Fate, Chicken & a Sunday Evening!

[Long post warning....]

How bad a day can be? Or rather how bad your two hours can be? I bet you can’t beat me, and forget beating you can’t even match me in bad luck.

Here’s how it unfolded. I sold my cupboard to one colleague. She requested me to get a truck or tempo and send it over to her place. I couldn’t find any reason to disagree.

So today was the day when I was supposed to send it out. Once the sun died out, I went to catch a tempo from the nearest market. There are always a host of them standing there waiting for a customer. So it is normally a few minutes job really. Just the bargaining part was something I was worried about.

Suddenly I found that there are numerous trucks there, but none of them have got any driver in it. It was a curious scene. There were like 5-10 tempos standing in the stand none of them had a driver. I asked a nariel pani wala about the whereabouts of the drivers. He gave me a strange look and said 15 rs. So I understood, that he needs me to buy a nariel pani in exchange of the valuable information. I bought one, even though heavy from a late lunch in the afternoon, still I took a huge Chennai DAAB (raw nariel or green coconut in Bengali).

Then I asked, “anda truck driver inge irike?”

he said, “teri la”!!

I astonished and indignant: “enna teri la? Nee soldra daab tanni kurunga to truck driver irike soldra”

Nariel pani wala (bewildered): “enna something something…illa terila…something something…” points to his head makes a gesture of loose screw!!

I in plain and crude Bengali: “sala boka****** ityadi ityadi”….

Angry but helpless, that’s how I have felt a numerous time in Chennai, today was such a day.

After waiting in the stand for an odd 40 minutes and when a single
Truck driver failed to appear I gave up. I thought I better enquire in the near by petrol pump where they would know someone at least.

Went to the petrol pump and asked for trucks, they showed the next car service, I went there and asked for a contact and they showed me a brochure that they provide only privet car like indica, ambassador etc!!!

I decided to give up and was coming back towards the truck stand, suddenly found a truck driver appear and get into his truck. I started running towards him, frantically throwing my hands above my head to stop him. He just whizzed past me, without bearing a thought or any compassion towards me. Big city people, how ruthless they are!!

I after this incident waited for ten more minutes to find out if any conspiring truck driver my appear here or there and the canny policeman I am, I might be able to get hold of him. But nothing dramatic happened after this, and I gave up finally.

The second mission on the go was to buy chicken. Normally I get chicken from spencers daily and never bother about the local chicken shops. Yes, I know I am not filthy rich but I don’t usually mind the extra 15 bucks the spencers guy charges for the clean environment etc.


So here I was busily speaking to a friend whom I was asking to come over for dinner (the chicken was by the way the main course). I busily crossed the local chicken shops but never noticed a deep conspiracy taking shape around me.

I walked and went to the spencers, and to much of my dismay, there was no chicken. The guy was apologetic and told that today the demand was exceptionally high and hence he was helpless.

I kind of didn’t mind. I was still unaware of what was to come. I traced my way back to the local chicken shops.

And to my utter dismay, found all the shops were closed.

I thought for a little while on how to approach this problem. Then I thought that I still had two course of action to be taken. Two backup plans really.

Backup 1 – there was still a shop left in one of the inner lanes nearby. I had bought chicken from there on a Sunday before, so was pretty damn sure it would be open.

Backup 2 – I could buy fish as the fish shop was open. There was a certain unhygeinix selling fish to my utmost liking.

Backup 3 – there was this Godrej real cut chicken which you can buy in many of the local supermarkets. That is the last option, though I don’t really like that chicken, but I thought once in a while it’s not too bad.

So I took backup 1 and walked for another 7-8 minutes to the shop in one of the inner lanes only to find the shop open but no chicken left!

I took backup 2, and rushed to the fish shop, to find out none of the fish they are selling we normally eat. I could have still bought those, but got a strict red signal from home.

At this point of time I was a bit unnerved. That famous suggestion by Paul Coelho, that if you really want something, then the entire kayanaat (whatever that means…. may mean heavenly bodies) tries to get you that seemed to be totally nonsense at this point of time.

Rather if someone has already suggested the opposite, he seemed to be quite right.

But I was not to give up so easily. I walked back to spencers to see if I can get to backup 3. And godrej chicken’s freezer was there in the super market, but no chicken again.

I went to the next supermarket and no chicken again.

I thought damn with these flashy supermarkets. There is one just near my house; I would rather check that one. Being situated at a relatively quieter place, chances of getting chicken there was more.

I took a bus, came back. Ran and crossed the shop. Glared at the man suspiciously who suddenly tried to dodge me to enter the shop before me and kept my hand on the freeze. There it was. One piece. The last of the Mohican chickens!

Frozen yet fresh.

Meaty and magnetic.

I bought that. Finally, I was happy. I had beaten them all. I had beaten the kayanaat and got the food of my choice. Take that bugger, told my fist which I pumped in the babynagar 1st main road walking back alone.

Well, it didn’t last long though. Returned home and my wife found out that chicken pack had got expired 3 days back.

It was a sinking feeling when I heard that news. The same sinking feeling that Gibbs might have got after getting beaten by a legbreak from Warney (according to cricinfo he did get a sinking feeling!! And I realized what kind of feeling that is at this very moment).

My wife suggested fro the guests lets make something with egg. Not ideal to treat your guests, but then we had no option at all. We walked back (this time I took her along to see if this has any effect on my ill starred luck) to the shop. Returned the chicken bought eggs and came home.

Then I sat back to watch IPL, and as soon as I switched the TV on, the master got out. I was almost kicking myself when the Bhajji blizzard gave the mumbaikars quite a formidable total to look at. I am never a Bhajji fan but it somewhat made up for the lost entertainment that I was expecting from the master.

And suddenly my wife came from the kitchen and notified, the gas is over so no cooking tonight!! Need I say more?

Irritation

I am a very irritating guy. Not that I irritate the hell out of others. But I myself am very much prone to irritation. The whole of today morning i was irritated with Gordon Brown, my manager, my lead myself and hundred other things. Then in the afternoon i got irritated with bill gates my fiance again myself and in the evening with Nokia, English weather and my room mate.

It was a highly irritating day also. Morning i woke up from a pain in my stomach. why? No i didn't eat a full chocolate cake the previous night. I had stomach pain because of my laptop...actually i fell asleep with my laptop on my belly. And somehow i slept for 8 hours like that. Funny?? Ya I know.

Then suddenly my alarm started ringing. i shouted i screamed i told politely to snooze. But my mobile is not voice activated so that i lying at one end of the room with a sore belly and a laptop on top of that will say something and it will oblige me. My mobile is, basically, deaf. So I had to get up.

moved the curtain aside and saw the beautiful English summer outside. lot of cumulus-nimbus clouds down pouring like hell. tremendous wind and a lovely muddy patch just in front of my house which I will have to cross while going to office. Bloody Bollocks!!

I said that, and that reminded me I have a client meeting right at 10 and if I don't start running I will be late. Then I cried as i pulled out my new £30 trouser from the washer and it has shrank by half to give a feel of three quarter. Cursing myself I got irritated again. Got more so when i noticed the small notice attached inside the trouser saying: dry clean only!!!!!

Then I spilled milk on the floor, spilled coffee on that and had to clean that mess. Started towards the tube station and halfway in that bloody rain remembered i haven't brought my Oyester. So had to get back. then a car made a nice muddy muddy mushy mushy pattern on my white shirt.

And then thanks to Mr Gordon Brown the train was late. I think trains run more on time in Calcutta than this bloody hell.

that was not the end of it. Although I ran and almost reached the venue on time my client turned up late. I think Brits are learning Indian standard time from Indians.
and so it went on...can't be asked to write anymore on irritation. Its kinda irritating.

Mudiwali Budi( The Old Lady Who Used to Sell Mudi)

Its a tale of love and pain. Love when it becomes unconditional it is heavenly feeling which my mother experienced. That was a long time back.
THat time I used to stay in Siliguri- A small town in West Bengal( on the chicken's neck of north eastern India).

We had a house in that town where I grew up. We did not have a very affluent life. Everything me and my sister asked were not to be fulfilled just by wishing for it. My parents made me understand the value of money and the hard work that goes behind to earn it. But parents words were not enough untill i saw poverty in my own eyes.
An old woman used to come to our house to sell Mudi (kind of puffed rice very popular in Bengal). She was old, too old, i would say, too carry that huge sackful of mudi on her head and walk around. But she seemed to me surprisingly stron inspite of her thin stature. She used to come everyday and sit in the varandah for a while in those hot summer afternoons. My mom used to sit with her for sometime. And the old lady would tell her lifestory. It seemed to me like an endless saga of pathetic incidents pain poverty and sobbings. Which although I was not from a affluent family seemed quite odd to me. I could never believe that life can be this tragic. Somehow it seemed unnatural and blown out of its proportion. She used to come everyday and sit there, probably in my mom she got a friend who would listen to her day to day life lessen her boredom loneliness for sometime atleast.
I used to mock my mom. I used to tease her calling her mudiwali's best friend. Mom would scold me to talk like that. But i never stopped. I thought this lady comes because my mom gives her things( like old clothes, sweaters and all...Once a piece of jewellery as well for her daughters marriage).
What i gathered from the other things that my mom later told me is her life was very painful. and she is very poor. Somehow her son is going to a school in the night to pass the secondery atleast. and her daughter will be married soon( which she was and soon she became the source of another unfortunate event).
This lady was all by herself. She lost her husband as soon as she got pregnant with her second child. She had to work even in her labor months on the field and its only hard work which made her earn a living for her two children. she was lonely and living in a place where few ppl cared about her. In her village none really was a friend to her to whom she could talk aand probably relieve herself from her agonising lonliness. So there was my mom.
As I said earlier I thought this was a give and take relation between these two individuals. I tried not to think as my mom's son, but some third person who doesn't know any of the subjects and analyse their condition. I while doing that I more and more became convinced that this was a petty poor rich relation, the poor is living totally on the consideration of Rich( The word RIch is to be taken relatively here).
But what I failed to notice is the other small gifts that is coming from the woman to my mom, and the smile in my mom's eyes. My mom knew she is poor and can not probably afford to give gifts, but everytime she came she used to come with some or other small things like a small ripe mango from the tree just beside her house in village. a half of a Rohu Fish which her son had caught while fishing in a pond nearby. These gifts were unique in nature. Mom always wanted to discourage her from bringing gifts as she feared this would put additiional pressure on this old lady. But she never stopped. Once she said, "eigula je ani tumar jonno ete amar bhalo lage. "Probably it gave her the chance to give off the burden of all those things that mom used to give her and stand side by side to mom. Probably these enabled her to think mom as a friend and not as a giver. Mom also told me the same thing when one day i asked her. I got a new angle of this relationship that day. I learnt friendship.
Then came the time when we were moving out of Siliguri to Kolkata( previously known as Calcutta). I was not there at home that time. Dad, Mom and didi were there. Few days before the day of departure, the lady came home. My mom had already told her that we were shifting to calcutta. that day it became a spectacle really when she started crying. She was sad. She was crying like a mother who is going to loose a child. She was crying and telling who will talk to me if you go away? who will care for me? when after many days mom told me about this i saw those blinks of tears in her eyes. and I knew there was love. there was friendship a kind I never experienced a kind which I would die for to feel and a kind only people who are very lucky like mom can feel. I am proud of you mom. I really am.

[The picture on the side is not the real woman just an illustration copied from Google Image search]

Life now..........

(Friday, March 24, 2006)

Once more I am writing after such a loooong gap...thought I would never have the pain that I had started to love. Thought never ever I will feel the loneliness which kept my pen going on and on. Thought never again I would write about hearts content as I have already got someone who will understand what lies beneath before I have to actually say it.Things change but one thing remains constant my love towards pain. That’s why my destiny will pull me towards something which will b painful and odd.I am missing you too much. Every night and every day its like a sitting on a pin cushion. I don’t know whether the simili is correct or not. But that’s what the case is here. And when you feel that the same fire is not present on the other side over the seas, the pain increases like never before. I do not know when I reach the UK things might become brighter. But I hardly fore see that. Don’t know whether I am right or wrong in this. But that’s what I am feeling right now.I wonder why I am not the slightest excited about going to UK. For the first time in my life I am moving out abroad and I can’t feel anything in my bloodstreams making me excited. Probably I need some kick to get up from this awful low week. Next week my parents are coming so expecting a better time ahead. Who knows………..All the loneliness is my companion right now. All the worries of losing her. Don’t know why………But my heart says I am losing her. Oh god please help me……I talk to her twice a day. I keep on sending her mails. Still nothing happens the gloomy loneliness persists. The life becomes dark to darker.,…….

Hell Of a Time!!

(Monday, October 24, 2005)

Don't know what am I doing right now! The studies seems to be f***** up. Life is full of trouble. My look out for some Management Institute is not going to end this time also and its quite certain. I am not giving it up. But something in my mind tells me unless I do something wonderful in this last few days for English I am gone. All my friends are better off than me. All... I am the only one screwing with my own future. I wanted to study... At the same time I am doing all sort of things which will not allow me to study also. Dunno what to do about those. I hope I had someone who could solve my problem. Someone whom I could make all these understand and work out a solution for me.But I am afraid those angels of fire are long bygone from my life. I am living an alien life here. Doing nothing to add value to my resume and doing nothing to make my big dreams true. God has only given me the power to imagine and dream and he didn't teach me how to make them true.I am very much frustrated right now. So I am righting this in my open blog. I know people will read this and probably laugh about it. A man must not get depressed. A man must not cry even with dry eyes.But what pain it is only a man understands when he stands on this vast desert alone, woonded but sees no place to recline or to die peacefully.I am not crying as I forgot how to. I am not dying as I don't know how to. I am only trying and trying.... as life taught me only one thing in this 23 years of my life: "Never Say Die"

Change The Change...and My View on Decision Taking

(Originally posted in http://www.eforeconomics.blogspot.com/ on September 01, 2005)

Within a week the whole thing changed………..the whole thing means life project and everything…..got a new responsibility which I don’t know how well I be fulfilling…But no doubt I will try…..so became the new lead of my team…with all those friends with whom I have worked the whole of last year now I will have to lead them..tough job…..not technically but a complete new job in which I am not experienced at all….but you have to start sometimes……..

A lot more of the changes are there…..almost all seniors are leaving….and some like us are getting the chance of being seniors and handle the responsibility….handling the testing team is one of the toughest jobs I guess…because unlike the other teams here we do some work……. Not to demean the other teams though…but really it’s a hectic work and probably the most hectic as it can be in our project…

Its fine to see people happy…and its not so fine to see them not. Some have got their desired changes and happy to the full……and some haven’t but still with full morale trying hard to make themselves a fuller so that in the next run they can have the change for the better….and some like me are not so sure whether the change was for better or for worse….Life is like this…you can never guess what it has got in store for you…even that day in the morning I didn’t know that I will become the lead and I will have to take a decision of choosing the role or demise…and I did take the decision.

Taking a decision is one work which I have found always hard. Probably because all the time I didn’t work out on the decision practically…sometimes I have taken a decision just like that and did not take the pain to think about the situation that I’m in ……and what exactly the situation is going to be when I take this decision and what it will be when I do the other thing. This causal analysis makes things really easy. You should always be in a position to take interest what is happening all around you and decide depending on that. Its never a gambling game. And gambling never makes a man rich. Only thinking hard and thinking practically is going to help you out when you are in a situation where you can not make out what is going to be your next step.

I have been taken decisions like this before. My parents even in my early life also left the decision taking part on my shoulders only. Which college to study in and which subject to study all these decisions were taken by me only and I can tell you not all of them turned out to be a wise decision neither were they any well thought decisions. But whatever decision you take its only upto you to make them seem right by your actions. Like I did not get a govt college while passing my 12th standard. So I had to take a decision between waiting for another year or joining some private institution then and there. I chose the latter and I did make it seem like this was the right decision as even if I joined a reputed college after passing out I would be doing this same scrap work in some or the other IT company with the same efficiency with only one plus thing that is a year plus to my age.

So I made it there. This can be done in other fields also. I seriously feel that its in your hands how bad or good the situation turns out to be!!

Busy Days Ahead

(Originally posted in http://www.eforeconomics.blogspot.com/ on August 25, 2005)
The whole of this week and the last week was a busy schedule...not like bishal though...but it was hectic for a guy like me!! Dunno how am I doing this job over and over again again everyday...it must be pathetic isn't it ...my brain asks my soul.......soul gets irritated.."why don't you yourself feel how it feels to do a job like this?"...my brain laughs.."how will I? I go to sleep when you do all these scrap..after all I am not at all needed here!"Seriously...being in IT and doing some real fundoo job which I always dreamt of is a lot like going thru a desert and whenever u feel thirsty u get to find a lake sort ot thing...Never mind I keep on blabbering about this thing...and now it has become my habit ...so forget it...today I have to finish some work also but nothing seems to work out ...there are so many strange bugs appearing...Dunno what went wrong!! cya for now ...may b if I finish my job I will write a li'll more!

Presentation

(Originally posted in http://www.eforeconomics.blogspot.com/ on August 17, 2005)

tomorrow is my presentation...dunno what to say...this creepy process thing gets on my nervs. I do not know what the hell is CMM or PCMM or IPMS...all these technical jargons are nothing but disconnected alphabets who are roaming around my head like orphans...Oh great Lord bless me with mercy and make me clear this.Yesterday was my 2nd MockCAT in which I fared damn badly. I did some silly mistakes which will even make a 4 yr old kid cover his face in shame. But that's what I am once on top of 7th heaven and the next moment on the hard realities of ground....

My Hometown- The Waterbridge

(Originally posted in http://www.eforeconomics.blogspot.com/ on August 17, 2005)
I still keep on remembering my hometown feel nostalgic…My hometown is Siliguri just like my roomy Bishal and like every other siligurian I also feel very much patriotic while talking about that serene Himalayan town…(sounds nice huh?? Go there once to understand the serenity which lives and dies with the horn of Rickshaw…This place holds the world record of rickshaw pullers density)..However everyone is nostalgic about their place!! I am a little bit more so. I found out some real good places there. Places to hang out with friends and places where you can light your first cigarette without having the tension of getting seen! The water bridge was such a place…A nice and huge canal under which a tiny river vanishes…Now this point you shall ask how?Well actually amidst the ranges of Baikunthapur Forest there appears this tiny river Baikuntha which goes on its normal whizzy whazzy way. But man had to dig that canal to reform irrigation and all. But somehow here they showed the tiny river a little mercy unlike many other cases. They built a bridge on which the canal passes bypassing the river. And when you go beneath the canal…stand in the knee dip water…take a cigarette in your hand …and feel that 40000 cusec of water is flowing over your head with thundering noise and tremendous energy …………..You truly feel like GOD!

Metamorphosys de Confirmacio

(Originally posted in http://www.eforeconomics.blogspot.com/ on August 17, 2005)
Getting confirmed had a big impact on my room-mates and me..and to say specifically on Jha...his all day sleeps ...long night hauls into the adventures of Television (Put an 'F' before the word television)...and tiny moments at office seemed to come to an end. Time was changing fast...& so was Jha...He startled us first when one day he told San to call him up at dawn(well for us that is 7)...he startled us even more when he woke up himself at the scheduled time which was a first in his lifetime I guess ...(and Naidu who is a college mate of his, strongly confirms this)..then started a saga of long hours at office ...after returning, taking a usual sigh of relief( which me bishal or naidu normally have ...or san takes after a dinner!! )...If somebody asks me whether I have seen a living Paradigm Shift...I would say yes I have...!! CAT ran away by the backdoor...and the dreams of getting a good rating floated into his mind....which drove him towards working...well even if not working staying at office!!Then oneday me and Jha went to a bar...we took a large peg of vodka and toasted "To the well being of CAT which had flown away from our hands" and bid goodbye to CAT....

My Room Tata and sons

((Originally posted at August12 2005 in my other blog Eforeconomics which due to my bloody forgetfullness i have to abandone now... So I am copying all the notes from there to here))
Hi Guys...Paul here to welcome you on a journey from COAST TO COAST....Life is always kool and confused as well...That's why when God created me he created a person who on the course of becoming a poet lost his way and found salvation through the electrons and holes of transistors to an elien world of computers and softwares...And found poetry in the codes of SQL ultimately....So here am I your Captain for the journey through the pages of my life through the incidents and the accidents to take you on a road...that goes cross country from coast to coast........
posted by Paul at 6:57 AM 0 comments
Friday, August 12, 2005

My Room--TATA and sons!!
We roomies.. all are sons of TATA....now don get suspicious about our surnames...I meant to say that for us TATA is 'my baap'! TATA feeds us and milks us also. I wanted to let you guys know who I live with...together in our appartment...(but do not think - we live together)!The First Person is: Bishal Sharma...well this is an alphabetical list that's why Bishal getting advanage of projecting himself at first..no politics guys! This fellow is from my hometown that is Siliguri. What can we say about him?? One of the most prized employees of TCS. Works day in and day out to let "Poor Engine making company Cummins" make a little money!!Next:Santanu Ghosh... The CAT Freak! our dear san ..when he is not eating he must be preparing for CAT...and if he is preparing for CAT he must be snoring...!!!:-)Next:Satish Kumar Jha...The real business minded fellow in our group..(How can we forget the concept of E-Pan!) Shares and Mutual Funds run in his mind always...and he is the inventor of the plans of life(Plan A,Plan B,Plan C)...Started with Plan A...now sleeps peacefully upto 10a.m with a simple variant of plan C in mind(Plan CC).Next:Satish Naidu...The real movie freak...and the confused kid in the block..He can watch 3 chimapnjees jumping around for 3 hours and find out great spiritual meaning out of it...Last is me: Well I should not be telling about me..as every insane person thinks he himself is sane and I already proved my insanity by staying happily with so many insane people...!