be happy doing those things, I usually end up concentrating on the road, the traffic, the driver and more importantly the gear changes with my internals in my mouth!

Yes, this article is inspired by those wonderful drivers who seem to have unknowingly discovered a million ways to kill their manual transmissions.

Let’s start at home with daddy dearest. Dad has done most of his driving at the airport shuttling between the terminal and the aircraft along the tarmac. The problem is that he thinks the regular road is a runway and before you know, the car has hit 30km/h and you start hearing the screaming of the engine as if it’s being strangled. You look down at the shift lever and your jaw drops, you try to scream but you choke – the car is still in FIRST GEAR!!! I take a look around to confirm that I am not at a drag racing strip. I say a silent prayer and try my best not to look at the shifter. After a while the screaming reappears. I look up – 80km/h, I look down – 4th gear. Goddamit! Still in FOURTH?? Now my dad is old school and when he learned to drive on the good old Fiat, it only had 4 gears. But this car has 5 and even after having owned the car for half a decade, he still doesn’t shift to fifth till I tell him to do so! Sorry dad, but there’s nothing wrong with the car, it’s your driving that’s giving you the poor mileage.

Then I have this friend who redefined adventure sport for me. After 30 odd of the wildest roller coaster rides, I still hadn’t obtained “Nirvana” or what is more commonly known as motion-sickness. Then on a bright Sunday morning, I was offered a ride by my friend. Half an hour into the ride, I almost experienced a highly spiritual out-of-body experience (read as I was ready to throw up). It was then that I noticed the halo around my Little Buddha who was driving the car! No, I’m serious! It was almost like someone from the time of Buddha was in the driver’s seat, someone whose prior driving experience was with horse-carts. Every gear shift made the whole car lurch ahead violently. And the shifting was so randomized that you could actually introduce it as a gambling game in Las Vegas. If the car was going at a certain speed in 3rd gear, there was no way you could tell what gear the car would be in the next moment nor could you tell what gear it would be in at that very speed sometime later in the ride. This was one time when I would have loved to do backseat driving. And I mean literally – I wish I had a steering wheel, gear shifter and the pedals in the back. I am surprised that the transmission didn’t jump out of the car and run away. Talk about guts!

Then there are the not so interesting characters that do either one or more of the following cool things:
-  Start applying the gas pedal even before they have let the clutch out
-  Let out the clutch too early creating the familiar metal grinding sound
-  Slow down and then try to accelerate in a high gear
-  Shift into a lower gear while trying to shift to a higher gear
-  Keep the gear engaged and clutch depressed while waiting at the stop light
-  Slam the shifter with all their strength as if driving a 10-ton truck

The list goes on and on. So how NOT to kill a manual transmission? I guess I’ll write about it sometime soon. Another option? Do me a favor and go buy yourself an automatic transmission. Happy driving!

Reservations are Mmm…Mmm…Good!

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we had reservations and concessions everywhere? Here are a few cases:

1. Cricket – reservation for players from Nagaland. Minimum 3 must be included in the playing 11.
2. Formula 1 – qualifying time relaxed by 10 seconds for Narain Karthikeyan.
3. Tennis – Sania Mirza gets direct entry to the quarter finals in Tier II and Tier III tournaments and to the 4th round in Tier I tournaments of the WTA tour.
4. Soccer – winner of India-Pakistan soccer match automatically qualifies to play at the FIFA World Cup.
5. Hockey – India starts with a 2-0 advantage in any India-Pakistan game.
6. Athletics – 17% reservation for athletes using anabolic steroids
7. Jails – 45% reservation for politicians. To be increased to 65% over a period of 4 years.
8. Restaurants – special seats near the restroom for people who don’t want to tip.
9. Girl’s hostel/dorm – 33% reservation for boys.
10. Mumbai drivers – no driving license required.
11. Airhostesses – 15% reservation for women over the age of 60.
12. Theaters – 30% seats reserved for people who talk on their phone during movies or are accompanied by crying infants.
13. Bus/cab/train drivers and airline pilots – 20% reservation for alcoholics.
14. Public transport – 12% reservation for people with bad breath, 9% for those who don’t use a deodorant and 8% for those who fart out loud.

All the readers are free to demand their own reservations. The stupider it is the better chance it has to figure on this list.

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Changing Lanes

A few days ago, I came across this post by Swaroop Srinath narrating his run-in with an ACP who jumped a red light.

It’s nice to know that there are people around who are ready to take on these so-called law enforcers. To raise awareness among people, I felt like posting about a run-in that I had a few months ago.

So I was driving down a wide 3-lane road on my way to pick up my brother from Dadar. Near the Mahim church, there is a major signal where the right-most lane can be used to go straight or make a right onto a one-way road that connects to Cadell Road. This road becomes a one-way in the opposite direction in the evening. I was in the right-most lane, the signal was green and I continued straight ahead. Suddenly this traffic constable jumps out and asks me to pull over. Now I could have just sped away and this idiot could not have done anything, but being a law abiding citizen, I slowly cut across all the lanes and stopped by the side in front of the church.

The constable approaches the car, I roll down the window and here is the conversation (it was in Marathi but I’m translating it to English) that followed…
Me: What’s the matter?
C: You cut the lane.
Me: (thinking I misheard him) Excuse me! I did what???
C: You cut the lane.

I am about to burst out laughing at this point. I take a look around to confirm that I am still in Mumbai. I drove for 5 years in the US and was not even honked at once when changing lanes, so where the hell did this thing come up from? Geez! Did I miss something? When the hell did they start implementing lane discipline in Mumbai? Had I been caught in some time warp and returned after a century or something? No. A nearby poster did confirm that I was still in the year 2005. C’s voice breaks my stupor…

C: Show me your license.
Me: But why? What lane are you talking about? I was in the right lane and I continued in that lane.
C: That is a right-only lane.

This time I couldn’t control myself and I started laughing. This was not real! No, it could not be real. I was feeling like Neo from The Matrix.

C: (sterner voice) Show me your license.
Me: (opening the door and stepping out) No I won’t. First walk back with me and show me a sign saying that the lane is right-only.
C: I don’t know all that. You give me your license and talk to my Saaheb (Senior RTO officer)
Me: I will talk to him too. But first you show me the sign…
(The constable is a little taken aback now, so I upped my attack…)
Me: …What do you do in the evenings? Do you shut down this “right-only” lane since it’s useless in the evening?

By now, a few church-goers had started collecting around to see what was going on and this was making the constable uncomfortable. I raised my voice now…

Me: Answer me. Is it shut in the evening? And where is the sign? Why have you pulled me over for nothing at all? You just want some chai-paani (Hindi for bribe)?

I start noting down his name on my cell phone.

Me: You have wasted my time. Give me your badge number and the police station you are attached too.

To save face, the constable now shows a little arrogance and gives me the details I asked for.

C: Now go, do what you want.
Me: Oh you think I will let you off? I’m headed to Dadar and will be returning on this same route within an hour. And I am going to stop by and talk to your Saaheb and you better be around here.

The constable was trying to act as if he was not afraid, but his expressions said otherwise. He started walking away leaving me alone. As I was getting back in my car, I paused to take a look at the stunned faces of the few people who had gathered around. I smiled back at them and drove off.

Most of the time people are more than willing to just pay up Rs.50-100 and get done with it rather than waste time and this “law enforcers” no it very well and use it to their advantage. But when confronted by someone who reads back the rules to them, they quiver and run away with their tails between their legs.

Every citizen should be aware of the rules and should always make sure that no one, absolutely no one should bend or break them or take you for a ride because you are not aware of them.