The day we won the cup again

5 hours before the match: I walk into my office. Most of my colleagues have reached and there is an atmosphere of suppressed enthusiasm. Since my desk directly faces the entry point of the office, I actually get to read everyone’s expression when they walk in. Every one in the office is tense, nervous and excited. There are suppressed smiles and giggles, and bottled up enthusiasm. Even the HR head, who is generally very serious is all excited.

4 hours before the match: everyone has more or less settled in. Talks and jokes about the world cup are on. Everyone is checking on their lucky signs and mascots. While some are wearing faded t shirts which should have been disposed off 10 years ago, but have been preserved due to some random coincidence. There are others who have worn their lucky shoes and lipstick. In fact, there was one colleague who had donned a horrible hue of fluorescent orange lip color which was not suiting her at all. For a second I actually hoped that India would lose, so that she would dispose of that lipstick. But that was just a reaction of a mind in shock of orange lipstick. I take pride in my ability of regain composure, and after 5 seconds I was back to supporting India again.

3 hours before the match: Some colleagues just remembered that they had missed their lucky objects back home. This earned them genuine dirty looks from all of us around. Their respective reporting officers were extra mean to them. After all this was not as casual as missing out certain targets set by the company. This was something that the whole country depended on.

2 hours before the match: The chairman of our channel walks in. CRAP!!!!! This cannot be good. He is never here on a Saturday. This means that there is now way we can watch the match, unless he leaves really early!!! Besides, the excitement is gradually taking the form of impatience. Not a good time to get into anyone’s way. Ours is a broadcast media with 3 channels being broadcasted simultaneously, with two news channels. While I work for the lifestyle channel where we can afford a comparatively chilled out schedule with breaks for the match, the people in the newsroom cannot. This makes them doubly impatient. NO one right now is daring to visit the newsroom right now.

1 hour before the match: People have abandoned all appearance of work. It is high time that proper food and snacks are retrieved for the purpose of the match. News of other channels setting up giant screens in their premises have left us swearing. Our office provides us with the most miniscule TVs that would put nano technology to shame. Complaint to the systems departments are pouring in about slow internet connections. All are interested in watching live internet streaming on their personal screens. As if that was not bad, the rumors of our rival channels distributing free jerseys to their employees are doing the rounds. And that blasted channel does not even have any program worth watching even if it were for the purpose of saving one’s life.
PS: the desk of our channel’s executive producer is just beside mine. She is entitled to a TV of her own which streams programs faster than other TVs….i am gonna have a ball watching this match.


The toss: The whole office is following closely the toss. We have got to win this. After all we have been winning all the winning match tosses….this is kind of like our lucky symbol. The sides have been called out and the coin thrown to the air. Results are out! India wins the toss!!! The whole office has broken into a monkey dance till the controversy comes up. Apparently the sides were not heard properly, therefore the coins has to be tossed again. WTF!!! That’s not happening. The coin gleefully enjoys the extra attention as the whole nation (my colleagues being a slice of the nation). The verdict is out and India has lost the toss!!! The whole office starts cursing ear specialists all over the world. Whats the whole point of ear treatment anyway, if it cannot treat the strategically important ears of the world!!!!!! Sri Lanka chooses to bat!

The First Inings: The match begins. Work is officially over today. In fact our chairman who never gets involved in these supposed ‘frivolities’ have also switched on his personal 21 inch TV. People in the newsroom are trying their level best to contain their frustration and maintain composure. India is playing quite well…..In fact the fielding is par excellence. Everyone is happy. Sreesanth is playing…..his hair is junglier than ususal….which we are hoping is a good sign!!! Although, there are no other signs of him being Samsung.

The game proceeds. The after 2 wickets, Sri Lanka, picks up pace. With the captain at the middle order the run rate is going up pretty quick. With sreesanth bowling, the run rate going in our favor. Curses directed towards Mahi the Indian captain for taking in sreesanth is going louder. In the mean time snacks and cold drinks have been brought into the office. Tea served as well. Sri Lanka is playing fabulously and India has lost its alertness!!!!

The end of the first innings: Sri lanka has set a really high score. 274!!!!The last ball shot was a classy sixer! The innings end at the end of our office hours. Our chairman who is a man of few words says that this is indeed a tough score for us to score. This makes us all paranoid. He hardly says anything to us. And when he does…..this is what he says Every one needs to rush out as there are hardly any transport facilities that are available.

Journey during the break: I hardly get any transport to my place. But today, of all days that I decide to go to a friends place, all the transport facilities seem to lead to my home. I finally manage to get a transport to the friends house. I encounter a number of people who have got their faces painted.

2nd innings: I reach her place when the 2nd innings have begun already. The screen is nothing but a horror show. One wicket is down already. All my friends seem to be engrossed in the game. There is one crazy dude in our gang who always has a camera in hand clicking pictures away to glory. Today even his attention was directed to the screen. In fact there were a number of random pics clicked of the screen trying to capture sachin’s shots. Needless to say, that they were of no avail. (PS: I am a very concerned friend and I made it a point to mail him some of the match moments downloaded from the internet. Run rates bad and Sehwag has hardly made any contribution.


With the loss of Tendulkar, Indian crickets little master (not little any more), the whole feel enthu of the party has gone down. We start taking in bottoms up shots with the hope that they really act as a wonder. The shots don’t seem to make much difference to the players. Of course there is a considerable difference made to the temperaments of my friends. A friend called in to say he did not feel like joining in the party. Crap!!!! He was supposed to drop me home. Now my team is not just going to lose but I will have no means of getting back home. A number of members of our gang could not take the stress anymore and went to puff it out through cigar. Somehow this worked pretty well and the run rate started to pick up.

End of Innings: Gambhir was out at 97. I was so hoping that he would get a century this match but alas. But mahi did a good job by picking up the run rate. The innings ended with a spectacular shot by the captain and we won!!!


Our little celebration: WE have won. We start dancing like crazy and then take two additional shots. I have to reach home. Its already one. My friend managed to make it back to the party and I have my promised drop home. The roads are all crazy! People are celebrating every where. There are processions which are heading towards direction that is unknown. Every one seems to be hugging each other. The party animals are out with their cars. Most of them are standing on the seat of their cars with half of their bodies out of the windows. Those people who generally sit and beg are dancing in joys. Their usual bodily disabilities which is the supposed to be the source of our sympathy is forgotten. The boy with the broken legs is dancing most enthusiastically and the usually blind boy is smiling at every one who passes by. The whole world is rejoicing about the cup that is finally ours. And it is all thanks to Pranab Mukerjee, our finance minister in 1983 and 2011.

Interpreting the world

The stories of the UFOs and ETs have forever been one a very popular source of entertainments. There are many who get flowed by the whole concept of life existing beyond the planet earth. Some of these stories have been clubbed under the banner of horror stories where these UFOs take over or maybe science fiction, where the logic of science is stretched with more flexibility of a rubber band. It is a well known fact that rubber bands sold these days are of the lowest quality available.

Coming back to ET, my take on these are that I completely believe in the existence of life beyond. The Earth is not just one of the planets in the Milky Way; it is in fact much more important than that. It is the asylum for the whole universe. All those poor souls who seem to have lost their minds for some unfortunate traumatic experience, those who are born whacko, or those who have taught their logic to run in the direction opposite to that of the majority are sent to the earth for treatment. Those souls are deported to the earth and therefore we have the wonderful patchwork of weirdoes living together under the banner of one united world.

crib on

i positively absolutly detest women who are always perfect!!!!anytime of the day and they are just looking as fresh as if it were just the early in the morning!!!!how do they do it?their hair is perfectly set ,clothes as unwrinkled as if they were new....faces just perfect as if they wer totally unaffected by the heat.....how do they manage to be like that always???
and i have always wanted to be one of those cool confident girls who just glide while they walk with the air of having evrything in control....u know the type i mentioned above ....instead what am i???just the clumsy sort with wild hair,walking most not gracefully ever,always with some disastrous combination of clothes,tired looking face(which was already ugly to begin with!!!!)thast my ranting for the day done.

WHINING!!!!

I used to be this really happy contended girl with my perfectly normal, boring not-so-happening life!I am this very unassuming girl whom nobody noticed .....not even the luck gods! And i was starting to feel fed up with that nothing happening life!My friends had such colorful lives that I admit I started getting jealous! Such drama they witnessed in their everyday life....such weird people they met everywhere, and I had nothing out of the ordinary! And i was not proud at all like the Dursleys to be normal.....i wanted drama and entertainment in my own life....i was sick and tired of having nothing new....neither did i have the good luck thingy that some very extraordinarily rare people have....nor could i boast of attracting bad luck!ok...that may not sound as an attractive deal to some but believe me if u had a drab life like mine u wud hav understood what joy there is to be like those protagonists of hollywood chick flicks , who are always running around to get their lives moving and are yet stuck in second gear...and then they can run to their extremely dumb looking boyfriends and whine all about it in their 'supercool' american accent !WOW!!!I envied them!
So i thought of changing my life and as usual to change ur life all you need to do is change urself and to do that the first thing to do is change ur looks.....ok let me be honest honey thats not the first thing to do....it is infact the only thing to do!there is nothing hollow about accepting that.they have been telling us that since our childhood,thru fairy tales like Cinderella about the wonders of makeover.and u thot the fairy god mother did magic!tch!she was a beautician working for Loreal!So i went in for a makeover.And that was the biggest mistake of my life.And then of all the mortals and gods and lesser mortals and higher gods ,who could have noticed me …it was the luck god,the bad luck god!!!!!!
And things started taking a downhill turn!!!!Eversince i started having perfects days where evrything goes wrong from the moment i get out of the bed till the time i am back there!so many coincidence start happening....
I generally carry limited cash in my purse,but one fine day i happen to carry 3000 bucks and thats the very day my purse gets nicked!
Evryone sends their results for a review,and gets their mars increased,and in the entire college,i happen to be the only one whose marks get decreased!!
i get a call for my seemingly dream job in a company which plans to open its branches in this ciy and thanks to political upheavals in the state,the company strikes off its plans to come!!!
i go for a job interview and find out that my to be boss happens to be my present boss's school buddy(does that even happen to anyone!!!!thats even worse than Rachaels experience in Friends)
I go for a two day trip,and have to use the toilet in the train and my mobile phone falls off my pocket down the commode(have u even heard of such a ridiculous situation!!!!)

and the list goes on......
What wouldn't i do to get back my normal boring not so happening life.melodrama in the screen and in other people's life is entertaining enuf...i hav no mare desire to be in this life sucking situation!

transitional phase is never smooth....

Yup!I feel really down.Lifes hit rock bottom,and its hit down really bad.Evreything seems messed up and i feel lost in this mess.My parents have declared that they are no traditional type to let me at their house for long and i have to wake up and start looking out for an earning.which means its high time i get serios about my life,my dad's retirement benefit savings is nearly exhausted!and i still havent figured out what kind of job i want to do,let alone try to get that job,which is already elusive due to this global meltdown phenomena!Icing on the cake am doing a course which am not enjoying at all and all my friends have moved out of the city.so much for fun!to top this all,my boyfriend broke up with me(atleast so i think)!am also suffering healthwise.so things couldn't get worse!!!exactly......thats my message to all my family and friends who have been so sweetly patient with me and conscious of my wreck state!this is just a temporary phase. things are already so bad that it couldn't get worse.Remember that caterpillar who, evrybody thought was dying.It did not die but instead turned into a beautiful butterfly.I do not know if i'll have such a beautiful transition but i will definetly metamorphosize into something better...so dear friends just bear a bit with me and let me hold on!!!i will make it through......Things will get better from here!

JET DRAMA

As i sat watching the evening news of the report of the retrenchment of the approx 2000 jet employees i wondered how we indians have gotten aquainted and desensitised ourselves to melodrama coz watever is hapenning in the aviation industry these few days in nothing short of a well played drama,with the mush and senti stuff equalling the ekta sagas if not surpassing it.
why some would ask am i being such a cynic and not believe in the 'honest' mistake of the HRs in laying off the employeess or the good heart of the company head who got tears in his eyes watching his children being jobless.Afterall,Jet Airways is a well established company.thats the point.jet airways is a big company and in such a company professionalism must have been up on the priority level.HRs hired for such a company must have been of top notch quality and must be well versed in common HR tactics and also have been conscious of their company's image.Therefore they could not have been as naive as that to have made the biggest layoff in the history of the country without consulting the company heads,even if the layoff was legal and constitutional.Thus the calim made by Goyal saying he was not aware of this layout throws light on how seriously ignorant was he.Then what exactly is he doing on his chair????? Is he that unprofessional????
OK lets overlook this one blunder of the company.Lets talk of the sudden firing of so many employees.If it was really that necessary then how come once such a hupla was made and politicians got involved,aam janta got aware;the company could afford to call back these employees?That just goes on to prove how no one considered alternative measures seriouslybefore laying them off....S o much for Goyal seeing his employees as his own children(his own daughter by the way is not in the aviation industry,she has her eyes set for the media....smart choice!!);the company doesnt even give proper value to the jobs irrespective of whether goyal is managing the helm of affairs of by his well picked hand chosen people.
The way these employees were laid off was also an episode that cant be exactly defined as dignified.These employees were waiting for their pick-up cars,when the time had passed ,they called their company which informed them of their termination.Hardly behaviour that can be expected from a company of this stature.Hardly dignified.moreover if such a layoff was indeed necessary(it has been proven that it wasnt but still considering the hypothetical situation), laying off so many employeesa at a go with no prior notice or even clue ,creating such a big melodramatic effect was just what an episode of the K-serials...with just the background music and drumbeats missing. Such a drama could have been easily avoided by a common HR tactic which is used in the IT industry in India.Instead of laying off so many employees at a go,these employees could have been laid off with breaks.Companies like IBM and TCS,a number of employees are sacked evrey month with the effect of no one coming to know,no hupla made by the media and no tarnishing of the company's image.Infact that is exactly how these companies can afford to go for campus placements evry years in so many institutes and hire so many people every year.Not because the companies are growing constantly but because they are firing so frequently.if jet really needed to fire these employees they could have easily adopted this measure without tarnishing the company's image.Just goes on to prove further how the whiole episode was stage managed to bring it to the forefront of the media.
So why does the big bosses of the aviaton industry want to bring their woes in front of the media....just to evoke sympathy?surely not ....they are businessmen dealing in one of the most risky industry,they must have bigger brains that our tulsis and parvatis(note to all the tulsi fans...am not calling these iconic ladies dumb....just saying that they have hearts bigger than their brains).Then what drove them to perform such an act.....the three letter word that has the whole world on its toes and nerly drove george bush to madness...OIL!The indian Govt famous for subsidies has supposedly put a lot of subsidies on the price of jet fuel,which means that the indian oil corp is almost making no profit when dealing with the aviation industry.Now with the increase of prices of oil world wide the indian oil corp could not but help increase their prices.which meant the airlines company had to pay more that they had anticipated.Now several companies were already defaulting on their payments when and were getting oil on credit.With the increase of oil price these airlines definetly go on a loss.so now they want a bailout from the Govt,something that they have their eyes set on for quite sometime now.With this hupla now the they hope that the Govt might consider their appeal more seriously.
Now as a citizen of this country ,supposed to have an opinion on evrything and all Govt decisions regardless of whether i know anything or not and whether these facts are true or not i must form a judgement on whether such a bailout is fair or not.I personally think it isnt fair.The bail out appeal made to govt is based on the fact that our country is partly socialist and taking advantage of that,these big bosses are appealing to the govt.But wernt they the ones who pioneered Capitalism and a free market when the economy was boomin.if they were making profits they wanted to privatise these profits ,then why do they want to socialise their losses?????This is plain opportunism.