Feeling very low today

feeling very low today.

it was all planned. then all of a sudden the plans were shattered.

it was my best friend’s marriage. we had been friends since childhood. the marriage was to be held at a place near benaras. mother knew my closeness to the friend. so she had personally bought the gifts - a beautiful saree for the bride and a shirt for the groom, my friend. also there were other gifts. the tickets were done - the friend had personally got the tickets done. today i was to take the train to benaras. i had come to office along with the bag and baggage.

and then the hurdle came from the most unexpected quarters - the boss.

god knows what was preventing me from hinting my travel plans all these days. i didn’t disclose to him my intention of going out of station until today. can you believe how irresponsibly i behaved. to add fuel to the fire, i was on leave yesterday - i was busy attending interviews lined up for the day.

when i disclosed to the boss’s secretary that i haven’t yet talked about my travel plans to boss, she said the most obvious “… that’s so very unprofessional”.

boss echoed a similar feeling when i gave him a call at around 11. he didn’t appreciate the unprofessional behaviour coming from me. i tried to convince but to no avail.

all he was ready to give me was until monday first half.

i committed to him that i will be there by the stipulated time.

although, i knew it very well that this was almost impossible.

on monday, the train was scheduled for 4.30 in the evening. the latest i could reach back delhi was until 7 in the morning, tuesday.

i knew this very well. still i agreed.

that’s really very unprofessional of me. i thought i will give an excuse to boss and he will forgive me.

but the tone of his was giving me chills within my nerves. what if he is really pissed off by my behaviour.

i talked to family and within minutes of explaining the situation everyone was telling me not to go.

i finally relented. i am not in a state now to be thrown out of the job. several interviews later, i have not heard of any positive response. besides, i have heard that a person out of job for even a month is treated as a fresher. this job has already reduced my skills to a rubble. now i don’t want the loss of it to further worsen my situation.

so i excused myself to this friend of mine. he was very disappointed. thankfully, he was reasonable enough. we agreed to meet up after he comes back to delhi with his wife-to-be.

boss was the next to receive a call from me. this time he showed no reaction at all when i confided in him that i have cancelled my trip. devil

family were the last to hear about the reaction of the concerned parties. mom heaved a sigh of releif.

now news had to be broken to people at office that i am not going to benaras. didn’t tell them about the boss angle. just told them that the wedding has been cancelled because of some personal reasons.

anyways the things have finally settled down. there were of course some losses that i bore:

• it would have been a memorable weekend activity
• it had been long since i had attended a marriage, the last being my brothers
• i had planned some really fun and memorable activities during the shadi (again i would have been the centre of attraction since i was the groom’s best friend)
• the train tickets are unrefundable now. not my money. but u see, wastage of money is so bad.
• my friend and me had been planning about this marriage since long. he was very disappointed.

it all happened because i didn’t talk to boss on time.

but whatever happened has happened. it’s little use to cry over split milk.

anyways, there is a trip to nainital that’s on the cards now. maybe next saturday

barely had i suggested about my cancelled trip that everyone started coaxing me to come along to nainital. imagine 10 people on ur skype chat forcing u to join the trip. i gave all kinds of excuses, to no avail altogether. finally i have asked them for time to discuss family. mother is leaving with bhabhis the day after. won’t they feel bad. will talk about it in the evening today.

Love marriage

having successfully accomplished the marriage of my elder brother, mother said, as if surrendering, “you better go for a love marriage for yourself. we will not be able to arrange a wedding for you. it is so tiring a business.”

an average guy would have loved this opportunity - a go ahead from parents to give the much desired legal touch to ones love life. many of the guys wait forever to disclose their love interest to parents.

for me, this doesn’t sound exciting though.

in fact, mother too wasn’t serious about the love marriage issue. her idea of love is - the girl must be from same (or at the least) upper class, be fair in complexion, be educated, and finally hail from a family that is lesser in stature than us and yet not be too poor.

But mom, love is blind and it is impossible to choose love mates with so many requirements in mind. we cannot arrange a love, you see.

coming back to me now. why doesn’t the idea sound exciting to me as it would the other guys?

because love for me is an altogether alien concept. 27 years and the love virus has yet not struck me. will it strike now or in the near future? difficult to answer. so for a love marriage, there must be someone who i love. as there is none, so the idea about love marriage is a complete flop.

does that mean i have no interest in girls altogether?

can’t say that way. in fact i like all girls and ladies and aunties. what’s more, i can also find a trait/s to dislike in all of them. none of them comes as a perfect piece. so the liking soon turns into a dislike.

don’t want to end the blog post so soon. also cannot come across some thing to write. was planning to write about my preferences in a girl (or what qualities make a girl sound and look perfect to me), but couldn’t come across anything specific. so i would better end the post here.

Want to study in a Foreign University?

if you believed indian applicants to foreign universities had a very good hand at english, think again. just came across a company that worked (said they were exclusive partners and present in six cities apart from delhi) for Princeton Review, that offers test preparation courses for SAT, GMAT, etc. So, what does this indian company do for Princeton Review?

the procedure of applying to many foreign universities is an essay type application form. your chances of selection to your choice university depends a lot on how creatively and impressively you filled that essay type application form. of course there are other hurdles to complete.

the indian wing of princeton review comes into the picture here. trained writers are employed here to write for each applicant. they will understand the strengths and weaknesses of each applicant and then pen it down in an impressive manner. this ensures that the applicant finds a place with one of the foreign universities (although the groundwork for the same was done by another, who wasn’t as fortunate and didn’t have the large amount of money needed to study in the foreign universities.)

my question is - aren’t we sending relatively less competitive candidates to foreign universities? isn’t this a misuse of resources? doesn’t this strengthen the unsaid law that the privileges are for the privileged?

I am not from the marketer’s tribe

after taking delivery of a kurta from karol bagh, we were discussing what will go well with it - sandal or a juti- when i spotted a kolhapuri shoe shop and decided to check the collection. although i know that a juti goes best with a churidar pyjama, i believed sandal was a better bet. one can wear sandals at all times, unlike a juti that is to be worn on special occasions. Thus, sandal was worth the money spent. but the shopkeeper was hell bent on making us buy a juti instead. i decided to teach him a lesson - we tried around 20 pairs - half an hour later i said that my friend doesn’t likes any. this pinched the shopkeeper badly. out of the blue he said, “both of us are in marketing and you shouldn’t play such tactics with your own people”.

me in marketing! what gives him such hints? oh, maybe the laptop bag i was carrying. i was infuriated. “How could he draw parallels between us”, i thought in mind. “hey i am not from marketing”, i said, making it very clear that i was in no way related to the marketers tribe.

in india, marketing is synonymous with sales. although MBAites learn to differentiate between marketing and sales during their B-school years, once in jobs, the difference dilutes quickly. many of them stick to sales and only occasionally get to use the marketing principles they learn in their MBA books.

when it was time to decide specialisation after 1st year of management, there was a choice between finance and HR. marketing was nowhere in sight.

i hate the term, job, and people who belong to this tribe.

despite such hatred for the job, i had to actually don the marketers role for a day; i will forever hate myself for that day.

lemme describe how this happened.

There were still a few months left for my MBA session to get over. everyone was busy searching jobs. each time someone got a job, people would congratulate him/her with a big smile. in their hearts, they were concerned about when will they have a job to communicate to friends. my condition was very similar.

then one day i came across this advertisement in some indiscreet corner of the indian express newspaper.

“wanted admistrative assistants. earn 15,000. walk in for interview”

lately i had also started looking for jobs in newspapers and classifieds. i had also registered with some placement consultants. also i was looking for administration jobs, rather than HR or personnel that appeared far fetched.

the opportunity looked attractive.

i took a pune corporation bus and reached the address mentioned in the advertisement sharp at 9 the next day. the office was housed in a two-room flat constructed upon a shopping complex’s terrace in pune. there was a cramped reception where an office boy noted down my name in the visitors’ register. from inside the other room, i could hear people shouting certain phrases in full volume. occasionally, there were sounds of laughter as well. (i later learnt that this was a confidence building session used for marketing professionals).

after around half an hour of sitting unattended, a thin, bespectacled guy approached me. after the initial introductions, he started by explaining the business of the company. the company had tie-ups with certain UK based publishers and their business was to sell these books to schools, individuals, etc in the local market. No resume was asked. neither did they ask me what kind of job i wanted or applied for. he told me that he was moving to field in some ten minutes and i was welcome to join him. a HR working in the field - that’s quite contrasting. i aired my views. the guy was diplomatic - how can you administer the things inside the office until you know what’s happening in your market. he is correct, i thought. so i hopped on his bike for a ride through pune.

once out of office, i began to rue over the wrong step i had taken. why did i agree to come with this guy. his choice of location was further giving me goose bumps. he had chosen kothrud over all areas of pune to sell those books. many friends lived in this area (i didn’t know the exact location of their residences or i would have stopped him from entering those flats). i would have died out of embarassment had any one of them spotted me doing this. i had scolded many when they tried to force me into choosing marketing as a specialisation. now when they see me selling children books (costing a mere Rs 10), they would have their revenge on me.

the day was unlucky for him as well. not only was he not able to make a single sale, some customers also scolded him badly. i felt bad for him but fear and embarassment was what ruled my mind then.

also for the first time in my life, any dog barked at me. it was a huge alsatian dog, parked in the compound of a doctor’s house. had the lady of the house not reached on time and the dog was not tied in chains, he would have fed on both of us.

each time a door opened, i slid beneath the guy. efforts to demotivate him were a failure. he had for the last three months bore such treatment and become hardened in the process. marathi uncles and aunties, live in couples, sweet college going girls, bachelors, north indians - pune certainly had a diverse crowd.

when selling to individuals didn’t help, he decided to focus on schools. most schools were closing for the day. at no place were we allowed a meeting with the principal. the kids were waiting anxiously to reach home- it was thus a waste of time to try sell to them. where kids showed interest in the books, the parents were not ready to waste money on the books.

despite the wasted sales effort, i learnt an important marketing lesson - price will not attract customers, even if it is very low.

what will attract customers then? none of us knew. at 4.30 in the evening, he finally decided to let go. i heaved a sense of relief. it was as if a huge burden was shifting off my shoulders. i immediately caught a bus to pimpri and slept like i had never slept.

thus ended my first and last day at marketing.

my hatred for marketers seem to have taken shape from this incident in my life.

Don’t teachers have a right to raise hands on children to make them study well?

a relative, teacher by profession in a government school in jharkhand, was about to be jailed recently, until his wife, a lawyer by profession, came to his rescue. his crime - he raised hands at a young boy for not performing well in exams. the boy happened to be from the tribal community of santhal parganas, and soon the incident took a forward-beats-backward colour.

in metros, such incidents are quite common, where there are strict rules for teachers to not use any kind of physical aggression against students, whatever good that act be for. if reported, such acts by teachers can cost them their jobs and even imprisonment.

still unheard of in the smaller places, this news came like a shock to us. not that we belong to the school of thought that believes animal and children can best be taught through force. still, we strongly believe that the teacher has a right to occasionally use force, as he/she uses love and compassion on other occasions.

however, modern day educational system completely bans the use of force against children. their take - children are tender beings and thus must be treated tenderly. because of the large number of suicide cases by children appearing for exams or waiting for results, there’s also a proposal to completely do away with the exams. god knows how they are going to measure the learning produced in children - probably if they desire to measure the learning.

as kids, we were subjected to love, compassion and force, whatever the situation demanded, and whatever the teacher believed was good for us. teachers had a discretion in the techniques they would utilise to make learning happen; and parents seldom interfered.

being an average student in school, i have pretty less experiences where the teacher was strict on me. however, i too have knelt down, beat beaten with scale on the knuckles, ousted of class. did my parent led a morcha against the teachers? never. on one occasion, i didn’t let my tears dry for a full 3 hours, so that parents will understand the trauma i had to undergo, but they were not the least moved. (thinking back on what happened, i believe my parents were right.)

During a parents teachers meeting, when the lady teacher complained about my brother’s poor performance in class, father said “agar ye parhta nahi to aap iska tang tod dijiye. hum uff tak nahi karenge”. such was the confidence parents placed in teachers.

my mother recounted stories of her own teachers. this was a time further down the history.

having a school in the village had its advantages in the sense that commuting to school was easier. however, the disadvantages weighed more. the teachers were not just satisfied by your performance at school. once the sun set, not a student should be visible on the playgrounds. in those days, there were few villages that were lighted with electricity. in front of every house, there used to be a platform, where students from each house would assemble to study together, in the light of a lantern. girls too weren’t spared. the teachers would regularly conduct inspections. the inspections became stricter during board exams, when the result of the students was as much a prestige issue for the teacher as the student.

so what techniques did teachers utilise to teach students in the good old days. a well oiled cane was the best weapon. even if students never had a chance to taste it, the sight of it was enough to draw fears in them. Some teachers would designate students to bring canes to class. this would subsequently be tested on erring students; if a student was particularly unfortunate, he would be beaten with the same cane that he delivered to the teacher. kneel down (before a class full of students leering at you), kneel down in cock position (thankfully, this was outside the class), hold up a heavy school bag in air, stand for the entire day on a stool (backbenchers were fortunate here as they didn’t have to stand at the centre of the classroom), and many other modes of punishment, that today are part of our nostalgia, that today’s kid will miss forever.

Baingan ka jhonga

i am not very good at cooking. rice, dal and tea are the only preparations that i have tried till date. still i have a great eye for the preparations and regularly pester bhabhi and brother that they are not doing it the way mother did.

here’s a recipe that i have seen my mom make. baingan ka jhonga is a hot favourite at home and couldn’t find the recipe online; so i thought let’s give my readers a taste of the bihari cuisine (bihari cuisine is characterised with simplicity).

Baingan ka Jhonga

Ingredients:

3 average sized baingan or brinjals
1 half cup rice (use parmal rice)
salt to taste
1 full cup mustard oil
1/2 teaspoon chilly powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
5-6 cloves of garlic
3-4 green chillies

Method of preparation:

1. soak rice for over 1/2 hours in water. before using the rice, check if it has become soft.

2. in a mixer, make a paste of soaked rice, garlic, salt (to taste) and chillies.

*the rice paste shouldn’t be too watery. sieve off excess water (if any) from the soaked rice before making the rice paste.

3. cut the brinjal into 4 pieces lengthwise, with the head of the brinjal kept intact. boil the brinjal for about 5 minutes in water.

4. check that the brinjal is soft now. let it cool. generously spread the rice paste onto the brinjal.

5. heat the mustard oil in a kadhai.

6. now slowly place the brinjals in the kadhai for frying. reduce the gas flame so that your dish doesn’t burn, but is yet crisp in taste. keep on stirring the brinjal. when the lower side is fried (the side will turn brownish once it is fried), turn the upper side for frying.

7. sieve it off the oil once both sides are fried well.

8. do the same to the other cut brinjals. one at a time.

baingan ka jhonga is now ready.

serve hot with rice and dal. add to this dhaniya patta ki chutney and aam ka achar and you have the ultimate bihari recipe ready to eat.

Turning SEO

god, i am turning a SEO day by day.

just a week ago i submitted my blog to a few blog directories like Blog Catalog and India Counts. yesterday, i also exchanged link with a website.

previous attempts at submitting blog to blog directories were a failure. each time i submitted my blog to a directory, it would ask me to put the website/directory link to my blog. a newbie that i am in this field, the instruction was least understandable.

then one day while working in the admin area of my blog, i came across the feature how i can add links to my blogroll. i also came to know how i can change the name of the blogroll as “Blogs i read” or anything similar.

India’s internet story

When the US pioneered the use of internet as a part of a military project in 1958, little did it fathom that it will be such a big hit commercially as it is now. Today internet users account for 16.6 % or 1,093,529,692 of the total World population. Now that’s what is called a revolution.

Internet’s story in India is no less revolutionary.

Back in 1958, had one referred to the internet, he would have received the same blank glares as Aristotle would have when he first proposed that the earth is a sphere.

India took half a century to recognise the vast potentials of internet.

Sensational reporting by hindi news channels is unpalatable

Are you satisfied with the programmes being dished out on TV these days. i am not.

news channels in particular are very disappointing, mostly the hindi news channels. instead of providing information, the news channels sell sensation. the loudest the sensation, the largest the TRP - therefore, biggest the share in advertisement pie.

A too nice manager

was going through the newspapers as usual when i spotted this article on Live Mint on how being a too-nice manager is equally bad; instead niceness make things worse. you can read the article here

this brought back reminiscences of my own time as a supervisor/manager.

the role of managing newbies came along with longer time of stay in the company. lemme tell you, staying for long was not at all an easy task in this company. there was a manager who played favorites. a colleague who was waiting to taste your blood at the slightest mistake as she was the manager’s favourite. the management was deaf and blind.