Blast from the Past

Ever hung around enough with your grandparents and heard the stories about the good old days…when community scored over individuals, people did everything slower, reveled in each moment…and definitely were happier back then than in this high speed, rushed up existence that we lead today?

Well…. I had the …ummm…misfortune (tried really hard to say ‘privelege’ I swear!)…of experiencing what the world must be like 40 years ago…and I can tell you…I almost killed someone.

What brought this on you ask? It was my forced trip to 2 post offices with my grandmother’s Post Office Savings Account Passbooks.

I like things to happen fast…I want my food fast…I want people to come to the point fast…I prefer T-20s to test cricket and Football to cricket for the same reasons…Hearing someone beat around the bush and standing in lines…these two things bring the Devil out in me (In IIFT I would agree to do the entire project sometimes…if only my partner would take the print outs in the end from the perennially overcrowded printer!)…Anyways where was I…Oh yes…The Post Office…

Trip 1: Area Post-Office for an Updation of the passbook:

The room was puny…Even one person alone in there would feel claustrophobic all by himself…but then…we are Indians…and we “adjust”….So there were 4 people sitting there…under 1 single fan…staring vacantly into space and occasionally talking to discuss some “office gossip” (one of them had been hauled up by their Boss for something I couldn’t catch and all of them were pretty sure he was a dead man)…That wasn’t all. A whole lot of the remaining space was crammed with dirt and web covered tottering piles of “files”…There was still some more space left…so they put in two computers that the men never touched….and to top it all…squeezed under one of the biggest tables there was a Birla Generator that looked big enough to light up that entire basti…

Anyways…got my passbook updated (all wrong as I was soon going to find out…)…got stared at by the other 3 men (alright I look scary, so sue me!)…and got out of the hell hole…just to get into a bigger one…

Trip 2: “Head” Post Office

This was much bigger…a lot more fans…a lot more space…and hence…a lot more shelves, drawers, files, people...lines…I gingerly toed the line of my once a year explosive bout of anger….

Stood in the line for 45 minutes…having gotten hardly any closer to my turn…when ofcourse “Lunch” was declared at 1:30…and the man in the make-shift cubicle…rambled out saying he’ll be back at 2…which he wasn’t.
So I decided to take the Pass Books from Trip 1 to one of the other offices in this building to get the readings tallied…Ever seen “Office-Office”…and “Usha ji”??? Well before me sat 7 Usha jis…having just opened their various tiffin boxes. Ignoring them I went inside and asked some dude to do the needful…He smirked and said, “Yeh toh Madam hi karengi, bahar jaake boliye”. So went out once again and begged the ladies to finish my work…they looked at me as if I’d lost it and told me to come back after they’d finish (after which the solemnest and slowest looking lady took the smallest morsel of food…and began to chew it 36 times…aaaargggghhh)

It was 1:45…so I went back and rejoined my line…which had a new competitor…a middle-aged lady who had duped the people in front of me and dumped all her work on the extra slow guy’s table…People shouted, shoved…to no avail…the woman was adamant….She tried to make some sort of conversation with me, and despite bare minimum response from my side, I got to know that her daughter had just passed out of IMI, got a job, and that she knew a junior of ours at IIFT! Truly irritating!

By now I was mauling the cheque I had brought along to encash, had learnt up all my account numbers in sheer frustration, and almost broken the glass pane that separated me from the “official” area.

I can’t go on anymore…coz just thinking about it makes me mad…but after 2 and a half HOURS of standing in lines, hearing stories about postal workers committing suicides (Why THEM??? We should be the ones hanging ourselves from their rather long-stemmed ceiling fans), and of course hearing one of the Usha jis discuss the virtues of slow and steady work…I finally got the work done.

It was the biggest victory I’d ever had over myself…and learnt a couple of things….Patience is NOT a virtue…it totally sucks…and ATMs are there for a reason…if only my grandparents understood that and overcame their suspicions about machines…sigh…

Love ‘em, Hate ‘em, But You Just Can’t Ignore Them Mate!

The Aussies have arrived on Indian soil, soon after our trip Down Under that was more than fraught with controversy! One would have thought they’d be hated out here…but I was so wrong…about others and about myself!

As the Indian Premier League began to make waves thanks to an impressive marketing campaign, lesser mortals like you and I began to choose our favourite teams.

“ Mohali rocks,” declared I…Because of the “Punjab” factor? Not quite….Yuvi and Pathan? Er..No…Greatest admiration for Ness/Preity? Not at all. There was just one reason…Brett Lee…The Aussie who murdered any hope for victory for our team quite a few times…but there it was…Just this once…I was going to support him guilt-free (having finally gotten over the fact that he married Liz Kemp and even has a baby now).

Others chose teams on similar grounds…. “Deccan Chargers rule…Gilchrist and Symmonds will see them through!”….The same Symmonds we were cursing a little while ago mind you…

“Delhi Daredevils man….McGrath is back!!”

“I’m all for Warny…he’s the best”

“Kolkata will rule…they’ve got Punter”

Of course there were some who were simply loyal to the cities they considered home…but you get the general idea.

That’s not all…we went ahead and did what the Aussies couldn’t do despite trying so hard…we got Bhajji banned for the rest of the league matches :D (Yet to get Symmonds’ comments on this one!)….He deserved it I’m sure (Though Sreesanth can be quite a provocation with all his unnecessary screaming on the field…perform man…and reserve the crap for international matches)….

There you go…we showed true love and support for the people who were considered the villains of the cricketing world not so long ago…and we carried out their hearts’ desires to the fullest. Atithi-devo-bhava to the max I say…

IPL is truly serving its purpose of creating camaraderie among cricketers across nations alright….I only hope it doesn’t destroy whatever little of it was left in our national team!

Phir Reservations …Uff..!

When I was busy giving my MBA entrances, the reservation issue became a standard joke. Most of us went around tracing our family trees, trying to discover atleast ONE tribal root (there HAD to be something tribal about all the jhingala weirdness in my family!)..but to no avail. In the end, some of my colleagues, despite their much poorer performance in the exams and despite the fact that they had the social standing to attend more coaching institutes than I had, got calls (ALL 6) from the IIMs…which had shunned me with my 95 percentile (there were others who got shunned with 97/98 too..). Maybe I could have (Should have) studied harder…hell… there can be a lot of maybes…but I wouldn’t have had the slightest of complaints had the less deserving not got in either. The whole thing sadly left a bitter taste in the mouth.

It’s been a slap in the face alright for Arjun Singh and whoever else is supporting the 27% scam of his. For once the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the masses rather than our rather pathetic ruling diaspora…Yet it remains to be seen how effective the ruling finally will be once the definition of what constitutes “creamy layer” is frozen.

Our politicos thought they’d had it easy…get 49.5% of the seats reserved in the best institutes of the country for the “backward” classes...and get their kids in without the slightest of hassle…all in the name of “greater good”. But the fact remains, that the corrective measure in graduate and post-grad courses that the ministers are trying to introduce, is futile, considering that a majority of those we are trying to help are primary/high school dropouts….leaving us with the “moneyed-backward” classes, trying to take advantage of a heart-wrenchingly flawed system.

Given that, who now will occupy those 27% seats? Statistics do not support the fact that there are enough needy OBCs who have reached higher education levels to fill in the 27%. So are fake tax returns easy to get hold of?? Or will the definition of “creamy layer” allow one and all to access those seats??

In the “We The People” episode dealing with the reservation issue, the dean of IIT Delhi clearly stated where the flaw lay. He said that he, who had been brought up in dire circumstances, had low cost government primary education in Tamil Nadu, to thank for his status today. However, he interestingly pointed out, that all those schools had now been shut, leaving hundreds of poor children with no alternatives. Why?? Because the poor there no longer made up the votebank of the ruling politicians….and thus there needs were not catered to anymore.

Ummm…remind me once again what is it that we are really protesting against??? The ones who can actually justify this reservation hullabaloo haven’t even got proper schooling…so who exactly will snatch our seats from us? Back to the corrupt offspring of the corrupt classes…someone will fill up those seats…they can’t leave so many seats empty!

Every one with the slightest sense has gone blue in the face repeating the obvious…improve primary education, give scholarships to those who can’t afford higher education instead of reserving seats and leaving loopholes to enable the fake certificate manufacturing industry to thrive.

It’ll take time to clean up the system of course. Till then, listen to your folks people and work harder…50.5% is still up for grabs…make the most of it…and to wind the seemingly endless monologue…take heart from the fact that there are a few decent folks in the world who have the pride and self respect to stand up for themselves and do not abuse a useless system unnecessarily. A senior of mine in school belonged to the SC category…but gave the IIT entrance as a “Gen”…ranked 64 at the All-India level…and am sure we’ll hear his name as one of the tycoons soon....

Hope still exists in this otherwise corrupt country of ours…at least no one is banning my blog just because I dared to raise my voice against the fools who dare to call themselves our leaders (excluding Manmohan Singh…You rock…just try not buckling under Big Mamma’s influence)….Unlike in Russia…where it was shutters down for the Moskovsky Korrespondent who dared to spice up our otherwise mundane existence with some gossip pertaining to the ex-Russian Prez and his love for the gymnast! Sudden financial troubles seem to have developed in that organization and the financier backed out….sigh…why do they bother to cover up with such stupid excuses …

Nostalgia....

You know that feeling when you really, REALLY miss something...but you know you cannot have it...and it leaves you feeling very very sad? That's nostalgia for you...coming and whacking you where it hurts most...

I got that feeling today...and boy with a vengeance...!I knew from quite some time now that there would be no going back to IIFT...it has been coming on for a long time...but today...the whole idea of not being able to go back as a student again (unless I do my Ph.D in some trade related thing...which is a BIG no no coz it makes nostalgia feel like the best thing on earth)...it is unbearable...I want to go back :(

It all started with a bottle of deoderent I bought this morning...it was my fave in IIFT...and had been out of stock for a while...My nose just took me straight back to the bed in my hostel room...the sounds...the smells...the whole feeling...it just came rushing back!

Anyhow...fought off the feeling till sometime back...when I got down to ccp-ing a Maths assignment for my bro (penalty for taking the grape jelly icecream he'd got for himself...Put ice cream in front of me...and I go dumb and promise anything!)...well...the whole thing tugged at some more memories...1st Trisem....Humungous Maths assignment...all of us begging/borrowing/stealing (Yeah...STealing)...other people's completed assignments at 2:30 in the morning...trying to finish it before the 9 a.m class...I put on some music...and the Ipod ended up playing the very songs I used to be addicted to that year...What fun it was!!!

And now...with a whole new world waiting to open up before me (highly skeptical about it already thanks to the most soporific summers)...I can't seem to move on...

Maybe it's a passing phase...maybe by tomorrow morning I'll go back to cherishing the awesome time I'm having right now...maybe my Gtalk de-addiction withdrawal symptoms are causing this silly mood...

Whatever it is...those were the 2 most awesome years of my life...I can take the nostalgia...I just don't want to forget a single moment of the bestest days ever...