My Worldly Affairs in 2011

2011, January 1^st, “Happy New Year”, she wished me at midnight as I was welcoming year 2011, hoping this New Year will bring in some joy; sadly I couldn’t talk to her much due to network problems. “This idiot network is *BEEP* bad” I screamed, “I wish I could do something”. On  January 20^th, - Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh launched nation-wide MOBILE NUMBER PORTABILITY (MNP) that allows users to switch operators/service providers without losing or changing their phone numbers, thank you Mr. Economist.

With the end of January, our party mood was gone and my life became sober again. Giving some ray of hope to my boring life, ICC world cup began on February 18^th; Sehwag made his best score in ODI’s to give a memorable win over Bangladesh in the inaugural match. To carry on the energy this win brought, we guys planned a Goa trip in second week of March. On March 11^th, as we were enjoying the waves of Arabian Sea in Goa, a ferocious tsunami hit Japan’s eastern coast, nuclear reactors were also damaged in the quake triggering widespread panic across the globe. As the world was busy worrying about this, a new revolution was taking its roots in India, something that was spreading faster than any virus, led by an Old man.

On April 2^nd, MSD hit the ball over the top of the bowler, “ITS A MAXIMUM”, shouts Ravi Shastri, Hurray! India wins World Cup after 28 years. I was celebrating so was the whole nation, except one village, Ralegaon Siddi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. The villagers were waiting for the old man to speak, as he was sitting at village panchayat along with his team, a former IPS officer and an IITan presently a social activist. “This is not a time to celebrate; nation is in dire need of your support to save it from selfish politicians. We need to fight for the nation; it’s the time for SECOND STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE”. As he said that, all the men and women raised their hand in support and said in unison “Hum aap ke saath hai Anna (we are with you Anna).” It was just the beginning. Anna began his indefinite fast on 5^th April at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, to press for the demand to draft a strong LOKPAL bill. On 8^th April the Government of India accepted all demands of the movement so on 9^th April Anna ended his fast.

In last week of May, she rang me to share her woes of life, “There’s some problem with all men in this country, they are so chauvinistic, never allow a women to prove her talent, always try to put us under your thumbs”, now that’s called a predicament. I can’t argue with her now as she is very sad but if I don’t it means I agree that all men are chauvinistic, pity me. :-(  I was listening to her and watching TV(in mute) in parallel, I could see a lady in a saree waving her hand in air to her supporters and the scrolling below read,” Mamta Benerjee took over as the first woman Chief minister of West Bengal today after her party Trinamool Congress in alliance with Indian National Congress secured absolute majority and ended the 34 year rule of mighty Left Front.”

Albeit the nation struck in several problems from east to west, I was not bothered. We in S/W industry are habituated of worrying more about a recession in US but not about any political dramas in our own country, but sometimes you can’t escape some. On 13^th July, my buddy from Hyderabad rang me, “Dude, are u in Pune or Mumbai?” what an idiot he is, always forgets where I’m staying now, “I’m in Pune, why?” I asked
“Thank God! Didn’t see the news? Serial blast in Mumbai again..” he said.

Should I also be thankful to Him and forget about it or is it a time to contemplate on why things are always going wrong here. On 15^th August, PM Manmohan Singh addressed the nation on 65th Independence Day, and said “Terrorism is the biggest threat this country is facing“, if I had been given a chance I’d have asked him to mention clearly was it Internal or External he is talking about.

On 5^th October, my iPod suddenly stopped to play music for 2 minutes, whole world was mourning; I could see posters “I-DIED, I-CRIED” all over Pune, - Steve Jobs, iconic cofounder of Apple, passed away.

November just started, it was around 10PM when I reached home, “what’s wrong with u, why are staying for so long hours in office?” asked my mom. “It’s just some Prod issues, you won’t understand mom. I’m feeling hungry, let’s have dinner first”. She said “You’ll have dinner alone, I’m fasting today.” I asked “Can u explain why the hell people do fast?” she curtly replied “You won’t understand”. Yes, she’s right, I’ll never understand. On November 3^rd, Irom Sharmila completed 11 years of her indefinite fast (it’s not a joke), against Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Manipur. She’s the one whom, not just people like me but whole nation, even media never cared to know about, who cares, my life goes on..

Some more incidents were happening which were hitting front page in newspapers but not in my life. CBI Court charged Raja, Kanimozhi, 15 others with criminal breach of trust in 2G scam, trying to prove that politicians are not an exemption from court of law. In first week of November, Former telecom minister Sukhram was awarded five years imprisonment by a Delhi court after being convicted of taking Rs.3 lakhs as bribe and outside court he was slapped by a youth named Harvinder Singh. This news was of no concern to me that day but I didn’t know this young man will have his effect on my life.

On 24^th November, “Let’s Rock tonight” said my team mate; we had a party planned that night in a pub. Party was to start at 7PM and around 5PM we see news in internet, “A youth identified as Harvinder Singh attacked agriculture minister Sharad Pawar in New Delhi. Singh slapped Pawar.” That was not so hurting news but the next few lines were for sure, “After this incident, violence erupts in Pune as Pawar’s supporters go onto streets burning effigies and blocking traffic, police is in action to prevent any untoward incidents.” This news raised fears among us, “This guy could have slapped him tomorrow na, unnecessarily spoiling our party”, we all thought. Luckily the effect was not as dangerous as we expected, but party started with a delay of 90 mins.

When Anna was told about the slapping incident, he asked reporters, “Slapped just once?”

On December 6^th, it was a cool morning, I met her in office. “So how’s life going on?” she asked.
 ”It’s pretty cool, not much work as its Christmas and New year time for the client, so just having fun” I said.
“Great. So what are your plans for New Year this time?” she asked.
“As usual: partying with friends. Just hoping this New Year will bring in some joy“.
Many years passed by and many more will, the world is changing with every year, so is my nation and my life. What remained unchanged for years is my HOPE..

“Your story and the world’s history was written by the same hand”
                                      -The Alchemist(novel) by Paul Coelho

Note: This is a work of fiction.

Few reasons for being [Anti] Social Networking

Please don’t conclude by seeing the title that it is gonna be another boring lecture on anti-social networking by some orthodox. I know how much social networking has encroached into our lives today that we forgot to talk to people offline, in fact some people have completely forgot to live offline, so I can’t dare to go against it.



As a matter of fact I too have accounts in almost all social networking sites like ORKUT, FACEBOOK etc and I too use it for many reasons. So what’s this all about you may ask, here I’ve listed out something which mystified me about the social networking maniacs..

•  One day I’ve seen one of my old friend posting few birthday party photos celebrated pretty grand and the link was titled “My Dog’s Birthday“. I was happy to see people started loving animals so much but was it really worthy to celebrate a dog’s birthday with a 500 bucks cake. I wish she had used half of that money to help someone in need; they would bless her dog to live 100 years and the doggie would LIKE it
•  I never understood why people spend so much time “Growing Farms” and harvesting crops online. If they had used a little time to grow plants offline too, earth would have been a much greener and safer place to live.
•  I was talking to a friend at home, HAAATTCCHHHH… he sneezed, immediately he pulled out his blackberry to update in FaceBook/Twitter “I sneezed”. Do we really need to update even trifle matters of life in our profile for the whole world to know??
•  I find many friend request every time I open my account in FaceBook, or any other social networking site, and it’s no surprise that most of them I’ve never met in life n I don’t think I will. Most of them (not all I say) send a request just to boast a large Number of friends they have or to peep into others life, oh God why people are so much interested in others lives than their own.
•  While stuck in traffic I saw something strange written on a bike “Don’t follow me now, follow me here - twitter/hottest-guy-in-town.com“. What a creativity
•  When someone asks “Shall we play” I’ll ask Indoor or outdoor, now when I ask “Shall we play” people ask me “Online or offline??”

By social networking I met some of my old friends with whom I lost contact long back, I’m very thankful to social networking without which it’d have been nearly impossible to meet them again. On the contrary I hate it so much because I’m losing friends in real world as many are happy to be friends online but never have time for friends in real world.

P.S: This post is just to say what I gained n lost by some websites, no offence intended, no resemblance to anyone in real. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

Becoming a Puneri - II

Woke up around 6PM after a long sleep when Ravi returned from office(he stayed in same guest house last 15 days, now shifted to a flat in front, so he knows about all things happening there) and then we were discussing many things, what all happened in Chennai n Pune in last 15 days, we were sharing the information with each other(a KT u can say). He said Sandhya(4th of us 5) is in his project in DLF so they are together having fun there but Isha(last, but not the least, of 5 of us friends) is alone till now as she is posted in Hinjewadi Phase-1. Our lives were no different from each other’s in year 2010 as all of us were in a strange south Indian coastal city in the first half and like a typical Indian movie which has a twist just before interval, our lives too had this twist at the end of first half that we were to show the second half in west-central India. Ravi left around 9pm, I laid back after a good north Indian supper.

Meet my new friend Scento, first friend I got in Pune, my roommate in guest house.  A decent guy from Kerala(wow, one more state of India connected to my life), my favorite state, if given chance to find myself, to look for a bride. Born in the feet of India and brought up in the heart of India(Delhi) Scento was very good in Hindi so we were happy conversing in usual Hinglish, quiet a famous language in our generation. Woke up to a Saturday morning, my first sunrise in Pune, after a small conversation with Scento introducing each other(as he returned late last night after watching INCEPTION), went on to explore Pune along with Sathya and Ravi.

It was really a wild decision to go on exploring a city without knowing an each of it, not knowing the local language too. “When we can pull it through in Chennai without knowing Tamil, why can’t we manage in Pune when we have Hindi to our rescue at any crucial time”, I said to Ravi, didn’t knowing that I’d regret saying this at the end of the day. As Sathya wanted to visit any good fort, we enquired many strangers on the road with a single question, “where is Sivaji’s fort?” ,kudos to that great warrior who built so many forts, no two persons gave same answer. Perplexed as what to do, asked a guy looking completely Puneri as a final try, he said its near Sivajinagar. As name is also after the king, we believed in his words, “Take any bus from here towards station n get down at Sivajinagar stop, fort is walk able from there”, which gave us instant energy.

After some trouble we managed to board a busy bus at last. An old Puneri was sitting beside me, started conversing with me (he was bored it seems, unlike me observing strange local buses with a bell in the front n conductor would pull the string tied from the rear end to indicate the driver to stop) and when I said we are going to Sivajinagar to visit fort, like BigB in KBC,”GALAT JAWAB, AAP KAROD RUPAIH HAR GAYE”, he said it’s in Shaniwarwada near Corporation but not Sivajinagar. Following that old man’s advice we alighted at Corporation and walked along the way that old BigB asked us to go. Crossing the bridge with whole city’s drainage running under it, we found a fort entrance at last, with a warrior on horseback holding a knife victoriously in front of it. It was a fort less and a garden more with lot of fountains (destroyed badly) around. Walked all around the garden, going up and down the stone staircases, taking pictures of every other stone, spent nearly 2 hours in that compound. Bored, we wanted to visit something else but with our experience in the morning, thought it’s better to ask some of our friends who might know a bit of Pune. I remembered an old friend of mine was here in Pune so rang him up and after Hi, Hello, asked him where else I can go from Shaniwarwada. He told there is a famous Ganesh temple near here but forgot its name (great!!!). Believe me Pune might be the city with most number of temples of Lord Ganesha than any other city under the Sun. With a task to find that FAMOUS one out of those myriad Ganesh temples, we 3 came out of the fort like military on war.

Stopped an extremely decent looking man on the middle of the road, who appeared to have the whole world’s time with him, Ravi started,” Bhai saab, is there any Ganesh temple nearby?”

“Ha, aap agar seedha jao to ek hai, is chowk se dai mudh ke seedha jao to aur ek aayega, aap ko kaha jana hai?”, that was a carom ball, clean bowled.

“Which is FAMOUS of the two?” remembering the keyword told by my friend, I asked.

“Waise to Dagdusheth Ganpathi bahut famous hai, wo raha” he pointed his finger. It was glowing even from the distance, Shukriya to that Bhai saab, we went to that temple and were mesmerized seeing such a wonderful Ganesh idol. That was a wonderful temple built in a small area on a busy road-side.

Saying thanks to Shree Ganesh for bringing smiles on our faces at the end of the day, we returned to our respectively homes.  

Becoming A Puneri

Being a Hyderabadi and living as a Chennalite for 6 months, it’s the journey of a guy in becoming a Puneri now. Confused, read on then….

After completing my training in Academy Chennai, to my surprise I was posted in Pune, leaving my first two preferences Hyderabad(my home) and Chennai. As I’m always interested in going to places, consoled and convinced myself that it’s a good opportunity for me to visit all the scenic beauty around Pune. At that time I didn’t knew what was to come in future. Greatest solace was that I was not alone, as four more of my friends were also posted in Pune.

So finally we started our journey from proudly standing, century old Chennai central railway station at exactly noon in Mumbai express. Three out of us five were already in Pune, left pretty early as their projects were calling them, so only two of us were going now, my friend Sathya(please note, it’s a girl) n me. Crossing Tamilnadu, Andhra, Karnataka, we entered Maharashtra n after a long journey, reached Pune station next day, around 10am. Sathya’s not so close friend(her close friend’s bro’s friend’s cousin’s …. Close enough na) Prabhakar came to receive us. Coming out of the station I was in doubt am I really Pune in train or travelled in a time machine back to 1980’s. Autowallas were ready to grab us, one autowalla said something, I could make nothing out of it. Habituated of saying “Enna”(what) or “Tamil teriyade”(Don’t know Tamil),only golden words that I learned for survival in Chennai,whenever we hear any jargon, I was about to use the same that I heard Sathya saying “Enna sollre”(what is he saying)?, it was only then I realized that we entered the great Maratha n now it’s time to take on Marathi(huh!!).

Usually Tamilians r very poor in north Indian languages(even national language) so we both were stunned to see Prabhakar, a tamilian, talking chaste Marathi(atleast I felt so) with the autowalla. He was conversing with Sathya in tamil   n in Marathi  with autowalla, both are foreign languages for me so I was sitting dumb in the auto waiting for my destiny. Dropped Sathya at Aundh where she was given accomadation, Prabhakar also left to his place n then alone I was conversing in Hindi(happy I know that at least) with autowalla, reached Pimple Saudagar in a few min after Ravi(remember this guy, he has lot more to do) helped us with address saying its near Jagtap Dairy. Names of areas are not so tough in Pune to remember, but when you change cities every 6 months it’s very difficult to remember areas names. It took me nearly a month to pronounce properly the word “Sholinganallur” an area in Chennai, now working on areas of Pune similarly.

On reaching Pimple Saudagar, I felt like I came to US or Uk, now I’m not talking about the roads or infrastructure there(boys should have guessed by now what I’m talking about). Paid the autowalla the amount he asked without bargaining, as being bluffed by autowalla is a daily routine for a Chennailite. Feeling the fatigue of journey, lied down on bed, throwing the baggage in a corner of my room in guest house-Sunshine vila. Remembering the dumbness in auto I decided, albeit missing the chance to learn Tamil in Chennai, I must not miss the chance now to learn Marathi. I remember I had a Maharashtrian friend in school, I learned a sentence too in Marathi from him, that is “Mala Marathi nai yethe…”

 to be continued..