Update!

This is my first post in more than a week. I’ve been relaxing at home doing pretty much nothing. Today, I will be leaving for India’s IT Capital, Hyderabad. My sister came down for admissions and since I’m doing pretty much nothing here, might as well meet them up and do nothing there.

I’ll take some pics and try to post as soon as I get back, if not earlier. I gotta be back by the weekend, so I won’t be staying there long. I haven’t been to South India much, so this is a good opportunity as well, to eat some Dum Briyani and well-fed chicken meat, which we don’t usually get here.

Safe journey and have a great trip to me!

My First Blog

I finally found it and taken control again!!

 I had created the blog back when www.blogger.com was still www.blogspot.com ! (No wonder I wasn’t able to login with my account details on blogger!) It was my college days and I had read somewhere about how some lady’s blog had become so popular that she was offered a Book Contract! I was broke most of the time, and money was hard to come by. It was a great idea at the time to start a blog and earn millions. I was staying in a flat with 3 other guys whom I’ve never met before, and paying less than half of what I’m paying now as rent. Food was in the form of a “Dabba” which was pure veg. We paid 650/- monthly for lunch and dinner which the delivery boy would leave at our doorstep.

The upside was that internet was cheap at 10/hr and it was my only means of keeping in touch with my friends (Chat-friends to be exact.. mIrc ruled!) No other chinky in sight (Except for the local roadside chinese who are mostly nepalis and they don’t speak English and I didn’t know Hindi/Marathi). So, in the evenings after class, before dinner-boy comes knocking, I’d be cramped up in a seedy cafe, with the stench of sweat, and the rattling of the dust-covered ceiling fan which looked ready to drop anytime and splatter the room with fresh blood, squinting my eyes to see the small text on a 14″ CRT which had a greenish tint, badly in need of degaussing.

Anyways, a few days back, I realised I had forgotten the name of the blog. So started a frantic search and after a while, I finally figured out the name. mizoblog.blogspot.com. That was the simple part. I tried to login and edit the blog, but my username and password was not correct since it was the old BLOGSPOT account. It was a long time before I actually decided to click on the following link:

(BTW, you get this page when you enter an invalid username and password in www.blogger.com). SO, I finally regained control over my old blog, but it’s kinda redundant now cos’ I have another already, and no offense to Blogspot, but I love Wordpress.

I’ve left the old blog without making any changes just for fun. I don’t have any intentions of continuing it as of now, although it would’ve been nice to have found it before I created this blog. Cos’ then, I would’ve been one with the oldest blog, if not one of the oldest bloggers.. Eat your heart out, Sandman! Hehehe!! (This phrase was taken from the old “Plasticman” cartoon which he shouts while swinging from tree to tree with “Eat your heart out, Apeman”! *Inserted just for nostalgic content!)

Good news

I finally landed my dream job in a dream company, and whatever I had done to achieve this, how long I waited didn’t really matter anymore, cos’ its just feels so good I can’t really believe that it has happened. Sometimes, when I get some good news, I get skeptical about it, cos’ I’ve counted my chickens once too many before they hatched, and I’ve paid for it over and over again.

Do you ever get the feeling that sometimes, when things go too friggin’ good, you’re more doubtful than happy? Thats me. I got the call from the company, yet I still couldn’t believe it. I was actually hoping to hear some catch, some bad news, some strings attached.. etc etc, cos’ frankly, thats how my whole life has been going pretty much, and this is just too frighteningly good to be true.

The interview process for this company starts with the HR calling you and fixing up a date for the Technical Interview. After which there’d be a one-on-one with the Operations Manager who would decide your fate. I had cleared the technical previously on Feb ’08, but was rejected by the Ops who thought I was too unexperienced since I had worked for only 6 months in my present company then. I was devastated that time, cos’ I thought getting through the technical was tough enough and the Ops would have some consideration, turns out I was wrong! My being a nervous-prwreck-when-confronted-with-a-life-deciding-interview didn’t really help.

So, I waited for another year and a few months and got the opportunity again. I cleared the technical interview again, in fact, I thought I did pretty well too. But I know I didn’t exactly dazzle the Operations Mgr, how can I when he asks me stuff like :

“What is the most common tree in Mizoram?”

 followed by

“How many such trees would there be in Mizoram?”

I managed to mumble something about

“..Maybe we can take a satellite photo and..”

“.. and what? Count the trees!?” *He smirks a little and I give a trying-to-act-normal smile back.

*nervous wriggling on the chair, trying to think hard and fast, but DAMMIT, why did I watch Balboa last night, keeps coming up in my way of thought..

“.. No, sir, we can calculate the area, then maybe based on the density of one hectare..”

*I dont even know whats the area of a Hectare, damn, what if thats his next question.. more wriggling…

“If you are selected, what would prompt you to leave our Company?”

*HEY, I was still calculating the area of a Hectare, DAMMIT!.. Winner-of-wriggling-contest-heavy wriggling.. Umm… “We need a medic!!”

Well, it wasn’t that dramatic, but I just like to try my hand at drama, guess I sucked! But those were some of the exact questions he asked, and exactly in that order. Maybe he was trying to get your train of thoughts off-track, or maybe DERAIL your train of thought.. (Thats a pretty nice way of putting it..hmm)

Anyways, come monday and I will put down my papers and take a break for 10+ days before I join the new company. I just wanna feel jobless, careless, tension-less etc etc for a few days and just take a time off for myself… READ: party, party, party, party, party, party, party!! And did I mention.. PARTY!!

Thank you God! I had started to forget You, but You never did! I am truly blessed!

Life’s Good!

Wrong change

Recently I bought a few cigarettes from a local store. I gave the shopkeeper a 100 note and he returned me 90, when he was supposed to give me 10 less. I felt no compulsion to point out his mistake and left the shop 10 bucks richer. If he had called me back, I would’ve happily returned him his change, but he didn’t and I didn’t really mind. It was then I realised that wrong change does not bother me as much as it did a few years ago.

Even for a single rupee, or sometimes more,  I usually return wrong change given to me. Well, back home, I wouldn’t want to be labelled a dishonest customer, and the shopkeeper would always tell you if you’ve paid him more, or given you less.  And its HOME afterall, nobody is trying to cheat you, at least not always, trying to squeeze every penny you have left. Everyone’s trying to make a living and at the end of the day, somebody has to pay the rent.

Further from home, in a place which is a Second home, the scene is different, and I think I’ve grown accustomed to it. Earlier, I would return the extra change to the shopkeeper, who would take it without any sense of gladness or relief, taking for granted that you WERE supposed to return it anyway. Sometimes, they may even eye you with suspicion as if you were the culprit here, and quickly grabbing the returned cash, afraid you might have second thoughts. But I never seemed to mind it, cos’ it always gave me the inner satisfaction and peace that I did a good deed, doesn’t matter if the person on the receiving end didn’t really seem to appreciate your act. It felt good inside.

But now, I don’t get that satisfaction anymore, knowing that the shopkeeper is not going to do the same for you. There’s a certain rule here that goes something like this:

1. If you make a mistake in calculation, its your fault and you have to pay for it. The shopkeeper is not obligated to return you your money unless you realise your mistake before leaving the shop. Period.

2. If the shopkeeper makes a mistake and gives you wrong change, you are expected to retun it back, but doing so will not make matters any better, if not worse. Also, you may not expect any favors/discount from him just because you gave him his money back.

3. If you fail to return the wrong change and the shopkeeper realises it before you leave his shop, then you are in for a few moments of humiliation, the length of which will be determined by the amount miscalculated. But if the error is not realised, then you are free to keep the money at your own moral risk.

I’m not necessarily a person who remembers to count his change each time, but now with having a job and earning a living, I guess things have changed. My mum would always give me long lecture about the practice of counting what you receive back, which I seldom paid heed to while in college and before. I guess it wasn’t really a priority for me at the time. But lately I always remind myself to calculate the change I am about to receive back and check the bill when swiping a card, cos’ as the rule goes, there is a limited timeframe when you can refute the charge and actually expect to get your money back without spending much time, energy and with the mininum body temperature. I guess, at least, this is a change for the better, the right change, if you will.

Random thoughts I

On consolation..

Lately, I’ve realised that consoling someone isn’t just saying “Its OK”. You tell the person that everything is going to be alright, when deep in your heart, you know it’s not. You make them feel better, and take away their pain, but the pain remains, not only in them anymore but you. Its a sacrifice you make to share their burden, to walk beside them through the lonely path they are about to trod.

On emotions..

Emotion is an energy, neither created nor destroyed, but only converted from one emotion to another, and transferred from one person to the next. Anger creates destruction, and causes pain and suffering for others. Joy and happiness makes others happy, while it creates envy and jealousy on another.

On life and death..

If everyone had a KILL button on them, pushing which would spell instant death for the person, how different would the world as we know it be? Would there be more wars or less? Would there be peace on earth? Would people be more superficial or less? Would we trust friends more or families less? Can there be superiors and subordinates? Would the world be any different at all?

Randomness..

Food is just an excuse for being hungry.

Love is blind, but we have each other to find our own way out of the darkness.

If you hate someone, you can love him/her as much.

To truly learn something, you need to love it, and to truly love something, you need to learn it.

Music can only be truly appreciated by listening, not with the ear, but the heart.

Lastly…

Being corny is not a feeling, it’s an attribute.