Toilet Poster - U can't resist a smile!

Amitabhs latest movie ...

Who is this funny looking, distorted little old chap? This is the new avatar of Amitabh Bacchan in his upcoming movie Paa. Amitabh is playing the role of a kid ( ??? :-) ) suffering from progeria, a rare disease in which the child ages rapidly. And Guess who is playing the father of this kid? Junior Bacchan. Check out more at the official website of the movie, and here at rediff.

My New Buddy

Thoughts can go pretty wayward at times. What I wanted to tell in the previous post when I started with I was alone in Chennai kind of stuff was that I was lonely until this guy Gaurav joined my team. Though I wished he was a girl, my desires sometimes call him gaurvi or gauri, who in these alien circumstances would have let herself drift towards me, he is anyways doing a great job as a guy. He has brought all the charm and humor that comes so naturally to Delhiets as the need to go to loo on a bad stomach. I have showed these few lines to him and he has laughed so much, most people don’t laugh that much during their life. I wondered how one can laugh so much on something funny intended to oneself. But I guess before people can laugh on you, you better laugh on yourself. You would be out of the inferiority complex that very moment. Try that! Before anyone can discomfit you, embarrass them.

He has a tummy coming out and with that ever present pleasant smile on his face I don’t feel the need to put an idol of laughing Buddha on my desk. Chennai has increased his grin many folds as he starves, err, I mean on a diet, and there are no food options to fascinate his appetite. I have to drag him down to the cafeteria in the name of few girls he is watching these days.

The ways he dresses up and his accessories made everyone wonder actually what company he belongs to. A typical day he comes attired in one company’s t-shirt, carrying another company’s bag, wearing a badge from a third company and since we are working at client side, he walks into the office of a fourth company. The security was bewildered to see representatives from so many companies in one man only, but he won them over with his timeless and timely one liners.

Until I had met him, I knew only few options in MS-Outlook, how to check new mails and to reply and forward one. But he seems to be playing with mails all the time. He sits right next to me and every time I look at him, he is busy sending mails. Personal mails, private mails, official mails, all sorts of them. But one thing I like about him, he is very meticulous about keeping his inbox clean, free of any spams. So thrice a day, he checks all his mail accounts, around a dozen, and toils hard to delete all junk mails from his inbox and then from his junk mail folder.

Here I have tried to sketch his face which reflects the beauty of his soul. The sketch resembles him quite a bit and even if it doesn’t exactly accentuate the contortions and distortions on his face still you would get the feeling behind who I am trying to describe.

time pass

September, I was alone in Chennai. No, the Chennaites have not abandoned the city but I mean that my ears starved for some Hindi. I was left virtually alone at my room. Television is there but you can’t talk to the television. My roommate is there. A college friend, but he prefers talking to his girlfriend now. Believe me, the major network operators in India who cut such huge revenues are running healthy because sleep deprived, socially nonexistent people like him never feel sick of talking for hours on phone. Office was also at the same side of the coin. A team of all Tamil speaking people, who I guess must have proved a miserable failure in their Hindi classes.

It’s very natural that when people from the same community collide they resort to speaking in their mother tongue. Ideas always float more efficiently and succinctly in the natural language of the people. So in boardroom meetings, it was always Tamil that took the upper hand over English, and I was just left clueless. Finally, I came up with a suggestion. I told them that before starting a discussion or argument, however they might want to phrase it, just inform me on the topic. Then they can continue brainstorming on it in any language they want. If I would have something to contribute I would do so. And after they are done, just read me what was the conclusion. This proposition proved to be a breather in the coming meetings.

The only positive thought that made me survive among these people was that I am polishing my communication skills in English. Whenever I had to say something, I had to tell it in English. I have discovered in the process that I have a very weird problem speaking English. Whenever two consecutive words start with an s, my tongue falters. As an example, if I have to say ‘she sits’, it always comes out of my mouth as ‘she shits’. I hope I do not ever have to tell anyone about the movements of a lady!

Going for lunch and evening snacks with these guys is always amusing. The team here is super cool, and I would have enjoyed it a lot but only if I knew Tamil or they knew Hindi. So even if I enjoy their company, sharing laughs always turns out to be an exercise. By their gestures and context I have to make out the joke and have to match my facial movements with theirs. I have to follow their eyes which are busy following a girl, and though their glance return to each other after a while, mine continues to stick with her, following her all over the place till she disappears inside a lift. But then another one comes out of the lift and she is stalked, and the cycle continues until my reverie is broken by their guffaws and I become conscious that I am not part of the group anymore and need to concentrate again.

Join a software company and the first few months are a little light. The expectations of your manager hover around your getting acquainted with the product, your learning of the system and ice breaking with the team. Unless you are not of the types who want to do it all, you can stretch yourself a bit and enjoy the work and learn at a leisurely pace. Many people call this honeymoon period. But once this honeymoon period (typically lasts for 3-4 months or so) gets over, the pain of pregnancy and delivery is also very unbearable. Like a girlfriend turned wife changes within a few days, your boss no longer remains the same person. The demands grow and you wonder whether that honeymoon could have lasted a few more days. Social life comes to an abrupt ends and rest of your evenings are confined in office. Very tough time, it is like a triplet is born and you have to toggle yourself between all of them efficiently unless you do not want yourself under a load of piss and shit.

M@rketing $kills

I remember one Filmfare Awards. Radio Mirchi, the spiciest (it has mirchi in it) FM, was covering the felicitations for the bollywood aficionados. After listening to the monotonous chant on the technical awards for half-an-hour, I wished had my geography lessons been aired so repeatedly, I might had got better ranks.

Anyways, the thoughts turned me nostalgic of my school days, so I tuned into another channel which had went on air recently. This RJ exhibited some real marketing skills. She amusingly said, "Filmfare is going on somewhere. But you've got nothing to do with it. So be with me and listen to ...” The channel sold whatever it had (or didn't have?).

Gr8, isn’t?

aishwarya by aishwarya

sketch