I attended the play “And now for something completely different” by the Chennai group Evam, at the Chowdaiah Memorial Hall on Sunday, 23rd September. I had blocked my tickets for the afternoon show for two very good reasons _ one, the unpredictably predictable showers that rock Bangalore during the evenings, and two, to avoid crowds, which I, so wrongly, assumed would turn up only for the evening show!

I was wrong on both counts, no thunder showers rocked Bangalore that evening and the afternoon show was bustling with a motley crowd, Page3 things, journo looking things, regulars, students, aunties… I hardly expected to stand at the end of a long queue to collect my tickets after having smartly, or so I thought, blocked my tickets. It appeared that that is exactly what half the crowd had in mind too.

As we slowly moved up the queue, there was an appetizer kinda performance that happened at the entree. A song. But it did to stir up my curiosity even though I heard little of it. The play began a little while later, about 30 minutes after they were supposed to begin. The page 3-ish crowd trickled in slowly amidst giggles, heels, pushing hair behind the ears, swinging purses and skirts, they settled down and then it began.

I can tell you no names, for there was no introduction with each and every member of the cast as such! But the first chunk of comedy that came my way, the one with the Pope and Michaelangelo, was one of the most memorable comedy pieces. The actor who did the Michaelangelo part had a very striking stage presence and before long I was waiting for his parts to come up. I enjoyed all of his pieces except the one with the Singh joke. The joke was on media and how an advertisement can exaggerate just about the silliest of products, and I did go on to laugh, but that was mostly because I had been laughing and it was impossible to do anything else!

The girls who came to change the props in between the pieces, did their own little jingles while at it. The idea was innovative and perhaps even necessary between sets. But I put up with them with the same enthusiasm with which I put up with breaks during good movies on HBO!

Of particular note was the costumes worn by the characters set in Rome and England. They were set to period and they’d tickle anyone’s funny bone by their sheer fanciness! There was a king who came riding by on a horse. While the king’s costume was not noteworthy, the horse was! It was such an appropriate prop for a comedy. Perhaps, had the king’s costume been any catchy, it might’ve overshadowed the ridiculous looking horse. This horse was constructed of a horse’s 2-dimensional torso attached to a swimming pool life buoy, with the life buoy around the king, and the click-clock of a horse’s hoof on the tarred road was made to sound by knocking coconut shells. Remarkable! That was my favourite prop!

That and the dead parrot. The piece about the dead parrot was about a man who came to return a dead parrot to the pet shop he purchased it from a little while back. The dead parrot was so dead! I had to just look at it to roll in laughter.

On the whole it was a simple and thoroughly enjoyable play! Do I have any complaints? Well… I do, why is there such little awareness, why have I not heard of their plays in Bangalore earlier. They say they cannot advertise, but there are several zero or next to nothing costing media. What about those? What about newsletters?

Do you know the masses of people who’d rather go to a play than go to watch a movie at the multiplex. It is a lighter, more involved, better quality entertainment. But I’d rather not have the types like the bunch of girls who were discussing the story, live as it was playing, in the seats in front of me, coming to watch plays. Please go to your multiplex, I say!

Well, let me do my bit in the word of mouth way, they said they’d have two shows in Bangalore in the coming few months. And am looking forward to attending the ones they said they’d get here in November and December. See you there then…?

This Orkut thing, this whole online social networking thing, leaves me a little confused, a little bemused, a little disappointed and a little smile!

On a rainy Saturday afternoon, with nothing much to do, with nowhere to be at, I take to my online buddies for time-pass. A little browsing through friends’ lists of friends, lets me reach, leap by leap to that very old classmate and good friend, from 15 years back! The last time we were in touch was in the times of the snail-mail and landlines… I let out a wow, am thrilled to discover her again, and dig into her profile, going through her friends’ list, going through her profile details, the pictures in her album, and then, a little shamelessly, into her scrap book.

Very soon I must know all about her, what does she do now, how does she sound, who does she hang around with, is she married, what career has she finally landed herself in, so many questions… I dig furiously through her scrapbook. Err… I seem to be shameless enough to repeatedly admit that even! But there isn’t much there, just regular conversation and exchanges of good wishes and hellos and trivial comments… But my questions prod me.

Before I even realise what am doing, I have given her a friend request and left her a scrap in her scrapbook… “Heyyyyy!!! Really really long time… what’s up with you….” I type in, excitedly. I almost clap, she will be neatly surprised, wont she? With that, and my lazy afternoon ruffled by real enthusiasm at having come across an old friend on this cyberscape, I logout, but not without hoping that she replies real soon.

It is only after I logout and I calm down that I ask myself, so what now? Are we going to be good pals once again, despite the length of time that separates the girls we are today from the ones we were the last time we were in touch? Surely she has changed as much as I have, come on, my hopes, my ambitions, my ideas, everything has so changed. Ok, so if we don’t click, big deal… I tell myself… But I know, deep down am hoping we reconnect and get back to a relationship like old times, yeah, foolish no doubt!

Lets quickly fast forward a week later, equal enthusiasm and cheer greeted me as she accepted my friend request(speaking in orkut terms!), we have exchanged updates. She now does this and is staying there and everyone in her family doing good, but her dog died, and stuff like that, you know… She too hears my end of, I now do this in life and stay there and yes mom and dad are doing great, and oh so sad your Bruno died! Then comes the little bomb, we exchange contact numbers!

I sit staring at her number, should I call…? What do I say? What do we talk about? Now, one thing I must tell you, general conversations come very easily to me, and I can talk to most people the first few times I meet them, Oh you think I ought to be more modest about it. Ok, fine we wont talk about it…! Anyways, so am left wondering what to do now… the thing is, this is not just a general conversation. Once upon a time we knew each other’s crushes and heartbreaks and dreams and stuff like that. How does one start off after having stopped with a full stop? A new paragraph perhaps?

After dilly-dallying a good deal, I dial her number, slowly, like someone just put my life in slow motion. The phone rings at the other end… once, twice… five times and then well, I hang up! I leave her a little note saying, ‘Hey, been trying to reach you, give me a call at my number when you are free..’ Huh! the ball’s now in her court, I smile!

Lets again fast forward another week later, there were missed calls from her, I was busy at work, genuinely, I swear! There were few more missed calls from me… But now I’ve got it, neither of us are that enthu-ed to get back, or perhaps we donot know if we should, or if we can, or how to! Thats where it is… disappointing that its happening like this, amusing that both of us are going through the same thing, confusing as to what to do now! But off course to know that she is there once again in my list of contacts, and that I can talk to her anytime I want, does leave me with a smile….:)

Well, that’s one of my stories of getting back with old friends, via the Orkut route, what’s yours like?

Complacency is one thing I absolutely hate about good hotels. But it is the strongest force that takes over a place rated good, and ends up being at its very root cause of downfall and unpopularity within a year of its ‘good’ rating, or so I have observed!

While its tough to get complacent when it comes to the taste of the food served, given that the cook follows the same steps each day, it is very easy to lose track of quality once a restaurant has established a reasonable amount of fame. But am surprised how little attention, restaurants pay to this key factor, after arriving at the threshold of success. Don’t they realise that even though the food is excellent, customers might not turn up if they found stapler-pins in their kababs or hair in the upma?

Yes, it is astonishing, isn’t it? That they manage to make big goof-ups like this!? What started me on this topic is the chip of crockery that I found in the tamarind sauce I was dipping my chandini kabab in at Samarkhand last Saturday. Given the dim lighting within the place, I mistook it to be a seed or such-like and tried chewing at it. I donot give up easy, so after a bit of struggle, I accepted that it might be a bit of bone, carelessly mixed up with the kabab. And then, sorry about this absolute lack of dinner-table etiquette, but my curiosity leaped over all that etiquette and I pulled out the bit to have a closer look. Guess what!? Yup, it was a bit of the crockery indeed, brown and smooth on one side and chipped and pale-white on the other. It was confirmed as much, upon being shown to the manager.

What really amazed me was the nonchalance of the restaurant managers, the absolute lack of apology or any smooth words at all from the whole bunch. They just took the piece back with them. To do what, you ask? To put it back in the jar of tamarind sauce perhaps!? You will probably go on to say that this is my fault when I narrate to you that this is the second such instance I have come across in this same place, Samarkhand. Six months back, over similar dim-lighting I pulled out a stapler-pin, after it gashed lightly in my mouth. Yes, it was in my piece of starter again!

Forgive me, but I have a weakness for their Dum Biryani, which has been overcome with the last bit of crockery piece I stumbled upon. No more of Samarkhand for me, even if it means missing the perfect Dum Biryani and their out-of-this-world kababs. I might have reconsidered and continued with my weakness for their biryani, had a simple apology come my way. But Samarkhand and its bunch or pin-feeders refuse to step down from the ladder of complacency. Bah!

This kind of taking success and popularity for granted is not just Samarkhand’s fault. I have seen this kind of stupidity at many good places. Hair under muffins at Cafe Coffee Days, hair in the upma at the moderately-scaled Sukh Sagar, hair in idli, eye lashes (surely not mine!) in lemon soda, coffee, sugar. Why? Why give up when you are so close to being someone’s favourite eat-out!? Why take the pleasure out of eating-out for a person who is choosing to come to you!? I simply donot get it!

Surely it is foolish to believe that you will continue to have this rush and this huge demand for your food when it is equivalent to a health hazard? Surely it is foolish to believe that customers will flock, no matter what, even though there are so many more new places to explore? Surely it is not good business sense this, absolute disregard for quality? Tell me?

A friend had been badgering me with invitations to attend an introductory session on this life-enriching course she just attended. Every time I asked her what the course was all about, she merely cooed, ‘Its very nice, its really very nice, you must take it. You don’t know the kind of change your life will undergo.’, and such like. My first instinctive reaction was to stay away from it, I cannot quite explain how that came about. However, eventually her persistence paid off, friends must be obliged, and one busy Monday, I was rapidly finishing my day’s work to join her for my first introductory session on this life-enriching course.

A bizarre session of people coming to stage and talking about how the course changed the very course of their life, left me, frankly, very amused. There were old people, dads, moms, grandpas and grandmas’ proudly talking before the whole lot of about 150 or so people, that they will remain ever grateful to Landmark Education Forum for giving them that power which no amount of education, learning, money, religion, prayer, friendship, thinking and will-power could ever give them. The frightening thing was everybody broke into much enthusiastic clapping at the drop of a hat, everybody cheered for the speaker like he was his best friend up there. It was like a whole new clan had been formed with some sort of black magic. I could say, I was even awed and curious, what is this thing all about? I mused.

An hour later, my friend left me for her class, and a whole new lot of us, new-comers on the thresh-hold of this secret atrium of Learning about life-enriching potions, were gathered at a small room, away from the senior graduates. They were called another equally respectful term, which I forget, but it was largely to this effect. Within the smaller room, came a grinning professor. Apparently her ‘real’ life occupation was that of a professor too. She skillfully guided rows and rows of us into giving up our names, occupations and brief introductions.

One of the first things she did was ask us to write down on a sheet, a perplexing problem from life, a problem which has been gnawing at our minds since long, a problem which has little solution. I sat and chewed the back of my pencil, thinking hard, right then there seemed to be just one problem, the problem that I didn’t have one! But when she saw too many of us blinking, without writing down anything at all, she gave us her problem and how Landmark helped her conquer a solution to the same. I faintly recall it was how her mom caught her the moment she stepped home from work and rattled all her problems, about the maids, gardeners and such-like, and how she used to ask her mom to shut up for a while and how her mom used to take hurt at this. She even told us the solution, I suppose, but I do not remember, I rather spotted a squirrel outside the window and watched it bite into a half-eaten guava.

Soon I realised everyone around me was furiously writing down their problems in the sheet and I sat blank, my mind blanker than my sheet. After a long time, just as she was about to move onto the next topic, a brainwave struck me, ‘I am lazy’, yes, I almost said aloud, that is indeed a pathetic problem. I scribbled as much on my sheet. By now, the professor was discussing problems with people who didn’t mind discussing them with the class, and she was helping them analyse why they do what they do, no one might really be at fault and how things happen the way they do. Salary problems like my sister earns more than me or my colleague earns more than me, marital conflicts like why does my mother in law not let me take the dog out for a walk, severe job dissatisfaction like my boss does not recognise my worth or my field has no growth opportunities, time management like I get up at 5.30am everyday and yet I reach office late, friction with relatives like my aunt keeps eying my husband’s progress compared to her son -in law’s, and even sexual problems were all discussed. It was err…. interesting, even though petty and a waste of time hearing them all, given that I barely knew their names.

I will not bore you with further unnecessary details of the course, so lets get on with the catch. The catch is after the introductory session, you will not be forced, but you will feel like signing up for the course paying the fees of, hold your breath, life enriching courses do not come free, 5.5k. Now, I hear the amount is even bigger. No change in booking will be allowed, once the amount is paid, consider yourself enrolled for that period or forget about your cash. No, absolutely no refund. Am sure though, they have damn good, sincere reasons for the same. When it was my turn, I said I want to think about it, and thereafter got cold-shouldered, right till the time I picked my bag and ran out, looking like I had to take a call on my cell-phone.

What am astounded with is the great number of people whom they managed to convince that they absolutely need to do this course to figure out life. They paid up fees in advance and left the room at peace with the world that all problems will now go away, life will finally be chill! How did they do it? Or were a few of them their people, like plain-clothed policeman, ensuring that the initial momentum is generated for people who wait to see who else is signing up? Or were they people who had come decided that they will take the course hearing about it all from their friends’ and family member’s? Surely these will be the kind of people who will stand on that stage 6 months later and talk of their wonderful experience and learning from Landmark. I have not done the course, but I cannot believe there can be any learning that can be had, which will make drastic changes in my thinking, in my life. Things are somewhat solid and quite set now for me.

I cannot help but think that if there is anyone who can solve my problems, however trivial or large, it is me alone. No course can replace positive thinking in one’s life. With this kind of thinking in mind, and then seeing the prolific success of the Landmark Education Forum, I feel helplessly at a loss. I feel there is something that I am missing, despite attending the introductory session, I cannot trust someone else to make any change in my life. Yes, there are things that happen which change our life altogether, turn it around all at once, but how can a course do that, and that too in a way that I turn out to be a totally different person from what I am today. How? How?

I am not over-confidently asserting that this is another of those fake things, that trick people into believing they are going to get a fresh breath of life. I have friends who have actually done the course and believe in its supreme power and can’t help repeating that they are grateful to this course for the kind of person they have become today. At the same time, I cannot help feeling scared that some sort of hocus-focus does happen, some smooth talking… Probably, its merely about encouraging people and telling them that they CAN do it, solve their own problems, a sort of Confidence generating thing? Probably, its a breather of a social life, in the kind of lonely lives we now lead, this kind of a social thing simply lends you a shoulder to cry on, gives a listening ear for your problems and a group of friends who will express genuine concern at your regrets. Probably this is how new religions and new beliefs and new practices come about. This kind of blind belief in a great talker.

I am probably going round and round in circles trying to figure out what this was about, but I hope someone who has done this course tells us what it really is about. Don’t just use adjectives and say ‘it was great’, ‘it was wonderful’, no, tell us succinctly what you learnt. If possible, give the exact difference in your life, the before and after kind of snapshot from your life!

Art is entertainment. I have often failed to draw the line between the two. What would one call strictly as Art? What is pure Entertainment? Music is art and entertainment, same goes for Movies, Theatres, Art shows, Hobby classes, Dancing, Books, Fashion, hmm! I seem to have stumbled into some truth today, art is entertainment, entertainment is art!

When I dabble in art, I seem to entertain myself. A lonely boring afternoon can get colourful with art-y indulgences. You may call it entertainment! A movie, or perhaps a novel, or take to a hobby? Then watch what the lonely boring afternoon transcends itself into, an interesting well-spent afternoon, where your energies were directed into creating and learning, something new!

One such boring afternoon, I took to glass painting. Now, let me tell you, am no artist at all. I do occassionally get those stirrings that do to bring out paints and brushes and canvases and I put a stroke here and there. Folks around me come and gush and say ‘Hey, thats really good!’ but I have my own doubts. I suppose I love to indulge in paints more than I am actually good at it. But thats for quite another discussion.

For now I would like to introduce you to Glass painting, for those who haven’t yet tried their hands at it. The best part about Glass painting is its really really simple, but the end result is surprisingly glamourous! What I mean is, a wee bit of effort can produce a wonderful art piece that you might just be proud of. Drop a few paints here and there and watch how the silly glass piece tranforms into a delight. Yeah, its that simple!

So, here’s what you will require _ first up, a glass surface that you want to colour up. I had a dull cane coffee table lying around, and its glass top just beckoned to be done up! I tried out stuff on empty fish bowls, then there are the kitchen windows which needed brightening up. Alternately, you could buy a glass piece that you want to paint on. Most simple.

Secondly, you’d require paints, glass paints. Hop over to the nearest stationery shop, they all stock sets of Glass paints. You could buy a full set or just the colours you want. Additionally, you will need the outliner as well. But that actually depends on what you want to try out. For a first-timer I’d advise the black outliner, next time you could experiment without the liner.

Before we start the painting, decide on the design. Draw it to size on a sheet of paper. Internet is full of wonderful designs that you could try out, if you can’t think of one of your own. Again, for a first-timer I’d advise, pick a design from the ones available, instead of setting out on one of your own. This is only because you are not entirely aware of the complexities involved!

Place the paper on which you have traced the design out, behind the glass you want to paint on. If it shifts, then you need to clip it or tape it so that it would remain in place. Proceed to outline the design on the glass sheet, using the black outliner. This works like how mehendi is put. If you’re unfamilier with the mehendi thing, I’d say its a lot like squeezing toothpaste onto the tooth brush groggy eyed, early morning!

Done with outlining the design with the black outliner? Wait for it to dry, takes about 30 minutes or so. In the meantime, decide on your colours. Once dry, proceed to squeeze colours into a portion outlined and if its thick, spread it out over the portion using a brush. How much colour you squeeze into a outlined portion depends on how thick you want the colour to appear. A very thick coating makes it almost opaque. An experienced hand can also use this funda to give it an effect of shading!

Once done, leave it to dry for over an hour. Though it dries a lot faster than that, but just stay away from it for a while! On returning to it, turn it around, and now, look at your creation! How did it go? Do you see magic? Look, what I created over the dull cane coffee table glass top… (sorry abt the poor pic! I told you I wasn’t an artist!)

So there, try it and tell me how Glass painting works for you! Just one last pointer, the side to be displayed is on the other side of which you painted. Now go, spend that lazy afternoon creatively and show me what you get done!

Today am going to tell you about one of my favourite dishes, the mighty, all-conquering, yumm at any point of time, in any mood, with any company, and the dish for which I can sell my soul to the Devil… err, I seem to have gone over the top, but I do love Chicken Biryani absolutely!

Chicken Biryani, the kinds I’d give my left hand to eat, is the Andhra cuisine one. Endowed with the right amount of spices, taunting me with the medium sized chicken pieces, with the bowl of raitha alongside, and another bowl of mirchi-ka-salan, the plate of Chicken biryani, I realise is as much a favourite of many others as it is mine. In all this dreamy Chicken Biryani memories, am almost drooling over the keyboard, Oh! someone get me a plate of Chicken Biryani at once I say, with a boiled egg perched atop the mount of Chicken Biryani, and a little lemon slice peeping from the side… aah! Bliss!

Here’s a list of my favourite Chicken Biryani haunts _

* Nandini - Small in budget and great in taste, the Chicken Biryani at Nandini has never disappointed me. Branches of Nandini are scatterred all over Bangalore, but I must make special mention of the Nandini at the Domlur-Airport Road junction. That’s where I last had a Chicken Biryani. Their quantity is huge, or so it seems to a person like me with average appetite! I sometimes mix the Andhra gun-powder(!) to make it more spicy, but I mostly dig it with the raitha they provide.

* Even before Nandinis adorned the corners of Bangalore, I discovered Chicken Biryani at the tender age of 2(!), in a little place in Majestic, Annapoorna. I have no idea if this one still exists, but my parents frequented that place when they first landed in Bangalore and Majestic was like a good hang-out back then with all the major theatres and restaurants and connectivity with every part of the city. My parents sat me atop the table and left me the salt-shaker and the pepper-shaker to play with while gorging themselves with Chicken Biryani. Apparently, I raised a huge hue and cry about this ugly treatment meted out to me, and turned around, and gathered a fistful of Chicken Biryani off my Mom’s banana leaf, yeah they were into the banana leaf thing in a big way back then, and stuffed my little mouth. It has been ever-lasting love for me and Chicken Biryani ever since!

* Another little place serving yumm Chicken Biryani and Andhra cuisine those days was a restaurant called ‘RR‘. They moved, and have branches too. But I donot die for their Chicken Biryani anymore. Something is missing, am not quite sure what.

* Annachi, the one above the Coffee Day outlet on 100 Ft road, Indiranagar, well-known for serving authentic south-indian cuisine in its tastiest form, has great Chicken Biryani too. But its spicier than most other places, 3 minutes into the Biryani, am puffing, panting, sweating, gulping water, sprinkling sugar on my poor tongue on fire, etc. On the whole, not my best experience with the Chicken Biryani there.

* Nagarjuna, the branch at Residency road, next to Corner House, serves one of the yummy tasting Chicken Biryanis too. But I prefer the Nagarjuna Savoy, a more spaced out version of the same Nagarjuna, a more fine-dining place, a better service, a little more upscale. They serve good Chicken Biryani too, and I head there if I want to spend more than usual for my Chicken Biryani. Nagarjuna Savoy, I suppose you know, lies hidden behind Amravati, on the narrow street that leads to Symphony theatre from the Residency road.

* Amravati is another Andhra cuisine place, but I don’t like their service, their congested seating, and their Biryani. Yeah, not the best Biryani for sure. Why’d I head to Amravati then?

* There are many other insignificant ones, the Mayuri on New BEL road, which has pathetic service, but decent Biryanis, Gonguras, Shreedevi, Maharaja, which fakes the regular Chicken Biryani as the special Nati Koli Biryani.

This is my short and sweet list of Chicken Biryani junctions I recommend in Bangalore. Any favourite of yours that I missed?

Love is big entertainment, as long as you are only a first-row spectator, or so they say. That is a fact, the romantic indulgences of one’s close friends does to tickle one into much laughter and amusement. It is hilarious to spot a friend practise his proposal speech, it is amusing to watch a friend hit hard as he realises the girl he has been getting all-heart-throb-by about is someone else’s long-time girlfriend. It is fun watching crushes getting crushed and entertaining and interesting to get friends to fall out of big-time infatuations. One can watch on with that half-smile as one’s best friend gets all sweaty and murmur-y and stammer-y trying to ask his object of interest out for coffee. Basically, romance is undiluted fun from the outskirts, isn’t it?

Well, it is, until one gets strangely involved. Oh no, no, am not going to talk about ‘developing feelings’ for the best friend’s love. This isn’t all that deep and messy, this is subtle and more uncomfortable. This is a situation many of us have been through, held our heads, clutched our hair and wondered how the hell did we get sucked into this, and why any of this should affect us. The situation am going to talk about is when one’s best friends start going around, and then, ouch(!), they break up. Disaster!

Disaster because you lose not one, but two of your best friends at the same time. Even if you don’t lose them as such, things start to get uncomfortable when the three of you have to get together for anything. All of a sudden you can only have one of the two at a time with you. Since this is such a filmy topic, lets use a filmy example, your two best friends, Rahul and Puja, who used to date, do not do so anymore. They had the regular break up thing. But, God knows how, you have managed to not only get into the equation, but also be affected strongly by this breakup.

No more coffee time ganging up with Rahul and Puja, no more trekking around with Rahul and Puja, no more dinners out with Rahul and Puja, no more movie outing, no more group-studies, no more assignment partners, no more hanging around, with Rahul and Puja breaking up. No more ganging up with Rahul to pull Puja’s legs, no more of those mock-girls-bashing-guys debates with Puja against Rahul, no more driveaways with the best friends, no more ice-cream outings with Rahul and Puja. Suddenly, its all over for you too. How sad!

What? Thats never happened to you? You mean you’ve never lost your social life all of a sudden, one fine day, when your best friends broke up? What do I say? You are lucky as hell! Because, what follows this is awfully painful for the close-range spectator. Suddenly you have to become aware of talking nice things or anything nice that has happened to Rahul, if you are with Puja. You have to nod your head, or atleast maintain stupid silence when Rahul goes on about what a bitch Puja has been. Puja might reveal ugly secrets about Rahul, which you never wanted to know ever. Rahul might sob on your shoulders, no matter how badly you hate being used as the shoulder to cry on, after a break up.

Sometimes its worse, Puja has not taken the break up so well, she goes into depression. She wants to be ‘left alone’. No she can’t even go out with you anymore, she can’t go even shopping with you anymore, somehow, you remind her of the days with Rahul. Gosh, you sigh, what a mess! Why must I lose Puja’s company, you wail. Rahul goes the ugly way too, he chooses to intentionally hang around with other babes before you, so that you can go convey the ‘moved on’ message to Puja. Ugly, ugly…

After having gone through trying situations like the one above, here’s a solution I have come up with, for my own self. So that I may avoid missing my best friends after they break up. And I thought I’d share it with you The moment two of my friends pair up these days, I quickly see to it that I work-out and develop a backup social life, or a back up group of buddies to hang around with. Simply because I donot want to be ‘left alone’ or ‘move on’ or get into messy situations with either of the two best friends breaking up!

PS: To my friends who are going around, do you see how much I need you guys to not be breaking up!?

Way back in college, while preparing for Group Discussions (also known as GD), one of the rare topics that we came across during our mock-GDs was _ ‘Do students, who are the best academically, go on to make it as the best, professionally?’. There were several variants of this topic too, but they all triggerred us to think this, if we have good marks (its so long since I used those words!), will we also be the smartest, or let’s say, the most wanted, employee around?

We all know, there are about tons of changes that happen in life, as one goes through the phase of being a student to chilling it out at work! But this is a story of what happens if you are a good student, getting all those good grades, all diligent, disciplined, not-lazy, hard-working, sincere, and more often than not, the apple of your teacher’s eye. If you were none of the above, still, you’ve got to read on, for this is also a story of one who was not any of those things that might have earned him the ‘good’ before the student. Which of these two went on to being the highest rated employee later on? Is there a fixed formula that can be applied to know which students crack the scene at work and which don’t?

Let’s begin with why we want to know the answer to these questions. My idea is to figure out if there is a direct correlation between your grades and marks and your performance at work. For, is it not this very point on which most companies rely on, to select their candidates? Is it not this, that preconditions an interviewer’s mind on what to expect from the interviewed? Is it not all about marks and percentages for a freshman? Why else do they have cut-off percentages for candidates who can attend the written test, which is like step one for the selection procedure, at most companies?

In a quest for answers to doubts such as those above, here is what I observe _

> Students who are all about living in that moment, donot go much further. To elaborate, students who are studying for the upcoming exams, with answering all questions in the question paper perfectly, the only thing on their mind, are less likely to absorb the actual course content. They rigorously work out old question papers, seek answers to those odd questions, which have never repeated but may do so this year, revise answers to problems, go all over the extra mile! For all their hard-work they are often, at the end, left with little knowledge of what the course was all about. But, they do know the answers to the questions in the question paper really well. So, with this kind of half-knowledge, it is not really surprising that they often donot reach up to the mark at work. Needless to say, this is not always the case, but this is often the case.

> Lazy students remain lazy all life. Once the seeds of indiscipline get planted in your personality, you are unlikely to let go off it, remaining a person who wants the easy way out, all your life. A hasty exam preparation will get you the marks, but indicipline is evil and continues to corrupt your system. You will find life is unfair, hikes are unfair, performance ratings are unfair, but never attributing this injustice to your own indifference to a thorough performance.

> For some, it has to be the area of interest. There are two kinds of people when it comes to work _ One, the kind who will put in an almost thorough effort at the work assigned, regardless of whether they like what they are doing or not, whether it gives them the kicks or not. They are often consoling themselves, encouraging themselves, pushing themselves ahead telling themselves this is the practical way! The other kind requires the right kind of work and the right kind of environment to contribute effectively. This kind really flourishes and rises upto its ultimate height provided the right impetus. The heights achieved by such folks are usually much greater than those achieved by the less-stimulated ‘practical’ kinds. But hey, there is no right or wrong about this, we do need folks of all kinds to keep a project moving!

> The small drops and the mighty ocean. Performers can again be classified as those who contribute in little amounts, facilitating the mighty performers and then, those who contribute big, because an idea struck them big. I am guessing these two kinds of contributors are born out of the two kinds of people _ one kind that spends all its life working out life’s little problems, winning life’s little battles, merely getting the work assigned completed and awaiting the next task. Then the other kind, that spends all its life day-dreaming, thinking of big ideas, big problems and big solutions, they are not just getting the work assigned completed, but are also thinking up the next step.

> Domestic challenges affecting work. As a student, we are protected, pampered and kept away from facing life’s real challenges, often. Rarely, if ever, did we have to stand the queue to pay the electricity bill and then go to attend school, but while working, there is something or the other that needs to get done, every day, in order to keep the home running. In other words, we get domesticated! We have to time-share between work and domestic duties, unlike as students, when all we had to do was either study or relax! Or should we read this as, how well do you multi-task?

> Some folks are happy with being average. Unfortunately, this is something that gets moulded earlier as a kid. If your folks didn’t push you enough, its unlikely you went on to do closer to your maximum capability. Pushing / encouraging is different from exerting undue pressure. Such folks are happy achieving 50% of what they set out to achieve. It is sad that so much capability gets wasted, but they dont seem to care! Even at work, they are happy just earning the daily bread, they donot seek excellence. They donot feel the need to innovate, they donot bring new ideas or energy to work.

> Getting a job is not a destination. But some of us end up thinking so. ‘Gotten myself a job that I like’ is often the ultimate ambition a student possesses. While this is good, it is also necessary that one recasts one’s ambitions after crossing the ‘gotten myself a job that I like’ phase! Otherwise, stagnation is bound to happen, leading to a decremental effect on the performance at work and a disappointment to your employer who pinned big hopes on to you.

With observations such as these, am thinking its the personality which decides the performance at work. However, there are little pointers one can get about the kind of employee a student will lead on to, from the marks transcripts. A student with the best marks may not always make it as the best performer at work, but someone with below average marks is unlikely to turn out to be a good performer. But most importantly, you can gauge yourself perfectly, to know how you will fare, and the changes you are going to need to fare even better.

Off course, in this whole quest we have kept counterproductive agents at work aside, like bad bosses, sensitive issues at work, pay, benefits and the company itself. Those which require a separate zooming in, a whole new quest!

This post is mostly triggered by Thinktank’s review of the book ‘Shantaram’, in fact more so by the crumbs that followed the post. The crumbs took a detour from what the book was all about, its interpretations and what one might like or dislike about it, towards a discussion on books and the movies that come out of them. Something like, Mira Nair’s ‘The Namesake’, the movie that followed Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel of the same name. Or perhaps ‘The Godfather’, the movie and book two-fold narration of the same story.

To start with, is it fair at all to compare a book and a movie that picks its storyline? They are both distinctly different media, seeking to tell the story in their own way. While the book tells you the story, letting you imagine the characters, their personalities and their looks the way you would imagine, from the language the author uses, and from the dialogue he lets them have, the movie is an altogether different experience. It begins by showing you the characters as the director intends them to be viewed by you. Not much to do for your imagination there. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy as the protagonists play out the story for you.

For a person who enjoys a story, and only the story part of the movie, watching the movie made after the book he has already read, would be boring. He’d know the twists and turns, he’d know the ending, he’d know the fall, he’d know the wolf in the sheep’s clothing, he’d know it all. For him, it is not the literature snob in him that stops him from enjoying the movie, no matter how well-made it is. Instead, it is the fact that he knows the story before-hand which kills the movie for him.

Speaking of literature snobs, there are a few amongst us, who are not the real literature snobs. They cannot enjoy a movie made after the book, because they donot want to! They have sweated it out reading the book, and they’d rather give themselves credit for all that hardwork. Than see how easy it’d've been to get at the storyline by simply watching the movie! He is going to tell you how superb the book was and the subtle things which the movie could never have conveyed and which he got an access to because he has read the book. We have all met such folks, haven’t we?

And then those, who really dig their books, for the language, for the music, for the visions it creates for them. They get into the shoes of the lead character as he goes about chasing his dreams. They live their life while reading the book, through the lead character, feeling sad when he does and happy only when the lead character does. Its a little more than just ‘the book having an effect on you’ thing. They’re way more passionately into the book than the book merely affecting them. It is certainly not strange then, that they donot enjoy science-fiction stories all that much, probably the disconnect science-ficiton has with real life?

Finally, the rest, who read books and watch the movies. They rave and rant, comparing, sadly so, the book and the movie. What the author projected and what the director misinterpreted or never portrayed well-enough. How the movie never got through the depth of the lead character, how the movie could never make you feel like crying the way the book did, or vice-versa! How the movie can never convey the thoughts, how the book cannot describe in words all the action or perhaps the magic the movie had which the lengthy book sucked away!

How does your story go? Are you among the happiest lot, who want to be served only in movies, who have neither the patience nor the inclination to read, who will never compare a book to its movie, simply because you’ve never read the book? Or are you among the helpless lot who end up catching the movie after the book, and will doubtless compare the two?

Utterly insensitive and grossly unprofessional. That is what I’d call someone who does not respect diversity at work-place. While there are many forms to this problem, the one that I’d like to post about is the one in which male colleagues take to crude, unpleasant, biased discussions about women, well before their women counterparts. Consider the man who chooses to discuss seriously the ‘injustice’ of the 3 month long maternity leave, referring to it as ‘they simply sit at home and get paid for nothing’. Believe it or not, some have the cheek to discuss this before a minor number of women colleagues at a lunch table or even during the non-work discussion at team meetings.

Is he doing this well-aware of how just the concept of maternity leave is, in terms of benefits given to someone with a health risk and as a duty towards society? Does he well-intentionally, mean to discuss this as a joke which will make every woman who is present around the table uncomfortable, regardless of whether she can voice out her discomfort or not? Or is he so unthinking, so careless, so casual, so immature, so uneducated that he does not realise the importance of maternity leave? Or, he probably thinks, ‘Come on man, a joke is a joke, she is supposed to take things in the right spirit!’!

That is just one instance, there are numerous little things, jokes, conversations, casual statements, which men unthinkingly make at work-place, completely disregarding how they might discomfort the women around. There can be something as nonchalant as a manager asking the male employees who work under him, to join him for a smoke outside. Am not sure his women employees will want to take that in the right spirit, after all, they do want to bond with the manager too! Why should your gender, or a smoking status, be the reason for your manager to know what kind of tasks you prefer, or what problems you’re facing interacting with others, or to know you better? Imagine the lady manager discussing the current project status and such-like with her employee in the ladies rest-room. Would you, as another in her team, like that?

Few of your smoking team-mates might do the consoling with ‘Oh, come on, we don’t really discuss work, we mostly gossip about foreign bosses’. That gets you all the more envious, you so want to know the inside story too. Why won’t the manager share it with you, simply because you donot smoke!? It kills the team spirit, do you realise? This is probably not something that can be voiced even, what do we do? Coo to the boss, ‘Please do call me when you go down to smoke, I want to come too!’!!?

Then this recent talk about the 8pm curfew for women. There were bunches of male colleagues discussing how men must work day and night while women are the ones who can enjoy the perks of the company and the state. They held up the joke Cyrus Broacha cracked, how it might be a better idea to draw a 8pm curfew for the men, instead of the women! Am not saying the law was right, it was rubbish. But discussing it in the vein of how it is unfair to men, instead of something along the lines of how this will undoubtedly rip apart all efforts towards an equality at the work-place, might have been much less unpleasant.

Some things are off course a joke, all of us love jokes, don’t we? But not when it gets unpleasant, hurts, or somehow seems to make a derogatory statement about ourselves. Tell me if this sounds like a nice joke, a colleague, after the news piece of Shanti Sounderajan who was stripped of her medal at the Asian games upon a failed gender test, goes ‘Somehow I feel, these south indian women are not very feminine and donot even look like female.’. It would get my blood boiling, even though I may not be south indian women. It is a grotesque statement. You are probably wondering if there are men like this at work places today. Oh yes, there are! Lots of them abound, just hear them speak!

There are diversity workshops held by the Human Resources departments of most companies these days. They attempt to motivate a healthy work environment, making people aware that there might be jokes which not everyone would enjoy, that there might be people with different points of view, different lifestyles, different people! Unfortunately, most such indelicate people look at workshops like this as a waste of time, or at best a good way to spend time in office and yet not have to put in work! What is sad is, this is not something that can be very strictly enforced, or checked for violation. This is something that people feel and not always voice, the discomfort of the minority.

There is probably a little exercise all of us can take. A very small thing to ensure that we are not on the wrong. Ask yourself the following, have your jokes ever caused someone to look away or not laugh along? Would your statements, though seemingly nonchalant, while with friends at work, cause anyone to not hang around with you? Does your treatment of team-mates bear any shades of a partiality? Lastly, do you really believe in the equality of men and women at work? If not, its about time you changed your beliefs, for your own good!