even LIFE has some RATING...

Christmas came and went in a giffy. As a christmas gift i met my classmates on the eve ( too early to get the gift i suppose). I found a site while goin thru one of my friend's blog. The site rates a person's life based on some questionnaire and my life's rating came as the following...

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6.8
Mind:	6.7
Body:	7.8
Spirit:	6.4
Friends/Family:	4.4
Love:	3.6
Finance:	8
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

My data interpretation for the above bar graph is as follows:

1. May be am in real need of love ( girl friends can be a alternative solution)

2. Seems tat i really need some spirits to lift up my SPIRIT ( as i am dry for the past few months :-(...)

3. Need to see my relatives and friends a lot ( had to take a long break from WORK for tat )

NOTE : u can take the test for multiple times to get a better rating of ur life :)

2164

They all show it in Indian films, when a guy goes on a train journey he is sure to travel with a good looking girl. Eventually they get into love or at least become good friends. I have been always fascinated by this kind of imagination, but practically thinking this cannot happen in reality, or someone should have tons of luck for this event to happen. I never had that much amount of luck with me. But whenever I go on a train journey I just hope that I at least make an acquaintance with a good looking girl.

This was the expectation that I carried with me when I boarded Chennai-Dadar express on a fine drizzling Sunday morning. Previous night only I had called my team leader to inform him about my leave and he wished me fine journey thus implying that I din’t have important works in the project. After making my parents get seated and settled in their berths, I moved forward along a few coaches to find my berth, which I got due to a late booking. I found my berth and sat there, observing that the nearby berths were still unoccupied. I kept my fingers crossed hoping that cinema will turn into reality today for me. But the fate was written before itself in the reservation chart which I didn’t notice. A typical old Mr. & Mrs. Iyer occupied the empty berths near mine and my crossed fingers automatically opened up for helping the Iyers with arranging their luggage. Shrugging off my shoulders and exerting out an ‘Hmmm’ I started to find out the page where I had left reading ‘THE DETECTIVE’ by Arthur Hailey.

The engine blew out a long whistle and the wheels started rolling after a jerk crashing all my hopes and indicating that even on this trip I don’t have the required amount of luck. As the train picked up its speed I too started turning the pages of the book faster. Around 150 pages would have been read, when suddenly I felt a touch. A strange boy was standing with gaudy make up wearing a salwar kameez. The boy clapped his hands and kept them on my head saying something in telugu. Then I realized that the boy was a eunuch. I have heard that sometimes these people pester the passengers too much and if they don’t get money they try to harass them. My body shuddered at the thought and I feared that I don’t get into such a situation. So immediately I searched for some change in my purse. Fumbling with the money and conscious of the boy watching me I took out a 10 rupee note n handed it to the boy with fear. The boy again touched my head moved to the next block of berths. The passengers sitting nearby gave me a puzzled look as no one had cared to give money for the boy as if I am fool. I gave them a wry smile unable to explain my fear and felt a fool myself.

Unable to concentrate on the novel again, I started staring through the window hoping for some green pastures. On the due course of looking out, I found a station’s name as ‘Veeravenkatanarianarajupet’. Really a big name for a small town/village!!! As the train passed through many small stations in AP I had some eatables from the noisy advertising vendors and encountered many handicaps, old people and children turned beggars in the form of singing and begging, begging in the name of gods, children dress up like mythical characters, etc. One has to master the art of begging from these people I thought. But at the same time it came to my mind that the government and the people are also quite responsible for their current state. But of the many beggars I saw, one gave me a shock. It was a terrible sight of a blind boy who was crying in pain and shivering constantly carried by a man. I immediately gave the boy money, but then thought what if the man carrying the boy had intentionally poked the boy’s eyes to make a living out of him. Pondering over these ghastly thoughts and reading through the last of pages of the novel, I felt my stomach grumbling and sensed that I am hungry. I got up and headed for my parents’ berth to have lunch with them. On the way through other coaches a group of eunuchs were collecting money. I immediately sensed that they would surely ask me also. So I got into a nearby toilet and from time to time I checked whether the group had passed by me. Bearing the smell I stood for around 5 minutes and passed by the danger.

After lunch I came back to my berth with Kushwanth Singh’s ‘The Company of Women’ and started reading it right away thinking that the book would be a humorous one. After casually going through 30 pages of the book, I sensed that the book is going to be full of sexual encounters. But as there was nothing to do I carried on reading it and I fell asleep. A shaky halt at a station woke me up. As the train rolled on again I continued reading the book. After sometime when pacing through the book interestingly a sudden clap disturbed me. This time I decided not to give even a single rupee. I continued to read the book seriously though my heart was beating hard as the eunuch was pestering constantly. After sometime the eunuch gave up and moved on and I felt a sense of triumph (thought a childish one).

Dusk was nearing and the train was running near Andhra & Karnataka border. Amidst the landscape yellow patches of sun flower fields came to view. Some were fully blossomed smiling in yellow, while others were just newly formed with their heads dropped as if in sin. Also I saw the sun nearing the west horizon, glowing with bright red at the lower half and orange in the upper. The view was beautiful with all the higher wavelengths dazzling my eyes. Crossing the fields, the train passed through a thermal power station. Then the fields disappeared and tall pylons were visible everywhere over the land standing tall and proud in transmitting power. Quickly the sun began to come down gracefully turning into a big pinkish red disc making the size of pylons very small. I felt like the sun was emphasizing its supreme power and watched it slowly sink into the earth splashing the dark blue water into sky.

Lights went on in the coaches and I began to continue to read the book aiming to finish it off before dinner. Reading continuously for two hours I finished the rest of the book only to find that book had taught me two good things. First info - another word for condom is ‘effel’ and second - always use effel if you are in doubt. After finishing the book I ordered dinner from the pantry. Unfortunately I found that the food was of the same quality as before Lalu(ji)’s period. Luckily I didn’t find any plates made of clay or any fodder in the food. After dinner I immediately went to sleep and got up at Dadar in Mumbai hoping to find my distant relative waiting in the station, whom I had never met before….

Note : 2164 - is the train no. for Chennai-Dadar Express.

Thanks to : Frau Radhika for correcting the blunders in the post.

mY LoVe

Oh my dear,
I always feel helpless when you are not near.

I still remember your scream,
Which one day made me to drop my ice cream.
And I remember those journeys in bus,
When u made me tickle and giggle.

Sometimes you helped me out of bad situations,
Though most of the time you got me into trouble.
But I still liked you,
Coz you were equal with my friends and foes.

You body was great while you made many faces,
And you responded great when I touched you at the right places.
When you were in the mood,
You would go down lazy and even sick,
And I would understand it’s the time for my trick.

I carried you to my room,
And even with our dresses on,
I would still perform.
You gleamed bright,
When I inserted you tight.

As our happy times flew by,
One fine day she passed by.
I found her too irresistible,
And considered you as untouchable.

So my dear,
I sold you for New Year,
And made her mine.

Now sometimes when I touch her,
She doesn’t responds properly and gives me more trouble,
And makes me feel that we were the best couple.

Oh my dear cell phone,
I am awaiting to hear your ring tone.

ANYONE GET ME A CHRONOMETER PLZ...

I am surprised and astonished to look back at my past and to compare it with the present. I still remember those very early ages of school days where all my relatives get around and prepare me for the school in morning. Aunts giving me bath and dressing up, breakfast from mom, dad polishing my shoes and checking my bag; the whole world seemed to operate around me. After these, I walked to school with a crying face. Seeing that my mom will console me with a candy and telling me “Don’t eat that in class”. Most of the forenoon I always kept watching my shirt pocket containing the candy instead looking at the teacher and finally sharing it with the girl sitting next to me. Coming back from school it was all fun in home playing with toys and neighbours.

As I got into higher grades, school became a second home for me. Though my school had (and still has) only two buildings without playground, I considered it as the best school in my locality. I and my friends used to come half an hour before the first bell and we used to play in classrooms. Not to mention those paper balls and notebook bats. The classes too were fun-filled. Everyday atleast one of my close friends used to get beatings from the teacher and the others used to laugh. When the final bell rang we left the classrooms like horses off the blocks. Though time taking for walking from school to home is around 10 minutes we would reach our homes in 30 minutes slowly strolling the streets and making fun of each other. After school we would go around all friends’ home or we would play cricket in the beach. Not to mention the tuitions which we undertook, this was basically to see other class girls and other school girls.

That being the case in schools, my college years turned out to be more heavenly. Home became my second residence, college being the first one. I found no difficulty in college studies, though people used to say engineering is a tough one to study. I had the best of my life during college. Many philosophies, theories and rules of various relationships were defined in those 4 years. I also got to know about many jargons such as CUT COPY PASTE, GPT, mass bunk, cup, kadalai & bucket etc. etc. Techniques and skills such as copying in exam, bit paper, passing the answer sheet, copying and stealing assignments, sleeping in class without being noticed, giving proxy attendance etc etc were practiced and mastered. Final years were more thrilling with events such as projects (for most of which we cooked up the data and documents) and placement activities (where we shared the best shirts, tie and shoes of each others). Activities likes Industrial visit, night stay at friends’, birthday treats, technical and cultural festival also made a mark in my college life and personal life and brought a lot of good things out of me.

Coming to the present, I see that I have fulfilled my parents’ wish of getting a job for the cause of which they have worked hard and sacrificed their personal wishes. But analyzing the present ‘me’ if a find normal stereotype person who just gets up in the morning goes to office and comes back home and sleeps. I find that I have lost my flair, my zeal, and my aim of life. Nowadays I get so called inspirational good morning mails instead of candies as in childhood days to cheer me up and good bye or happy weekend mails from friends. But these things don’t make me motivated or happy as like a pat or hug from friend, or a ‘bye da machi’. I wish the imagination of H.G.Wells had been made to reality so that I can go back to those beautiful times. But as of now I don’t have the luck. Hope someone invents time machine before I die.

SOFT HOLOCAUST

I thanked myself after seeing the videos and reading about the holocausts of World War-II. This was because I was not born at those ages in those places as a Jew or even as German either to experience or inflict those kinds of horror and pain. Those were horrible times when the Jews were treated like animals. The secluded living in the ghettos with unhealthy working conditions in factories, long exposure to pollution and finally shortage of food portrays those scenes as a hell to me.

Trying to forget these horrors and focusing my attention back to work, I felt a strange coincidence between the IT industry in which I work to the horrors and conditions of holocausts. The first thing which made me to feel like this was the employee ID tags of software companies being similar to that of the arm band containing Star of David worn by the Jews during the period of Third Reich. Though at start this may be a silly comparison, but as I began to analyze both the situations (holocausts and IT industry) I began to visualize some solid similarities. At first there may seem to be a heaven to hell difference between the environments of holocausts and IT industry like physical conditions, nature of work but I found some grave similarities from a different perspective.

Thinking of the health impacts, the conditions at the factories those times were horrible, unhygienic and pollution prone. Labourers were made to work in engulfing smokes of carbon and sulphur gases. Long hours of work added more adverse health impacts due to extended exposure to pollution. But one may wonder how these conditions are being compared to the present IT environment. In IT industry one uses to work sitting in front of computers in conditioned air for long time. The long exposure to monitor along with the work stress affects the eyes a lot. The conditioned air for a long time makes one sick due to lack of natural air. Moreover long hours of sitting without physical work/activity may lead to obesity and cardiovascular diseases. The above effects can be avoided if regular exercises or precautionary measures are being taken. But I feel that due to work pressure and mental stress the IT people tend to forget the exercises thus creating health problems for themselves.

Going back to the World War-II period, the labourers were made to overwork and lot was extracted from them for below standard wages. This I feel similar to the meager pay which the IT companies give to their employees after making them work on a 24X7 basis in spite of the huge profits they get. Even though the work deadline an be fixed at a considerable span of time, the IT managers schedule out the work for a short period and thus making their employees work day in day out to finish the projects.

What I do not understand is the reason why the management of IT companies makes their employees to work extra time. The Hitler’s men squeezed out the Jews in order to show their talents and dominating them, so as to impress their boss and to get higher ranks. But I wonder whom the IT management is going to satisfy or impress by making their employees work so hard although the work can be done at a normal pace? The answer may be the innocent/ignorant stakeholders (who are not aware of the modus operandi of the IT world) or the IT management themselves.

Whatever the pains and difficulties the suppressed under the Third Reich would have experienced they certainly had a cause to resist them. The cause was the quest for the Holy land which they finally achieved in form of the birth ofIsrael. But I am not sure what the IT workers have in minds as their cause to sustain in IT industry. It may be the money or the career or something else. Only time will tell it.

SATYAM CINEMAS !!!

Chennai seems to be less occupied on Saturday afternoons when most of its residents try to get a nap after a delicious meal. But there remains one place which does not lose its air of zeal but rather springs into active life. It’s none other than Satyam cinemas. It’s the place where most of the Chennaities try to spend their weekends. Cinema is a medium which converges all age groups, and this place just happens to be a proof of this statement.

At early noon boys come in gangs so that they have a look at all girls coming in. Some even wait for girls to get tickets so that they may sit next to them while watching the movie. The guys come in all sorts of attires ranging from bermudas or ¾ tracks to cargos, faded jeans (actually the colour was lost during washing) to formal trousers, with sports banians to transparent shirts. They don’t stop with this. Have some phrases like Adding to the woe et al. With the funky dresses they wear colourful bands, palm sized rings, and monstrous pendants. If this happens to be the case with boys, then a first time visitor might think that he has ended up in a fashion parade on seeing the girls .The girls just treat this place as a tryout area for their new dresses and makeups. The boys too react with ‘oohs’ ‘wows’ and ‘aahs’ and seldom with ‘chee’ on seeing the tight clad jeans with t shirts, dazzling saris, skirts and kurtis.

As the crowd begin to gather hours before the show-time, group of boys and girls get to have a pompous chitchat which makes the heads of opposite sex turn. All this showoff is intended to make new contacts, friendships but mostly dates. In contrast to this, young couples prefer to meet minutes before the show-time and collect tickets which they had booked through internet, of course from the boy’s credit card. But one can easily find newly married couples with the lady being dressed in silk sari with lot of ornaments and heavy make up as if she has come to a wedding function. The man seems too watchful always holding her hand in fear that she might run away. People do come in families whenever some animation film or family subject is screened usually come because of their kids who are eager to see their superhero or cartoon character in action. The fathers of these families do all kind of circus activities like juggling the eatables which the kids and the ladies require as a supplement for watching the movie.

In addition to screening of movies, canvassing activities take place near the ticket counters. These products range from shampoo (with free wash for those who haven’t taken their bath) to cars. On a lot one can see the various shades of youth in this place. There may be chances that one can spot a cine star in disguise (i.e. without makeup) and if fortunate he/she may be seated next during the screening of the film.