You've been Tweeped!

I know being in a B School and following the social trends, twitter is considered the next big thing in new age marketing and communication. If i’m giving case recommendations i’ll surely write a line about new age social media marketing etc.

Personally though Twitter for me hasn’t been a pleasant ground. First up, the philosophy is not so sound. I know it gives you a sense of self importance to announce to all the people ‘following’ you what u are doing. Assuming they take it without questioning your statements. But seriously why was a Mr.Jack Bruntz following me till i blocked him? What prolific bit of information would i share that would mean salvation to his dark soul. Someone sharing my sentiments :D

RT @anupamachopra : Is Twitter, to quote VF mag,"extreme narcissism or nifty real-time reporting"

Barring philosophical constraints, it is kinda cruel to newbies I feel. I learnt it the hard way. I mean, if I were to compile all my tweets and responses here, it would make for the next book of Sidin! Who btw has marketed his book Dork all the way on twitter :D (ordered it on flipkart and got an autographed one)

Back to point, no one gives out the rules and terms anywhere on the site. So when I wished Priyanka Chopra to have a safe journey on her trip to Mauritius, was kind of clueless that every one (in Pareto style, the 20% who make fun of you 80% of the time) would be made aware of it! So after the initial excitement of msging a celebrity, heart throb at that, ended up feeling that the average intelligence of my room increases when i’m not there(including desks, chairs and the dumped clothes on the chair!).

Now when, Mr.Shashi Tharoor and co haven’t learnt much except that of the taste of feet from twitter, I wonder what is in it for you if you are to be extremely guarded in expressing yourself? I know no one cares, what i’m tweeting, but when u are expected to say something gr8, something witty etc, its simple PR activity. Things you learn from twitter, especially from the IPeople (Apple ishtyle), are kind of worth as interesting as Rakhi’s swayamvar part 2! (By God, Rakhi!!)
I know i’m going to shamelessly tweet this new blog and set it as a SM. At the end of the day, its all about a sense of perceived self importance that decides to ignore one’s call for attention. I’m sure Rakhi agrees with me. Its people like her and SJ Surya who give the rest of us normal people some amount of optimism in life – if these people can be celebrities, nothing is impossible! :P So much for political correctness!

With work load trying to deep six us all early and power cuts at night to make things interesting, blogging is one way to use up your battery backup. Tweeting is another!

PS: Happy Birthday to Ms.Pandit! The warm person to the feverish (God bless) and the cool person to the tweet world :)

Differentiating Discontinuity

The one advantage of a long break from blogging is that you can get away with a title that is irrelevant to the content of the blog :D

A lot happened since my last blog. Chronologically skipping the painful parts is a good enough structure to ramble with some amount of coherence.

When, a day before the last exam, you come to know that there is going to be a state level strike the day u are supposed to leave for home after 6 months what do you do? Well rationally most ppl start discussing arrangements, but as a batch we decided we should party one day earlier! Invigilator walked into the exam hall to find “Give me some sunshine” being played on the system and ppl singing and dancing along – all this before the exam! :D (Now take that CBSE, who cancelled class X exams due to pressure on students!)Of all ironies the bandh got cancelled and we left on the day initially planned cos the vehicles we arranged for the previous day got cancelled too! :O

After a nightout followed by an eventful journey – home! By God, it felt like i was never away at all. You know how you promise to all the ppl that you will meet when you come home? Of the 16 out of 20 days i spent in Chennai, I kept around 30% of the promises (10% of them official)! In contrast my Bangalore trip was unbelievably productive! Much like Blitzkreig, I planned to meet 18 ppl in 2 days and met 26 ppl and came back. Ops ppl might say it was scheduled below capacity, but i say to them – as Elsevier says the hallmark of quality is to exceed high expectations! :P (showing off I’m majoring in operations by googling the quote) Mom’s cooking, pampering and pampered by my dog, catching up movies and series my bro had downloaded and bugging dad with some stray eco concept – life seemed so awesome!

One high point of my mostly placid holidays was my visit to my old office. You know how you expect things to have changed totally and u find, much like the mega serials, nothing much actually has happened over the 6 months. Reactions varying from “Don’t tell me you’re back!!” to “Good to have you back”, oblivious to the fact that I had a visitor tag were ignorable given the high point was my old team’s warm welcome. One Kodak moment – spoiled only by Joe hitting me on the head for calling her old :P But in this changing world, it was a pleasant thought to know some ppl do not change (although it is just 6 months- touchwood).

Back to college, reality’s beckoning, its the same drill. 1/3rd manager, you get used to the pressure and staring at stuff you have no clue what it is all about and then finally coming up with a few generic statements as solutions. Levels of reasoning are becoming more and more inventive.( Why take this cost? Cos nothing in this world is free!!)

Oh ya, went on the David Scott trail! 30 people on 16kms of trek through scenic locales, mountains, streams and PGP09 rocked as usual. All trekking enthusiasts should try this once. Not for the difficulty (Gokharna was by far more tough), but you get all kind of trails. The ‘pristine village’ on the top of the hills floored us when we realised these ppl communicate in flawless English! Someone from the batch asked whats so great about walking in the sun, panting like a dog, when u know you could as well have taken a car or for that matter slept late. I guess we do it for the sense of achievement, the 5 seconds you get when u see the speeding ambassador with the drive spitting out of the window after 3.5 hours of trek!

Oh and out of sync i forgot to do my new year ritual of doing a performance appraisal of the last year. 2009 wasn’t so bad given the influx of new people, new place and a visit home. I guess I have to do it in detail with the designated person :) Hopefully 2010 is a good year for all.

Now that I have filled in about my period of absence, I can move on knowing the past is safely chronicled. Someone told me in a not so polite manner sometime back why I can’t stop making statements with multiple meanings. Since it was followed by certain anatomical references, I chose to ignore. Maybe they had a point :D

Titleless

Amidst all the so called “stress” different people behave differently. Some take up the challenge and perform exceedingly well, some decide to sit and crib about it, some give up and a few like me decide to ignore it. Hence when the morning of a term paper presentation when groups went around swearing at the group members for not formatting or collating, I was looking thru my old photographs. (My Group had completed it thanks to one guy’s awesomeness)

I can’t help but recall and relive small moments that made me human. This is like the last episode of scrubs where things run thru your mind painting a picture of all the happy and sad moments that now seems so desirable. I had read in a couple of autobiographies or B-school books that all the protagonists go thru this phase. To quote from a movie “In your life you can either be the hero or the side character. If in your life u can’t be the hero, where else can you be?”

School, home, idealness and exploratory conversations – all seem too far away from here. Now you attribute them to be kiddish, but somehow they seem so ‘safe’. I’d love the unaccountability, the sameness of the ppl around, the mock fights, the unsaid crushes and doting teachers. I’d want those moments where i stay up at night to chat with friends, roam around on the roads on cycle and fear dad’s scolding for the same. I’d want ppl, who are no longer alive, to worry about me feeling bad before telling me to study.

I had probably the most rosy college life. I know everyone feels the same way, but mine was like pages out of those Disney books, lively and colourful and so far away from reality. But it was blissful, even amidst the “Garrrryyyyyyyy” and other expletives that i seriously miss at times (maybe not the expletives). Wonderful people, nurtured bonds, petty fights, flirt sessions, long walks, serious counselling, night out sessions, philosophical bakars, leg pulling sessions.. What life!

Somehow the corporate life was ‘lovelier’ probably cos of my frame of mind. I was blessed with a team that eventually had 3 important ppl in my life. An apartment i could call home, roomies who made it seem so, friends who always understood the touch of professionalism.. Gave me a bit of grown up feeling that seemed so different from college but at the same time more confident. Bringing smile on your parent’s face with all seemingly grown up decisions and activities, I loved the independence.

Now, well, things aren’t bad at all.. In fact it is one of the most challenging times I’ve faced and hence naturally the crest and trough of emotions. An awesome gang, a good understanding with each and a great bit of peer learning. Whole lot of bakar. Moments – the good, the bad and the ugly accumulate and all it takes is the expectation of something to give to unsettle you. Rattled nerves and deluge of situations. Mistakes from past revisited, repeated and repented.

Can’t wait to get home. As they say, away from the maddening crowd.

Out Cold and Not so Loving It!

After exhausting all the bad puns like getting cold feet, receiving cold shoulders and giving me the shivers, i decided to explain my first real winter in Shillong. For a normal guy from Chennai whose only definition of winter is to keep the fan at speed 4 instead of 5 - 2 room heaters, gloves, socks, cap etc is an overkill of some magnitude. Its 2-3 degrees in the night and 10-11 in the day. I can imagine all the log in US smirking “dude, you call that winter?” but let me assure you, people who have seen 0 of Delhi say this is worse.

What about the winter, I have a problem with, i wonder. I guess the answer is a long list. The fact that we have to wake up before 9 for class, fact that it gets dark at 4pm, fact that u just can’t stay awake, fact that u can’t walk around the campus without being covered in truckloads of clothing and swearing under your breath, trying not to shiver in front of specimens of the opposite sex – its seriously not so fun. To compound that, a problem probably that shouldn’t be mentioned here, but having to contemplate “doing your duty” in the evening time for the fear of ice cold water....

As very philosophically I observe, every cloud has a silver lining; its the gold digger who is disappointed by that. Amidst all this while I’m all cuddled up under the rajai with the laptop actually on my lap top, can’t help but think of the positives. Like the frequency of baths – just once a day is sufficient! (this is for all my classmates). An excuse to laze around without a reason. And how can i forget the oh so beautiful winter foliage of trees that are completely pink!! This place is beautiful.



You know, its not helping..I surrender. I just went out to get a book and i was squirming like a 3rd std kid who had a full bladder. Till two weeks ago, while the ppl from rest of India were wearing jerkins and sweaters, we south Indians were the studs walking around in T-shirts. Now u should see us :D Give me hot, burn the place down, call it hell, I would be just fine. But cold and to that assignment deadlines, talk of limits.

I now dread to think I’ll have to prepare for 9 exams on a trot in 2 week’s time in this cold after which, Oh wait! I’d be flying home! Yo Chennai! I miss you :( More so after I read the 2 states. Nice book. Loved it and was able to relate to most parts :D Guess we are like that only! Wonder how tough it would be to convince my parents for a punjabi girl.. :P

PS: Just wondering.. noone in mind :).

Talk about fairness

Every time I faced a situation that warranted saying “This is not fair”, i would get back a prompt reply from any corner that says “Who said life is fair?” It never used to answer the question but it seemed an extremely calming reply. Like blaming politicians, Government, population, terrorism and now recently recession for anything and everything that goes wrong at the micro level. Somehow it is built into the system to take it in our stride i guess.

But at times, situations arise that will push to the limit like a Roadies task with Raghu in it. In all this corporate mist, there is an often over hyped but undervalued concept called honesty, sincerity etc that everyone stresses but no one bothers about. I mean i can imagine a prisoner’s dilemma problem with 2 really honest thieves that will always arrive at the dominant solution all the time. But in reality there ain’t much impetus for such ‘vices’ is there? I mean this is not the honesty that does the entire assignment days in advance and presenting the facts. No one ever does that!

2 years in my ‘corporate life’ (my ex-colleagues would jump up at this), i made friends. Professionalism to me atleast dealt more with being a straight shooter, probably choosing your words, but getting the point across. That is probably the reason I can still call them up one odd weekend and discuss their new car or marriage plans. But situations change, where shitload is all that is ever dumped on u for things u do and things u don’t do and to top it all u get penalized for your stupidity in believing in such stuff as fairness.

While i sound like the beaver (??) in Ice age who has lost his acorn again, it registers on me that it is all an srk movie dialogue of two paths etc etc. Somehow, at the moment though, i don’t see much logic in all the shit that needs to be taken over such outdated concepts. Perhaps it is high time to put a for sale sign over soul?

Talking of fairness, i got reminded of one of the gems. At some point of time 6 months back, 3 of us guys were discussing girls.
P1: “Which one is .......? Is she the fair one?”
P2: “I don’t know! I have never seen her arbitrate anything before”
P1: ?????
Me: ROFL

To that my favourite quote of Jack sparrow.
“You can trust a dishonest person to be dishonest. It is the honest ones who u have to worry about because u can never say when they would do something stupid”

A declaration that none of what is mentioned refers to some level as to the magnitude of Ramalinga Raju who thought the internet was the confession chamber. Nor am i planning to go around scheming (i generally do) devious plans to have my revenge. Guess this is just regretting the opportunity cost of a stupid decision. :)