Money Money Money

It was the day before my history annual exam; I was running for my life that day, behind me my father was gaining ground, I was caught red handed playing cricket. That day I got very good beating which I remember till now, for me then, it was a grave insult. In addition to the beating I got a one hour long advice on the importance of getting good marks – not that I was flunking in my subjects – but still I got the advice. Till date I am wondering why he gave me the advice when I was doing pretty well in the exams. All throughout our school/college days someone or the other would always tell you to study well and we agreed. The system in school or college too never helped, they would always people who did well in studies, if only they had acted otherwise, there were more things in life, much more than Integral calculus ever taught me. It doesn’t matter if you did well in your studies or not, all it matters is whether you had enough dough in you pocket to take you till America. While I was trying to figure out working of Klystron oscillator my lab team mate was out for a ‘dumm’ (smoke in slang). I used to wonder why he was like this then? Now he is someplace in US finishing his MS while I write this blog. If I think now, he must have been wondering why I was so much interested in finishing the lad on time.

No doubt the Hero Honda add in which a guy cries out “main aa raho hoon India” was created by a MBA grad who didn’t get his US visa. Since he couldn’t go there, poor guy settled down for some patriotic adds. Every thing is run by hype, if you don’t hype up yourself you might lose out in the competition, that is what I think US/MS has created now, also included in that list is onsite at work. So much hype has been created by people who have been onsite that those who are left behind for a variety of reasons are now looked upon with a sad expression which says – “ poor chap, I remember he used to be good at school, huuuhh .. life gets on, people lose focus, poor guy”. Little do they realize the kind of work that people in ‘onsite’ do, but at end of the day all that matters is the paper with gandhi’s photo on it. If you really get tough and ask people around questions on why this is happening, out comes the reply – hard luck guy .. take it easy, next year try again for your MS or maybe the next time such a opportunity comes along, you will be in it. Then there is the philosophical angle to it --- “ money is not everything boy, you will realize it later in life” .. ok I might realize it when I am above 60 unable to find out the difference between a Rs 50 note and a Rs 100 note, but not now, now is the time I require it, loads of it, but um hmm .. I am not the person, cos I was the topper, not for me atleast now.

Living in paradise

Innocence or Ignorance was never a good thing to have. Being ignorant/innocent you allow unscrupulous people to take advantage of you. Nowadays it has also become a style statement, people tend to portray themselves as being innocent while on the lookout for other innocent lives. On the other end of spectrum are people who portray themselves as being know-all but in reality they are ignorant and get cheated.
There are people who take pride in saying they don’t remember what happened yesterday whether I went to place ‘a’ before place ‘b’ or the other way, but are able to remember some incident which happened years ago.
There are people who portray themselves as diplomats, being calm in a situation, thinking about good for all, saying things for common good outside in public but are the exact opposite.
Then there are people who are meticulous in whatever they do, but lose out on the accolades because they don’t show off too much, and are happy with what they get (atleast they seem to be)
Then there are the don’t cares who are oblivious to things happening around, don’t care about anything anywhere and just exist, they are really funny to be around.
Then there are normal people with no great ‘landing on moon’ ambitions ..

It is when all these people meet at a place does trouble being, which, happens everyday everywhere on this planet.

Twinkle twinkle

Be it apple ipod/iphone, xbox , playstation 2/3 or other non-techy stuff temptations are everywhere, more so when you are not stable yourselves. I bought a mp3 player a year ago which I hardly use now. A seven hole flute is staring at me everyday from my cupboard. The carom-board hasn’t been moved from its place in the hall since may/june when Sathyavan sai paid us a visit. The less clearer your priorities are, the more you will fall to temptations, it also depends on the available cash in hand or in my case the credit card in hand. Four years back I walked out of a ‘get together’ just because my friends took me to Coffe-day at Isphani centre in Chennai instead of some other place when I had only fifteen rupees – enough to take me home. Now I haven’t yet estimated how many-if not thousands- hundreds of rupees has gone on coffee with friends @barista. Mr.Executive has a super costly headphone, so do pardesi babu and me. I bought mine when the old one was working perfectly.

As far I know we are the only roommates who have ‘get-together’ every time we travel to Chennai. The countless auto drivers we have fought with for raising the fare by five rupees while we had bun/vegetables for two hundred rupees (sub – translation for pardesi babu). It is high time we train ourselves to ignore flashy things which pop up everywhere, learn to ignore temptations, live with it than to solve it.

Ps: me looking out latest cheapest laptop now .. it doesn’t seem to stop ;-)