Christmas Time

The last two months at work were hectic, lots of work and responsibilities. Think of all the possible reasons you can. The most important is that its the retail season, and therefore, advertisers had been gearing up since September. I realized how my advertisers get worked up since September, rationing up their sites, putting things on clearance, revamping their sites with offers galore, and asking me to create new campaigns for the festive season. Its a lot of fun, trust me, with the varieties of products on sale. They sell products which are so dear to a woman's heart, in fact, everything that a woman will love, right from flowers, cards, gift items (most of which are of no use), jewelry, designer clothes, non-designer clothes, fashion accessories etc. You name it, you get it.

This advertising mayhem involving me lasts till mid December, when most of the accounts are supposed to be well laid out and ready to take on the New Year shopping too. By mid December, advertisers too are happy with the sale of things, and most of them are out vacationing, which means allowing me to be lazy. :)

And so I'm now- lazy with not much advertising work to do.

So, let me tell you about Christmas fever at office. We have teams for each vertical and each team has around 15 members. Come Christmas, I found the teams were gearing up for some real fun. Most of the teams were high on a game Secret Santa, in which, each team member has an incognito Santa who leaves gifts surreptitiously at our desks until Christmas. Each one gets a Santa and is a Santa too. Its great fun getting gifts and wondering, 'Who is my Secret Santa?' On around 23 Dec, the cats are let out of the bags with big gifts. The Santas reveal their identity and also give nice gifts.

Some teams also had another traditional way of celebrating. They have their own christmas trees all decorated with the jazz pizzazz as usual. On 23 December, each team member brings a gift and places it on or under the tree. The entire team then meets and each one picks up a gift. I pity anyone who has got the same gift that he/she had brought.

All these enliven the atmosphere at office. People dress up with fancy. I found some looking like Christmas tress with all kinds of blings and danglers on them! On the last day of work before Christmas, we had awesome snacks organized by the facilities team, loads of programs and gifts from the office too. I was so happy to get a Swiss knife among other gifts.

Overall, Christmas is great at work.

At home, I've been thinking of baking my first cake, however, things didnt happen. I'll try something else, maybe some Indian sweets to compensate for it. And I'll nag Sandeep to get some rich plum and fruit cakes from the market. :)

Merry Christmas to All you readers!

Stream of Distraction

I hate keeping a TV at my home.

Not that I don’t have one, but I don’t watch it. Its better kept off on its stand, dressed and properly covered. It unravels itself only when my parents are here. It helps kill their time. Not for me though. I don’t mean to say that I just don’t have any time to watch it, I don’t want to watch it.

It seems I’ve developed an irritation for it overtime. This irritation is a well-cultured and well-researched and well nourished one. I won’t lie about it.

The reason I’m irritated with it is coz I’ve realized its immense paralyzing monstrosity. It’s got powers enough to paralyze your thinking faculties. I’ve noticed this in the simplest of my daily jobs. I’m about to make a grocery list. My eyes are fixed on the television, the yellow post-it with its eyes wide open is waiting for the first scribble on its face, my pen too is waiting eagerly to make its first move on the post-it. I’m not actually watching the television, I’m trying to tax and tax my brain while its digging into its grey matter for things needed in the kitchen, however, I just don’t seem to remember what I’m about to list. Instead of the kitchen, in my sub-conscious, I can see the same color, hear the same sound which I eventually discover to be emanating from the television. I can actually write down the same list in a jiffy just after pressing the red button on my remote.

More instances:

I feel I’ll turn on the television for some music while I’ll read the book which has a new found place from the store shelf to my bookshelf. Forget it, reading never happens. Like the world knows, the visual impact is always more than aural impact, my eyes always drift to the screen, and my book lies there disregarded. L I can however read if I just turn on my laptop or my music-system with nothing to distract my vision.

The family gets together at night after a whole day’s work. Mother, father, kiddos, uncles, aunts, grand parents..you name them, you have them. And you have the ubiquitous television, sitting prim and propah like the most obedient kid you’ve ever seen on earth. A light conversation starts, intensifies, and suddenly someone presses the red button on the remote. The obedient kid, disregarded all this while, suddenly brightens up in all its glee, silently promising to take its revenge for being understated all this while. It shows you all its colors, all the various delicacies it can offer you in terms of trashy soaps, unclad women, actors who cant stand straight for a moment because they are born dancing, innumerable budding singers & dancers begging for votes to win a certain contest, gargantuan creatures, spike-haired cartoons begging you to laugh, something black and white that you hate to look at for a fraction of a second and what not!

If you take one look at the room, you will notice a strange human silence. All the bickering of the aunts, the playfulness of the kids, the coughing of the grandparents, the baritone of the dads is suddenly lost, and artificial mechanical intonation has taken over. The family is not talking any more, everyone is absorbed expecting something better in the next channel. The only time when you will hear someone speak is when he or she hates the channel the tv is stuck at and wants to watch something else.

What do you think the family will communicate? Nothing. In a few hours, everyone will feel sleepy and doze off. No more open talks, no more bonding, no more of family time.

Do I need anymore instances? Look at you and your family just one night, if your family is in the habit of watching television, and you will understand what Im trying to say.

Like I said, the paralyzing powers are immense. It can cover you with its tentacles like an octopus, draw you in, suck you into itself and then let its digestive juices act on you to render you lifeless except for that index finger to press the remote mechanically.

Additionally, it’s paralyzing powers are so strong, a person who is dissatisfied with one channel will not stop surfing until the satisfying screen appears. The victim surfs and surfs happily unaware of the world around. He/She is so distracted and aloof of the surroundings that unknowingly he/she is drugged with that distraction. Its like a stream of distraction, moving on and on until it reaches the sea when the mind is completely taken over!

Do you think then that the TV is a great thing to kill time?

Excuse me, ma and dad, I really meant to keep you and all your kind out of the periphery of my venomous thoughts.

The Power of Green

I came to Hyderabad late 2003, and it was yesterday, 24 Feb, 2008, that I went to Golconda Fort for the first time! I’ve had people from my family in Kolkata come here and end in an eternal loop visiting the Fort and going back home, coming after six months and visiting it again and so on. However, somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to even think of spending time in an old broken fort.

‘What’s there to visit in an old fossilized fort for god’s sake?” was my eternal argument. By this time, I’m sure you’ve got the hint that I’ve been one of those numerous students who hated history as a subject at school, and traces of that hatred are still latent in me.

…were latent in me, until yesterday, that is.

Yesterday was another Sunday I was loitering at home. My fiancé suggested we go to Salarjung Museum. It’s a sudden love for moribund places that he seems interested in. Anyways, I shooed off the idea like dust in the wind.

Next, he suggested the zoo. My jaws dropped. Now there wait, wait..don’t get ideas about him. He is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met on earth! I shooed this one off too.

Then he suggested visiting the Golconda Fort. This time I just gave in without taxing my brain at all.

We left at 4:30 in the evening. Its around 15 kms from my place, and considering we didn’t know the way, losing ourselves in some god-forsaken place wouldn’t have surprised either of us.

Anyways, we reached in 30 mins flat! I was already aware from the numerous Golconda Fort sojourns of my family that they have some kind of gullible ‘sound and light show’ (note the order please, its sound and light, and don’t make a mistake of turning it around) for an evening audience. Exploration of the fort isn’t allowed after 5. And you may have already read that we reached at 5! Hah.. riding down 15 kms and this is what we get to hear from the seemingly Nepali security:

‘No Sir, no entry after 5. Only sound and light. Go get the tickets, 50 Rs per head. There’s the counter.’

‘But listen man.. we’ve come from far off just to see the fort, not sit for an hour to hear some sound and see some light,’ was my fiance’s argument.

‘What 15 kms? 15 kms would mean Miyapur, this pur, that pur… people are coming down from America, and you say 15 kms! Go away and come back tomorrow, come early morning,’ the guard told in the security-guard style.

I felt like whacking him right and left. ‘Your job may be just to stand at the gate 24/7, but we are like mad on weekdays…..Do you hear, you dumbnut?’ I wanted to scream out at him.

We had, in this mess, not noticed the numerous guards who had swarmed us like houseflies on a lump of jam. Out of the blue, one oldie, appearing from nowhere, told my fiancé to give the security guard a ‘Green 50 Rs bill,’ and we would be allowed in.

The security guard gave a knowing look of disbelief, a coy smile appearing at the corners of his mouth.

Next minute, we were strolling happily within the fort.

Green works, you know! Are the environmentalists listening?

….read my upcoming blog on my reaction to the fort and its beauty….

NRI

I overheard this conversation between two guys at a mall:

A: Hey, you know my friend is back to India!
B: Oh cool! Is he a friend from your school days?
A: Yeah, a close friend of mine. He has returned after many years. However, I see he has a new attitude. He calls himself an NRI.
B: Awww... that happens..its normal. Dont worry about it.
A: No dude, it gets on my nerves when he throws his airs all around. I dont like it that way. He has changed a lot!!
B: Oh come on, dont be a kid. You know all NRIs have this strange attitude problem.
A: But you must know where he is back from. Do you know which country he has this NRI status from?
B: ??
A: Nepal.
B: **?$##**

I couldn't help but laugh out. Just couldn't stop myself.

Selective Vegetarianism Theory

Its ironically funny to hear egg-consuming vegetarians proclaiming to the world that they are vegetarians.

I wonder how it will look if one of this strangely classified sector of homosapiens attends a Maneka Gandhi-Prototypes meet with an egg in hand!

Ok. Im not bothered with it (looks like I'm though). However, all the bile and sarcasm that my system can produce is spewed at those egg-consuming vegetarians who stay away from an egg on a specific day of the week like a Tuesday or a Saturday but relish it on other days.

I have met loads of such people. They eat eggs on a Monday, but will remain light years away from an egg on a Tuesday (because they are vegetarians, do you hear? They are not non-vegetarians).

You must ask them this:

Can you eat a cabbage on a Monday?

Answer: Yes, its veg.

Can you eat an egg on a Monday?

Answer: Yes, its veg.

Can you eat cabbage on a Tuesday?

Answer: Yes, its veg.

Can you eat an egg on a Tuesday?

Answer: No….I mean..You know…its like…..aa..uu..ummm….

The bottomline:

Egg is a veg food on a Monday, but turns non-veg on a Tuesday, returns to its veg classification on Wednesday, again turns non-veg on a Saturday.

Therefore, if they can have something which is both a veg and a non-veg food at the same time (let me remind you its the same egg which turns non-veg immediately the next day), can you call them vegetarians any more? Doesn’t this make them non-vegetarians?

Tell them this, and they will give you looks as if you’ve committed a blasphemy!

I think humans remain strict and authentic to their beliefs, but its the eggs which have split-personality disorders of being veg one day and turning non-veg the other day.

Kudos to the proponents of the Selective Vegetarianism Theory.