This day, last year, veriCAR was called off. We handed out our last salaries and shut the office one last time with a heavy heart and a strange mix of a number emotions.

I just watched a movie called 'Love The Beast'. More details here.

'25 years of love can't be wrong.' I know what he's talking about. I know a love like that. A relationship with a machine. One that most people don't understand. Because they have never felt it.

A strange kind of bond. Irrational affection maybe, because the rational mind knows that the car is nothing but metal, wires and rubber. But the ones who know otherwise, know that it's a lot more than that. It's got a heart and a soul.

I know she didn't like anyone else turning her engine over. I know she refused to start. On campus, I'd give away my key to anyone who asked for it. I knew she'd not start with the people I didn't like. And she didn't.

I rarely had enough money to pamper her with. Rarely enough to even take care of her. She rarely asked for anything more. She was selfless, and her love was pure. Occasionally, she complained by bursting her tyres past midnight, but only after I'd made it to the safety of our campus.

I know how he feels in the movie after he's crashed his beast. I know why he chokes up and finds it hard to string his words together. Because I feel the same way now.

I left her back in Kerala. Because I couldn't afford to keep her here. It was hard on me, but it must have been worse on her - she didn't deserve to be treated like that.

I don't know where she is now, but I wish I could get her back. I wouldn't drive her everyday, and she'd probably be ignored all over again. But at least she'd be there.

Or am I being selfish all over again? Maybe she has found someone who takes good care of her, who needs her enough to not ignore her. Maybe she's getting started with her new life, and does not deserve to be shaken out of it.

She's only a car. Or is she?

The trick to floating on water is to let go. To trust nature completely (and blindly). Unfortunately, letting go doesn't come that easy to most of us.

Two other things come close - learning to ride the bicycle, and learning to use the trackpoint. The thrill of having accomplished something that is, at immediate thought, quite inexplicable, is beyond words. It's a high that keeps you going for a couple of days.

When a friend first taught me to float on water about two years back at a desolate hippie beach in Gokarna, I had a tough time. I couldn't loosen up and I couldn't let go. Consequently, I would sink. I finally managed to float when I did let go entirely, when I 'trusted' without any questions.

The first time was a mind-altering experience. It was magical, and I couldn't stop thinking about it for a few days. I was fresh out of an insipid MBA, and attempted to valiantly mix pseudo-philosophy with half-baked management concepts.

I did it again a couple of days back - this time at a choppier beach in Kashid, and the feeling was just as beautiful. Lying down, letting go, floating away. Looking up at the sky, bobbing up and down with the waves, ears shut out by the water.

Is there a better way to go blank? Forgive and forget?

My attempts to incorporate some (any) form of physical activity in my life have ranged from the strangely optimistic (I once bought a gym membership for an entire year) to the vaguely absurd (I once signed up for a sport that involved catching hen).

I've finally found something I like doing. Running.

I can barely believe this myself, but I really do enjoy it. The reasons are many.

I chanced upon a great site, Lifemojo, that had a series of articles on how to run, how not to run and how to look good while doing it.

Two things got me started. One, I learnt that I didn't have to run fast. Apparently, it was most appropriate to run at a speed that could allow conversation. I liked that thumbrule. Two, I realised that I didn't have to run a lot, at a stretch. Small bursts of activity (at least to start off with) were recommended. I liked that even more.

Incidentally, I also found my schedule become less arbitrary, and that lent itself well to a 30-min slot being free almost every day. Better still, this slot was in the evening. That meant no early morning wake up struggles. More importantly, there was the cloak of darkness to hide that flab bouncing around, a garden that is practically free of humanity after sundown and a cool, gentle breeze for company almost unfailingly.

What I like most about running, though, is that my mind practically goes blank. I find myself unable to hold on to any train of thought, mostly because I am trying to concentrate on doing what I am doing right. As a beginner runner (not even that actually), I try and ensure that I am breathing right, running at the right pace, stepping in the right place and that my track pants are not falling off. I am like a newbie driver who has to look out for a hundred things while driving, and hence finds himself/herself unable to let the mind drift around.

I have been reading up a little bit on Vipassana, and I found what I experience to be somewhat in line with what they say one must experience when one is meditating. I find myself concentrating on my breathing, and I find emotions come and go without reacting (or being able to react) to them. That can't be such a bad thing.

The 30-minutes of blankness, then, are like a different form of meditation, and that goes well with a life that is unpredictable at best, and absurd at worst.

Greetings.

My last post about anything was on May 29, 2009. I believe my last serious 'thought' about anything was around the same date.

Without further ado, being the abominable narcissist that I am, I welcome myself back to regular writing about randomness. I don't know about the three of you reading this blog, but I missed myself.

As always, there are no guarantees on how long this will last (for all you know, this might be the last post for another six months, but what the hell), but let me try and make the most of it while it does.

In the interim, I have found Twitter to be exceptionally useful in allowing me to express my thoughts (mostly rants to the tune of 'WTF is going on here?') in one sentence. No thinking, no editing - just type and hit 'post'.

It's good to be back to good old, old-fashioned writing.

Giddy up, folks! (Yes, the three of you.)

I've noticed a spate of carpooling sites mushroom around here. It's fashionable to say that it's a great idea. I think it's crap.

There are too many things that must match for a carpool to become successful. Timings, workload, office location, home location, etc. It's difficult to match all that for a country like India, where the work culture is not like that in other developed countries - come in at 9, bugger off at 6. Being the back office of the universe, we tend to work our butts off all the time.

Getting all that to match for two people is a challenge, getting it to match for three is a difficult challenge, and instead of trying to get it to match for four, one would be better off trying to teach a zebra what a zebra-crossing means.

Carpooling has to be tackled on an organization level. Chaps working in the same company/same IT park/same SEZ would be better advised to share their ride to work and back. Which they do anyway. So where really is the need to have a fancy website?

What carpooling in India demands, is flexibility and spontaneity. Flexibility - you're not stuck with the same group of chaps everyday. Spontaneity - car pools get formed and dissolved on a per-journey basis. There's a bulletin board that poolers and poolees use. At 1400 hrs, pooler types in to the board, "I am leaving for home at 1730 hrs - from Mindspace, Malad to S.V.Road, Khar. Anyone want to share a ride, call 98XXXXXXXX by 1530 hrs." Poolees, on the lookout for a ride home, are checking the board, and get in touch with pooler if the ride is of any use to them.

I hate Barista, and I hate Cafe Coffee Day even more.

There, that's out of the bloody way.

I think they're expensive, noisy and filthy.

The coffee is terrible. The hot coffees are insipid, the cold ones are full of snow and the iced ones are a magnificent explosion of ice cubes.

The food is stale. All fancy names, and no go.

And the service is appalling. I have always detested being served coffee in a plastic takeaway glass by a 15-year old doofus who wouldn't be able to tell the difference between coffee and bird pee even if he drank a gallon-odd of each.

We've dumped Baristas and CCDs.

Enter Vrindavan, Krishna Vihar, Ratna, Vishwa Bharti, Sairaj and Sadanand. In no particular order.

Udupis are the new meeting joints. Power lunches, quick bites, and everything in between.

Cheap, fast, reliable. Great food, fast service, Oracle-sque waiters. And that filter coffee.

Bahrista, I'll tell you what, take an effin' walk.

It is patriotism season, but I am shamed by my nationality. It has happened far too often in the recent past for my comfort.

There was anger at first, then there was disgust. And now there is shame. Fueled by the sheer ignominy of watching our khadi-clad men resigning, then falling over each other to get to the chair and finally sulking over not getting the chair.

Then there are the wise men sitting further north, who have been out with their diplomatic begging bowls, looking for Big Brother America to tell us what to do next. Or what not to. They have also been issuing threats emptier than their collective craniums - stuff that, I am certain, is a source of many laughs for the bastards sitting safe across the fence.

And now there are the greenie-weenie humanitarians. Who want a lawyer to represent Kasab.

They are out in the mainstream media with their senseless suggestions and foolish ideas. The Chief Justice of India, no less, wants a lawyer to represent Kasab. HT Mint wants a debate on the topic. Both go on to suggest that 'a constitutional democracy such as ours ensures that every person standing trial in court even for the most heinous crime should be represented by a lawyer.'

I say WTF.

Why do we need a trial? And why do we need a lawyer? Why can't we just make full use of whatever Kasab has to give us, and then order a public execution. With the world's media in full attendance. Will that make us any less civil? Or any less democratic?

What constitutional right to a trial are these chaps talking about? Kasab is not an Indian. Why should he be given these 'constitutional rights'?

We are just using the cloak of a 'civilized, democratic society' to postpone doing what we should have done many, many years ago. We are handing out threats that have ceased to have any meaning at all, we are not doing anything to impose any punitive action against terrorists and camps not in our custody. Worse, we are letting someone who is in our custody have the right to a trial and a lawyer.

What are we, if not the biggest collective impotency ever?

Sure, we are a democracy, and every single person has a right to their opinion. But the way so many of us are exercising that right, the choices we are making compels me to believe that most of us don't deserve that right.

It convinces me that democracy's time is up.

Now that it's over and done with, it feels strange.

Once the dust has settled, there will be the big question. 'Now what?'. Oh and there's that credit card bill to pay.

A curious mix of feelings this is. There's the overwhelming sense of freedom, of being unrestrained, of having broken shackles. There's a sense of disgust at the way things turned out. There's some sadness about all the hope and faith that more or less came to naught, and about plans that stand radically altered. There is a fizzy, dizzy sense of excitement about the future. This way or that, these are going to be very interesting times. There's a feeling of gratitude, for the fact that I could actually afford to something as stupid as this, for great friends and a wonderfully brave family. There's a hint of discomfort, an uneasy apprehension, of the future. And of that credit card bill that has to be paid. But it will be fine in the end. Jugaad ho jaayega.

Then there's the pride. Fierce, overpowering. I feel good about myself.

And there's the sense of determination. To do well, to succeed. To prove, over everyone else, to that one skeptical part of my own brain, that it was the right thing to do. There's a sense of ownership that a job, however entrepreneurial it might claim to be, can't rival.

It feels strange that so much is just the same, and yet so much has changed. Overnight.

I don't know yet, how I am supposed to react when I'm being congratulated for quitting my job. Strange times these are.

But it feels good.

First, the very thought of a chocolate-scented deodorant is repelling. There are things that taste good, and there is stuff that smells good. And one surely doesn't imply the other. Or we'd be eating jasmine-flavoured ice-cream.

And then look at this. Ugh.


That thing is hideous, abominable, hateful, even cringe-worthy. What were they thinking? Can some soul from HUL please spray some light on this?

(Unlikely, because only chaps with exemplary taste read this blog, surely not people who are capable of coming up with that.)

Update

The hideousness of it all :)

I am not a big fan of cricket. (Any sport that can not be enjoyed without commentary is not worthy of time).

And I am an even lesser fan of Dada. Yes, we had the Bengali chaps on campus who once wrote a Bhajan for Dada and composed it as a rock song. But that's all.

And yet, my heart reaches out to him.

Because I know that sick feeling, that hollowness in the tummy that comes from getting out on the first ball. After waiting it out patiently, fielding in the deep, chatting with grasshoppers, far away from where the action is. Dropping the lone catch that comes around once in three innings, being accused of being talentless by 'friends'. Worse, being called lazy and lethargic. Worse still, being called an Azharuddin-who-can't-even-field ('Azhar' was a pretty potent expletive only a few years back).

After all that misery, sitting by the gutter, watching more talented chaps crack fours and sixes, willing my own team members to get out so I could bat and justify my very existence. Silently cheering every time a wicket fell, sitting around with a sullen expression, distraught at coming one wicket closer to defeat. But overjoyed at coming one wicket closer to bat.

After all that endless, bottomless misery, finally holding the bat in my hands. Feeling revitalized, strong, powerful, determined. Determined to pulverise every bowling attack to dust. Dreaming about hitting the winning runs (tail-enders in weak batting line-ups occasionally get that privilege), and being carried off the field by overjoyed 15-year olds. Wondering how does a reverie fit into a crucial moment like this, shaking myself out of it, realizing it is probably slightly late, swinging that bat nevertheless. And hearing something shatter a few inches behind me.

That disgusting, sinking feeling.

It is cruel enough, hard enough on someone to get out on the first ball. And it is miserable, deathly to get out on the first ball in your last innings in Test cricket.

I think everyone who gets out for less than 15 in their last test innings should be given 'double batting'.

"Sir, today is a dry day."

"What?? Why?"

"Some Kartik Ekadashi, Sir."

"Crap!"

(glances at watch)

"It's past 12. Kartik Ekadashi is over. Can't we work something out?"

I can't believe I had that conversation yesterday.

A year back, I was the waiter, not the Sir.

It is wedding season once again, and I have a bold claim to make.

I think I have made my peace with 'Please consider this as a personal invitation'. And just as well. People just stopped writing it in their emotionless mass e-mails.

There's a new demon that has, meanwhile, raised its rather abominable head. It is called 'Please let us know of your travel plans in advance, so we can make suitable arrangements.'

This baffles me. Mostly because typically, this is the concluding line of a meaningless mass e-mail sent out to a thousand and twenty seven 'undisclosed recepients'.

I wish someone with a huge amount of time on his/her hands and a wicked brain would take up every single one of these people on their fake, thoughtless promise. I wish someone would begin replying to all these mails with a curt: 'Congratulations! I'll be there for your wedding. I'll inform you of my travel plans shortly, please make accommodation arrangements for my family and me. Thanks.'

'And you would be?'

'I am your seven years junior from IIM Kozhikode. Remember the invitation you sent on the Alumni group. Congratulations once again :)'

'Oh. ah, yes of course. (gulp) What's your name again?'

(I think I know someone with a huge amount of time and a slightly wicked bent of mind. Please post a comment in case you do too. And please do consider this as a personal request. Thanks!)

Lord Rama, hopefully watching things unfold from his perch somewhere in the Super-Cosmos, would most definitely be baffled by the way his return is being celebrated all over the country. He would be shocked by the 'Big Dick Mentality'. "My bomb is bigger than yours, my rocket zooms higher than yours, I am burning more money than you in two hours."

(There is a school of thought that believes in the 'Big Dick Paradox'. "The smaller the dick, the more a person is likely to indulge in the Big Dick Mentality." Intuitively, that makes sense. Deep-seated insecurities, perhaps. Or more fundamentally, the ones with the BDs have better things to do in life.)

What must baffle Lord Rama the most, though, is not the noise or the pollution, or even the most bizarre homecoming anniversary celebration that any deity, past or present, receives on an annual basis. It is the mass SMSes.

I vaguely remember having blogged about this a few years back. And encouragingly, my hate for them remains unchanged.

Imagine the predicament of the Lord, watching from his perch in the Super-Cosmos, looking at these emotionless, thoughtless beings sending three corny lines of faintly-veiled fake meaninglessness to their friends, colleagues, relatives and well-wishers. At one go.

"Darling, why are these people celebrating the anniversary of our homecoming in this manner?", the Lord asks his Wife. "Brother, Hanuman, can anyone tell me what (in the name of God) is going on here?", thunders he, fast losing patience with the wonders and conveniences of modern technology.

I always thought festivals were a good time to let the few special people in one's life know how special they were. Isn't it slightly ironic, that festivals are precisely the time when so many of us choose to bucket everyone in their life in one huge mailing list.

"My SMS list is bigger than yours."

Oh, and to the two of you reading this, Happy Diwali.

Somewhere along the way, I started believing that it was uncool to work hard, to study and to struggle. It was cool to take it easy, sit back and let things come to you. Working hard was for people who had more determination than brains. I thought I was so smart I didn't need to work hard at all.

I started believing so, because I kept getting away with it. Each time I got away with it, my belief strengthened, reinforced by my latest success.

The last time I struggled with anything that threatened with significantly dire consequences was in Engineering college. At Hexaware, I didn't work. At the magazines, it does not classify as work.

And the two years at IIMK were almost ludicrously laughable. I'd get away with the craziest things. I'd get away with not studying for tests and exams, and talking my way through them. I'd get away with going into presentations unprepared, and sleepwalking through them with some smooth talking and some common sense.

Coming from a decent management institute where students choose companies rather than the other way round, I had started to believe that I was the centre of the world, and that everything happening around me was happening for me.

Somewhere along the way, I began taking success for granted, and not welcoming it with any kind of respect when it actually did come around. "Could there be any other way?"

And somewhere along the way, I forgot how to handle failure. My sense of determination went for a hike. My ability to struggle went into eternal dormancy. My work ethic went to dust. And I turned into a lofty, complacent airhead with a thoroughly skewed idea about myself and the world around me.

It's good to be getting back on terrafirma. Slowly, but surely.

Most people have a list of their best, most memorable drives. I have no such list.

I have always hit it off with most drivers I have come across. More often than not, drivers are drivers because they like driving and they like cars. That gives us a common interest, a shared passion about most things that move. It is not a surprise then, that I like drivers.

(One must hand it to them for choosing their profession, and choosing to make money from what they enjoy most. Most of us ordinary people do not have such privileges. Or if we do, we don’t have the balls to exercise them. Drivers, then, are an entirely different breed.)

It is only fair then, that I compile a list of the most memorable drivers I have come across. What is not fair is ranking them this way. Telling them, “Hey, you’ve been memorable, but that chap there, he’s been more memorable”. Then again, life’s not fair either. So such it will be.

However, just to make it slightly less unfair, we won’t go 5-4-3-2-1. We’ll go in any random order, and end with So Mot (Number One).

Number 3

Bombay - Pune | April 2006 | Bhai from Mughal Sarai | Tata Indica

I was travelling from Bombay to Pune and I was in a spectacular rush. I had to make it to my destination in two hours. And that included a stop for some chores at Belapur. It was my rotten luck that I landed up in a taxi whose driver had just landed up in Bombay on a train from Mughal Sarai. He had since been taught driving in Bombay’s mean streets. For fifteen minutes. Then a set of keys had been thrown at him, he had been shown the taxi he was to drive, and asked to get a customer to be driven to Pune. We found each other.

His driving ability was suspect. Bombay traffic, merciless as it is, trampled all over him. Autorikshaws walked all over him, and motorcycles refused to acknowledge his presence on the road. On one occasion, a cycle overtook him. In a country where might is right, this was a mighty slap on his face. The most shameful performance any driver could subject himself to.

By Belapur I was fed up with the slow progress, and requested that I take over driving duties. He was shocked. The Seth-naukar relationship came into the picture. I told him I was younger than him, and hence not a Seth (I tried the age-platform of unsuperiority). I told him we were equals, because in a way, I was a driver too (I was working for the magazines then, and the statement wasn’t wayyy off the mark). He gave in, like a frightened hedgehog, unsure of what he was doing. I could have been a Bombay thug who’d drug him on the way, throw him on the highway and run away with his taxi. He took the risk…

…and I took the wheel. It was a battered Indica that had lived past its prime. On the expressway, it took some prodding before it got to 100. It wasn’t used to being driven that fast. Bhai (I don’t know his name, and Bhaiyya seems politically incorrect) told me that Seth had told him to not drive faster than 80; “Average kharaab hota hai..”

I took the liberty of explaining to him, how the faster we went, the less time the engine was on, and hence fuel efficiency actually improved. Soon we were doing 120.

After the ma-baap-bhai-behen bit, conversation steered on to serious topics. How much do you make, who do you work for, why do you work, why don’t you buy your own taxi, the likes. Some rapid calculation later, Bhai figured that Seth was making Rs 25,000 a month from one taxi. Bhai was being paid Rs 2,500. That was downright ridiculous, I told him.

We did some more calculation. One acre of land in the village could be used as collateral for a loan in the city. He could use it to buy a used taxi. Then he’d run the taxi on the Bombay-Pune highway, ferrying people this way and that. He’d recover the money, pay off the loan. Use the existing taxi as collateral, and get another loan. Buy another used taxi, hire a driver and do runs on the Bombay-Pune highway.

Soon he’d have a fleet of taxis. He’d be the Seth, someone else would be the Bhai.

We had reached. There was no time to think of the thorns. There would be, had I driven at 80.

The roses had been smelled, the thorns not tested yet.

Bhai left. He jumped the clutch, the car protested and shut itself off. He tried again, more gentle with the pedal, and this time he was on his way. I don't know what became of him.

Unsurprisingly, I never heard from him again.

A few weeks later, I joined business school. Smelling roses and not being stung was to become a way of life.

It is easy to enjoy Dilbert when one thinks one is Dilbert. Or Wally or Alice. Asok even.

It was, till a few months back.

I was reading Dilbert today, and I didn't enjoy it. Because I wasn't Dilbert anymore. I was trying to stifle a laugh at Pointy-Haired Boss's unimaginable stupidity when a little voice somewhere deep inside said, 'Dude, that's you!'.

It's scary. Someone, somewhere is reading Dilbert right now thinking of me as Pointy-Haired Boss. And having a good laugh.

And that's the problem with being a manager. One tends to (very rapidly) transform into someone one has always hated.

The bigger problem is that people all around the world are having a good laugh. At your expense.

There was a time not many long years back, when a boy and a girl could not be friends. They could be strangers. Or they had to be seeing each other and preparing for marital bliss. There was nothing in between.

You spoke to a girl, people around you would whisper. You went for a walk with her, eyebrows would start rising not-so-subtly. You went for coffee, you'd be starting a small forest fire of speculation.

"So, heard you went for coffee with her." (wink wink)

"Eh? There's nothing between us. We're just friends. Really."

"Of course, who said otherwise?" (wink wink)

The times, though, they're a changin'. The tables have turned.

A guy and a guy can not be friends any more. It is just not possible. They're either strangers, competitors or a gay couple making man-love 14 times a week. At least.

You go off for a roadtrip with a guy. And you're hard pressed (heh heh) to explain to the world and its cousin that "we're just friends". Go out for dinner together, and you're branded gay, your parents give up all hope and girls suddenly begin to feel comfortable around you (but not in that sort of way). All that inside a few hours. It must feel terrible.

Just ensuring that one does not come close to sparking of that kind of speculation is exhausting. One must always be wary, aware of what one is saying and doing, what one's body language is communicating, what clothes one is wearing and where. One false step, one must start preparing for a hard life ahead.

The times, they are a changin'.