A Perfect Evening

An evening perched precariously on the edge of sanity swaying intoxicatingly between the realms of soberness and freedom, a cube of ice melting its essence in the warm embrace of single malt scotch, a laptop cooing songs that drape a veil on vision, a tear dancing on the verge of lips crooked with sarcastic smile whispering their silent prayers to the heavens above and their darkest desires to the Satan below , some random images of a past life fluttering all around as beautiful butterflies enlightened with the joys felt and a half sober mind helplessly and hopelessly striving to catch them and put them together to make a coherent picture, few broken fingers trying to capture this mixed torrent of thoughts, experiences, memories and emotions while they dance their broken dance on this keypad and caught between these interdependent elements of my existence my dwindling self........

A perfect evening

Awesome!

This is so awesome!

This is one of the videos in a campaign by the UK government to promote road safety in the UK. Please see the video and leave us a comment telling us if you did it or not!


Enjoy!

Yesterday

Time
Don't let it slip away
Raise yo' drinkin' glass
Here's to yesterday
In Time
We're all gonna trip away
Don't piss Heaven off
We got Hell to pay
Come full circle

(Song "Full Circle". Band "Aerosmith")

Times change a man.

Yes they do.


From over the top of his three work monitors he gazes vacantly up at the flat screen monitor on the wall right in front of him running endless CNBC Europe with all manners and shapes of charts, bar graphs with numbers scrolling up and down and left and right all endlessly hammering his mind with incessant information. He stares at the screen watching all "Breaking News" headlines as they jump around pretty faces of business women with a "I mean business don’t fuck with me" written all over their forehead and middle aged pot bellied men offering endless opinions on stock prices, company actuals, EPS numbers, EPSREP numbers, EBG numbers...XYZ numbers.


He simply stares.


He averts his gaze which inadvertently falls on his three work monitors. These smart handsome boys scream another tale of the same world that he now lives in. Emails from Reuters, Bloomberg, traders, stock analysts, Quants, techies, stock prices not coming in, numbers bungled, sedols wrong, issuers fucked up...oh damn!


He was a Delhi boy through and through. The kinds that roam endlessly, freely over NOIDA toll bridge at 2 in the night with a plastic bucket full of melting big ice slabs and 12 bottles of Fosters chilling in them. The mission - to ravage these 12 bottles during the journey from west Delhi toll bridge to Gurgaon where more booze awaits. The kinds that would dance bhangra and break dance routines all mangled into one limb jerking madness of an orgy which would take place over cheap cello taped dance floors used commonly in weddings, throwing his stole up in the air as he yells on the top of his voice the lyrics of any song he could remember. Never mind if the so called DJ was playing a different number altogether. The kinds who would catch every movie featuring Bipasha the day it was released and towards the end get insanely jealous of John, and then work out in the gym diligently after every Bips movie only to give it up after a month till the next Bips movie kicks the entire cycle again.


The kind for whom every girl was a pursuit, a challenge, a conquest he had to have and had to win, the kinds that would be brilliant, geniuses at college, at school but would always be hunting for books one night before the exam and be miserably drunk on the evening of the last one. The kinds who would be always missing from classes, intimidating, cajoling some geek in the college for his/her notes and who would always run up the most massive bill at the college photo copier before their exams and would promptly forget about the bill as soon as the exams were over.


The kind who would always be least bothered of whatever he is wearing, the kind who would lazily drag himself to the afternoon class in torn chappals and jeans having just woken up from a bad hangover of the night before, only to realize he hates the guts of this prof and would promptly turn back on his heels to head back to hostel again where in a room without any kind of air cooling system with a lone fan that wont work because there would be no electricity his royal wooden bed without any mattress would await him on which he would sleep the most glorious relaxing sleep in the hot Delhi July afternoon.


Yes he was a Delhi boy through and through.


Now he wears a suit every morning. His shirts are all designers with cuff links, his trousers all pressed crisp. His shoes shine; he wears horn rimmed designer glasses and lives in a world of numbers. Working in the heart of old money's financial capital, the city of London, for a reputed big hedge fund he gets up at 6 every morning and is at work by 8. He doesn’t shout, doesn’t scream with delight anymore, and doesn’t delve into the limb jerking madness while he is on a brilliantly finished posh dance floor in one of his organization's events dancing with pretty ladies around him. He doesn’t drive wild in the nights doesn’t go roaming over motorways with chilled beer in the back of his car and definitely is not up till 4 am. He sleeps on comfortable beds in temperature controlled room and yet has difficulty falling to sleep. He hates but takes sleeping pills.


His “friends” are all PhDs, learned fellows who can simulate trading patterns in their heads and rattle off the earning numbers for FTSE 100 companies while they nibble over their chicken skewers and sip their droughts. No more the neighborhood guys from the street who barely cleared 10+2 but for whom life meant this moment, this very moment that they breath in, nothing beyond this moment mattered, the moment that just passed never existed and the next moment would never come. Those who lived their lives right now, right here even if they are slumped on the floor of a hostel room piled on by 5 guys each side, all passed out after a session of good old hostel party and didn’t have a scooby about what class is at 9 tomorrow morning.


Gone are the roadside dhabas with 4 am Aloo ke Paronthe and their ultimate adrak waali chai coupled with a Fan that he used to relish dunking in. Now it’s Lavazza black Americano with a tad of cold skimmed milk on the side please and an occasional donut from Krispy Kreme or maybe just a fruit and nut bar hmmm?


Gone are the days of Royal Challenge when Blender’s Pride used to be a gourmet treat. Now it’s all Scapa and Jameson and Jack Daniels with occasional Remy Martins and Hennessey for our boy. No more drinking straight shots from plastic Pepsi glasses while stuffed into a dark hot and cramped room at the back of a small local cyber cafe hiding from parents, neighbors, other friends who didn’t share the cost of the whiskey or Kurkure. Now he sniffs his wine while slumped in comfortable leather bean bags, swooshes his crystal glass and gurgles it in his mouth before he spits it out for sommelier pretending to make up some cock and bull story about the flavor while frankly he couldnt give shit about the wine's "particularly woody tinge".

The boy has come a long way. A long long way rather. He acquired all that he wanted to and is on the path that would lead him to more of his desires. Things that he always wanted to achieve ever since he was a teenager living in a single room with his parents and siblings. Luxuries he could only dream of, life he could only imagine living. Now he has it all and soon would have all that is remaining.


Why then is he sitting on his desk, middle of a business day, staring at his monitors and asking himself – I achieved all I wanted to, want to, but is this really worth what I gave up?

Time
Don't let it slip away
Raise yo' drinkin' glass
Here's to yesterday
In Time
We're all gonna trip away
Don't piss Heaven off
We got Hell to pay
Come full circle

Slave!

That’s what I have become. It’s sad and pathetic and disgusting and frankly I am fed up of myself but to be honest with you, I have become one! My master is my new employer who is actually now dictating my life for me. And you know what I hate about this? I like it!

Oh fuck I am fed up of myself but I like this job. The official working hours are 8am to 6pm which even though might actually make my American readers say “that’s it, really” and make my friends from India shrug their shoulders and say “so what”, it is really something that was unheard of in the UK. In my last job I used to leave my house at about 8:55-9:00 am in the morning and used to take a leisurely stroll to my work. I would smile at others on the way, would stop to read new signs, would notice the change on the streets, houses etc etc and would eventually enter the office at about 09:15-09:20.

I would go through my emails, hop over to some guys and have some chat, come back onto my desk, do some work, raise my head from my monitors and make a comment on something someone said just now and get back to work.

I would take a lunch break about 12:30, come back by 2 and work/play some more. Often and I don’t care if my ex boss is now reading this because I don’t give a shit really :D, often I used to go for a quick movie in the afternoons ;). I would then leave the office at about 5:15, go to the gym, sweat out, leave the gym about 7 and take my walk back to the home.

Perfect!

Now I get up at 5:45 am, and zoom through the process of shit, shower and shave. I put on extreme business formal clothes (read suites) and am out of the house by 6:30. I sprint to the nearest train station, dash through the barriers and hop onto the next train to London Waterloo. Trust me I wouldn’t notice a stripping Pam Anderson if here satins were to hit me in the face while I am sprinting to the station. On my journey on train I would use my PDA to check my emails, reply back to family and friends to give them the impression that somehow I am still involved in their lives and before I know it I would hit London Waterloo. Jump out of the train, dash to the other platform to take the next train and push and shove and often trip people who get in the way. I would squeeze myself into the tube (the London underground trains) and hold my breath till I get off at the bank station because if I were to breathe I would

a) be taking more space while inhaling exhaling and space my dear friend is at its premium in rush hours in London tubes.

b) be inhaling some very very unpleasant smells from the mass of humanity around me that would promptly make me choke and eventually, retch.

I would run to the office and slide into the elvators. Here I am, clock ticking 7:55 am, inside the office and what do I see?

Most of the people actually come in at 7:30!

Oh fock me now Lord!

The day is crazy always. No access to outside emails, phones, messengers nothing. People hardly talk to each other. Everyone is this highly cultured sophisticated buttoned up well paid uptight snobbish jackass (okay include me too but mind you, I have just joined this week and hence I am still in the process of being moulded here!). The evenings are nothing but the same morning pattern of sprinting and shoving and running and pushing and tripping this time back to the home. By the time I get down at my station I am so exhausted that I cant even think about hitting the gym. While on my way back to the house from the station trust me I would still not notice that naked Pam Anderson if she were to come upto me and thrust her “endowments” into my face to make sure I am really not blind.

I didn’t join this place; I sold out for the money. It is a financial institution and yes the money is good, too good really. Hefty bonuses, marvellous perks (last xmas everyone in the office got either an iphone or ipod touch or a peronsal laptop depending on choice) and usual comforts that money can buy. I am on a slightly senior position, a very important role for the business and soon I would be managing a small division.

But that innocence from the life is missing. I feel as if I have killed a part of me, left it for dead in my last job. I don’t walk leisurely anymore, I don’t notice change on my town streets, I don’t recognize faces I see on my way.

Is this what is called called career progression? I would be honest with you completely and admit this is what I always wanted. I had worked with Morgan Stanley before and I had loved the finance domain. Ever since that job I wanted to get back in there with the traders on the trading floor and live in that high paced, fast moving, extremely electric money charged atmosphere.

I guess Oscar Wilde was very right when he said

“There are only two tragedies in life. One is not getting what one wants, the other is getting it.”

Ihave been here only for a while let's see how I fair. Stay in touch guys!

JFK - Just for Kicks!

LOL! I got these sent out today in an email and I so loved the idea. definitely am going for something like this when I finally go away

An escaping ambition

This is a repost of one of my earlier posts. I am doing this because this is what I have been feeling off late. If you read this to the end tell me please if you ever feel this way.

An Escaping Ambition

Last night a silent whisper woke me up from my slumber. Out of the corner of my sleep filled eyes I saw a shadow trying to tip toe its way out of my room. Perplexed and still delirious I called out, “Who are you and where are you heading to?”

On hearing my voice the shadow stopped and stood with its head bowed. When I repeated my question, the shadow as if imploring me said “Sir I am a small ambition who lived in your eyes since ages and I was now leaving.” This shocked me and I could not do anything but ask “Why my old friend. What grave inconvenience could have I caused you which made you break this old relationship and leave?” As if I had embarrassed the shadow, it spoke meekly. “Sir, I have been with you as long as I could remember. You gave me birth and you brought me up. You nursed me in your heart. You gave me a place in your eyes and a place in your vision. You catered for me in your plans and you accommodated me in your sleep. Still after all these years and all this work I remained a black shadow. I could never be a reality and come and stand in front of you. I have hurt you, pained you and I do not want to do this anymore. I was leaving so you could live in peace.”

I was startled. My eyes suddenly felt heavy, as if something was filling them up. Tears maybe but I didn’t know. I was at a complete loss of words. It was as if someone had hidden all my words from me. I could sense them and see them as stars twinkling around me but as soon as I reached out with my hand to touch them they vanished with a pop like magic and the more I strained my eyes to follow the crisscrossed trajectory of these flying words the heavier my eyes became. I didn’t know what to say to this black shadow which now stood so humbly with its head bowed and arms dropped down to its sides. Perhaps an era or maybe a lifetime later I asked again – “If this is true my friend then why leave so quietly? Why not tell me and shake hands and leave? Why leave like a thief, as if you have something to hide or someone to hide from. Surely it can not be me. I have loved you and as you said, treasured you. Why then leave without a final hug or so much so as a handshake? Is our bond so weak that you can simply shrug it off and walk away?”

As if possible the shadow sank a few feet in the ground. It suddenly appeared smaller and weaker. With a sigh the shadow replied, “I was not alone in your eyes sir. A small hope lives right next to me. She is not very strong. She would not have survived if she knew I was leaving. She would have cried and insisted on coming along with me and had that happened, you sir would have been left all alone. I never intended that to happen. Farewell sir and please take good care of that hope. If anything were to happen to her you would be all alone.”

A sudden noise outside my room woke me up. I think I was dreaming. Yes it probably was a dream. Shattered pieces of a broken ambition still sting my eyes sometimes. A small hope still cries somewhere within sometimes.

Ohh FOCK It!

The first few words I uttered as I slammed my laptop shut in frustration.

It had been a miserable complete waste of 3 hours that I have ever spent. And if you must ask what I was doing, I was trying to update this bloody blogger template! Jeez! Well I always thought technology is a means (to our end sometimes) aimed at making our lives simpler and easier, until I was hit by the foolish idea - to update the look of my blog.

I was immediately prepped up. Its like that proverbial bolt of lightning you see hitting the central cartoon character on Cartoon Network which then is immediately followed up by an unbelievable widening of the irises of his eyes and an utterly ridiculously stupid east to west grin on his mouth and a sudden appearance of a bright shiny100 Watt bulb on his head which then pulsates back and forth to catch the viewers attention. The character then swoops both his arms towards one side, lifts his leg, flutters his long ears and dashes from one corner of your screen to disappear in the other. The film proceeds and in the very next frame the character hits a big boulder, the widened irises come together to render the poor soul cross eyed, the tongue sneaks out from the corner of his lips giving a completely new dimension to the hitherto "oh so cute" wide grin, the bulb shatters into a zillion pieces that transform into small golden birds which start chirping and flying in a circle over his head when promptly like a log he lands squarely flat on his back.

I should say that completely summarizes my initial attempt of updating the template on my blog.

I was very inspired by the looks of Ashu's Blog and Annie's Blog and thought to myself "Hey! when they can do it why cant you!" while conveniently forgetting the fact that they are ladies of probably extraordinary intelligence while my intellectual capabilities can best be compared to well the character on the Cartoon Network. Nonetheless I used google and had a few million hits when I searched for blogger templates. I have no idea why this perked me up and made me feel as if I have really accomplished something. Even now I have absolutely no clue why in that moment did I feel so proud and satisfied as if I have really accomplished my mission in this life which if you have noticed I kinda keep questioning time and again. Anyways, I selected a template, downloaded it from its source site, went to the settings section of my blog, uploaded the template, read quickly through some warnings that immediately came up in red about some widgets (whatever they are) being deleted and not giving two hoot for any damn thing in this entire cycle, I clicked confirm delete and lo! I immediately had a weird looking error code on my screen which looked like straight out from The Da Vinci Code anagrams along with a small apology text that looked like Prez. Mush's letter to G.W. Bush after 9/11 (which as per few very popular jokes was dispatched on 9/10!).

I had hit the boulder, my eyes were squinting to make sense of this screen (not completely cross eyed yet), I was almost close to scratching my head but little did I know I am about to fall squarely on my back very soon.

I gave my famous Houdini flourish of the hand and promptly mouthed Hogwash(read Harry Potter if you dont know what this means) and I still don't know why I closed the browser down. I think I was under the impression that the Blogger servers live somewhere hidden in my browser and if I get rid of this particular instance of my browser the corresponding server would die (yeah! die you bi*ch die!) and would completely forget what happened and when I start another browser, a new server would start magically (ref. Harry Potter again, no wait try Lord of The Rings this time) and the mighty balance of the cyber space universe would be restored automatically and peace shall be bestowed onto these pages. So I started a new instance of firefox, promptly typed http://achingpen.blogspot.com and..........well now I was flat on my back!

Every thing from my blog other than my posts was simply wiped off. No blog catalog thing, no mybloglog widget, no favorites, history, my fav posts, simply nothing! My tongue would have lolled out had my mouth not formed a big O and my eyes would definitely have been cross eyed had they not been trying to imitate the shape of my mouth. Basically I was looking like a close up of the poor cartoon character when he was lying flat on the ground.

Stop grinning will you? This is supposed to be a saga of my sorrows. An odyssey from one template to the other where during the course of my journey I lost a lot, bid farewell to a lot of things that were dear to me and at times I simply passed out of exhaustion.

So back on the trail then. The reverberations of the virtual cosmic shock had me literally trembling all over. I scrolled up, I scrolled down, I scrolled right, I scrolled left (as if that would have helped!) but to not avail. All of my customizations had simply vanished, much like ethics from a corporate America and sense from a booze laden Britain and honesty from a corrupt India. I had no idea what should I do next. In vain I logged on to the settings section of my blog and tried moving back to my old template. As you experienced folks would know that didn't help either. Nothing, nope, nada!

And so began a vicissitude of experimental change. A new blog came up http://getmemylife.blogspot.com where I started playing. I ventured alone in the amazonian jungle of CSS, div tags, blogger code and HTML. I fought single handedly with the demons of xml and snatched the much sought arcanum of widget customizations. Yes it was tough, yes at times I yelled my desperate cries to the gelid Gods of blogger help sections, to the acknowledged gurus of template customization and yes more often than not I did think of giving up but my obdurate conscience wouldn't let me.

At the end though I stood victorious. The new blog had just the look I wanted. Exhilarated, ebullient and almost bibulous now I copied the template and uploaded it to this url here. More warnings in red again about widget deletions which made perfect sense to me this time and even though I pressed "confirm delete" again, this time I knew what I was doing.

Pray note that knowledge doesn't really make anyone wise. When first I had pressed "confirm delete" I had no idea whatsoever what I was doing yet I went ahead and completed the action but time when I knew all that I was supposed to know before making an informed decision I the mighty old cartoon character still nonetheless clicked "confirm delete"

Bang! Everything lost again! Duh! Prompt came out the three words which make up the title of this post and laptop was slammed shut.

I had heard the tocsin and decided I didn't care.

But of course I did. I gave it a night. I let my unfinished customizations hang in the cyber space for all to see and laugh at me. I woke up the next day and firmed my resolve to sort this out today. I went to my office and at the first chance grabbed hold of Ben who is the lead web UI designer in the office and pleaded him to sort this mess for me. And Ben being the gentleman that he is kindly agreed. Though he made it clear he had no idea on blogger format but hey he is someone who eats CSS, drinks HTML and breathes Xml. Took him about 30 minutes and the blog was ready!

So for now, I have left this blog as Ben handed it over to me as my gratitude to Ben. Thanks Ben! It's time like these when you know who your best friends are. I am sure the fact that I am the boss had nothing to do with your inclination to help my a** out of this mess :D

LOL!

Best,

J