Male Bonding – A story that surpasses linguistic challenges

No this is not what you think it is !!!

Just about friendship nothing else 

Not far ago just about 8 years ago I used to think that Delhi is the only city in India and might as well be the capital of the world my this belief was not due to my geographical ignorance but was mainly due to the fact that I had never thought to look beyond Delhi there was so much happening right there to be simple I was in the category of suckers who believe that “UP aur Bihar ek hi baat” and to top it all I am form UP!!!!! Anyways I had already quit studying by the time I reached 11th standard so I Just manager to get through with a less than respectable score in my 12th standard now came the big Q.. What will you do now?? … Sadly the choice was already made for me long ago when I had joined Science section so I had to do engg … anyways I thought to give life another shot and hence studied really hard for two months and came the glorious day when I got a call form BIT Mesra and suddenly before I knew I was in one of the best 10 Engg colleges in the country and this is where my Male Bonding experience began which truly surpasses boundaries of language, love and sometimes hate too …


In my college I met a wide variety of friends (I say friends and not people because for me everyone was friend I never understood that thin line between acquaintance and friends) ….
I met Bengalis (Cheers to Deepayan Da, Jeet, Bagchi, Nilav, Ghosh and many more …… Ami tum sub ko bhalo bashi !!!!!) …..
Biharis (Manu … he was always the one and the best delhi bihari dude you can ever meet, Rajesh kumar Rajesh … what a name, Bunny and lot more ) …
Gujrati’s , Nepali’s, Assami’s and all kinds of “’s” that one can think of …

Although everybody in college spoke hindi but it was an entirely different genre of language there as it had at least 100 dialects and 200 accents and things meant diff when said by diff guys like if I say “Delhte hain…. This means forget it I will never reach to the issue ..” and if Vikram modgil said “Dekhte hain … this meant that some one is about to get the bashing of his life !!” ….

I had loads of fun there and almost made one guy flunk college “Prabir Saurabh” aka “Probs” most of Probs of Probs was due to me I still remember knocking his door once in every 5 min in exam times as I was too restless to fail alone so wanted some company and it was fun to annoy him and then we would go on long break walks when people would study… but none of those breaks were as wild as I had with Anirudh Oswal aka Ozzy aka Oswal aka Oswal the Damsel (courtesy Piyush paaji …) me and Oswal would got to play pool as a break to studies and spend 3 hours there pool + food included and would come back exhausted not refreshed for the prep of exams the next day what good study breaks !!!! bottom line Anirudh was smart and used to get good marks and I just managed to drag myself but still I wonder if I could ever forget those risky ordeals as we put careers on stake and played pool 

Talking of fun and friendship I cannot leave out one guy whom I am pretty confident would be a part of blogs of thousands of gals and tens of thousands of guys the one and the only elusive but omnipresent Piyush Gopal … he has truly being there whenever I needed him and whenever he needed me then too he was there … so it was really a mutual sorts of friendship … We really became great pals during The Great Depression of 2003 summers when we had to give back papers and had to clear them if we wanted to have any chances of completing engg .. in record time of 4 years .. the thing about Piysuh that you would notice first is his cute height and towering personality he could not speak Punjabi but was a great Bihari munda… and he taught me to how to take pride myself as “Hum” instead of “Mein” it was like I was a whole army in myself such were his inspirational teachings …

So I basically made couple of pals for life ..

So it was fun and I actually learned a bit of Bengali in my days of college in the sense that I could understand it for about 60% and speak it for about 6% and that was all I needed ……

Then came my days of job in Satyam where I learnt for the first time that not only Tamil and Telgu have transcripts but you can speak them too !!! the good part was that I was in Hyd where Hindi works just fine you might want to add some Hyderabadi accent to it though !!!! The funny part is that some of my best work place pals are the ones who either speak Telgu or Tamil and although we just converse in English it is still loads of fun!! The bleak parts of this experience were the team meetings and some times appraisals and now my offshore calls where some times I have no clue as to what is happening as they speak in Telgu but I guess I have learn to comprehend the amount of trouble I am by the tone of their voice … I currently stay in India house cause my one roommate speaks Tamil, one speaks Telgu and I speak neither … so we all have to talk in English to each other “Long live the Queen …”

“Jinke ghar sheeshe ke hote hian
Who Dusro ke ghar mein mug se khichad nahi phekte”
-- Courtsey Fundae ....

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Chicago – From Devon Street to Skyscrapers

I will start this one by saying that although I have not roamed about Chicago a lot I have still got a fair idea if how busy and lively this city is by just driving there..

Last Saturday me and my girlfriend drove to Chicago as it was a bright Sunny weekend so could not think of anything better to do  .. this time my experience there was a lot different then before as previously I had only gone to Chicago boundary destinations like Adler’s planetarium and Shedd Aquarium and I really though yeah I can drive here piece of cake and then I made the devious mistake of going to Devon Street this weekend and boy it was a roller coaster ride first thing the only thing that I liked about driving in US was missing “Fast and Smooth flow of traffic” .. God I was in trouble here as we had row after row of bumper to bumper traffic and changing lanes was really an nightmare at that pace when I finally got out of it and finally reached my destination there was no parking there and I had to circle the Devon street for 1 hour and finally got a spot at the most unlikely place “Hyderabad House” had lunch there and it was great !!!! mark my words GREAT !!!!!



The thing about Devon street that hit me first was that suddenly I was back in India and it was fun people on roads and cars honking and people won’t move… yeah
Democracy at last  And you have to be there to believe it still I will chalk down some attractions:

Mobile Shops with mobiles displayed outside ooooh this used to be my favorite spot in India

Attorney offices that handle everything from Birth Certificates  Marriage Certificates  Divorce certificates  Death Certificates and people say that humans do not understand the Circle of life !!!! I love these all in one shops you don’t find them in US often …

Bank of Pakistan … yeah it’s there and I am thinking the same thing that you are where the hell is Bank of Patiala (you might want to open an account in one my close friend Piyush will soon be joining one of the branches as the Branch Manager …)

All sort of Indian clothes the best part was free altering if they do not fit you…… the last time I tried to get a pair of pants altered here it was going to cost me just $5 cheaper than the pants itself … come to think of it the Customer service in India is really unparallel …..

Finally I took off from there after about 2 hours and moved on to the next destination Sears Towers (the place from where you can see three states…)  I am really amazed by the amount of importance they give to the fact that they can see three states from top of the Sear’s tower (about 610 feet high …) as far as I am concerned in India people really do not care about small differences like the state from where you come I still remember “U.P. aur Bihar sab ek hi baat hai ” ….
The view from there was truly spectacular as I could see the entire Chicago plus Michigan and they give you this Audio phones that tell you exactly what you are looking at … which by any measure is not possible in India not because we are lacking in Technology or because of poor planning it is just because we renovate and relocate a lot to keep moving with the times … last time I checked my fav Cinema hall in Hyderabad is now a shopping mall !!!!

I must also add that although people praise New York all the time but I still like Chicago better because it has better looking buildings (because they had to re do half of Chicago again because a Fire in 1800 ate up 50% of all there was … apparently it was started by a goat kicking the lamp at the shed…. Reminds me of Butterfly effect …)

Headed off to Millennium park from there and it was a nice place but not the mind blowing sort but I did get to do something I had never done there .. Attend a full orchestra Symphony without paying for it  they have this Chicago festival going on there and you could listen to some real class music by Beethoven , Mozart and all other great legends between 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm there by just sitting in the lawn in front of the orchestra …

I did see a fun ride in Millennium park somewhat similar to what Dr Evil uses in the Austin powers series was fun to watch must be even more fun to drive ….

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Another Sleepy Day at work

I do not know what to say no matter whatever I promise myself the previous morning after I had once again dragged myself out of bed and I think tomorrow for sure I will sleep at 11 pm so that I at least get 7.5 hours of sleep but there is some evil power that takes up over me at exactly 10:45 pm and it controls me and forces me to see TV, eat ice-cream, play Xbox games and God knows what not till 12:30 and suddenly leaves my body and I end up blaming myself all the time …..

Above explanation is all that I could come up with to avoid killing myself due to late sleeping and early waking habits…. Come to think again maybe waking up is one of the easier parts as once you are in the bathroom you will feel refreshed after your batch for at least 1 hour or so…. The realm of pain begins when you enter office as one great philosopher said “Human brain is a wonderful Organ it starts to work when you wake up and stops as soon as you enter Office” in my case Human body is in sync with the wonderful human brain …….

It kind of feels like you are floating around in some king of Lava alley as mails keep coming in and at first you just open and read them and then you really read them as they are marked important and I cannot help wondering how do all Americans sleep early and then they are jolly all day around … So I am in the process of tracing back this sleep deficiency monster of mine and I have a feeling that it was always inside me but got really aggravated in my days of Night Shift at Satyam Hyderabad ….although night Shift used to be fun with the choice of riding your bike at 100 km/hr, eating Omelets and bread at tea stalls, Cup o’ noodles treats at Yashoda hospital (a special mention of my dear friends Koushik and Rajasekar with out him all this would never have been possible especially the Cup o’ noodle part …), chatting at office stairs blaming the company policies for screwing our life and the list is endless… at one point of time I had really come to believe that maybe man was built to be awake in night too we just did not know it … like a two in one jacket which you can wear inside out also …

Yesterday I had almost resolved to sleep when one of my room partners gave me the devious invitation of watching a critically acclaimed movie “Naked Prey” it was indeed different I mean for about 1.5 hours there was no dialogue in the movie as an American safari guide is chased by some agitated African tribe and all the time he is naked with the exception some piece of clothing for his privates not exactly my idea of a slick movie … but then it ate up my time up till 1 am and also the ice-cream company gave their generous share in keeping my sugar levels high and thus keeping me awake …

Every day in office I feel like putting mails that I have a doctor’s appointment that is urgent and hence have to leave immediately just after arriving in office 15 minutes ago !!!! as if I have some emergency surgery to perform along side the doctor but I am never able to devise a sound plan and sit in my desk all day fighting with my eyelids and the incoming work mails …

Would have written more but I am again too sleepy to let my fingers do the typing within the “Spelling and Grammar” endurance limit of Microsoft Word ……

Prerogative - Not mine !!

Prerogative -
1.
an exclusive right, privilege, etc., exercised by virtue of rank, office, or the like: the prerogatives of a senator.

2.
a right, privilege, etc., limited to a specific person or to persons of a particular category: It was the teacher's prerogative to stop the discussion.

3.
a power, immunity, or the like restricted to a sovereign government or its representative: The royal prerogative exempts the king from taxation.

4.
Obsolete. precedence.
–adjective
5.
having or exercising a prerogative.

6.
pertaining to, characteristic of, or existing by virtue of a prerogative.
[Origin: 1350–1400; ME < href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pre-">pre-, interrogative ]


I chose this word as my blog title as this is something I have not had for the better part for my life because ever since you start your interaction with the worked outside only very less things are your prerogative …

I am not a person with extraordinary vocabulary infact the first time I heard this word is a funny incident in itself ..

Flashback --- Year (2004 – Feb) – Birla Institute of Technology Mesra Ranchi India --- Pursuing Bachelor of Computer engineering --- Classroom scene --- Fundamentals of Data communication

For those who think the lines above are gibberish I agree to some extent too!!!! I was just trying to align my chain of thought so that I could reenact my past … It was a winter morning and I was in my classroom around 10 am and we had a regular lecture ….. The professor was my all time favorite Abhijit Mustafi, I am yet to meet such an enlightened individual who is still so humble he was almost our age maybe 2 or 3 years senior but he dawned the dress of a professor so well …

Anyways getting back to the topic it so happened that some guy in class was creating a commotion as usual to give a break in the class and to cut short the lecture (the usual scene in almost all colleges ….) it was then that I head this powerful word ..

Abhijit Mustafi said “I am trying to teach here and make a better future for you but if you wish to sit back relax and burn your parents money till it is gone then it is your prerogative not mine …” as usual his words made the classroom silent but this time something new registered in my otherwise sleepy mind somewhere on the 3 seat from last in the class … “Prerogative” what does that mean .. I asked the guy next to me I think it was Suchit Mathur and he said “Whaaaat??” as he was too sleepy to register what happened….anyways I went back and goggled the word and got the same set of data as pasted above and it was then that I felt that this word had something different about it as it sounded so posh and powerful … my big crush over this word was partly coz my professor had used it so aptly and I was sure that he must be having more sharp arrows in his arsenal too ..

It has been 4 years since then but this word still seems to be my favorite firstly it gets you out of really sticky situations in a flash consider this …. “I am trying my best to adjust here but if you want to make life tough for me resulting in the overall productivity of the team going low it is your prerogative isn’t it …” believe me people do take time to grasp what has been said and those few seconds are the saving grace that you desire …..

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