kabhi Kabhi ye Dil..train se bhi jyada tez daudta hai..!!

This is something which I SMSd to my ex..wen I was in train and going bk to my home after 1st sem of MBA got over..

Roz tumhaari tasveer se baatein kiya karta tha main..aur ye shikaayat karta tha..

ki kab tum is tasveer se baahar nikalogi aur mujhe thaamogi..

kab tum apni sharaaraton se mujhe tang karogi..

par tum wahin ki wahin bina ek palak jhapkaye..

usi tasveer se meri bebasi ko dekha karti thi..shaayad bebas tum bhi thi..

Par jaise jaise main kareeb aa raha huun..

tum jaise tasveer se baahar aane lagi ho..

thodi der pehle tumne aankhein jhukaayi thi,

aur ek halki si muskuraahat tumhare chehre par ayi thi..

aur wo dekho ab to tum baatein bhi karne lagi

aur thodi der mein yakeenan shikaayatein bhi karne lagogi..

Par is se pehle ki tum shikaayat karo..ya mujhse rootho,

Main tumhe apne saamne dekhna chaahta huun..

apni baahon mein bharna chaahta huun..

Jaise jaise faasle kam ho rahe hain..mere dil ki dhadkanein tez hoti jaa rahi hain..

Kabhi Kabhi ye Dil train se bhi jyada tez daudta hai..!!

I AM COMING JAAN.

मेरी प्या...री माँ

जब चला जाता हूँ मैं , एक ऐसी दुनिया में ..

जहाँ स्थित है मेरी कामनाओं की परिभाषा , जहाँ ‘दुःख’ एक अनजाना शब्द है , जहाँ डर नहीं है लोगों का , जहाँ प्रतीत होता है- मानो जीवन को एक नया जीवन मिल गया हो, जहाँ किसी वास्तु को चाहने की चाहत ही ना हो , जहाँ एक कृष्ण - काय भयानक रात्री को सुख से व्यतीत करने हेतु पर्याप्त ख़ुशी हो , जिसे मन करता है अपनी यथाशक्ति पकड़ लूँ , मानो ये आँचल हो एक अबोध बालक की आकांशाओं का …

तभी ..मखमली एहसास देता , नर्म अरमानों में जान देता , मेरी सुखी दुनिया को छीन कर पुनः अपेक्षाकृत सुखी दुनिया देता , नए दिन - नयी चेतना को मेरे अन्तः स्थल तक पहुंचाता , मृत आशाओं को अम्रत्पान कराता —एक हाथ.. रेशमी चादर को चीरते हुए मेरे गालों तक पहुँचता है , एक जीवनदायक वाणी मेरी श्रवण -शक्ति को जागरूक करती मेरे मस्तिष्क तक पहुँचती है . मैं तन्द्रा की गोद से उठ बैठता हूँ - एक नया जीवन मेरे सामने होता है और उसमे जान देने के लिए होता है एक प्याला .. जिसकी महक विवश कर देती है मुझे कहने पर …

”मेरी प्या...री माँ ”.

A 'Marketing guy' with a 'Marketing soul'

B.E. Computer Science, MBA Marketing, looking for a job in back-end support for a financial firm. This is the profile I took along with myself on Monday, 22^nd Feb, 2010, for a walk-in interview at Northern Trust-a custodian bank with only back-end operations in India. Reasons were crystal clear- creeping up frustration due to ‘unemployed’ tag as a result of lax placement season of my college this time-due to economic slowdown (as the placement cell says) and a bunch of useless fellows in placement cell (as most of the unplaced students think). I am not trying to create any backdrop for a suspicious story, neither its some excerpt from some whodunit, so let me tell you upfront that I didn’t get place there either, so the ‘unemployed’ tag continues.

Now, this is an interesting phenomenon that during placement time, there’s always a huge crowd which says the job’s profile is not interesting, or the salary isn’t decent, so even if they are appearing for the process..its just for the name’s sake or experience, but once the process starts, and as those least interested candidates start moving up the process, their criteria for career, their philosophies in life start transforming , the night shift which was apparently Suckkking, starts falling in the “ain’t so bad” category. The profile somehow starts turning into a little-less-than the dream job, and the salary..ahh cm’on its just a ‘hygiene’ factor not a ‘satisfier’ according to the Theory of Motivation, so doesn’t matter much.

If the candidate gets the job, then obviously he is the decision maker- to take it or reject it, but if he doesn’t….did you notice he just escaped ruining his career by choosing a wrong path. That was anyways not his cup of tea, and salary was of course meagre. With that salary, to think of surviving not to forget the escalating real estate, food, and transport prices in metros, its next to impossible, and who’ll repay the education loan for heavens’ sake? And believe it or not, he loves sleeping, and working in night shifts seriously Succckkss.. !!

And now here’s my part of related experience. When I had joined IBS for MBA, if someone asked what kind of job I was interested in, I used to say confidently that I am not sure about what I want to do, but I am dead sure of what I don’t want to and that’s that I don’t want to go for any banks or financial firms. So, I had been very choosy since the placement began (a nice of way of saying that I got shortlisted for very few..:P) . But placements turned up really bad. And, towards the end it became a ‘take up whatever comes up’ situation. So, I landed up at Northern Trust on 22^nd Feb for interview.

I was comfortably giving answers the HR was asking, when she finally asked me a million-dollar question- “You are interested in Marketing, right??”. With 6 out of 8 subjects of Marketing, 1 IT and 1 Operations, and more effectively not a single finance subject, I was trying to concoct a crafty answer, and I did say “Yes ma’am, I am. But as a fresher I want to keep my options open. And I can comfortably do a finance job too. Apart from that there’s no bank which doesn’t have some marketing interface, so may be 1-2 years down the line when I move up the hierarchy, I will fit in some marketing role. ” By then I guess, she had scanned my Marketing soul and hammered it once again “But, still..you are interested in Marketing, isn’t it??”. Hell what could I say..”No ma’am. I detest, abhor, abominate Marketing. Its just that 6 marketing subjects in MBA are written on my CV, but what runs in my blood is FINANCE..FINANCE..FINANCE..!!” Anyways, what happened next was something which even I didn’t expect out of myself. Despite knowing what answers she wanted to be convinced I couldn’t fake it. I couldn’t and did not want to say that I am not interested in marketing. So, I said, “Yes ma’am. Of course. I have specialized in Marketing and I am interested in Marketing ”. I didn’t stretch the answer, did not use ifs and buts and just stopped at that with a smile. And that’s it. I didn’t get the job.

All those feelings I mentioned above, that it wasn’t my cup of tea, wrong career path, sucking night shifts, frankly speaking did rush through my mind too. But there is something else which I want to admit proudly. At the time of answering the HR and after that and since then I have felt one thing very strongly, very uniquely that I am a ‘MARKETING guy’ with a ‘Marketing soul’, may be I never noticed that ever when I was studying it and when I was writing my exams, or call it a late realization but they say, in pressure and atrocities, what comes out is the real you, and that’s how even I discovered it. I could really let go a job in such adverse conditions just to make myself feel more “Marketing”. No denying the fact, that for a job offer of 6 lakhs or above keeping all conditions the same, I could have compromised with my wishes, and opted for the same job. But that’s a different discussion altogether, because life at this time isn’t so humble and opportunities are carrying some arrogant attitude. But, one thing what I am clear about now is, if I have to work for peanut salaries, i.e without a hygiene factor, then definitely some satisfiers have to be there , and which is predominantly a marketing profile, even if it’s a bank or any other financial institution.

I am trying hard to survive this struggle of looking up for a decent job if not ideal or perfect but God forbid if I don’t succeed in it or I succumb to the atrocities initially, here’s raising a toast against all odds in a bollywood style..”You can take Nishant out of Marketing, but not Marketing out of Nishant. Cheers..!! ”

बेफिक्र उस तरह हुए एक ज़माना हो गया..!!

सिलवटें शिकन की कब से उभर आयी माथे पर , कब से मैं भीड़ में भी तन्हा हो गया ;

बेफिक्र हो कर जो झूम उठता था हर महफ़िल में , बेफिक्र उस तरह हुए एक ज़माना हो गया |

रास्ते वही हैं , गलियाँ वही , गलियों में अठखेलियाँ करता वो बचपन वही ;

माँ की लोरियां वही हैं , दादी की कहानियां वही , उन कहानियों में आने वाली परियां वही |

पर कब से वो बचपन की लोरी न सुनी , कब से उन गलियों का पता खो गया ;

बेफिक्र जिस तरह, दादी की गोद में सो जाता था कभी , बेफिक्र उस तरह हुए एक ज़माना हो गया |

मौसम वही है , बारिशें वही , बारिशों में गीली मिट्टी की खुशबू वही ;

सुबह वही है , रातें वही , रातों में छाई हुई चांदनी वही |

पर कब से वो बारिश की रिमझिम ना सुनी , कब से सितारों से बाते किये बिन सो गया ;

बेफिक्र तितलियों के पीछे जो भागता था कभी , बेफिक्र उस तरह हुए एक ज़माना हो गया |

लोग वही हैं , रिश्ते -नाते वही , कुछ रिश्तों में दिखावा , कुछ में गहराई वही ;

आरज़ू वही है , हसरतें वही , उन हसरतों को पूरा करने का जज़्बा वही |

पर कब से हसरतें सभी एक ज़िद बन गयी , कब से मैं रिश्तों से इतना मायूस हो गया ;

बेफिक्र जिस तरह ठहाके लगाया करता था यारों में , बेफिक्र उस तरह हुए एक ज़माना हो गया |

फासले कब से बड़ गए आपस में , कब से अनचाही मसरूफियत में , मैं खुद को खो गया ;

बेफिक्र हो कर जो झूम उठता था हर महफ़िल में , बेफिक्र उस तरह हुए एक ज़माना हो गया ||

An Unusually ‘Usual Day’

No agenda for the day, no plans, no assignment deadline, no meetings….just woke up at 8.05 a.m., too late to realize that I just missed the Supply Chain Management class. ‘Fuckkkk..’ was the 1^st word I uttered, ‘morons’ the 2^nd -for Abhineet and Deepesh..who didn’t wake me up for the class and themselves rushed away; third thing I did- a bigggg yawwwn..n then I lost the count for the obvious reason that I hurriedly slept back..:P - a usual day of my college life.

Whenever there is some occasion, some event,or some happening, it so happens that we try to make that otherwise normal day to be a special or a different one. But there are days, which are like usual ‘usual days’ and which as the day unfolds all of a sudden start turning out to be good or pleasant ones or can say unusually 'usual'. May not be memorable, or may not be distinct but some small, little things, some tid –bits of happiness just start popping up out of nowhere and it just smoothly mingles with the usualness of our day.

Today was one of those unusually 'usual' day. I attended rest of the classes for the day and then headed for library and started reading some book. Just diagonally opposite to me was sitting one of my friend and batchmate Tarang. And to my amazement she had this rarest of the rare smile on her face. Most of the times I’ve seen her with an “all-the-bad- happens- with- me- only”- types of facial expressions or even if she smiles then its like SAT (Smile AfterTax:P) (no offense dear). Beside me and opposite to Tarang was sitting one of our other friend Nidhi, reading newspaper. And then came the question of the day. “What happened? Something wrong with you? U r looking upset..!!” asked Tarang to Nidhi ( the irony is that most of the times I have seen vice versa happening i.e. people asking Tarang the same question). So, I couldn’t resist myself in complementing Tarang for her smile -apparently new avatar :P. I didn’t ask the reason for that, because it didn’t matter much. But her smile had some positive vibes which just instigated me to start observing other people around (girls specifically)..and to my greatest surprise almost everyone of them -who an hour ago were looking like zombies; started looking happy - be it d bubbly sraddha or pretty Rashmi in yellow suite or Sania in white, busy within herself. All of them suddenly started appearing to me..full of life and all of them seemed to be sharing something in common(ehh..not my my attention or their smile). I don’t deny the fact that it’s very much possible that everything was as it is earlier also before I started observing and may be it was just my perception but then certainly there was something which led to this shift in my perception. And before I could realize what it was, it seemed as if that ‘something in common’ itself walked upto me and with its fingers just gently stretched my lips sideways and placed a smile on my face. Never had I believed this concept of positive and negative vibes that people carry with them or emit they say(as if some radiations :P) and affect other people in their company, but for the first time I felt it strongly. May be no one else felt the same what I felt, and may be until Tarang reads this, she herself wouldn’t have any idea about this whole experience. I think this is not a generalized fact and not everyone gets affected by it or if does than may be the sources are not the same. Now why only Tarang..I have no clue. And does someone else gets effected by me also like this..;) ..about this also I am clueless. Infact I even don't know whether the same effect can be repeated. If I ever happen to fall into exactly the same set of circumstances, will I again feel the same vibes, will everyone appear to be happy similarly..don't know. But then ultimately, in the present context this experience has fetched me some pleasant feeling, some nice experience..so I won't bother to find the reasons or answers to these ambiguities.

When writing about it now, my engineering brain has all of a sudden woke up and it seems now I am internally relating it to Newton’s law which says energy can neither be created nor be destroyed, it can just be transformed from one form to another. So I guess, it was some positive energy which got transferred from Tarang to all the people I was observing and then finally came back to me. Everything throughout the day seemed then, to be a repercussion of this great beginning. And at the end, what had started as an otherwise normal day started turning out to be a pleasant one and the best part is it came with no extra efforts :P. That smile lasted for long and for this Unusually 'Usual Day' I owe my sincere gratitude to Tarang..!! :)

Things Just Happen..!!

It’s been my general observation that at times we just keep fighting out for things trying to put in all the hard work and things just get bizarre..they just don’t happen and then there are moments when we realize what’s needed is just a l’il bit of smart work with right timing and things just happen. Many a times, we face situations where the onus is on us to take the call and at that time the only thing which differentiates the outcome is whether we take the right call or not and even if we go for the right one, what spirit we take it in..do we just lay back and expect things to happen for us or we move a step forward and make sure that things just happen. I don’t know about you all, but for most of the times in my life I was a laid-back player until recently when I started discovering with small incidences that a little effort to take a step forward at the right time makes your life much easy and if you ask me how do you know that it’s the right time to take your call, I’ll say “You just know it once you are ready to breakfree, and willing to move the unconventional way ( may be unconventional is a bit heavy word but just treat it lightly..I am just talking about small things, it’s not any rocket-science)”.
After my MBA 2nd semester exams, my internship in Tata Motors was about to commence from 19th Feb, 2009, and I got the confirmation of the same on 12th Feb at 4.00 p.m. I desperately wanted to go home for a couple of days before joining, so I asked the placement officer of our college Mr. Ramesh to get my intern postponed for a few days, but he was unwilling to do so and also tried convincing me for not trying for the same by not letting me know the contact details of the concerned person in the company. But since the intensity to go home was so much, I somehow got the contact no. of the HR of Tata Motors, Ms. Anjali Raghuvanshi. Now, here was my call whether to lay back and accept things to happen as they were happening or give it a try and call her, worse that could happen was she would say ‘No’, let the placement officer or the person I’ll be taking up my project under, know about it. But imagining a ‘Yes’ in itself was such a nice experience that it overshadowed all the negative consequences and I decided to call her. Incidentally, she happened to be an ex-student of ICFAI itself and I couldn’t have asked for a more feasible situation to talk to an HR than this. I was finally able to convince her for postponing my joining till 24th Feb. It was 4.30 p.m., the train’s ETD was 7.30 p.m. and at 6.45 p.m., I was on railway platform ( not to forget I packed all my luggage, got a top-up done of my mobile phone, tried getting cash through 2 ATMs though couldn’t (my ATM card got blocked), borrowed money from Anup, got bike’s tank filled with fuel, bought the railway ticket ( and you know how small the queues are ), fed some 100-150 bucks to the policeman to rescue the bike on the station (didn’t have registration papers)…huh..!! ). Anyways, what I want to say is that at 6.45 p.m I could have been sitting at my room calling up my family informing that I won’t be able to come home this time but just a step forward and one call to the HR and there I was..on railway platform waiting eagerly for the train to arrive (though it got late by 3.5 hours :P).
Now the second incidence which followed was just few hours after I got into train.
Obviously it was a general compartment and as usual spacious and comfortable :P, and I had long night to spend..so I was left with no other option but to sit down on train’s floor on the passage just beside the single side-window seat. I took out a book and started reading it. I don’t read books by placing fingers on every word and line but that day I was doing it, however quite soon I realized the fingers were not mine..a drunkard was sitting on the seat beside me and those were his auspicious fingers which were enlightening every word. Then every now and then he was leaning on me, almost unconscious and the intensity went on increasing. For sometime, I kept mumb but then again, it was the time to act smart and guess what, I stood up and asked him to feel comfortable and helped that guy to occupy my place, laid him down on the floor supine, stretched his legs and since I couldn’t ignore his indirect courteous gestures offering me his seat, I had to take it up. The funniest part is that he was so drunk that the next day when he woke up he didn’t even know that it was his seat I was sitting on and didn’t even ask me about it during the whole journey :P . So where on one place I could have spent the whole 24 hours journey sitting on the floor, I came comfortably sitting on the side-window seat.. just a right move at the right time :) .
Well, you see how things just happen..atleast it happened for me..These are some very general incidences and observations which could have been very well left undiscussed, unnoticed. But if a learning comes from these small incidences as well, then who is questioning..!!

I am Back..Again.

Long time..I wrote something. Won’t say was busy, coz writing is not a matter subjected to it for me. I’ve written things when apparently I was supposed to be most busy..during classes, during exams, during travelling, during what not( I shall pre-suppose that you are excluding shit n sex :P). But then, whatever was the reason for such a long lull of silence I will figure out that later and will share with you then..for the time being I shall live in the moment and start the journey. I don’t know whether I’ll be updating this blog everyday or not, but that’s for sure it will be much much more often than before. So what’s in store today. Hmm.. it’s a motivation for me to start writing again, it’s something which has fetched me the real inner happiness after such a long time..I have got selected for internship in Tata Motors. And that’s a big news. No not that it’s my dream company or I am expecting a pre placement offer from there or I am getting a high stipend or something..it’s just that the feeling is awesome, because just few days back I was amongst the few people who had not got intern arranged anywhere ( thanks to my ex-girl friend with whose reference I was trying to get an off-campus internship and then due to our break-up I had to leave that company for consideration and for which I had left all other companies coming up in our college for the internship) and had to stay back in hostel after end sems to apply for the companies coming for intern. All my friends had got intern arranged before end sems itself and had gone to their native places, and I was the only one left in hostel hoping to get intern in any company which comes up and rush back to home for a couple of days. Then just after the exams got over there was an opening for intern in Tata Motors. I applied for it and was called up for the interview with 5 more people and finally got in (with 2 more colleagues).
Their office is in UB city 14th floor, one of the most amazing places I have seen in B’lore and working over there is definitely going to be a lot of fun. But during interview they slapped us with some hard core facts that we will undergo a good slogging of our asses and we might have to work 7 days a week. And it may involve a lot of travelling too. But anyways I am up for it. We are yet to start with the project. The profile is marketing, rest of the details I’ll let you know when I start off. But the nice part is that I have got a decent company with a good brand name, and things which initially looked a bit topsy-turvy have started falling in right places. For the time being I am happy and contented.. for long time I was trying out hard to reason out some of the most unreasonable instances in my life but now I am trying to see a bigger picture, don’t know about everything but yeah somethings really happen for good.
Hope to keep you updated with my intern experiences and other experiences too, now on. Cheers.. BBye.