Brazil 1 – Germany 1

What time is it when you wake up on Sunday, and are greeted by the clock striking one… its a pretty good time you bet, cos it usually means you’ve had a good Saturday.

Got an unexpected call from AR yesterday… hadn’t spoken with her in some time now. She was trying to reach someone else who shared my first name, and called me inadvertently. Well, my gain entirely, cos as it turned out she had two tickets to Omkaara, and an absconding roomie… and so I got a treat of a pretty good lunch and a decent movie.

Talking about friends I haven’t been in regular touch with, RS is another one… which should be surprising, cos he and I go back a long way. We’ve been good buddies since we shared the back benches back in junior college.

So why am I talking about AR, RS and the like… well, that’s cos I realize that the best of friends I’ve made in my lifetime are people I’m not compelled to keep in touch with. Really good friends can drift away into their own personal lives, meet after virtual eternities, and still pick up as if they’d just met yesterday.

Karram fits that category too of course. He and I are more frequently in touch these days though, cos we are roomies now. Funnily, in spite of being roomies, and almost conforming to my statement about really good friends, very little our lives overlap even today. There was an ironical example of this today. Karram just came back from a 3 week vacation sometime this morning… I haven’t seen him yet, cos he went out before I woke up (remember, 1 past noon) and the only reason I know he’s back is cos I see his effects lying around

Now, before I drift completely out of sight of the original subject of this post, let me just admit that I finally parted with that Brazil t-shirt, and it is now in Bhikku’s possession. This sacrifice however had very little to do with the fact that I consider Bhikku a good friend, which I do, and more to do with the fact that one t-shirt wasn’t worth risking invites to sample Mr. S’s cuisine.

Main bhi CEO

Caught up with an old friend after quite a gap on IM yesterday, and she asked me if I’ve grown into someone important in the firm I work with… CEO or CTO for e.g. Now, since this is not the first time I’ve had this snide query thrown my way in recent times, let me set the record straight once and forever…

Friends, Indians and Countrywomen… I am a CEO … a Completely Expendable Organism.

Its taken me a few tough years to achieve this… first had to go through a disturbing phase a few years back when I decided to shed the habit of working odd hours and weekends, and then there was painful but slow progress with my resolution not to take my work too seriously. The toughest part was adapting to the idea that praise, criticism, accolades, brick-bats, nothing should really bother me at work, as long as i’m having my share of fun. But a few years in the industry, and think I’ve finally got there… I am a CEO, and very proud of it.

Papa kehte the bada naam karega…

Wanted: Eye Candy

Hari Seldom warned us about this…

Spread over a span of about two kilometers, and beaten down under the heavy burden of Bangalore’s tallest beaks (with feet attached), lies a tribute to this nations one universal idol – the Mahatma Gandhi road. Eight billion *light ears* from this glorious boulevard, tracing a serpentine ellipse around the city, lies a dirt track christened the Outer Ring Road. On a quaint corner of this dirt track (if ellipses have corners, that is), buzzing away to its own rhythm, resides planet Flex. This campus has in recent times hit the path to incessant decay…

That’s right folks… walking into campus is not half as heart-warming anymore. Gone are those Monday mornings when you dragged yourself unwillingly to work, and the moment you stepped into campus you would catch a glimpse of a couple of heavenly creatures at the front desk, quite as refreshing as fresh brewed french roast. Now, before I begin to sound completely unfair to the ladies who man the reception desk these days, let me quickly clarify that whoever hired them perhaps did so purely on professional grounds, and was swayed only by technical rather than aesthetic qualities.

Anyway, before this post gets too controversial, let me just recount one fine afternoon a few months back, when naniji and I were asked to interview some chap. This is how things went:

Naniji: What can u say about…?

Chap: duh?

Naniji: Ok, how about… whats your view on that?

Chap: duh? duh!

Its pretty obvious where this interview was going. Now, if you are wondering why I didn’t have anything to contribute to this discussion, this was because I was absorbed in something more important. I was unabashedly ogling away through the glass window, at this heavenly creature (lets call her laila) sitting at the front desk, which was only a few feet away.

Anyway, naniji finished up with the chap in some time, and looking at me with dismay after I’d muttered my pleasantries, said:

Naniji: Kameene! I thought you were supposed to be taking an interview, and not go drooling away ogling at girls.

Me: duh?!

Naniji: Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?

Me: duh? duh!

Now, in my defence, before I come off looking like a complete loser, I did walk up to laila immediately after, and thanked her for looking so gorgeous… and for making a perfectly boring interview tolerable.

Well, like I said, those days are history and suffice to say that I do my best to avoid being pulled into interviews now.

PS. Good chance this post is gonna get me beaten up!

Cheers Amigos

Happy friendship day to all amigos round the globe. Personally, this was a great friendship weekend… caught up with some old pals after quite a gap, caught a couple of decent movies, and closed the friendship day celebration with dinner at Bhikku’s. Mr. S is a gifted cook, and that mutton salaan has left my taste buds in an overly stimuated state – might have to give them a couple of sedatives to get them back under control! Actually, i’ve eaten enough today to last me a whole week, so its probably time for me to pop a couple of sedatives myself and turn in to hibernate… so if my thousands of loyal readers (yeah right!) find no updates in this space over the next week or so, you know what’s cooking… or rather, what’s digesting!