Rambling

As I look into this blank page. That’s exactly what comes to my mind. I get so many ideas. Enough to write about, But I never do. Why?

Only when I am drunk I feel the necessity to enlighten the world with my fuckedup ideas. I don’t know why.

But again, life is always better when you are drunk. Especially if it is a beer, given that It is summer. And if it’s a beer then, it better be a Tuborg. No, nothing about it except that it goes in smoother. And that I get boozed easily out irrespective of what the drink is.

Times are crazy, or not, depending on whom you believe. I am going crazy for sure. For reasons not known to me to the fullest. First, let’s see if I am crazy. Ok, I am not.

The obvious conclusion is that the world around me is. I can tell by the contradictions that I find that with people, their belief systems. Enough nagging.

The football world cup leaves me in mixed feelings. Given how impressed I was by the Spanish system of playing it. The system is still fine I reckon, they just need to bring in new people who can still execute it.

Lets not talk about Sachin here.

Lets talk about love. Maybe not.

Lets say we are what we are. Which doesn’t make any sense. But then let’s think through this. We are what we are means we are what we intuitively or instinctively are. That’s what that means. It simply means we are animals by virtue of our flesh. And flesh is everything there is, let’s not forget that. We are, as per this definition, not what others teach/ tell us to be. Which is what almost every one of us is. As children we were dependent on others to tell us how to behave. That hasn’t changed with age. So what are we really talking about here? I am too drunk to explain. Maybe sometime later, I can charge to talk about this stuff.

What’s more, I am just typing this thing off my key board. Off the top of my head. Office doesn’t always suck. It sucks when you don’t want to or don’t know to do the stuff you are paid to do. I know this. So I am searching for something I can do which I want to do and get paid too.

What else, Love, let’s not talk about love now, shall we. Please?

If you are reading this and thinking, what a maniac! Put yourself in my shoes, by which I mean - 5 hours of sleep the previous night combined with 16 hours  of activity and a couple a beers. Yes, speak now. And I haven't even started on philosophy..

See, I have so many real things to talk about, I just don’t remember them when I need to.

Desperate

They say change is inevitable. They say change is for sure. And here I am waiting for change. Desperately. Gimme some.

As much as I thrive in darkness, give me some light.

Love and life I have seen, I want some more. Before I stop asking, gimme some. What I gain in motivation, I lose in temptations. What I want is exactly what I lose.

As much as I am productive, why am I not? If at all I have my priorities set, why do I stumble.

The fight between life of experience and that of struggle. Yes I never am afraid of struggle, but where is the consistency of actions with which I think. Why is nothing  enough..

I keep asking darkness, for some light. Doesn't make it any better. Except that it goes out of me. I say it to myself, the dark parts of my brain.

My life is not a tragedy. But then, why not. The more it drifts towards the average, the more I fight.

I fight only to earn my way into the good fight.

After all, what more can a man dream of?

Putting it Out There

Ø This is my first smart phone. Technically second, but given that I used that one for less than two weeks, this practically is my first smart phone (I have been using this for a month now). And its funny coz the first week or so, it seemed that the main purpose of having a smart phone is simply the phone. Managing that shit, customizing the Android, and taking advice from everyone who bought a smart phone before me.  It can start badly. But then maybe all the time I've spent on this thing will pay off over the years - if I don't lose it before then. Right now its most important use for me is playing online chess and watching some, er, videos. Coz face it, it's not possible to do any productive work on such a small thing, even as it is huge for a hand device. Desktops are being underrated currently. Even laptops don't provide the spacious feeling I get while using the detached keyboard of a lazy desktop. Sometimes old isn't really bad.

Ø When I see people still following IPL, it's as bad as they put it on that faking news joke. I mean what can they do. They lived all their lives watching that shit.  If it is good, they are just lucky - they will watch either ways. And there is nothing else to do other than watch cricket or porn for entertainment in India - porn is available in limited quantities. You can make navjot singh siddu stand there in middle of a pitch with a plastic bat and let him laugh, for like three hours, they'll watch - including the ads, there need not be a joke even.

Ø Recently I had an interview with a reputed bank. Profile wasn't what I was looking for but I still decided to have a go at the interview. Who knows, they may give me so much money that it doesn't matter how much the profile sucks. I should know better after all these years. As it turned out, I didn't give enough ough fucks to spend half an hour to revise the obvious basics. Standards for God's sake man. I did not even try to remember when they asked a question. I probably should not have gone to that thing is all.

Ø Ah, a lazy afternoon. I wish I had enough to afford a lazy afternoon once a while. 

Bad

Every year, I start out thinking that this is going to be the break out year. I am going to break out of the shackles of mediocrity this year. To the next level. Not just me, my family, my circle of friends. My life. Where I’d want to be. This year, at the start, promised to be just that - more than any other year. Look, I took a good step career wise. Got another ‘semi’ qualification and was ready to face the music. Job opportunities of my interest would rise now. My bro, who was looking for a career change too, was prepared and ready to make it big. And then it happened. One after another. Slowly but surely - sometimes not so slowly - things fucked up.

First all the opportunities I thought I had slowly faded. One after another. Like a slow torture. Then, my bro’s turn came. GATE. The dream for which he worked the last two years. Not just his dream, but of all of us who were with him in it. The dream which was just a few days away from materializing. The few days passed. The D day came and my bro flunked big time. He now looks forward to a life time of regrets for not doing well in the three hours that mattered most. On the bright side, he dared and took his shot. And we all compromised on some level or another to give him that shot. Fair enough. If he has to complain, it will only be to himself.

As for me, another tragedy occurred, on an intimate level. FC Barcelona flunked. In all three big tournaments. Out of contention. Losing three big matches in one week. Again, the one week that mattered most. Like the one interview that mattered most to me - which I flunked.

And no progress whatsoever. None of my few friends really improved, to say the least.

Four months in, this is the worst year of my life. Well, maybe one of the worst. Bad things did happen before. But not on such a grand fucking level. Everything that can go wrong - goes wrong. Yes, went wrong. Probably not everything, but most of it. Believe me; it could have been even bad, even as that doesn’t seem possible. But some irreversible damage did happen. Not just taking all the opportunities with it, but the spirits too.

Did I mention the cherry on the top of all this shit? My bro is getting married. He really can take some beating.

Devils Advocate 2 : The case for Corruption.

The Irony

I was browsing through the Hyderabad Public Library in Chikkadpally yesterday (mainly because I was waiting for someone) when I found the Income Tax Ready Reckoner for FY 2010-11 in the ‘Fictitious Novels’ section. There are two explanations for this:

a.   The person-in-charge of the public library, who is supposed to be dumb, is dumb.

b.   The person-in-charge of the public library, who is supposed to be dumb, is smart and knows that that law belongs there. This is wishful thinking because it is unlikely that a bureaucrat has a sense of humor of that level.

It pays to know the other side..

        The curious case of Indian Laws

In India, it is not just difficult to do things by the book, it is many times impossible. The reality of regulatory framework at the ground zero level is horrible. The frustrations that genuine people face when trying to get some work done via a bureaucratic system is beyond the scope of any statistical measure. But then, here and here are the statistics.

The seeds of corruption are sown at the stages of drafting of laws. It seems like the bureaucrats pay the law makers (who are again bureaucrats) to just be oblivious to the practical world. So, many things are left unanswered and vague. Our laws do not have red tapes, our laws are embedded into red tapes. You need to satisfy some officer for everything and there are no objective rules on when he is supposed to be satisfied. Sometimes, it makes you feel whatever you do is not going to be good enough to satisfy the ignorant obnoxious bureaucrat, he can give an order against you despite everything being right on your side. He can still say ‘I don’t give a fuck’ and you have nowhere to go – either you buy your way out of the shit or you go to the courts against the bureaucrat and get into deeper shit – which is not cheaper.

A day in my life:

I have to deal with the Hyderabad Sales Tax department on a daily basis. This involves completing tasks ranging from getting clean orders on our company sales tax scrutiny’s to getting refunds which is practically our money owned by the government. Not getting into nitty-gritties of what I have to get my hands into, I can say it is tiresome in the sense that things just don’t get done. You can have everything ready but the lazy bastard doesn’t even show up to sign an order – even when I am ready to pay him for that. He isn’t busy; he just wants to show his worth so that the next time, I pay him more. And that is just one signature out of the half a dozen others I have to buy to complete one cycle. I am not making this up, I am currently lobbying on an application since the last 10 months. It was supposed to be done in 1 month. I deal with all kinds of revenue departments and none of them is any better.

The Unwritten Law

Bureaucrat is the boss. You request him, even beg him, to let you show your gratitude towards him by offering him bribes and gifts. You hope that he accepts your offer, you hope that he doesn’t put up a counter-offer. And all this to get things done, which should have been done without your knowledge. We are talking about a person who barely passed his graduation probably by bribing his college and then wrote a civil’s or groups exam and bribed his way to this dusty bench. And you, after having worked your ass off to pass your exams, after attending a thousand interviews before being selected for one, after doing all the work that the ignorant pig was supposed to do, have to go to his office and beg him (quite literally)

But then, given the state of our regulations, this is preferred. I’d rather bribe him and get it done than not getting it done at all. Believe me, there is no other alternative. The bureaucrat is not as dependent on it as the people giving the bribes. I, personally cannot afford to have an officer who doesn’t accept bribes. Because a person who has stopped accepting bribes doesn’t suddenly become honest. He just becomes a bigger asshole. He has the law on his side. So YOU must find a way to bribe him without making him feel corrupt. The other alternative is shutting down your business and starve.

Corruption isn’t the system we want right now, but it is something we cannot live without.