January 2012 – Page 2

Open Letter to 2012

Dear 2012,

Welcome! You are finally here. You took some time but you did arrive.

For some time, I actually thought you would not come at all. No, I am serious. You took forever. I mean dude you are only supposed to take as much time as it takes for a second to go around a year. Not this long. And when you are waiting for something to happen, time goes around slower. Anyways I dont know about others but I have been waiting for you very very desperately.

You know the reasons. You know everything. 2011 was supposed to be the year when I was to get rich and famous. Remember that pandit that made that prediction when I was born? And the funny name that he bestowed upon me? Thankfully better sense in my mom and dad prevailed and they named me Saurabh. Coming back, 2011 was a big dampner and things dint happen the way they were supposed to. And now, my dear friend, I am pinning my hopes on you.

You may argue that there are rumors that you would be the last year that us humans would see. I dont know how true they are but whatever may be the case, you need to be good to me. If you are the last year, I would die knowing that finally the lady luck shined on me and if you arent, at least things would continue in the future. Either ways I win. And I need to win big. You know the goals that I have set for myself. I know they are steep but there is no reason that I cant achieve them. I have already set the ball in motion. You just need to give me some momentum.

I think thats about it. And I hope you are good to me and everyone else. Thank you once again.

Regards,
SG

Some questions from Auto Expo 2012

Yet again, I am staring at a blank screen and have no clue what to write about. I am sitting in a green room behind one of the largest stalls at the largest automobiles exhibition in India. I have an entire circus running downstairs. There are more than 100 people that are managing the crowd, not including the security and cleaning staff. And there must be more than 20, 000 people in the hall. Easily. And I am not exaggerating.

So there are a few questions that I have and I have no answers. May be you have some?

Who are all those people who stand in queue for more than an hour to enter a hall that is merely showcasing cars, that anyways you see on the roads, newspapers, Internet all the time.
Who are all those people who use their elbows, knees and other joints at their whims and try and make space for I dont know whom.
Who are the brand managers who agree to spend probably crores on these exhibitions where all you display is skin and glamour? And this, when on the backend, automobile industry is as bland and as mundane as a plain white sheet.
Do these exhibitions actually help the brand? May be it does with all the media coverage? Does any brand manager actually track returns on their spends on these exhibitions?
Why is that everyone cooks up something that no one could even imagine existed, and that too at the drop of the hat, and all this when they have had ages to plan for it?
And finally, why this, why this Kolaveri Di?

Any answers anyone?

Jan 04, 2012. Bored.

I have been staring at this empty blogger panel for last ten minutes. I have been trying to write a piece of fiction. I am thinking of plots. I thought about a serial killer plot who stalks his victims before he kills them. Then I thought about a school teacher who works as an extra in the cheesy movies to escape his monotonous life of teaching maths to third graders. Then I thought about a farmer who wants to go live in the comforts of a city. I also thought about reinterpretation of the classic that I love the most – the Mahabharata.

Of course there is no end to the number of plot ideas you can cook. The challenge is to be able to bring these stories to their conclusion. In the past, I have realized that I simply dont have what it takes to be able to create a huge body of work. I simply lose interest after a while. More than that, I am easily distracted. And hence its easy for the next shiny object to get my attention away and stop me in my tracks.

But there are times when I am completely in the zone and I can work for hours. But then moment I take a break, I lose it. So I need to be able to figure out a way to concentrate on things. I have tried things in the past. from Vipassana to music to sitting in an empty room to breaking the task into tiny sub tasks to even bribing myself. Like they say, its easy to control everything but the mind. I wonder what Devdutt has to say about it. Actually a good idea. I will try and mail Devdutt and ask him this question. Ans as I was working on this post, playing poker, listening to music and replying to a message, I did manage to send an email to Devdutt asking him about this. Hope he replies.

In an ideal world, I would have ended the post right here but then when I started writing it, I did not know what all would I write. And to do justice, I cant really end it like I end all my other posts. The end has to be as unpredictable as the beginning and the rest of the post. I think I am just bored. And come to think of it, there has to be an outlet for all the people who are bored of their wits. I did try something. Remember n00b.in anyone? Wondering if there is any merit in reviving it? I dont think so to be honest because I am anyways flooded with work. Really? Why, then my friend, aren’t you writing this and investing your precious time on working and writing something that is adding absolutely no value to you.

Bas ab khatam.

Bawra Man Dekhne Chala Ek Sapna

I love iTunes. And not just because its a brilliant music player but because it has this feature called Shuffle. All the shuffle features are brilliant in the sense that they allow for serendipity, the happy accidents. I came to office, booted my PC and then put on iTunes. I clicked on shuffle and it played Bawra Man by Swanand Kirkire.

O M G !

I havent heard that song in a long long time. Months I think. And this is when I love it. Probably more than any other song. Even more than all the Lucky Ali and Mohit Chauhan ones. I love it for the lyrics, the way Swanand has sang it, the way he has written it. Its the complete package if you ask me.

Everytime I hear this song, I get lost in my world where I let my imagination take over. I can conjure images of two people madly in love. The guy is full of ambition and wants to do well in life. Like me, he is dreamy, eternal optimist, knows no rules and has no respect for the status quo. And the woman, is rock solid and is the foundation on which the guy would create his empire. The woman would act at the support, the guide, the latch that keeps the guy grounded. The two are different as chalk and cheese and are yet inseparable. They complement each other beautifully. So much so that its hard to even think of them as individuals. And I can think of so many shots! Like they sharing a Kulfi at a busy market. Or they travelling in car full of family and friends and yet talking to each other, with their eyes and looks. Or a shot in bed where they embrace each other and sleep curled up like babies. And a shot the next morning when they are in the kitchen together, getting ready to take on the world. There are so so many things that I can think of. If I ever become a film director or something, I would shoot this one before anything else. I think I can do at least this much for the great song.

Anyways, coming back to the real world, the best line I think is “Bawre sey ek jahan main bawara ek saath ho // Is sayani bheed main bas haathon main tera haath ho”. Has the entire life’s philosophy in a mere two lines. Thats all that we crave for no? Someone who we can share our lives with?

Epitaph of a hero

I did it!

I have been waiting for it for over a year now. It was always so close and yet so far. Like that trek that you go for, when the summit is always just a stone’s throw away and yet you need to walk a thousand miles to be able to even touch it. You can feel it in the air, you can see it, you know you can conquer it and yet it takes you so long. Two years, in my case. Two long years.

I think more than me, everyone around me was waiting for it. Everyone I met, everywhere I went, everything I read, was invariably about it. “When are you doing it?”, “Please do it soon.”, “We cant wait.”, I started getting tired of all the comments. I know that all of them were my friends and they really want me to do it. But after a point, the words became harsh and got into a very narrow zone. It sort of became the final frontier. Its like that last thing that a man can do. It started to feel that I’d die after this. Its like my epitaph is being written and everyone’s waiting for me to etch my final words on it.

What people dint realize was that I am a mere mortal and I too have dreams. And insecurities. I too want to scale the peak. And I do get scared every time I get an opportunity. And of course more than my personal achievements, I need to fend for a larger cause. I represent a collective. I can never let my focus wander and chase personal glories. If only words could describe the pressure you are under when you have more than a billion people expecting you to entertain them and live their lives.

I think that is what it boils down to. Live their lives. More than myself, I am living lives of millions others. Everyone has the potential to do great things but they dont really get as many opportunities as I have got. I got lucky I guess. What do they call it? Ovarian Lottery I think. And when I do well, they probably see themselves doing well. They celebrate my success, as if they have played a significant part. Of course they do. A performer can never survive without patrons! And they are sad everytime I perform poorly. As if they are responsible for my failure. And no, its me, am individual that fails to perform my duty, my karma, everytime I fail. For others, if I dont do well, they can move on. I on the other hand, am left alone. To reflect on things. Trust me, someone rightly said, its really lonely at the top.

But now that I have done it, I think I can take a sigh of relief. All my life I have been measured by everyone along a long highway dotted with milestones. It took me a while but I have crossed all the milestones. And now there are no more milestones to chase, the onus is on me to set the new ones for people who would walk on this road in times to come. This is what every artist wants to be! A benchmark. A milestone on the sands of time.

And you know the best part? I can now go out and play like a kid. The way I used to, when I first walked out on a cricket pitch and had the entire ground at the mercy of my strokes.

Say hello to Categories!

Starting today, when I write blogposts, I would try to club them into categories. Like typical categories that any wordpress blog has.

I have been using labels for a long time but I think categories is also a must. It helps identify posts with the same context. One may argue that labels are supposed to do the same thing, put all posts with a context in the same place. But, the simple answer is that (at least) I use labels frivolously and I create labels ~~for fucks sake~~ at the drop of the hat. With categories, I plan to be more organized and serious. Like this post for example. The labels could be personal, blogging, wordpress, blogger, thoughts etc. But if I was to put category to this one, I would say Blogging. I would use the plain old hashtag. So some categories that I have been able to think are #poker, #horrorStoriesFromWork, #attemptsAtFiction.

And no, I am not putting any categories on this post. May be I can put this post under #notifications? May be not!

First post of 2012

I have been trying to write this for quite some weeks now. I started with thinking I would write about the year gone by and review all the posts. I started and could not finish it. Then I said I would talk about my most favorite post of the year. Again, I starting writing, and could not finish it. There were reasons and there were thoughts, too long to be constrained to a small blogpost. Then I said I would talk about why 2011 sucked so much and how I had been waiting for it for more than five years. But I couldn’t finish it.

But then I had to write something. After all I am an aspiring ~~writer~~ storyteller and I have to be able to ~~write well~~ tell compelling stories. Even if the stories are boring and mundane, I should be able to make them interesting by the way I tell them. And to be able to tell good stories, I realize that I need to write often. More I write, better I get (apparently) and hence this blog. And this post. Like Yogi says, “You can’t think and hit the ball at the same time”. I ought to hit, hit and hit.

Anyways, after the longish introduction, coming onto the first post of 2012, let me do something that is as cliches as white safari suit and white shoes. I shall talk about my resolutions for the year. Without further ado, here is a quick list.

Lose weight. This has to be the most common resolution. If I owned a gym, I would promptly drop the prices of memberships, get as many members to pay for it and then retire to Goa. And if all the people who have promised that they would lose weight, the sea level would actually drop!
Eat right. At least once a day. I plan to stop having dinner. Vipassana taught me how to live on two means a day (just a simple breakfast and lunch) and I was fine with it. I plan to do that. I will try and achieve it by end of January. I am not sure if I can but I will try hard.
Continue to not drink Coke. I stopped drinking coke in 2011. So far I have resisted the temptation to restart it but I will try to not have it as long as I could. I dont know if it does any harm to my health but I know any sort of addiction is uncalled for. And I know that once I start having coke, I would get hooked on. So why take a chance!
Get Leh’d. I have been dreaming about the trip for a long long time. I have made plans and failed. This year hopefully I would go to Leh. With sgElectra.
Play poker more seriously. I have been toying with it, off and on, for last two or so years. I have now reached a stage where I think I am an average player and I have a keen interest in the game. And with almost two years of non-serious play, I have developed a fair amount of understanding and gut for it. Its about time I capitalize on it. I plan to play more and hopefully goto more live games. But then this is something I am not too sure about. I dont have the money to invest that the game calls for.
Start making a lot of money. I have had the pleasure of chasing my dreams and working for companies that you don’t often associate management graduates with. Its been fun ride but as a result I have been left poor. Now that I am almost at my half life, I need to fend for myself. And I need to start making money. Btw, any recruitment placement hr consultants reading this (three keywords in one line ought to attract some bots)? I am a MDI graduate with almost 5 years of solid brand management and advertising experience. I just need a lot of money and I will sell my soul if I have to. You know where to reach me.
Ensure that all the resolutions listed above. 🙂

And ofcourse this is no way a complete list. I would keep adding things to it. 2012 could be the last year for us humans and I better make the best use of it. I need to live it up. And, if, by any chance, this is not the last year, I am sure having done these things would do no harm. It would only help. Right?