Odyssey...

Finally, it's that time of the year again - a time most eagerly awaited and yet a time of uneasy trepidition of what the future holds in store.

Temperatures may have dropped to cause a chill in the winter air, but the mood is laden with a hue of fragrances. Like a seasoned sommelier, I can tell that this aromatic bouquet has a tantalizing effect on my senses and an uplifting one on my spirits...

...that sweet whiff of nostalgic sentiment, the fresh aroma of renewed commitment and resolve to come back stronger in the coming year, that scented air of optimism laced with new-found purposefulness and that ever contagious brewing current of gusto and vigour.

Well, and what gives me reason to stay hopeful, you may dryly ask, in the face of the seductive and lathered trappings of the all engaging soap that is life? Of hope in the times of Sex crimes, AIDS, tsunamis, global warming, terrorism, corrupt governments and economic inequities...all demanding our immediate attention, like there was no tomorrow?

Well, I can't absolve myself completely of blame for being hooked on to this chequered gameboard of life - much like a pawn held captive by the grip that directs it. You see, now, that is a condition which is virtually universal. However, I have been a tad more fortunate than most to have seen people - (extra)ordinary people - summon the courage required of them to change the rules of the game and play by their terms rather than being played puppet in the hands of destiny.

Uncannily, each was, in their own way, unknown to them, called upon to play a key part in completing the on-going miracle - that of the triumph of human spirit - as it carefully unwound the canvas of their lives. That, in a subtle yet gritty display of what it took to make sense of their world in the face of a doom that stared them in the face at a point-blank range.

And where did they find courage to stay put through it all? To this, they all but said this: "It is was as easy or difficult as changing the point from which they viewed it."

Simple truth of life now, ain't that?

Fortunate are those who realise it. For they will begin to play their part in the larger scheme of things of life; a part that will largely define their lives thereon and bring meaning to it, in the light of the decisions they make.

For the rest, it would mean a mere "existence" in this otherwise 'instant-two-minute' and 'big-is-beautiful' world, wherein they'd remain content with admiring the wrappings and never look inside the box, failing to take cognition of the slow but definite little miracles that keep happened around them all the time!

Yet, all is not lost. For, if there was ever a time for rejeuvenation of the body, the mind or the heart, then this has to be it! For it is now - at New Year's - that the fountain of hope springs to life in its attempt to touch unfathomable heights and thereby unleash the greatest miracle of them all - that of human potential.

And so as the New Year dawns upon us, let us re-commit ourselves to strenghtening our bond with humanity and our belief in people. However more importantly than most, let us learn to believe in ourselves and ungrudgingly give ourselves a second chance. A chance to open our hearts to love and accept ourselves wholly and unconditionally.

For if miracles are to happen, we first need to believe that we're worthy of them and hope in them strongly enough for them to actually happen.

A figment of my imagination, you say? Well, to each his own. But for me, I can tell 'cause I've seen it ring true for me in more ways than one all through this past year.

Happy New Year everybody!

May the new year bring us all more of what we love. May the force be with us and many good things to us.

I sail over still waters,
forewarned they run deep…
Strength for ores, paddling life’s currents,
Amidst curdled thought but structured flow.
Confidence and fear battle it out,
amidst resilient efforts to win…
I journey the unknown,
In silent contemplation of sin.
Gravity hangs my head in shame,
Hope disappoints, leaving me lame.
Like a star having risen, when others have set,
I set forth to capture my time in fame
- Trevor Mark Fernandes

P.S: This entry is solely dedicated to all those beautiful people, knowing whom, made me a more complete person in the year that was. Thank you Ma, Pappa, Naana, Aabaa, Carol, Kiran, Nix, Nandu, Vinny, Praa, Preeti and Raji. There is so much I have learnt from each of you - Aloha!

Of Pride and Prejudice...

Went out to dinner with a friend last night and I came back full with more food for thought than I had consumed for a fill. What started out as a dinner to just catch-up with each other, for that is what we both intended it to be, turned out to be a soul-searching experience for me.

Fresh out of B-School and armed with a library-load of even fresher management jargon, I was high on theoretical jingoism as I waxed eloquent on areas of the like of efficiency and effectiveness, reduction of lead time and cycle time et al, in my attempt to impress upon my friend the importance of ‘value addition’ on his part to the family business, the reigns of which had now been handed over to him by his father.

Helplessly he watched me rattle off nineteen to the dozen as I kept re-iterating the need for him to pursue a Master’s in Business Administration sometime in the near future for better insights into effectively driving his business…blah blah blah…

Patiently he listened, and then when I was sure that I had spoken convincingly enough and had no more to say, he took over. And what he told me over dinner as we sat at the rooftop of Bombay Blues, watching the incandescent shimmer of evening traffic glide past us into a distant luminosity, I shall always remember as one of the key lessons life uncannily throws you way when you least foresee it.

All of 23, here was my fine young friend, out of grad school with dreams of making it big on his own as a consultant. And a good start he had made in that direction too, having landed himself a plum position in one of India’s better known consultancy firms. Barely eight odd months into his dream job and many accolades later, he had to call it quits. The family business was in the doldrums and his father in despair. Destiny now fired her salvo of taunting mocks at my friend – the son of the house - to prove all he was worth in a trial by fire as he was ushered in to hold and guard fort.

The retail tea business, for that is what they are into, was slowly beginning to succumb to the mighty clout of mammon in the form of organized retail, courtesy clearance of 100% FDI in the tea sector.

The clearance came at a time when prices had touched abysmal lows, much below the cost of production and the industry was in much need of a stimulant. With global output showing an upward trend and new producers and exporters entering the fray, the prices slumped even further. Correspondingly, Indian prices and exports took a beating and efforts were now on to shore up the bottom-line.

Faced with such a situation, it is, today a do-or-die conundrum for small time retailers in a bid to salvage their businesses. And it is no different for my friend’s family either as they struggle to stay afloat in their efforts to eke out a living. Things have reached such a zenith that they are in serious consideration of moving house form their plush apartment in uptown New Bombay to a rented flat so as only to repay the mounting debt incurred on keep the business going.

With tears in his eyes he then told me that it was all very well to mouth competitive strategy for sustained growth in business and economic development in favour of the consumer whilst supporting the claim to open markets. The ground realities, in the absence of sound economics and tempered politic, in emerging economies like ours however project a whole new story.

With domestic markets soon disappearing in the face of falling incomes and rising costs of production, it’s only a matter of time before India’s blind rally at embracing globalization is soon going to claim its merciless pound of flesh from many more families such as these.

I don’t for a minute – as I state all of this – claim to be "anti globalist". What I am attempting to say here however is, that on the issue of globalization when it comes to India, there are deeper implications that are conveniently overlooked by the powers that be, given the steeped layers of a socio-cultural pluralist and disparate state of peoples in this nation state of ours.

And here I liberally quote Thomas Friedman, one of America's foremost political and economic affairs writers, when he said that all economic growth cannot only be explained with reference to the markets; power, politics,environment and culture are of equal import. "One has to understand that it is the interaction of all of these that is increasingly defining the face of economic growth and therefore international relations today. Only then will we be able to satisfysingly order the chaos. And understand this, one must, considering that if there is one system that is influencing more people in many more ways than they'll ever understand, it's globalisation.

In dealing with a non-linear system, especially a mighty complex one, you can't just think in terms of parts or limited aspects and then add things up and then say that behaviour of this and of that, added up together, makes the whole thing. With a complex non-linear system such as globalisation, you have to break it up into pieces and then study each and every aspect and the strong interactions between them all to approximate the magnitude of impact unleashed by it."



India needs to pay heed, else it'll be India mining instead of India shining - all over a concept that is being rashly implemented, in a pip to the WTO post, berift a wider pan Indian vision!





“What is happening to the world, lies at the moment, just outside the realm of common human understanding. It is the writers, the poets, the artists, the singers, the filmmakers who can make the connections, who can find ways of bringing it into the realm of common understanding, who can translate cash-flow charts and scintillating boardroom speeches into real stories about real people with real lives. Stories about what it’s like to lose your home, your land, your job, your dignity, your past and your future to an invisible force. To someone you can’t see. You can’t hate. You can’t even imagine.”
- Arundhati Roy

India Talkies

The frozen wind
Passes through me;
Fallen leaves,
Borrowing it's energy,
To regain life
For brief moments.


I trudge on,
Searching for the life,
That I once knew;
Lost now,
In a shadow
Of mimicking normalcy.

The nights have grown cold.

Thoughts once charged
With emblazoned passion
Have cooled to embers;

Ignited only by carefree and callous airs,
Of materialistic mornings and socialite evenings

I’m reduced to just a mere outline;
Vacuous, I lay in wait...
...To be filled by your presence.

Come, step inside the shrine you long abandoned;

Though hardened from the cold,
I exist there amorphously still...

In patience here I lay in wait,
For you to reignite my flame.

I know you’ll be back one day...
Step in...
...Only you can make me whole again.
Jai Hind!


- Trevor Mark Fernandes


HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

She's got her Ticket...

Anu (and that's not her real name) a fellow blogger is a special friend of mine. Special not because, we're fast buddies or some such but because of the special understanding we have between us as friends. Anu and I are friends through B-School and and all through our association, even back then, the only constant about this friendship we shared was the periods we didn't keep in touch regularly with each other. But somehow, in the event that we did club up - the vacuum of communication notwithstanding - nothing (to our surprise) seemed to alter the status quo from where we last left. And to me, that's a beautiful feeling.

And so it was that in the course of one such happenstance meeting at a coffee shop that she told me about how her parents had begun the all elusive search for Mr. Right and how terrified she actually was of the concept of an 'arranged marriage.' (And here I take the liberty to quote her(sic) "Imagine the horror of waking up in bed the morning after with a complete stranger...")

All this, barely a few months ago; Anu is now happily engaged to be married to her Mr. Right. It is an arranged marriage (but of course, after all she's not only the very quitessential Indian but Tam bhram as well you see!) with a courtship period running into a good few months. Arranged or love, does it really matter any more? What is of essence is that they are willing to give each other time and space to grow together yet apart, physical distance immaterial. And it seems to work, considering they have clicked from the very word 'Go!' Now that's the kind of understanding that makes commuter marriages work in todays' day and age. And if such understanding ain't love, then pray God, I don't know what is!!!

I am simply thrilled for you Anu and very happy too, because knowing the kind of person you are, you deserve all the happiness and more! Congratulations and here's to you both...you've only just begun! ;-)

Meanwhile, here's an entry (love the title, I do) she posted on her blog long before she met her Mr. Right that I particularly liked, for the refreshingly humorous manner in which it brings out the finer nuances of an otherwise tried and tested (read cliched) concept of the run up to 'The great Indian Marriage.'

Another One Bites the dust

(Disclaimer :I love my parents , though this is a part of their eccentricity which I have to put up with )

On Friday night there was this call from my Dad, asking me for a place where I meet my friends, I erroneously told him Coffee day, having a slight inkling of what he had in mind but not sure, however the plan was crystallized by Saturday morning for a Sunday afternoon tea with the Boy (Lets call him A) and his parents at Coffee Day!!!

Well my parents came rushing in from Chennai to Bangalore, at the speed of light with Lalbagh Express actually in a century coming in early!! Well with my mothers constant what will you wear with my dad’s ruffling through the yellow pages to verify the company A worked - Saturday wasn’t very quiet. My mom took out the sari with the most zari, to wear. This is a lady who has been a H.O.D of management in leading woman’s college , but firmly believes that in these situations the girls mom responsible for updating the future mom in law on the family background and speaks only to answer questions on my culinary skills and moral upbringing.

On entering Coffee day, my dad was shocked at the ‘noise’.. he then asked the maitre d to switch it off :) . A was kinda hoping as I was that he was anywhere else when my dad loudly asked him to sit next to me so we can exchange views, over “Evanescence” screaming “my immortal”. The parents kept looking at us expectantly and to satisfy them, A came up with first question- pretty good one since his eyes kept moving to Priyanka Chopra on screen shedding most of her clothes. “where do you work ?” – well the questions was good, because my dad had just finished retelling my entire history in good old Bangalore, right to the fact that I walked to office from home and the number of dogs I encountered on my way there!!! So I told him and asked the compensatory ‘what about you and office?’ routine. He answered to me or I think he did, as his eyes were focused on anything but me!! Through the excruciating 45 mins he kept looking over my shoulder, or at my dad or at MTV with no music. So the A is shy , as my dad fondly put it later…”It means he a good boy, he doesn’t look at girls” ...OH PLEASEEEEE...

To add to the whole circus of things, the order was taken by waiter.. My dad asked coffee – to which came prompt reply “Mochha or Capuccino?”. Now my dad was taken back – looked at the waiter and asked “This is Coffee Day- U serve Coffee Right”?? So I had to step in and quickly update my dad on the advancement in the brew industry in the last 10 years.

Taking a smoothie for the A, the rest of us had Cappuccino . Well my mom wasn’t to be left behind, she suggested the mandatory sweet to be brought in .When the waiter said they didn’t serve Sweets looking the poor waiter in the eye with a wintry glance “So cake is not sweet here”??The poor guy didn’t know what had hit him. Stepped in again and ordered a Black forest to keep the general peace and I swear I think I saw a glimmer of gratitude in the waiter’s eyes.

In the meantime A and I were trying to find a slim pane on which we could meet. He was a sports fan whereas the only channels not tuned on my TV were the sports ones- I like watching tennis only when there are tall, good looking Czech/Romanian/any former USSR countrymen playing :). My passion is Music and books, on enquiring on those, ‘A’ sweetly replied all he read were Harry Potter’s and music thoughts were met with a shrug, all while looking over my shoulder to an invincible person seen only by him (Btw I look passable, as per general opinion, so I know that it was not my looks which made him stare into space)

OK- no habits/hobbies/movies/people in common. Next round was family. Which was taken care by my dad who explained to the listening pleasure of all the people in the restaurant the family tree right from my great granddad’s period. My mom quietly intercepting on how my culinary skills to be attributed to the amazing genes of my forefathers :)). Time drew on, my entire concentration was on hookah pipe smoked by the under aged kid nearby ,hoping to God, a genie would appear and grant me my wish of vanishing from that time zone for the next half an hour.

I finally woke up when my dad asked for the bill. Both the waiter and I wore similar looks of relief on our faces. My dad asked us to exchange our cell nos. while loudly proclaiming that finally it was in our hands and Gods. I doubt God will have much to do with the final outcome,considering A and I were trying best to get out of there as possible.

A did not give me his number and I am hoping that he doesn’t call. I hope he finds a wife who is a sports fan and also doesn’t mind being invisible when he talks to her :)

My dad is sure they are impressed and will call, all the while checking the net and matrimonials for new finds!! My mom on the other hand , shakes her head at me for being opinionated and promptly starts praying for the next one to be the final one!! Well that was a nice experience, I learnt that I finally needed to tune my TV to the news in sports too, maybe the next one will speak to me instead of invisible gal behind on Saffin’s serve.

P.S: Anu...hopefully this post should ensure for me a personalised invite to your kalyaanam. As for being a Rebel, well not quite but hmmm...where did I hear that one before ;-))??? Btw, this post is titled bearing in mind - you know it don't you - !

Writers' Bloc...

The last few months have been kinda' busy, what with the onset of a flurried work life taking it's toll on my time for (much cherished) written pursuits.

I am at home right now, back in Mumbai, for the dearly awaited long Independence weekend and boy, it sure feels good!

Meanwhile, here's a post on my maiden attempt at short story writing. Incidentally, this one was written for a short story competition, held back at work. The rules for the competition were as under:

The story had to be no longer than 9000 odd character spaces

The story had to be woven in continuity and sequence around the sentences highlighted

The title of the story, "A Walk to Remember" had to have a considerable bearing on the outcome of the story


Read on then...

Read on then...

After a hard week of activity at work, I was desperately in need of some much needed solitude and space for myself. And so that chilly Friday evening in the month of December I decided to walk down from work, in Flora Fountain, to the good ole’Colaba woods – a place that I had begun to believe, was “my very own,” that afforded me calm and quiet and nursed me back to strength, metaphorically, from the emotional ravages of time on my psyche. Here, in the woods I felt cocooned and protected from it all.

As always that winter evening too the woods were lovely, dark and deep, in the way they had always been. Perhaps darker and deeper, on second thoughts, given the curdled state of mind I was in. A broken relationship does that to you. More so if you just broke up the day before. Wedging my way through the thicket, I proceeded for the farthest corner for fear of being sighted by any familiar faces. I was not up for exchanging any kind of pleasantries. This was prized time for myself and I was going to make sure it stayed that way! To my good fortune, the woods wore a deserted look that evening, just the way I had hoped it would be. Sighing in relief I sat myself down upon a broken tree stump and before long was lost in a train of thoughts. Then suddenly, as if from nowhere, my ears were alerted to the sound of faint sobs in the distance. The tone was unmistakably that of a woman. I peered my head to get a better look. She was seated with her head tossed on the shoulders of the man beside her as he made futile attempts at consoling her. “I want to experience motherhood,” she sobbed, “to know the essence of what it means to be a woman. I want to love, be loved, care, feel cared for and feel fulfilled…” and having bared the vacuum of her barren hopelessness thus, she pivoted her heavy head at a slant, staring blankly at the cold winter sky in a manner as if she were expecting it to sympathize with her and then lamented, “I have always wanted to have children and now it’ll never be possible,” in an unguarded outburst of raw display of emotion, the very sight of which lent my heart out to her cause.

So they were man and wife then, I deduced. Married yet unable to conceive a child of their own! Some irony that, I thought to myself. God does play dice. Why else then, in a country 900 billion strong and still growing would he single out this one couple so as not to have a child of their own? It was not fair. But then life was never known to be fair. Had it been that way, Tara and I would never have broken up after 4 years of a steady relationship. As I helplessly sat there pondering over the ever elusive mystery that was life, my attention was suddenly drawn to the sight of bright colored balloons that dotted the sky. There they were in all shapes and colors, rising effortlessly higher and higher making a very pretty sight in contrast to the moonlit canvas of that cold winter sky. If only it were possible for me to experience that kind of lightness right now…if only…! Drawing myself back from that thought, I was now curious to know who let up those balloons, setting them free into the wilderness? It was then that I noticed a bright faced and cheerful little girl, no more than six years of age walking past in the direction of that unhappily married couple. She sold balloons for a living, I gathered, seeing the clutch of plentiful balloons suspended tightly from her small fists. Boldly and yet in all her innocence, she walked up to the couple and sat beside them. She had heard the woman cry and in a bid to comfort her, intended to give her a couple of her brightly coloured balloons so as to pacify and calm her.

“Why are you sad,” she asked of the woman...

Then as if it didn’t matter why anymore, she said “here, have some of these. They’re the best I have. Watch them rise into the sky and they will make you feel better. My mother used to say so every time I cried when I unhappy...but that was when she was alive…” And then as if filled with longing and looking skyward the lil' baloon girt too quietly burst out into tears.

The couple was startled by what had happened until now. And the man - he was visibly at a loss for words. Moreover, he suddenly seemed to be acutely conscious of the attention coming his way - first an inconsolable wife and now this! How was he to handle it? Distressed, he looked in the direction of his wife.

Catching the cue from him, though still choking over her sadness, the woman summoned her voice to ask “And what about your father little girl?” “I have never seen Pa. Ma used to say, he left for the war and never returned. But I know he and ma are safe up in their new home in heaven because everytime I miss them, I release a balloon into the sky and when it rises higher and higher I know Ma and Pa are waiting to receive it from me. Then I know that they still love me…and are looking over me and I am happy again,” she said she chuckling in her childlike glee, that seemed as if she had discovered a whole new happy world or herself.

I was speechless and overcome by emotion as I heard these words from that little girl that December evening. A broken relationship at 24, hard as it was on the lovelorn nerves, was one thing. But a broken family with nothing to look forward to, at a tender age of 6 is quite another! And to think, there was nothing to look forward in my life after Tara…

And then whilst I sat thinking about it, somewhere I got lost in thought as I re-ran the entire episode of events that fateful evening in my mind…Tara, my walk to the Colaba woods, the unhappy couple, the little balloon girl…My thought process was broken yet again…but this time by the cheerful and loud laughter of that little balloon girl as I saw her cuddled in the arms of that woman as she strode with pride along with her husband into that moonlit night away from the woods into a world they’d now call as ‘family.’ I knew that very instant, that there right before my eyes a family was made!

Yes, God did play dice that evening with three lonely people and this time they lived happily ever after as one family!!!

- Trevor Mark Fernandes

Moorings of a Time 'Left' Behind...

Went shopping to town last Saturday, for khadi wear - kurtas to be precise. In Mumbai if it's khadi, it's got to be good ole' Khadi Bhandaar, (KB), D.N. Rd, Fort. Thankfully, the place hasn't change one wee bit since I visited it last year.

For all the hustle and bustle synonomous of life in this mega metro and the seductive sheen of its avant-garde trappings, KB continues stubbornly unaffected and untouched by the transient whims of time. Here at KB, you are now besieged by a time-warp.

The thick air inside the shop is still heavily laden with the scent an all-engulfing languorous charm, courtsey the socialist mettle of a (once) pre-liberalized economy. The dusty window panes, musty wooden paraphernalia and an asynchronous drone of an array of huge four-blade - weather beaten - ceiling fans suspended from an ashen coloured ceiling, made me acutely aware of the anomaly in time I was witness to. The dull passing of every formidable minute in time spent here was not wasted on me, for sure.

Not for this place, are clichés like: 'Customer is King', 'customised service' or 'customer delight.' All these hold good outside; once inside these are passé - and I for once am not complaining! And mighty good reason for that there is too.

In a world where 'Clothes maketh a man', beauty truely lies in the eyes of the beholder. It is of little wonder then that even simplicity today comes at a price and with a designer label. Chic and ethnic no longer stand for rustic mix-n-match of contrasting apparel - that you once put together at your sole discretion. Today, alas, they stand for the approval of fashionistas of the likes of the Satya Paul's and Rina Dhaka's of this country - and I say this with due respect to their talents and those of their kinsmen.

It's a democratic world after all, governed largely by a capitalistic society! And so everyone's got to make money while the sun shines. However, to keep the sun shining bright Marketeers have to do all they possibly can to extend this period of daytime for as long as possible. Enter concepts like "Branding," "Positioning," "Customer Satisfaction" and the like.


But then, to quote economist Milton Friedman, there's no such thing as a free lunch in a capitalistic society; everyone's got to ultimately foot his portion of the bill. However invariably the buck stops at the customer - and I'm fine with it if he can afford it for the 'tailor-made' luxuries he is bestowed with in name of enhancing his (otherwise incomplete) shopping experience. Every consumer is treated the same way, and the phrase ‘mass customisation’ is then abused till kingdom come.

Not for me, however, the razzmatazz of all this marketing gimmickery - at least when it comes my purchase of the humble homespun khadi kurta.

As I side-track here a little, I cannot but help but mirror FE columnist Suhel Seth's sentiments (http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=91274) as he lashes out at the inept and fuddy-duddy logic at work in operationalising the 'permission marketing' concept which modern day marketeers have so blatantly violated, much to the chagrin of a growing base of harried customers.

To be honest, I've had it with overtly patronizing salespersons and the 'all-your-needs-addressed' brands they promote making you believe they know you inside-out - sometimes better than you know yourself - and non-challantly breathe down your neck with the all-knowing alacrity of your bum-chum langoti buddy! And it would help recollect whilst at it that, they're not doing you a favour, doing it as they are in your time and on your account.

Customised service aside, I'd rather partake of handsome bargains for moderate prices at a no-frills, humble KB outlet that doesn't pretend to know all by offering you the all and sundry equivalent of a Kotler text on Services Marketing. And in the process, as a welcome a change, revisit - if only for a few minutes - the 'take-it-or-leave-it' socialist charm that stubbornly refuses to peel off at these places, even in these competitive times. Coming from someone who has grown up in thriving capitalist times, some irony that now, ain't it!

If fluidity is the plasma of time, then ideology is the plasma of my life!

Of Prefacing Interludes...

It's been quite a while since my last blog entry. But then back home on a vacation in good ole' Mumbai, I resigned myself to taking a sabbatical before I hit the blogging scene again. And what a lazy sabbatical this has been!

Life back home in Mumbai is pretty chilled-out. The day begins at 9:00 am and ends at 2:00 pm for me; what I do in these waking hours is anyone’s guess! I have all the time I could possibly need at my disposal. The trouble is – I just don’t know what to do with all of it!

Everyone is so busy with their working lives that it gives me a complex doing nothing. I shudder at the thought of answering that one irritating question posed of me - for the hundred and first time now – ‘How do pass your time beta?’ And it doesn’t matter if the neighbourhood auntyji's (and there are hajaar of them, inquisitive one’s around) who poses it is as much faced with much the same quandary as I am.

Gosh, I’m serious...these guys truly seem to have made a 24*7 profession out of asking this question to unwary and unarmoured souls like yours truly who are out on a brief vacation at home. Whatever happened to the good ole' 'relaxation' and 'unwind' elements synonymous with vacation time???

Grrrr…one of these days I’m going to spend my time knocking on all the doors in this vicinity and smirkingly haunt each and everyone of them with the same question. That way, maybe we could compare notes and all!

Holy cow. Look at poor me! The fact that I’m actually taking time off to pen this sad story of my life should give you a fair idea of how of how velaa I am!

Schmoozing Secundrabad...

Just got back from Secundrabad, AP; had a good 4 days of loads of activity and fun. The Satyam office called and invited me over for a 4-day conference on HR to Secundrabad, all expenses paid – but of course!

Imagining it to be another one of those corporate gyan sessions, I set out for Secundrabad expecting no more than 4 days of relentless Corporate gupshup. Boy, was I wrong or was I wrrronggg!

Man, going by the way my non-descript vacation has been shaping up, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to state that those four days have, by far, been the best part of my vacation. I met and interacted with a congregation of around 250 odd HR people from across the ranks at Satyam.

We were put at the Le Meredian resorts, by the poolside in rooms that came fitted with their own steam showers and musical bath tubs! As for food, OHH MY GOD, there was the choicest of it to suite your taste and your palette - Chinese, Continental, Thai, Mexican, South Indian and Moughlai. Food, food everywhere and only one tummy to stomach it all :-( Some food riot that was!

On a more serious note, we were also put through mammoth sessions of corporate confabulations on understanding the business model, sources of revenue streams, profit models, strategy, growth and competition etc. All this, through the morning interspersed with a more than generous two hour break for lunch that befitted a King, around noon.

Post-lunch, the focus of the sessions would revolve around understanding the ever-changing role of HR as the aligning force with each of the above mentioned spheres. Amidst failed efforts at keeping my eyes open, and a zillion regrets for having gorged myself with food to face, I realised one thing loud and clear: it’s heartening to learn that there is more to HR than just Recruiting and RAPM! Sitting through all those sessions - and it does'nt require rocket science logic to fathom this one - I now know how much I don’t know about the subject that is HR, passionate and reasonably well-read as I am on it.


Meanwhile, evenings in Secundrabad were lovely! The weather'd be simply delightful as it settled down cool after the arid heat of the morning sun; the plains for you. After the regimented rigours of some amazing out-bound training programs and telly games that were more a test of mental grit than physical effort, it was time to party.

We kicked-up our heels, swerving our hips as we loosened our bodies, to the grind of sensuous Salsa, guided as we were by supple and limbered dancers who went great lengths to defy all elastic limits in the course of their dance workshop held amidst the lusciously landscaped gardens of Hi-Tech city against the backdrop of a moonlit stage.

Indeed, the whole experience was cloaked by a halo of phantasmagoric aura as rhythm flirtatiously courted rhyme in the throes of it passionate serenades!


Cocktail sessions would begin at 9:00 pm with drinks flowing down parched throats like water, with (well-deserved; I'm always hungry, can't help it) dinner finally being served around 11:30-12:00 at mid-nite. Dinner, everyday, was accompanied by a dress code – ethnic, bohemian, mask and formal for the final day.

My stay also presented me with the opportunity to meet and interact with the other HR-management trainees (MT’s) who'd come there as well. And I dare say, we pretty much got along like a house on fire - all of us!

And now…for the climax of it all!. At the end of my paid holiday (what else could I call it, but that!) all of us MT’s were allocated our respective profiles at designated locations. And I've been posted in Chennai now, as Mgmt Trainee, HR-SAP, at the Chamiers Rd office, Teynampet. Competency-fit is the reason they attributed for the sudden shift. Guess 2 years spent in Chennai have taken their toll on not just my genetic DNA, but on my competencies and skill-sets as well!!! :-)

However I'll be training in Hyderabad for the entire month of June before I move to Chennai later.

That's that then, at least for now. So long...

Squaring the Circle...

Over the past many months I’ve done quite some thinking over why certain relationships work and others don’t. And what I’ve come up with is information that deserves to be fine-toothed by combed examination.

I also realise that more people than I can possibly think of deliberate and mull over the same thing almost regularly, however circumferencing their understanding around the radius of self, which I believe is not radius enough to make a fair conclusion.

This is to say that we as individuals would never in a lifetime bring about change if not for our interactions with those around us. Constant interaction of all sorts rubbing on us – both ways good and bad - make us realize our need for and to change, or to reassure us that we fine the way we are – short, tall, fat, thin, dark, fair, gifted, challenged, warts, blemishes or both…

In my many many discussions with friends and with myself, I have come to believe that relationships that stand the test of time and patience have one major thing in common - willingness; It is why people stay married for many years, why families stand-by strong, why people choose to remain in love despite times of adversity.

Willingness is accepting people for who they are and not for what they might be. It’s about adapting, sometimes even stretching beyond your elastic limit - and that’s tough. I guess that’s what Amma means every time she refers to “being the bigger person” in a relationship.

It’s a tough cookie to digest, especially when you know that it has to pass through your buckled cavity of inertia; An inertia that by its very nature is opposed to a change in existing state, causing people to sit idle in the face of life’s changing paradigms.

But this is not to be, at least not in a life that is more than just about myself.

I increasingly am made to realise that the more I allow myself to rub against those who think differently than I do, the more I learn that there is more than one perspective on how this journey through life is travelled. Reminds me of the Carnot’s cycle in high school Chemistry…

I have realised that the more I revolve my life around others, the more I learn to be a better person

People (or even situations) are like sand paper, constantly smoothing your rough edges provided you’re willing to let them. Abrasion happens when you decide not to yield. It’s a conscious decision you have to make to be willing. And, here I must add, willingness does not equate conforming – blindly or otherwise - to someone else. Rather it's taking time consider all possible options and yet realizing that the options of dealing with people issues are endless.

And it not that you have to be in concurrence with the otherat all times as well; Disagreements, varied opinions/perceptions/perspectives are but inevitable, considering that there are as many insights as there are people. But these counter viewpoints are vital because they make you grow and think about things that are important to you. They help you stand up and put up a good fight, especially when you care enough to work hard building facts supporting your point of view.

And that’s the ultimate truth of life. Two people comfortable with each other, don’t an easy life with each other always make. It’s the willingness to make the effort to stay on and make things work that separates the wheat from the chaff.

In many ways I guess, this key understanding has come to sum my relationship across my role-set of interaction with family and close friends alike. You don’t throw good thing going for you because it’s hard work; rather you learn to take one day at a time telling those who matter “ I’ll never give up on you no matter what…”

"A good relationship is about you telling me what a son of a bitch I am, and me telling you what a pain in the ass you are and we not worrying about hurting each others feelings because in a few seconds, we’ll be over it and onto the next pain in the ass thing!" (simply love that line...borrowed as it is were from The Notebook)

Agony Buddaahh!

I tell you counselling is ripping me apart. It's like I continuously have to weave all of myself together; I grow in fragments and when those fragments grow independent of each other, I gradually find them causing lesions in my pysche in ways I don't even realise. And before long I find myself crumbling because nothing seems to hold the disintegrating parts of me together.

But here's where the magic begins - slowly after I have crumbled, I build myself "whole" again, in ways that even I didn't know were ever possible!

I pick up the strands, take my heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else as I deftly weave the smorgasboard of fragments into a beautiful quilt that can keep me and everyone else around me warm on windy days.

Doing this for quite some time now, I have learned a few things about myself - some interesting and some pure painful! I realise I am deeply scared of losing - in a metaphoric way - the love,support and constant unobstrusive presence of people in my life. And what makes this so painful is that I am sacred of losing thm all because I am scared of trusting myself - I keep having images of the time I was too scared to hold crystal in my hand because it was so delicate and fragile and that if I goofed up I would not be able to do a thing about having destroyed for good something so priceless and beautiful. Now I realise that THAT Crystal is just me and my freedom.

There have been moments of immense unity with another as I met few people who unguardedly spoke to me, telling me all - secrets they had buried deep within and now wanted to share. Knowing fully well that they would never be able to share these things over again, they chose to seek refuge in the camp of which I am commander, if only for a few hours. And when I see these people letting me in on their secrets and I realise they come to me because they want someone to know the truth before that part of them will then be killed forever, never to surface again.

I think of the time a journalist friend of mine got phone calls from a man whose colony was filled with a violent mob during the riots - I don't remember the exact details...but he called my friend to tell her that if he died he wanted someone to know what he knew...to tell the world what he saw. I close my eyes and this image is immediately replaced by the image of the secret tellers who come to meet me, who speak to me...hoping I will now share the burden of their secrets...just so that they can be assured that someone knows.

Here is something I read not so long ago based on the work of Erich Fromm, a psychologist who is part of the Freudian wing. Better known for his books "Escape from freedom," "Art of loving" and "Fear of freedom” It breaks me to see bountifully crafted thoughts expressed so beautifully:

You are confronted with existential dichotomies ...unsettling and unavoidable discrepancies. you did not choose to be born, but suicide is highly disapproved . You have many potentialities that you know can never be fulfilled. You must live with the fact that injustices you cannot right will plague you. you must also live as fully and completely as possible with the recognition that death is inevitable.

Know that you can never reach a state of complete harmony and tranquility. with the greatest brain evolved, the human being is nevertheless the eternal wanderer. there are always new things to be known, gaps in knowledge to be filled.

We strive for perfect relatedness with others and we are doomed to failure in our attempts. The human being is the only creature who can be bored, who can be discontented, who can project a better life but cannot always achieve it.

It is our lot to find harmony within ourselves and between ourselves and nature through the use of reason. We do not discover harmony, we must create it.

We must make our own world because the world we find is not suited to us.

Mumbai Madlam...

I’ve been missing Mumbai a lot lately. It’s one city like no other, with a pulse that beats to a rhythm of its own.

Infact I love the place so much that I could exhaust reams of paper on it and yet have more to tell if only you had the patience to listen. So maddened was a friend of mine by this Mumbai mania that he thought he’d fox me into asking me to limit myself to one word that described the city best. And so…what's the one adjective that describes Mumbai best?

Onomatopoeic, I'd say bang on, without so much as batting an eyelid!

Right from the minute you've pronounced it - Mooombaaai, sound in every conceivable form is as much a part of the Mumbai experience as is 'aaloo' to 'tikki'. You just can't divorce one from the other - till death does them apart! Sound logic that, ain't it...

For a species blessed to be proudly christened a Mumbaikarr, the day begins with a jolt outta the early morning blue with the jarring 'darwaaze kii ghantii' shrieking for immediate attention lest the impatient 'doodhwalla' pasteurising in ire decides to supply you with milk that’s richly bathed to a texture that'd defy the theory of the anomalous behaviour of water. Talk of 'gayii bhaez paanii mein', the phrase takes-on a whole new meaning out here.

You've barely attended the door and sleepily trudged to bed, when triiiiiiiing goes the doorbell again, damn...and this time it's the paper man. To hell with him, you say, but then you're rudely awakened realising that failure to answer the door would mean your neighbours naughty kids eagerly feeding your paper to their dog. Back to the door you go yet again...

Finally, some treasured moments of sleep. But now, it's the turn of the morning alarm. An alarming churn of events these!

At eight you set out for work and as you move down the staircase you're acutely made aware of verbal duels concerning a burnt breakfast or whose turn it is to drop the kids to school today, to the maid next door proclaiming in lament and choicest of language to who-so-ever cares to give her a listening ear, her being underpaid and overworked by the pugnacious Punjabi family who've just moved in. Then there is the collective 'phatkarr' rhythm of clothes being stone washed (washing machines are passé, handwashed rules in Mumbai) that makes you feel that you’re almost living off 'dhobi ghaat' even though you may actually be right in the heart of Colaba. Phew...making it to the ground floor was never more of a relief...

Playing 'dodge-em' and screaming your lungs hoarse, lest they run you over because they didn't see you and can only hear you, you manage winding your way through the honking traffic to finally reach the railway station - Mumbai's ubiquitous lifeline. Aah, you say, finally for some respite! But how wrong you were. Within the confines of the railway station, it's an auditory symphony of rising decibels for one and all. From the shoe shine boy to the newspaper stall vendor, the irate stock broker on his flashy mobile to a vociferous bunch of college going teens, to even the railway announcer (and never mind if the announcement of a trains arrival comes minutes after its delayed departure) it's cacophony all the way and Mumbai after all. ‘Yahaan sab kucch chaltaa hai’ remember.

And if you thought Sivamani was the best percussionist around, then you haven't obviously heard the 'bhajan mandalii's' on the Mumbai locals who could put an Altaf Raja to shame with their modern day renditions of the 'santvanii'. Listening to them, even a Kaaphirr would be forced to remark, indeed, the God's must be crazy!

You’ve reached work in one piece all safe and sound. Sound, did I say, well, here at work you are constantly subjected to the drone of a staccato tabbing across keyboards as your fellow colleagues lap it all from sites varying from 'playboy.com' to 'cricinfo.com' depending on the sport they're up for playing. And then of course there’s that decoding of footsteps to be kept track of, of your boss whose sole raison d'etre in life - and you're convinced of it - is to come down on you depending upon his moods as he romps past your cubicle in anger, swishes by in haste or sways to a chested swagger in happiness as you impatiently drum your desk impatiently in a dilemma to have an audience with him over that long overdue promotion of yours.

You know it's time to leave office as you hear whispers tsunami into loud chatter amidst bags thumped on work desks and computers lullabying the same old shutdown jingle.

On your way from office, retracing your path home, you are left to defend yourself from the by now maddening pandemonium of rush hour traffic at its audible best.

Finally, home at last...and horror of horrors...your wife's returned from her 'maikaa' having cut her trip short to give you a surprise. Surprised, you definitely are as you bellow disguised niceties at her knowing it's just a matter of minutes before the next quarrel erupts over plans for dinner...mujhe merii biwi se bacchao!

That's Mumbai for you at its disquietituous best, described in one word – dare I say so!!!

Spiritual Calculus

I'm talking to Deepa as I'm filing my post for today. She's busy updating her blog as I do mine.

Now Deepa or Deeps as she is popularly known and I have been friends for sometime now. She's a junior of mine from B-School with whom I've had some amazing conversations that have ranged from the most abstruse to the esoteric. And considering most of the conversations at B-School centre around surviving impossible deadlines and the idiosynchracies of far more impossible prof's who staunchly believe that living a 72 hour life in a 24 hour day is a as natural as is the sun rising in the east every morning - effortlessly, our tet-a-tetes provided us with the much needed succor from this routine.

And we've had loads of fun whilst at it not to mention potfuls of coffee and endless visits to Barista, a local coffee pub and by far our favourite hangout joint!

So, what were our conversations like? Well, we've discussed them all - from books, music and human psychology to books and music and human psychology! And considering we are both ardent readers who enjoy almost the similar if not same genres of writing and music it's cerebral nirvana for us both everytime our neurons interlock.

Psychology has always been an integral part of our discussions, almost like the main course, bereft of which no true meal is fully ever complete. In fact at times we'd end up so hungry for this meal that we'd help ourselves to endless servings, unmindful of the fact that it came in served as an entree, run into the main course and end up in dessert. Talk of psycho babble gluttony, I think we've more than shamelessly indulged!

The result being that we'd dissect issues than spanned the human psyche threadbare. Complexes, personality disorders, self esteem, insecurities, graphology, platonic relationships (our's is one such), assertiveness and emotional intelligence - all and I mean ALL were carefully analysed and put into perspective in the course of the experiences we had encountered.

I've never really believed in the concept of a soulmate, but if I did, perhaps this'd be the closest shave I'd have with it! And then again, it's not that we've not had our share of disagreements, God knows we've had many time over and again, 'time' (or the lack of it) being the key word here central to most of our disagreements. I absolve myself once and for all, by repeating as I've mentioned before - time management was never my forte and I know no less than a dozen who'd vociferously vouch for that. So there, Deeps..

The contours of the landscape that is life sometimes wind across mirage like expanses wherein you come across folks who manage to hold your attention with their sense of purposefulness in life and even more importantly their belief in that sense of their purpose. Deeps is one such (the other being Kiran). Gosh, it's amazing to see them manouvere their way through life, negotiating its bends with a stamina and enthusiasm, the source of which constantly seems to bewilder me!

...for what else would you say of someone who's emerged from the roughest patch of her life, thanks to a relationship gone horribly wrong, unscathed by the razorly slashes of emotional trauma etched deep onto her soul...a keen sense of purpose in life and pride of living life on your own terms is what I'd trace it down to. And it's not that she had no option, it's just that she'd have it no other way. Now that's what resilience of spirit is all about. It's not about playing to win all the time, more often than not it's about learning how to play it right! And so what if in these attempts you flounder and fall and so what if people accusingly call you names...and just so what?

Paving way through this peer clutter and yet maintaining a directional focus is emotional maturity. Experiencing all that life has to offer sans embitterment of the past is courage. Walking the tightropes of both is grace.

Having said that - and that seems like quite a lot, considering I started out not knowing what to post for today - here's to you Kiran and Deepa, from whom I've learnt being, what else, but graceful silly!

"Life is learning about the art of living in peace with that which we cannot change, the courage to change that which should be changed, no matter what it takes, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Soliloquy...

I have been spending some quality time with myself lately; I needed it bad – needed sorting out.

The outcome has been very encouraging - feel stronger, sorted-out and confident. Sorted-out being the key word…GOD DAMN I sure needed that! There were issues by the plenty that called for my attention, if I only so much as cared to assert them their due importance (time mgmt was never my forte and I know of no less than a dozen who will vouch for that). Issues relating to…

> my choice of a career (boy! am I glad that’s been finally taken care of,
period),

> me coming into my own– as a person (and it’s not as simply said as that,
though I particularly enjoyed growing through this one…aye boy! I
finally have an identity,more importantly an identity I can identify
with; I have painstakingly worked at it) - and -

> finally, that of keeping alert tabs on my vulnerable habit of growing
attached to and dependent on people. Now, this one’s GOT to be
experienced… suddenly there’s no emotional baggage, no who’s thinking
what or why, just clear, unlimited lightnessof body and of mind, very
akin to a 160 kmph on a well-lit deserted freeway.

I sure am going to enjoy this drive…feels like heaven!

Birthday Blues

My 25-th birthday just went by. Another year gone in the face of the next approaching. This was my second birthday consecutively spent away from home. Didn't get as homesick this time around as the last, though the craving for attention and the intense need to be indulged upon was just as strong.

Away from home and my close-knit friend circle in Mumbai, my birthday this year, was okay, nothing singular about it save the pride of having being crowned with an (extra glow) aura of prominence, the intensity of which was inversely proportional to time, as the day progressed at college...

I'm no megalomaniac but let's face it, it feels good to be made to feel important on your birthday - so important that your family and close friends take time off their ablutions of daily life, and make the effort to call you and shower you with their loving warmth. I guess the all consuming need to feel validated as an individual is universal, more so on occasions like your birthday! Thankfully in that sense I felt more than just validated!

Meanwhile, post birthday euphoria, my life ambles on into the darker realities of this last and final trimester at B-School, as I (forcibly) busy myself in its drone of mundanities. Hoping that the Ides of March bring along with it reason for much needed succor from this sense of all pevailing boredom, as I will by then have nostalgically inked the concluding chapters of my life at B-School here in Chennai...

It's back home to Mumbai after that for a brief vacation before Hyderabad beckons at the call of work, sometime in May.

Like I said, another year gone in the face of the next approaching.

With the ink slowly drying in on one chapter of my life, I'm only too ready to begin penning down the script for the next.

Like they say, this way or that - life goes on...!

Rambling Along...

More often than not of late I seem to find myself drifting aloof and not deliberately at that. Nothing unusual about it, save that given the fact that one is used to being at the hub of all activity, if not in the midst of it, it can be unnerving to experience a sudden all encompassing whiff of guarded solitary-ism.

Guarded because I seem to have become very protective of my own private space, vocal is more like it and no amount of it seems to be enough. Guess it’s a phase I seem to be passing through… all the same it sure seems to have made its presence felt. This being manifest, in the choice of company I so choose to keep. This is not to say that I have begun to sport an all-new friend circle, although given my weakness to continually stretch its ever-expanding radius that could very much be possible.

Lately, I’ve noticed myself gravitate towards mature and mellow company, and having said that, I don’t mean to come across high and mighty in a condescending vein on the rest of them all, much as it might sound like that, but the truth is far from it. Company like that comes few and afar and should one be fortunate to be in such company, care should be taken to cultivate and sustain it for company like this unfailingly brings to the fore those precious hidden facets of personality that fit in like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle into the mosaic of an otherwise incomplete life. You only learn in such company and thrive as an individual outside it. I have!

In fact, chances are, if you're reading this blog, I have you to thank for this accomplishment. because the truth is, I'm not just me; I'm a little bit of everyone that has had an influence in my life. And so you've probably made more of a difference in my life than you realize.

And in a special way, a special thank you to you - Kamana, Aarti, Chatty Chechii ;-), Vijay, Kiran and Raghu if you are reading this...

"Some people walk into our lives and quickly go. some stay for awhile, leave footprints on our hearts and we are never, ever the same."

Presenting Nirvana Lounge...

I don't know why, but for quite some time now, I have been contemplating of maintaining a blog,. Today however the 'want' to maintain one seems to have reached its zenith...

I have no singular reasons for wanting to maintain one, save the fact that it serves to reassure me that now having created this one, I will have in the process have carved a lil' niche for myself as a means of self-expression, my temperaments well be damned!

Having said that, I welcome you to browse through my blog as I update it before you on a near-regular basis in a bid to decipher - in my own way - the collective experiences that make up this journey I call 'life' as it unveils itself before me.

Through it I intend to take you on a journey that covers the expanse of this multi-faceted “state of mind” as I attempt to transcend battlefields of philosophy and logic armed with creative bursts of thinking and poetry from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Welcome into my space as I keep you - the reader - abreast of these happenings as they unfold.

Welome to Nirvana Lounge ...

Cheer's,

Trev.