One month @ Kurkumb.. all posts uploaded in one bunch...

FIRST WEEK @ KURKUMB

there s this guy at work and over the few days we are stuck together at the Kurkumb factory, something about him seemed familiar.. and that vague familiar feeling had a sense of unpleasentness attached with it, it was like i knew this guy long back and i dint like him then..
i couldnt place him however much i thought but suddenly this monday morning when i was sitting in a bus from Pune to the Kurkumb plant (he was somewhere in the back of the same bus)..it came back to me, he reminded me of the SriLankan from Rivoli -- Yusuf..
This dude has the same voice, he articulates or rather misarticulates the same way - the 'a's are short and o's and e's are extra long.. , the same look of 'i have seen this before' attitude..' he spits all over the place.. and he keeps sayng 'i mean'.. he says "i mean" for his i mean's

and now..i think he even looks a little like yusuf.. amazing. maybe they were separated long back.. long lost brothers and imagine me being the key that re-unites them both!

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there are so many things my subcoscidfence knows and yet i dont..for instance
at 7 in the morning most days my mind wakes me up..and yet as long as i am awake i need to keep checking my watch
or
when i start on a trip or some work.. i feel this drift of how it is going to turn out, but i wait for it to get over and mostly the outcome is as i thought

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END OF WEEK 1

lethargy is such a pain in the arse.. it is like a creeper that grows on trees and gnaws on the very branches tht give it support..
it is such a mental torture to sit and have nothing to do.. where decorum and rules disallow comfort or creativity.. the wait for time to pass.. for the mind to find something to keep it occupied..
yeah as far as tortures go this must be in kintergarden category, but it s a torture still
i endure this torture at Kurkumb.. and i feel i keep getting into situations like this.. rivoli was like this.. home is like this.. college at times.. and now this!


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MIDLIFE AT KURKUMB


i was reading this speech by JK Rowling at a Harward university convocation ceremony..
one of her para's i found very interesting.. she was talking about her parents wanting her to join a vocational course for her graduation when she wanted to enrol for a course in classical literature.
here goes

"I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools."

bang on the point .. dont you think? for one, poverty is like a sticky gum, and it tends to hold you down, and it's tentacles attempts to hold on to any of its members who tries to get out of its hold.
servitude and poverty i feel go hand in hand. the White tiger (Arvind Adiga) tells a story of how servitude and an inbred attitude of not questioning existing hegemonies makes us so much poorer. poorer not just in a fiduciary sense but poorer in experiences, happines and our creative output.
and in most cases, our parents have been poor in some sense, and they are unquestioning servants of the societial systems that were in place years back. in that sense many of us are held back by shackles that have crumbled ages ago and are just manifestation of the fears of our past generations.

another very interesting line from her speech..
"but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default."

yet.. i wonder why it is so difficult to try something that could involve failure..so atleast try something where i perceive failure..

still the best line from that article was one she pulled from a greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

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SECOND WEEK

lame.. things get so lame, its better to quit. and at times conversation between two people get so lame it becomes a spiral..lame conversations leading to still more lame ones. and when we try to keep up the talk, and when both realize that they try in vain to undo the boredom, it becomes downright painful. still worse when one of them just fails to realize how lame it is.. and happines is when both dont realize it :)

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MOUNTING FRUSTRATION.. END OF WEEK 2

i vote the indian closet as the worse invention by an Indian - it is such an indignified way to shit! if some stupid Indin hadnt thought of replacing the hole in the mud with a ceramic hole in a cement floor all buildings would have had the normal plain vanilla closet!
imagine...what a turn off it is to have this. if i saw an amazing apartment and if it had an indian closet it would cease to be amazing any more.. it would be like an amazing looking gurl with a an ultra sweaky voice.
and it s even more disgusting to see some1 sitting on the indian...eeew!.. not that i want to see anyone doing the potty, but lets say by mistake i walk into a girlfriend sitting on the normal closet, it is ok right? but if the same was an indian closet i would say that would be the end of the relationship man!..i wouldnt survive a relationship with that image in mind!

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A PHILOSOPHICAL FINAL WEEK


there are never huge life changing moments, atleast they never appear that way when they occur.. insted life is made up of number of small moments. and it is only with hindsight and reflection that we identify even those moments.
i think i keep waiting for this thunderbolt to hit me before i move my ass..or i wait till i am cornered and have but one choice.even worse.. i know it aint true but i still believe that thunderbolt will hit anytime..could be just round the corner.. and i believe i will do great stuff when it does..! what a load of shit!

It appears the company has planned my next three months.. a month in the Kurkhumb Plant and then another in the Pune office followed by time in Noida and Gaziabad
three months down i might know where i will be for most of the next year or two.
there is another plant in Orissa even that would have been an interesting palce to go..
right now i have three days off and i guess am just goin to c delhi

somebody invent really fast trains....and a lot lot of them

i really like traveling, but to an equal measure i hate planning and booking the tickets, stay, people etc. it sucks, looking at irctc web site which works like an overcrowded old bus,just about working.
and this site gives you the very feeling of living in an overcrowded packed to the rim country.. like there are a hundred trains going all over the place but there ain't a single ticket you can get anywhere. and like everything Indian there's a que and a fight and a rush at godforsaken hours for that tatkal ticket that does not happen. okay so hell yeah the flights are cheap these days (well not really) but then i don't like flights. i want to do the train, i love the train. dirty stinking and late as they are - they have scenery! they have chai and cheap food. i can lie down and read a book! hm i don't have to check in my luggage and hope that bored looking dude remembers to throw it into the same flight - throw yeah luggage becomes throw-things - and my packed to the brim (yeah we Indians like to fill that bag sit on it zip it up till it bulges and leaks) suitcase looks back sentimentally at me as it's shoved down the conveyor by unfriendly luggage of my co passengers.
then the wait at the airport again for the bag to roll back and u know my bag is always the last to arrive on that belt, like t he belt goes around and around and when it's just me and few old men around there it comes slow and peeking around the corner.
then of course in between there is the flight itself which i guess is the least painful, except the bored yet i should serve you with a smile and yeah i know i look good and you can stare if u want look on the air hostesses face as they stand and invite us in (but yeah i am with them..that job of standing and inviting people 5 times a day and doing that same acrobatics of pulling life jackets with a hundred eyes looking at ya ain't fun am sure)

as i look back

looking back at the last few years i realize i am happy. just 6 years back i was disillusnd with life. and maybe hoped to someday get somewhere like where i am now. and perhaps never really believed that i could. confused n lost, i feared a boring, insipid life.
yestday night i realized this. n i thought i better be happy. and that i remember this. hence the blog.

memories @ scmhrd

the memorable moments in these 2 years.. in no particular order..

> when subbu suddenly came up with my name as the person who outperformed during summers. It was a complete shocker.. he said. ."and georgey (in my mind it went like.. uh oh the company has complained abt me!!) has done such a job in madura (i am like... shit no please not in public at least) that he has re-defined retail for madura.. the boss called and he and was very happy with georgey..
i could not decide whether to smile laugh or run from there

> trip to Tapmi manipal. that entire season was beautiful. the best semester in campus. second sem.

> the day someone wanted to leave the campus and go away. it took a heartful n lot of convincing to stop her. i realized somethings about me on that day as well.

> new years night of 2007-08. the rick and the wait for the 2AM bus back to campus. that toxic concoction of emotions.

> Food poisoning in Goa and the following events i would rather forget but yet. first time buddies have taken care of a vomiting fainting me

> Summers in Bangalore, many unforgettable experiences. and one unforgettable person. the trip to nandi hills. the library. and every moment in that beautiful campus.

> Watching the luxury marketing event happen after working non-stop for a month. the feeling was truly worth the effort i put in

> Getting placed.16th Dec, 2008. in the afternoon. I wanted it more than anything else in the world right at that moment. my second GD and second interview. those were moments surreal.

> smoking up in goa (second trip) and subsequently here in the room. the goa falling flat on my face after 4-5 rounds in a carrot chillum on the beach.

> the day i heard of getting into scmhrd. got a message on the train on my way to Manipal. I half knew i wud get scmhrd from the subbu episode at the interview in chenai. Shivram apte took the interview and i had a truly nice one. after that i was waiting outside with clinton filling some form and this ugly lookin big guy talks to me about Montblanc. and then he says "you do a winter project on the market entry strategy of Montblanc in India when u come to scmhrd. @@!"
yaay!

> first day on campus. everybody had a rose.

> passing out. the wait for the job to start. almost there. in three days.

some shit

two years at the bschool have run out, the various stories here have run their course. All that remains are memories, a house of memories that slowly but surely will become empty, then crumble brick by brick till all that will remain are a few stones

i have surely changed in these two years, changed enough to call it worthwhile.
i have seen a few things and understood some things very important
and not many of them have to do with that they taught us here

for instance
> i have learnt that luck plays such a strong hand in any situation. luck or chance, most of what happens is random chance.
> i've seen that timing is so dam important, be it timing your jokes, or telling a story. be it cracking that interview, selling your idea. if you have the intelligence and intuition to time your actions, then you are destined to succeed
> i've seen that people can be perverse to unbelievable extents. i know of a person whose family arranged potential suitor asked for phone sex in a week. money, sex, love, attention - people will do anything for these things.
> i've seen that wanting something bad enough is the only way to have it. half measures rarely work. being slack for a minute means you are lost.
> Having fun and enjoyin what you do is the only way to do it well. involving others in your life, work, secrets, weakneses, ideas, hopes, passion n crushes is a secret to happiness.
> ethics, morals and principles work only til the first time you break them. after tat they are just words. cheat once and the second time it aint cheating any more.
> think through every conversation, plan every presentation, for leaving these things to chance is a recipe for failure.
> only a few things bring happiness: love, sharing, friendship. this is a corny line, cliched, yet for the first time i understand how true it is
> ego is painful. really. every time. and each time i have decided to chuck it, i have been grateful. and happy.