Rendezvous with someone 'special'

It was sometime between 2:30 and 3 in the night. I was dead tired the previous night and tiny crackers were bursting in my head. I somehow managed to fall asleep(how does it matter if I was still with the same jeans,T-shirt and shoes since morning and didnot bother to take them off,how does it matter if the fan was running full speed and the door was wide open?!)


Suddenly everything was hazy. The sweet fragrance of Cycle Brand 3-in-1 incense sticks permeated my room.Strains of veena and the chanting of 'OM' could be heard in the background.The chants were getting clearer now. And then there was this single beam of blue light emerging through the balcony door. The whole thing was getting eerie.Before I could even think what the whole thing could be, this guy with his hair rolled into a bun appeared out of nowhere. For a moment though, I wonder if it was Shashank playing a prank on me.

I start scanning him with the bottom-up approach followed in hindi movies.How many times have we not seen the hero and the heroine make that typical 'entry'. The hero- start with the shining black shoes a tight black pant, a broad jet black belt with a gold buckle, a black leather jacket open at the front , a T-shirt with a 'puchline', accentuating his abs, and to 'top' to it all, a black helmet out of which emerges our kinght in the 'shining' armour(literally!).Sometimes some great directors like Vikram Bhatt get better of you and instead of the hero it's the heroine. Remember Rani's entree in Ghulam??. But the heroines' entry is sedate and marked by a degree of authority as most movies have the usual rich boy- meets -poor girl-love- father, also the villian -opposes- love wins in the end storyline. She steps out of the Merc, left leg first,ceramic white high-heeled sandals,(legs cleanly 'veet'-waxed!), stockings if she's to be shown as ultra-rich, and then as the camera starts moving up her leg the audiences' pulses begin to zoom up like the BSE sensex and threatens to cross all barriers, the skirt appears where the knee ends and then a 'correction' takes place with a large collective heave from the audience.Then there's nothing much at the top( to see ) because it is fully covered!She gets down from the car, takes off her goggles and then turns around with her 'sunsilk'y her covering the entire screen and her face as well. The repetitive shots of her Fair and Lovely face get lost amidst the shrill whistles and catcalls of the 'hungry' audience.

Now I become the hindi movie cameraman. His toes are as dirtier than mine and it appears as though he's walked quite a distance on the rain-soaked roads of Surat, his legs hairy as any normal male!, and when I don't see any signs of clothing as I move up his legs,it starts to get uncomfortable. More than assuaging this feeling of annoying discomfort, the piece of tiger skin draped his thighs scares me no ends. There's no sign any clothing as I move the 'camera' upwards except for large rosary around his neck which laters occurs to me that it's called 'Rudraksha'(which again reminds me of a horri(bheja-f(r))ying Hindi movie by the same name). His neck had a
bluish patch as if he had a bad throat(aggravated by those wicked khich-khich causing agents!) and needs Vicks urgently. His face was the most striking feature. There was something about this face. Something powerful, something enigmatic. What heightened my astonished state of misery was that I-know-it-all smile on his face. The trishul in his hand made me wonder if he was a Bajrang Dal activist. For five minutes he stands there akin to a statue at the Tussade's and I do nothing but stare at him. Just as I recover and am about to yell out aking him if that was some kind of a practical joke, he broke his smile and with a calm soothing voice called out - "Vaths!". Before I could ask him if he was Shiva- The God, the smile reappeared on his face and he said-"Yes, I am". It was Bruce Almighty redux. Not wanting to be the fool that Bruce Nolanwas in that movie, I let God do the talking!(At the back of my mind, I thought Ramanand Sagar had indeed got it right, Gods do address others as Vaths, even the costumes were accurate to the minutest of the details.

He parks his trishul in a corner, but it falls down. While he's picking it up, I restist the temptation to break out into a giggle which I do whenever the teacher drops the teacher in the class. He replaces the trishul and clasps his hands indicating he means business. I sense he's looking for a place to sit down and I quickly clear the pile of clothes on my chair and dump them in my cup-board. He's certainly out of sorts in DF-7 hostel-6 NIT,Surat far removed from the serene, calm environs of Kailash mountains.

Unmindful of this, he begins."So, do you know John Barry Adams?.He lived in the UK between 1863 and 1927. 5' 8", 73 kgs,comlete family man. Wife and two children. Achieved nothing great in life.Ended up as just another statistic in the register at the city council of Yorkshire."

I just parted my lips and there he went-"Yes, I do know English.Had to learn it with many Hindus praying to me in English. Globalisation, you see!"

I was left wondering why did God 'appear' to talk to me about some good-for-nothing John Barry Adams.He then smiled looking at puzzled look on my face - "No, don't do that with atleast me right infront of you" and this left me with no doubt that it was indeed God infrontof me.What exactly was going through my mind was-"How the *&%^ does this John Barry Adams matterto me now?" and he being God himself couldn't have missed it!.And added-"By the way, you were John Barry Adams in your previous birth.

The puzzled look still continued to be there while he carried on-"Well it was quite disturbing to see you curse me for the last few days and that last outburst of yours was very very unsettling. So I was quite upset with you and ran a check on your antecedents andfound out that there was a mistake on our database. it was found out that John Barry Adams had killed 768 ants more than we'd thought initially. So, to account for that, I had to punish you over the last week.That is wh`y your computer's RAM crashed,your keyboard stopped working, your specs broke, the tube-light in your room hasn't been working since the last 3 days and you had a stye in your eyes. I delayed your specs getting repaired for that outburst. But I found you worrying too much over such small matters,you have bigger things to worry and think aboutin your life.As they say, stop making a mountain of an mole-hill,learnt this idiom recently".

And then he walked away calmly out of my room, the crescent at the back of the bun on his hair clearly visible as was the spring where Ganga originates.Ramanand Sagar got this one wrong though. Gods just don't disappear, they silently walk away!

God was perhaps right.I have better things to worry about.Maybe I should worry if I have to attend the first class tomorrow having been up so late to write this, worry if with the last ten rupee note left in my pocket I should go to the canteen and have samosa and tea or go the gateand have vada-pav and sugarcane juice during the break, or maybe worry if i should clean my room after two months or two months and one day.

Yes,God was right.How does it matter if there was a stye in my eye and I don't have my specs for three days and I have to bunk two labs for that,how does it matter if my RAM crashes and keyboard stops working and that my room is without a tube-light for the last three days.C'mon God, small things?.you must be kidding!

P.S. It's been 4 days since I wrote this. My room is still without tube-light. The new keyboard I bought is giving problems and adding to the never-ending list of woes, my CD-ROM drive stopped working suddenly yesterday. And to my surprise, I'm not cribbing or complaining about what's happening to me. I'm currently flowing with
The Last Song of Dusk. Will try and post the review.

Such a long journey!!

It's been (only?) about 15 days since I last posted. To say the least, my experiences in the last fortnight have only made me more philosophical and it seems to me as though those were not 15 days that passed by, but 15 years. I also happened to meet 'someone special' during this period. The post is ready, waiting to be posted. Once we get net in our rooms, which'll hopefully happen in the next 2-3 days, I'll put up the post.

'RAM' naam satya hai

Back in Surat.
My Comp's RAM ran out of ideas, so it crashed.
Final year is no different- SSDD
It was too hot a few days back,looks like it'll rain cats and dogs now.(hope it does)
No net in the hostel as of yet, so blogging can wait!
Till then enjoyThis
Feels good to be back though.

'Design's for my vacations!!

So, here I am at Ray and Keshavan in Bangalore. And I am here as a 'trainee'. What is an engineering student doing here??. That's one question that I've faced something like 2,354 times and unlike each time I've been patient enough to answer this question. I've been interested in media,TV,newspapers, advertising and related fields. So, I thought it'd be good for me to pick up something new and interesting during these vacations. This is in no way related to #include or MOV A,B or compilers or the stuff that we are taught in the class, the knowledge of what goes on here would do me no harm. So, is R&K an ad agency?. NO, it is not an ad agency, it is a DESIGN agency. Now that I'm going to spend some time here, in my subsequent posts, I'll write about how design is different from advertising and the interesting people here starting from today.

Sitting beside me here is Vikrant(Vikivix). Vijay(about whom another long post is waiting to be written) tells me Vikrant's a genius. I couldn't agree more(As I write this Vikrant's so immersed, he's not aware that I'm writing about him!). He's got a blog too. Here and His Homepage. He's also 'The Computer Person' at R&K fixing everything from the network problems to maintaining the websites of clients. I just now asked him for an 'interview' and he's busy!!.Will keep nagging him and will know more about him and post.

Though I've never spent so much time in an 'office'.(The last thing I remember is going to my father's office as a kid and 'spending time there' when his colleagues would get me lots of chocolates!), R&K is unlike any other 'office',it doesn't even look like one from outside!! The atmosphere is very informal, no 'Sir' or 'madam', sharing each other's lunch and with music in the background, one couldn't have asked for a better 'workplace'!!But, with all the 'informality', it is serious work that goes on here. Guru has travelled a lot doing research on a major confectionery company which has come to R&K to help them with newer design to boost their flagging sales. Am currently with Guru doing a bit of research, a bit of searching,a bit of surfing and a bit of chatting!! But am getting to learn so many things here. How will all this help me?? Only time will tell. But as now am enjoying it.

Plans to watch Sarkar(We have a girl Sarkar though in our college!!) with Ram and the rest of our group today.

So, it's Nikhil (de)signing off from R&K with Guru,Vikivix,Vijay, Anjali and Kirti in the 'happening' room!. More on others in the 'serious' room in subsequent posts.

P.S. I have plans to go for higher studies- Final Year of Computer Engineering at NIT.Surat!!

A 'local' take on Globalisation-Another 'article'

Looks like I've taken the freelancing thing a bit too seriously. As it appears the article on Gujjus and engineering was well recd. So here's the second article for YUVA on globalisation...Kroopa and Niki find a mention!!

MS word dick-shun-aree doesn't have blog in it!!!SAD

It is raining heavily here and posting this itself takes 30 minutes!

A ‘local’ take on globalization

This article was probably born the day the Pope died!! .The 23 minute long conversation over the phone I had with a friend of mine working with a call-center handling the transactions of a multinational bank left me with no doubt that globalization is a reality and has become an inseparable part of our lives. Here’s why :- When the Vatican was flooded with mourners from all over the globe, my friend was flooded with calls by frenzied callers from the Vatican asking for their credit limit to be raised or better still, that transactions on their cards be barred because their cards had been stolen(even in the Vatican?!!!) And when my friend was assigned the British division, she told me she was surprised that most of the customers were Patels from Gujarat. I wasn’t, having stayed in Gujarat for a substantial time now; I know very well that if a Gujarati has one foot in Surat, his other foot is in Southampton!!!

Talking of Brits, it reminds me of a train journey back home where one of our co-passengers happened to be a sound engineer working in music recording studio. What allured us into drawing him into a conversation with him was that he had an i-pod with him. And for us then, it was like-“WOW! That’s an i-pod!! And after the conversation that lasted for about three hours(if you can still call it a conversation!!), it was his turn to be amazed by our knowledge of the English county cricket, the Brit polity, Blair’s fourth child and of course, the universal language – music. The very fact that we listened to and knew about the likes of Led Zeppelin, Oasis, Coldplay and the latest about them together with other well-known Brit and American bands left him amazed. He confessed that his idea of India and Indians had undergone a sea change after the ‘conversation’ and we were more than glad to have helped change the perception of a ‘foreigner’ about our country. Finally, it was our turn to be left dumb-founded when he crooned “kuch toh hua hai” in that typical Brit accent of his and with a sly smile told us that KAL HO NA HO was one of the biggest films in the UK at that time. Only then did I realize that the talk of Indian cinema having arrived on the world scene wasn’t entirely phoney. It had- at least on the British scene, the ‘mother’land of English!!

The other day I went to get my mobile recharged and there was a middle-aged lady showing (off??!!) a very modern phone equipped with all the latest features. She was gleefully showing the MMS of her little granddaughter taking her first steps, which her software engineer son had sent her from the US. When asked if she had a pre-paid or post-paid connection, she said –“No, I have Airtel!!! Globalization at work again, albeit in a different way!!!

Till about 10 years or even 5 years ago, it’d have been unimaginable to think that we’d be this ‘global’. Leave aside the clothes that we wear, the internet that has become such an inseparable part of our lives, the Reebok or the Nike shoes that we wear, or that ubiquitous SMS forward connecting all countries in the world ending with ‘and an Indian sending this forward’!! Without our realization, globalization has indeed become a part of our lives and perhaps what separates us from ‘others’ is probably only the ‘colour’!! Who’d have thought ‘bangalored’ , a verb for someone having his job due to outsourcing would become a part of the English lexicon or better still that outsourcing would be a major issue at the US elections. It is not about how India is getting stronger by the day or that the days of its ‘arrival’ at the world scene are numbered now, but that the lines between various countries and their citizens are being blurred by the day. We are ceasing to be citizens of a particular country (am still very much Indian though, as all of us are) and becoming a part of a ‘global village’.

What is worth noting is that such a topic which used to be a part of school debates and essay competitions has become a pleasant reality now. Pleasant, because such an interaction amongst people from different regions and countries, is an experience in itself. I realize this when I see my blogging friends are from countries as wide as New Zealand and Japan!! Indeed with the Japanese friend running a photo-blog posting pictures taken with her camera-phone, the streets and lives of the Japanese are just a click away!!!

The situation back home in Karnataka is a bit different. Almost every household has either its son or daughter working in a software company; hence it is inevitable that they’ve been to ‘client’s site’ as part of their work and again inevitable that they take their parents there. Was surprised when an ‘aunty’ I met at a wedding started advising me on the kind of clothes I should carry and the precautions that I should take with the visa and passport and that how carrying all those ‘chutneys’ to the US would be of no use as they’d be confiscated at the airport. I was taken aback at this outpour of advice. When asked why this sudden flood of ‘fundas’, she said with a lot of concern-“Son, now that you’ve got a software job, you should be ready to fly to the US at any moment. My son had to go within six months of his joining and he faced lots of problems then. I don’t want you to face the same.”

Thank you Aunty, for the advice. But me and to the US?? Well Yes, Globalization IS indeed a reality now!!

**I get Printed!!** AND**'3.56 reasons why not 2 b @home!!!**

I get printed!!!(for the second time that is!!)

First was in the JAM mag about my college and seeing that getting printed and overwhelmed by the comments to that,I was spurred on to write more and better??!). That was actually the first post on this blog too.

Here it is on jammag


Now, it is in one of the magazines in Surat called YUVA.Guess most people visiting my blog wud've already read the piece anyway.It's the same thing about Gujjus and Engineering.But still here's the link anyway..

Here..on my blog

The magazine doesn't have an online edition but Here's the Cover and scroll down 2 page 24

Here's the story behind the story.

After my exams I had nothing to do(was supposed to be preparing for placements!!).So just called up the office and dropped down to meet Mr.Samir Parikh.

Mr.Parikh,an alumnus of Jamnalal Bajaj,has started out in Surat and Bombay and plans to branch out to other places like Bangalore soon.He runs this portal evidhya.com which 'dishes' out among other interesting things, 'notes' for various courses.(dishes out coz..that's how their punchline is -"Dialled a pizza?,dialled a Dhokla,Now dial your notes!!). He also publishes a monthly magazine 'YUVA'.At Rs.60 it is a tad too costly and to be very frank not all that great, but the very fact that such an endeavour is being pursued in a seemingly boring and 'unhappening' place like Surat is indeed laudable and Mr.Parikh needs to be congratulated for doing someting new.(NO...I'm not being paid for the article or even this praise!!..He deserves it!!)


I guess now I can call myself a 'freelance writer' or to go even a step further a 'freelance journalist' or is it still too early for this literary neonate to 'graduate'!!.Am in touch with newspapers here to see if anything works out.Anyways, IF ANYBODY COMING ACROSS THIS BLOG HAS ANY WRITING ASSIGNMENTS,I'M (ready 2) FREE-(lance)!!!

Will get to hear the news of my 'internship' (hasn't it become fashionable to use this term -'internship'!! even i like it!!) in a few days.Will 'break' it here soon after that.

*****3.56 reasons why not be @ home******
Reason 1. I don't have a comp at my disposal here(still apprehensive if Harsha's 'disposed'it off to the other Nikhil Kulkarni's place!!).Tired of wasting my time and more importantly money at cybercafes, finally found out a Sify i-way,which I'm sorry to say isn't any better.

Reason 1.I have thousands of ideas for a new blog and just can't come out coz of the incessant rains here.Just enjoy to sit and see it pour and want to write a poem full of meta-'pours'!! But feels like heaven away from the sweltering heat of Surat and Mumbai(tho was there only for a few hours, but even that was too much!!)

Reason 1.Friends here have their internals and the bookworms they are refuse to come out..though monsoons see earthworms coming out!!(what a 'muddy' simile!!!)

Reason 0.56. C'mon man, am at home isn't it natural to feel lazy!!!

More than anybody I guess I'm eager to blog and experiment with new things, but these 3.56 reasons are my bane!!!And Ellie start off wid the grp blog atleast the groundwork(insfrastructure!!) and the inaugural post if you please and will join in soon...

**The reason for the delay** and **reasons for further delays**

Sorely miss my comp which I've left behind in my room hoping that Bharath will see to it that it safely reaches Nikhil Kulkarni's home.Yes!we do have another Nikhil Kulkarni at my college which leads to lots of confusion..that will make for another good post.Had a very eventful journey back from Surat.Will go to a place where I can surf for free and then post the same;)

It's such a relief to be back home,relief from the scorching heat back in Surat and with mess being closed, the food that we had to eat outside for 20 days..frankly,eating in the mess is good both for the pocket and the stomach..

Am having to post this from some shoddy cybercafe where posting this wud take 4 times as much time as it wud from my room our our beloved C Center.I guess I'll take a 'well-deserved' rest for a few days....But then I might just come back with
*the news of an article of mine appearing in print:-/
*the news of my 'internship' with a premier design agency this summer
(yes Adi it is still summer, may not be for b'loreans!)

So keep watching this space....