Relocation

I am used to having people around me who complain, who are dissatisfied, regretting decisions and wanting change. Not many, but enough. If I used to come across as one of those kinds, I am not anymore!

After an eternity of wait, I do have a job in the domain that I want. A first step of sorts in the journey that I wanted to start on since long, even if a bit late. So, I’m quite happy if you haven’t noticed it yet. The job involves relocation to Pune from Hyderabad without much in terms of compensation for the same. The overall income did not change significantly either, considering everything. Which I am fine with. I was willing to agree to a lot lesser or worse. I just needed this job badly. But my employers being the professionals they are didn’t even try to short hand me. The offer was fair and accepted without much resistance on my part. I rarely find myself complimenting organizations but I must this time. This organization is really good. It is as good as it claims to be in its websites and policies. People here are actually worth taking the time out to find out more about. Many people here are above or equal to me in terms of intelligence and experience. It usually is not the case where I come from. I don’t need to inspire and look around for company here but live up to the standards already set. Motivations are right in front of me just in case I needed any. I am looking forward to growing. That is not usually my experience.

My family had trouble understanding the job change at the beginning. I mean I could have had a job with a great hike in pay if I didn’t shift the domain. Even at the same place with even better conditions. But you can’t have it all. You always make a choice. And I made mine long back, so I simply followed up. Then again, my family consists of my brother –who has gone through hell just to try his hand at what he believed (And returned with fire on his back), and my parents who know enough about me to trust me blindly. Therefore, there was not friction as much as sadness about my departure. Mainly because I never left home for long periods before. But even that was not for long because there was a circus called marriage in our house for two whole months until the day before I left. My brothers marriage was nothing short of hell for the family, except of course my brother. His troubles start where ours end.

I am at a new place with new faces and new work. That is another part of my excitement. I get to be alone and adapt to new environment. I get to concentrate on my new job. Work on my passions and goals rather than spend time the usual ways. I anticipate productive change. Pune is a good city, but the office is in the outskirts and I decided not to travel from the city but to take a PG right beside the office, in the same outskirts. Saves the logistics head-ache and gives me some walking distance to cover, which I like. Also the mental peace of knowing there is nothing else outside the room – nothing that would tempt me, pull me. Pune is a good city, but any other city would have made no difference to me (but I am lucky to get Pune, weather wise)

I tend to get a bit proud of myself concerning my adaptability. I know people who never travelled and those who travelled a lot. The people who travel a lot still do not necessarily enjoy it. They simply are used to adjusting. They are not really at home, away from home. People have trouble getting used to places, people, food, what not. Not me.

I am proud because that stuff does not bother me. I don’t need people to talk to. I can stay silent for hours on, even days without feeling disconnected, as long as I have a book to read or stuff to do. I am not prone to getting bored. Not at all, not in the near future. I am quite happy with a laptop or a book. An internet connection helps. And I don’t have a preferred food. I eat rice as well as chapatis as well as burgers and enjoy them too. I do not mean occasionally, as a staple food. The canteen of the PG I stay in serves tasteless food. The quality is all right but it is a torture of the taste buds. I didn’t even notice the first few days. I get so hungry by the time I come back from office that I am practically an animal while eating. Only when I had time and patience to notice did it strike me that there was no curd, that the curry was lame and the palak dal was really green sambar. Yet, a small pickle bottle solved all the problems in that regard.

I am self-sufficient if I am allowed to say so. In the sense that I am not emotionally dependant on particular places or foods - or to some extent people.

I do connect with people but I don’t feel the need to keep them in my presence or ‘touch’. A call a day to family is good enough. And a call a month if a close friend. Or two months. I am like that, nothing abnormal.

These days, I am enjoying having all time to my selfish self.  Really, it’s hard to describe the peace that I am going through. Mainly the peace of knowing that I don’t need any more changes for some time. That the uncertainty part is, at long last, over. The change I wanted is already here. Ah, and how much I wanted change! Now I just have to push and make the most. It is like looking down a road with its map in my hand. However hard the terrain may be, I know that the direction is right and all the bumps you endure will be worth the while. Even better, it will not be a road not taken.

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.