A day in the life of LIFE

Even as I began pondering on what I should be doing in life other than travel 75 kilometers a day for my “rosy roti”, my brain came up with a brilliant suggestion that I needed to pick up a foreign language in order to survive the anticipatory pink slip scenario.

While a couple of calls to the alliance francaise de Banglore, did help me obtain some basic information on the class schedule (hope you have realized by now that French was been the lucky language bestowed with the honor of being learnt, by yours truly), I was a little apprehensive on how I would accommodate 6 hours of study over weekends in addition to my rituals of sleeping, hogging, traveling and doing nothing, which actually takes a lot of time.

It was at this juncture that the training department at my organization came up with just what the doctor ordered and sent out a mailer on French classes to be conducted on campus by an instructor from the alliance francaise. My eyes lit up and a couple of imploring mails to my manager helped me enroll.

Monday last, was the first session and the class of 25 – comprising of managers, programmers and consultants like me waited with bated breath to take on the marathon of learning a new means of expression via the exotic language of le français.

The instructor, walked in and addressed us as was the customary, with a pleasant “Bonjour”, which by the universal law of speech had to correspond to “ hello”. What followed were some quick fire statements in the new language that had us look up in awe just as Stuart Broad did when Yuvraj clobbered him for six consecutive sixers at the 20-20 game at Kingsmead.

Flirting with words like Vous, votre, sa va, bon voyage and the like that filled the otherwise silent environment, we were left confused all the same at the end of the round 1 which lasted for about 40 minutes.

The tea break was followed by Round 2 with Ms. UB trying to teach a bunch of “foreign” students, the language of Monsieur Napoleon Bonaparte ala the famed television series - Mind Your Language.

Like children in 2nd grade, we went about reciting le alphabete’ in chorus and anyone who saw us from outside would have reckoned, we were the likes of the dyslexic Ishaan Awasthi from Taare Zameen Par, who were late bloomers in life.

From the time the first class ended, I’ve been showing off my French skills to Ma, Dad, colleagues, the milkman, the maid and anyone I’ve found on the street.

The dialogue exchange has been something like this:

Auto driver: Ellige Saar?
Me: Vous Vous appele comment?

Auto driver : Oh ! Malayali aano ? Evede pova saar ?
Me : Vous paarle quelles lang ?

Auto driver : No paarle saar, I like only Britannia
Me : Quelles votre nationalite' ?

Auto driver : Banni saar, NIMHANS ge free aage drop maadtini
Me: Sigh!

I’ve decided to get the authentic feel of learning French by trying to emulate them as closely as I can. This has included a long term plan of growing French Beard, of ordering only French Fries at Mc Donald’s, sampling the best of French wine and, well I’ll stop at that.

My colleagues have begun responding to me in Anglisized French, rather Fransisized English and believe me, that has driven me to forget my desi Angreji as well.

But I am not going to allow this to dampen my spirits. Mistakes do happen and amateurs ought to be encouraged. As they say, “To Err is French, to forgive is the Wine!” hic! Till then, au revoir and Carla Bruni, here I come !

Pic above : Eiffel Tower.

Pic below: well, that's me in class!

This latest composition of mine, has been a fallout of the wonderful musical treat that I was part of on Republic Day, with the Swedish band called Mynta where Shankar Mahadevan was on the vocals.

An evening with Mynta

Even as my mind was to be filled with thoughts,
Ponder, I did on the entire lot,
Myriad they were as they could get,
So much that they turned into my brows’ sweat

Worry, as people termed it, was eating into me,
I needed a break from the routine scene
And the week had not been very kind as yet,
How I wished for some rejuvenation and rest

The Saturday last, brought with it, a pleasant gift
The notes of melody filled the void and rift
The gift was of divine music of life,
Which began to rid me of mental strife

The open sky and the breath of fresh air
The band called Mynta and their music’s flair
Coupled with the enigma of Shankar’s voice:
Brought back memories of past poise

The freshness of the genre was indeed a feast,
The fusion it was, of the west and east
The jovial jazz and the mystic carnatic
Silenced even the toughest critic

As positive vibes filled my chest,
Admired, I did at the Creator’s best
And as I slipped into the sleep of musical serenity
I woke up with the peace to last till eternity....




Image - Shankar with a filler in the midst of the program performing the famed "Suno Gaur se duniya walo.."

Nope it’s not the next Anil kapoor Sri devi starrer on lines of Chaal baaz!

A Sutta Baaz, as defined by the Rashtriya Hindi Shabd Kosh (also called dictionary: for those of you who dint know) is a person whose “har prograam ka main phood” is sutta.

Sutta comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. And a wide range in fact – from Mangalooru Ganesh Beedi to Raabart wala Marlboro. From the information that I have gathered, apparently sutta and cutting chai are supposed to be an unbeatable combination that is relished especially by engineering students who wish to give their breakfast a miss.

P.S.- Any description is not truly the author’s experience. It has been collected from a variety of sources. Ma! This is for your informaiton, lest you think of me as a DTM (Dari Tappida Maga – translated as the son who lost his way).

Ok. Back to the topic. Since my inception in the corporate world, (which is roughly for about three and a half years now), there is one place that has caught my attention as the most happening “adda” and that is the Smoking Zone at office also called the Cancer Club.

The criteria to join the club require you to be a connoisseur of tobacco in either active or passive mode. This is one place where you can find people across departments, hierarchy, caste, creed, color, gender(this is catching up specially outside BPOs) and all the other non-discriminatory parameters as laid down by the U.N. General Assembly.

This is the prime location where a variety of topics are discussed right from the Sensex to behind the scenes stories of office politics. What text books on Organization behavior call “Grapevine” is precisely this.

What’s more, this elite club is organization agnostic.

Overheard this morning at the Sutta Club:

1 “Kings” is lit.

Mr. B: Yaar, Bohot tension ho gayi hai
Mr. J: Kyun bhai kya hua?

J uses B’s cigarette to save a match stick for India. (Applause!!)

Mr. B: Saala 2 lakh gaye mere, Mukesh ke wajeh se?
Mr. J: Arre apna Mukesh joh humarey department main hain?

Mr. B: Nahin re, Mukesh Ambani, usne kuch Iraq mein locha kiya hai is liye bhaav gir gaya, abhi joh maine teesra flat kharida tha pichley haftey usko bechna padega. Kya naubat hai.

The rings of smoke resemble Kekule’s benzene structure! (yes, I still remember :))

Mr. J: Chal Chill maar yaar. Yeh bata, is baar Quarterly payout ki kuch khabar?
Mr. B: Kyun muh khulva raha hai? Shukar karo is baar negative mein nahin jaa raha hai

The cigarettes are half spent

Mr. J: Suna hai Mrs. K ko out of turn promotion mil raha hai?
Mr. B: Haan woh Mr. P ke team mein jaa rahi hai.
Mr. P: Meri team mein? Mujhe khud pata nahin
Mr B: Maine tumhe bataya nahin aur tumne kuch suna nahin

The cigarettes are almost dying out like the lamps at the deathbeds of the aged actors of bollywood movies(wah! Kitni filmy hai!! Nirupa Roy would be proud of me)

Mr. J: Chal woh chhod. Weekend pe kya plan hai?
Mr. B: Bohot hectic yaar. Saturday ko London mein hoon. Wahan se Paris hotey huey Wednesday ko New York mein hoon. Return flight via Dubai hai, who bhi 1 day stop over ke saath. Travel kar ke thak gaya hoon yaar. Ab dekh last trip mein around the world in 80 hours ho gaya tha. Bohot pressure hai

(Nautanki Saaley!)Me began thinking on lines of Mungeri Laal –

“Na ghooma mainey UK
Na dekha hai Amreeca.
Par shikayat, beta inki sunkey
Ghoom aaya khwabon mein poori duniya”

End of conversation.

The cigarettes that provided a medium for the conversation are crushed under the expensive “Franco Leone” shoes, which completes their 2 minutes and 37 seconds life span from the mouth to the foot.

(The butt is almost out with the last bright flicker!)

Not sure how to end this post. So let me just say, An ode to the sutta, sutta club and the sutta baaz.!

John Abraham would definitely love it...

Music in any form is something that I have enjoyed through the years, but there are very few songs have caught my attention so much that they get ingrained in memory simply for the quality of music and emotion that they portray.

The last Bollywood song that I remember belonging to this category was “Kya Mujhe Pyaar Hai” from Woh Lamhe. But looking at the Kannada film industry, there has not been a single song of this repute that I’ve enjoyed as much for a long time.

As they say, for music to be classified as “classic”, it should be near perfect in all constituent aspects including melody, tune, lyrics, emotion, situation and most of all how it is packaged and rendered in totality.

For almost 4 weeks now, I have been listening to one particular song that has swept me off my feet – “Ninnindale..Ninnindale..” from the movie Milana. The first time I heard this was on a local FM station while returning from work at 11:30 in the night, and has since redefined my liking for the song, each time I listen to it, so much that it has mandated a separate blog post to be dedicated to it.

With music being composed by none other than Mano Murthy , lyrics by Jayanth Kaikini, ,picturised in the exotic locations of Europe and melodiously rendered by Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal, this song just makes the listener sway and get fully immersed into the elements of the song.

Kudos to the team that put together this song. It simultaneously brings out emotions of energy ,tranquility love & angst, and combines the genres of rock, hip hop, fusion and classical carnatic. A unique combination indeed.

And even as I listen to the song in repeat mode on my laptop for the 21st time in the past 4 hours, I also find the same reverberating through the headphones of colleagues around me, and am not sure this would continue for many days to come.

Signing off, here I am, diving deep into the melody of the music. “Ninnindale Ninnindale..” turn on the volume guys. This is heavenly..

P.S. - Thanks to M.V. for sharing this song.

After a long absence for over 6 weeks on the blogsphere, I am back with a bang with as much fanfare as that accompanying Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan.

I am happy for Benazir. After allegations of corruption against her and her husband Zardari (who by the way was called Mr. Dus Percent), apparently Mushi who has a heart of olive (yes, everything about Mushi is Green - his uniform, his vegetable meal, his envy, well, it is understood that he refuses to touch anything non green lest he be stripped of his uniform), had a change of opinion towards Mr. & Mrs. Bhutto(or rather Mr. and Mrs. Zardari) and offered the olive branch (see,there's green again :)) as a mark of friendship, and has thus managed to stage a puppet democacy in Pakistan. And the stage is set for Benazir's return in a style comparable that used for the victorious T 20 team. She would be on an 18 hour procession from the Karachi airport to the mausoleum of Jinnah,in a specially modified 20-foot shipping container attached to the back of a lorry. What joy!

Since I am not expert on international politics, all inferences drawn are part of those of a demented mind, trying to make sense of why such similar things happen in the sub continent.

You see, Bhutto's compatriot, Sonia has had a see saw on the nuclear deal as frequent as Rahul Dravid's recent visits to the pavilion, and the joke that during the rounds is that congressmen call up the left for permission even before they visit the rest room.

Meanwhile, even as Inzy wobbled off the field like an overused bull dozer, struggling with his English, just as he used to a couple of decades ago, Sachin is showing no signs of retirement. A recent report said that he is keen on playing with his son in the same Indian team, claiming that Boost was the secret of his energy. One word of caution though for Sachin. Hope his son does not face the same fate as Rohan Gavaskar.(Rohan who??)

I cannot compare the movie industries of the two countries, since I know not of a single hit Pakistani film, actor or actress, so my mind draws a blank there.

Finally, even as the Indian aviation industry gears up to carry Mallya's tummy oops baby, the all new "Simplifly deccan" in true Kingphiser ishtyle is set to create a new record. I heard they are now proposing to launch "a free air ticket with every beer" scheme to promote the newly launched brand. If changing the color of paint could change performance, the "hangover in the head" Indian cricket team could do with a change in uniforms.

Coming to think of it, do Pakistanis have any other option other than PIA? Maybe they are going to allow Air China to operate domestic services.

Enough of comparisons! Even as we bask in our similarities and bite into our differences, the aam aadmi on both sides is yet to get his necessities of roti, kapda, makaan and mobile! the sooner, the better...