Brilliant day!

Yesterday was a very fruitful day in the sense that a lot of plannning for the New years finally started to happen. Actually everyone is "in" for it but no one wants to take the initiative. So finally I called up a resort in Goa and asked for the tariffs and mailed everyone the iternary that we can have and now, all of a sudden, there has been a pretty decent activity in this account. This is a nice thing coz I now think that finally some plan is on! So I did some groundwork on it in the morning and in the afternoon went for a lunch to Status! Well the only reason I go all the way to status is their wonderful "Cheese pakoras" which I can assure you are totally out of the world.
But it was the evening that took the cake. Shefali came over to Kodak House and from here we went to Sterling. I had a quick soup and then we took a cab to Nariman Point. It was very pleasant and walking all the way to the end of the road was one of the most chillaxing walks in the recent times.
We decided to have dinner at Atria. Atria used to be one of my fave hangout spots in my early days in Mumbai, but somehow it became a far second to most of the eating spots. But yesterday was nice and pretty filling as well!! 2 Nans and a plate full of Kebabs were more than what I had in mind!! That followed by some Cappuchino was a brilliant end to a brilliant evening!!!!!

English August!

This is one book that I wanted to read since time immemorial!!! Finally I have laid my hand on this one and hope to finish it quick enough to move to a better one!!!

just do IT!!!

Just Do IT!!

Well i have always been regarded as one of the most IT challanged guys while on campus in a technical college like DCE. Well people regarded IT knowlege as one of the key essentials for success, but I have happy with my more than sufficient knowledge of "ctrl-alt-del". It solved problemsa and that too Always!! Though I did give in to the pressure of the academic life and did join C++ classes, but that did not go beyond a couple of classes and all I was left with was a knowledge of #include iostrem.h or something as weird as that.

When I moved on with my life into the IIM's I was plesanatly surprised to find that this was truly ne place where people with far lower IT Quotient existed than me! There were loads of non-engineers for whom computer was a cheap replacement for TV, CD player, music player all combined into one.Also I came across Aman who happened to be one who was/is cursed by IT! Two years in IIM L, and there werent too many days when his computer was in fully functional mode.He carried his illuck with him after college as well with his IBM thinkpad nearly crashing and then getting a new laptop where the internet console doesnt fit!!

But what I did not know is that I might be also becoming prone to such ordeal myself. I just crashed by new laptop and all the data has been erased and now the IT experts beleive that there is some hardware problem associated with it. The lotus notes take hours to open and i am having one of the worst times with reagrds to IT!!

Where have the days gone when abacus ruled the roost!!!

:)

Well as they say!

Just do IT!!

Joker in the Pack: A Review

This is a novel I picked up primarily because it is co-written by an alumni. And I am damn confident that I have not been disappointed by them. Well, mainly because when I picked up the book I already knew that I wasnt picking up a classic. It had all that I knew would be in store for me. The regular campus life, regular normal characters and finally the regular setting and the scenario. But I must say that I really connected with the life at the campus, having been through the rigours of one quite recently. Although I couldnt relate too well with the characters but yess, with the life and times of an IIM, I could nearly see myself being there.

One thing that I generally do is to picturise the people of a story and make up a movie in my mind. This novel was like having myself and my friends as characters. the summers scenario was like sitting in PGP room and waiting for shortlista and finally interviews.

This is one of the many books that have followed Chetan Bhagt in trying to recreate the magic of Five point someone. This book though not quite ground breaking as the original, still manages quite well by itself.

So my verdict is:

Strick yes for MBAwalles
Strict no for Non-Mbawaale!!!!

Joker in the Pack

Hey!!
Well this is the book i am currently reading. pretty decent read!!
Hope to finish it by tomorrow!

Day well Spent::The Bowling Game!!

Yesterday was a good day!!
Well came to office on time only to find not too much work on me!

Met Shefali, Aman and Murarka over lunch at Shiv Sagar which for a change served mouth watering cuisine which literally left us licking our fingers. Well lunch time was well spent by Murarka and Aman who stared at each and every girl and chose to write 2 minute thesis on each !

Left office early and wet off to DB-PCP in Lower Parel which was my first office on DB! It really felt like coming home. Had a sandwich and a granita at the CCD followed by a coffee with Nachiket at the canteen there. One thing that really ticks me off is the fact that there is no canteen at either Kodak House or DB house! Also saw the new place where Ram, Nachi have shifted in. I did not like that new set up a wee bit. A surprise was meeting Abhijit Mishra, the guy responsible for the my hiring and program designing. Also met Vikas shetty which was also a good meet up. But the toast of the evening was meeting Ashwini. She was sitting on her seat and as usual working very hard on something. Spoke with her for a long time wherein she was telling me about all the projects that she was working in.
That was the end of my small rendezvous at PCP

I had already made a plan with Dipu and Aman about meeting up at the Sports Bar at the Phonix Mills for a game of Bowling. It was a good hour and a half spent there. Its always nice to see yourself do well and so I was pretty impresses by myself especially in the second game

The Bowling score in the two games were

Name 1st Game 2nd Game
Aman 125 97
Shek 91 123
Dipu 90 85

Dipu was a little not-so-happy with his performance while Aman was ecstatic especially after the first game.!!!
I was damn happy with the first game but two strikes in the last throw totally threw me overboard and I was stunned beyond the point where I could react!

But if you thought we were done for the day, there were more surprises to come.
As we were walking back we bumbed into Niharika who was with a girl who I think is one of my seniors from DCE. She was shopping in Atria but had come here for dinner as the food plaza there was shut down in event of a party. She had mailed me in the morning and wanted to have coffee with all of us in the evening. I had conveyed this to others and Dipu was to call her, which he obviously forgot and so here we were again!
But we decided to meet later sometime and say our good nites and tatas

Well the dinner thoough was the lowest point of the day. We ordered from a new place and beleive me the food was totally inedible. Without the Coke to run it down, I doubt if we could have even managed a single bite.

So twas a nice day! I mean I hope i spent more days like these ( except for the dinner fiasco!)!!

Trip to Kashid-Murud #3

Today we planned to go to Marud and see the famed Fort Janzira and then head back to Mumbi.

We resumed from where we had left and after getting up, quickly changed into our swimming trunks and without delay went and jumped into the ocean. This time we knew was the last time we would go into the sea this trip and so we spent most of the time letting the sea sink onto us. We swam far into the ocean and then came back riding the waves. After a quick swim we went back to the vada pao centre had our fill and took quick baths. We packed and settled the dues and finally caught a bus to Murud.

Murud is an old fisherman town with one very nice beach...with calm water and Janjira is a famous fort in the middle of the sea near Murud. The setting for the fort is perfect for any film shooting.

Murud, though was unlike Kashid and lacked the cozy and laid back feeling of Kashid. We bought some juices and some chocolates and decided to book the tickets for Mumbai before we started exploring. It was in the end one of the most brilliant decisions that we took because by the evening when we got to the bus stand, all the seats were full and there were scores of people wanting to get a seat.

So after booking our return bus at 1800 hrs, we decided to go to the famed Janjira fort. Janjira fort is bang in the middle of the ocean and is perhaps one of the only forts that did not fall to the English forces as well. We took a ferry to the Fort. It was filled to the extreme and was a little unstable as well. But the feeling was very good. It reminded me of the scene in “Swades” in the song” Yeh Jo Desh hai mera”. We reached the Fort in about 20 minutes and took it on ourselves to explore the place. I wanted to take the guide but the rest of the gang was more for exploring the place by ourselves. Well to fight off the blaring sun I bought myself a Sun Cap and was happy to wear it throughout for the rest of the trip. The fort had a wonderful history and some of the salient points were:

1) No army conquered this fort because they could not get to it
2) There was an underground tunnel 40 ft underwater connecting the fort to the mainland
3) There was a main barrel gun (tope) which was made of an alloy which did not get heated up even in the afternoon
4) There were 120 guns in all and were positioned all over the castle
5) Although it was covered with salt water, it had sweet water lakes inside.
6) It was made of natural things only. The main ingredients were
a. Jaggery
b. Salt
c. Sand
d. Lead
e. Chuna


Well I had not really had my full of the fort, but then everybody was tired and so we decided to head back to the mainland. Since the only way back was through the boats, hence there was a huge crowd waiting for the boats. We had to wait for nearly an hour before we got a boat, again full to the brim, and headed back.

This time Dipu decided to use his Rough Guide and then found a restaurant which had got a mention in the book. We took an auto to that restaurant and after waiting for a while got a table and finally had loads of food again! It was still 4 when we finished another eating marathon and since the bus was at 6, we decided to take one last walk along the beach. We went to the beach and saw a lot of people playing a lot of different sports there and wished we had got some as well. Dipu (who wanted to play cards and was anguished when we refused) retired into one of the benches on the shores and read a book, so the rest of us walked the beach and admired the beauty of the sea in the evening sun. The difference you will find in the both beaches are, Murud has got clear greenish water whereas Kashid has clear blue one.
We finally made it to the Bus stand all set with sweets and bottles of mineral water, waited for the bus for over an hour, sat in a very crowded bus and finally made it to Mumbai at about 12:30 at night.

It was a trip that was nice, cool and most importantly cheap. I am sure looking forward to loads of them!!

Trip to Kashid-Murud #2

Kashid:

The entire konkan stretch of western coastal Maharashtra is full of natural beauty. Its a thick green stretch, with number of untouched clean beaches. Kashid has a 3 km stretch of beach with the clean sand and groves that make just the perfect setting for a beach holiday.

The only low point of the trip was looking for accommodation in Kashid. We got down at the beginning where the beach starts and were more than casual about finding a place to stay. After all why would people come and stay here and not go to the more famous Murud. But we were all caught on the wrong foot. So we found most of the resorts either full or expensive. Well one of the reasons for losing out on good accos was that they did not have TV sets in the rooms. This was one of the parameter specified by Dipu which was to be the top most reason for taking a room in a resort. We walked for miles before we finally go hold of a place. It was quite a good bargain with 1500 bucks for 2 rooms for a night. We unloaded our back packs, changed into shorts and decided to hit the beach at once. Dipu was a hungriest of the lot and so was pressing us onto go to some restaurant before we took a dive into the ocean.

We walked for some time trying to find a restaurant but were amazed to find that this place did not have even a single one. So we decided to walk along the beach and go to the shacks that we had seen in the beginning of Kashid.

Now let me tell you the most unique thing about that place::::

“The Cell phones DO NOT WORK!!!”

So we were literally cut out from the rest of the world. We had no network coverage and had a really tough time initially. Finally it was in late evening that we found out local coin phones which could be used to make STD calls.

So while on our way to the shacks we were seduced to the sea and so spent the next hour or so in the sea swimming away to glory. The water was as clear as it could be and blue. The only flaw was that it was damn salty!!

After an hour we decided to call it off for the time being. So we put on our dry clothes and walked to the shacks. It was an ideal walk. The walk was with the sun behind us and the water with sand hitting our toes. The beaches were pretty empty making the place prettier.

One of my fantasies of a good vacation is

“Walking with the sun on my back and sand between my toes!”

And Kashid walk in the afternoon was all about it.

When we finally made it to the shacks all of us were totally famished and each one of us was capable of devouring a mountain each. So we ate till we dropped from a menu comprising of omelets, bhurgi, vada with pakore both onion and poato! We drank the whole thing down with some pepsi’s to go with it.

We took an auto back to our motel and took quick baths and finally went back to the ocean. Since it was evening we rushed back to the beach. Only this time we were there to take a dip as well as witness the famed sunsets that oceans are famous for. The ocean was clean but the water levels were slightly down. We did the same things again and again. We saw against the sea, then with the sea, waited for the waves to hit us, swam against the waves and were pelted back, sprayed water at each other, and best probably worst smeared eachother with sand and dirt!! The beach was excellent; I bet you can never get a beach of this kind with almost no crowd. The water is quite vibrant here as compared to other beaches.

We finally came back to the shore after being dead tired and headed straight to the Vada-Pao shop we had located that was pretty close to our room. We entirely demolished the reserves of VadaPao and headed back to our rooms very satisfied with our day. Since we had found out that there were practically no restaurants in the vicinity, we ordered food from the kitchen of the restaurant itself.

We again took quick baths and then almost immediately began our marathon card playing session of 29. It was me and Aman paired against Suhail and Dipu! We were pretty good and despite the fact that Aman did not entirely know the game, we were playing well. We played on till about 9:30pm when our stomachs started complaining about the lack of food coming their way! So we went out in the open where they laid food. Since fish was the only available option in non vegetarian, we decided to have a complete vegetarian menu. The food was very tasty and by the end of 45min of non stop eating almost all the food has disappeared from the plates. It was probably one of those times when there was literally no left-over.


Post dinner we decided to go for a walk like the times we used to do on campus. The roads were sans any street lights which made walking a little tough. Nevertheless we walked and cracked jokes. We bitched about most of the professors back on campus and joked about Bansal, his “Why don’t YOU tell me phrases, about Ruchi teaching Rachit and Rachit getting more marks than him.

Finally after a good hour walk we came back to our rooms and promptly resume our card game. This time Suhail and Dipu changed places and hope for a change of luck. And did the luck go their way?? Yes it sure went!! Within no time they were far far ahead of us! Though we were leading in the beginning, but lost our way completely in the middle and by the end of it all lost by the worst possible score. But it was enjoying all the more and the way me and Aman played and tried to delay the inevitable for as long as possible was even more thrilling. I think that by the end of it all we were losing and enjoying the most. Dipu was particularly getting a little frustrated and Suhail had a tough time controlling Dipu and urging him to exercise control!! Aman gallantly fought “Sleep” and kept on playing, though Ruchi succumbed to fatigue and dozed off. We finally slept off at 1 am and vowed to get up early and move on with the second leg of the trip.

Trip to Kashid Murud #1

This was one of the outings that I was very keen on! I really wanted to get out of the hustle bustle of Mumbai and so wanted to get laze around on some beach. Considering that we are on the western coast, the Konkan beaches were easily the obvious choice.

Friday was dinner at the Oberoi in the event of Siddharth having got through AT Kearney. So came back pretty late from it and had completely dozed off by the time Aman and others got back home. He woke me up and reminded me of the fact that we would be catching the 7:15 am ferry and since we would have to get up, do our packing and also buy the tickets to the ferry, hence we would have to be up by 5 am!!
Even though I was sleepy enough to ignore most of it, but the idea of getting up at 5 did give me a little not-so-good feeling.

But true to his word, Aman woke me up that early and after some stuffing of the back-packs we started off in a couple of taxis with me, Suhail-Ruchi in one cab and Aman-Dipu in the other.

The plan of the trip was:
Mumbai to Mandau in a ferry
Mandau to Alibaugh in a bus
Alibaugh to Kashid in a Tempo
Stay at Kashid
Kashid to Murud in a bus
Murud to Mumbai in a bus


Mumbai to Mandau in a ferry

We bought five ticket of the ferry to mandau. It was a pretty pleasant morning and looking back at Mumbai as we left the shore gave us a brilliant view of the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal hotel in the background. We had to take the seats on the deck in the open as the ferry was pretty jammed up, giving us the first hint that this week, the places we intended to visit would be crowded with tourists. But we had our fun in the ferry. All Dipu wanted to do was read through his Bible- “Rough Guide to India”, and Aman wanted to click pictures of all the rattled, rusted and totally distresses ships that lay anchored in the ocean. As for me I had engaged myself in a warm cup of tea, book in hand and having a good time observing the members of the group. Near the fag end of the ride we saw a couple of birds which we after some group discussion, reached the conclusion, were seagulls following the boat. Aman who was missing the company of rusted pieces of iron-steel (read ships) was back in the game and clicked the birds with the morning sky in the background.

Mandau to Alibaug

Well Alibaug is the same place that they mention in the movies a lot of time. Just for people who don’t know the local lingo much “ Alibaug se ayeela hai kya” mean “Are you a complete dim-witted, dumb and stupid combined.”
There was a bus service from Mandau to Alibaugh which we availed.

Alibaug to Kashid

We wanted to take bikes from Alibaug were told that the security that you pay is equal to the cost of the bike. So we opted for the cheaper alternative: Tempo/ Vikram which costed us 300 bucks to kashid. Also this was exactly the place where we started off playing cards in the tempo itself. We played Coatpiece all the way to Kashid!!

Investment Biker

Book That I am currently reading

"Making the Minister Smile"

Well this author caught my attention (and I guess everyone else's as well) with his awesome style of writing in "The Inscrutable Americans" which was about an Indian guy who goes to the US and his experiences there. That book had me in splits and on the floor laughing mad. So when I saw this book on the shelf of a book storeI couldnt keep myself from buying this!!

Well he has tried to create similar magic buy trying the reverse. He has this time told the story by bringing an American as the main protagonist and his experiences in India. But this time his story is not fun and humour. He has portrayed the crumbling politics and the people who are in it in a sarcastic manner. He doesnt over burden the reader by pulling all the plugs and going no-holds barred after the politicians, but rather involves them into the story of a mill owner and his mill.

It is one of the best portrayal of the corruption and how it shows that today it is not just all about the money, but rather there is a lot more than meets the eye.

He tells us how the three principle of the 3 B's ( Butter them, Bribe them n Bash Them) of business have become redundant in today complex politico-social scenario!!!

I good read and the best part is that its a 225 pager with about 12 font size!! So a 4 hour read!!!

:)

The Long Road Ahead!

Well this is one of the pictures that I took last year in a small town in the border of switzerlkand and germany!!

This is undoubtedly my fave pic as it means a lot to me and to life in particulat

Home or Lodge???

Today was my first time interaction with the clients. It was pretty nice because it gives you not only the first hand interaction with the people with whom you make money( ha ha), but also gives you a better understanding and perspective of a lot of things.

Today as I walked into one of the client offices we started discussing upon one of the topics that has been doing the rounds in the banking world.
"The RBI is trying to make all the bank in India 5 day working"

This brought a very important perspective when the client commented

" I dont know if I stay at Home or a Lodge! I leave home at 8 in the morning and get back not before 9:30 in the evening"

I think this really brings forward one of the ills of our worklife! People directly equate the number of hours you put into as a direct representative of your ability and performance. There is not much that organisations can do when the entire mindset is skewed. This mindset goes right through the hierarchy, both vertically as well as horizontally!

Buzzing Q: Career Dilema!!!1

There is something that as been bugging me for quite some time now. Well through the last 24 years of my life, I have never quite felt anything even close to this. There is this feeling of the fear of stagnation. Well if you read the last line carefully, you will see that what I am not stagnating at present, but the fear of it is what is eating me.

Well through years in school, graduation, and finally MBA, there was always this thing to look forward to. Be it preparing for engineering entrance exams while in school, preparing for CAT and giving hundreds of mocks for practice or finally getting oneself ready for the finance interviews in the final placements. An now all of a sudden after getting through my dream job, I don’t know where I go from here.

I was never quite the ambitious one of the lot in school or college and that is probably the reason that I don’t know what the future holds for me. Till now the future was both incidental and coincidental. But now it is entire what I make of it. It can make or break at my wish and now the fact that I have to make my career out on a clean late is what is driving me nuts!!

One of the most intriguing lines that are embossed on most of the Indian’s is

“Tum karm kiye jao
fal ki iccha mat karo”

Well this was probably true for the school and college times but does not quite serve the purpose now.

I know to you it may sound a little weird but see this as a rationale.

In schools and colleges you could focus on a larger issue or you could focus on diverse topics. Like in school all you had to do was prepare for engineering, the fact was you could get through either IITs, DCE’s, Roorkie’s or regional colleges. The list was long and hence you could miss the bulls eye but still end up as a winner. Ditto for engineering college where you could either get a brilliant job, end up in a top notch MBA school or go abroad and pursue higher studies. Finally in B schools you could target more than a 100 companies and even if you got through the 99th one, you would still be a winner.

But what now?

Where do I go from here? I mean, I can work hard and do well in the department. But which department? Is there any one that I like? What if I don’t like any? There also once I join I am there for life!! Imagine giving up all your liberties and flexibilities and getting molded into a particular shape and size!!

So what do I do? Change or move?

If I change I lose it all!!
If I stay put, I stagnate!!!

Think about it!! Tell me what you feel!!!!

Success behind Indian establishment

Well reading a book today i came across a wonderful phrase:

To be successful in India you have to follow three tenets :

BBB

Butter them, Bribe them n Bash them!!!!

If God was a Banker: A review!

This is one of the books that I read over the weekend in Delhi. Well to be precise, I read this book while on my way to Delhi. The flight was delayed by more than 3 hours which along with the two hours flight time were more than sufficient to read through it.

Well this book was nice in the sense that it was a plain vanilla racy fiction which is quite a page turner, but if you are looking for some serious reading, then this isn’t one of your picks. It is about the lives of two young IIM graduates who are high achievers in their own sense and in the same banking organization. This book takes you along the lives of people working in such MNC banks and focuses on their aspiration, career choices, their personal lives, love, lust, power, greed. Everything straight out of a Bollywood movie!!

But then it sure is a page turner and if you don’t have anything worthwhile to do on a warm Sunday afternoon, then you can probably swim through it.

This book by Ravi Subramanium, is again from a bunch of corporate authors who are enjoying an alternate career as authors of fiction. This is a pretty healthy trend as it provides reader with more factual and real representation of the stories as these are generally picked up from real life situations!!

Back in Delhi n I m Lovin It!!!

It is always a pleasure to be home, more so when you are going for like five days!

So this week from the very beginning was more of a drag than anything else. Drag because the “looking forward to home” mood had taken the mind off from all kind of work!
So finally the D-day came on Tuesday ie. Yesterday and I left office at like 4 and went home. My flight was at 9 pm. I was kinda surprised when I got a message from Spicejet about the delay in the departure. Well the flight finally left at 12:30 and I reached delhi at about 3.

The best thing about the flight was that since it reached Delhi that late, the cab drive from the airport to my place in Gurgaon was plainly and simply awesome!!! It was too good. This is one thing that I miss most about Delhi. Bombay has roads that would barely qualify as gali’s in Delhi. especially the NH8 which has taken the winds out of people’s lungs. You can go at like 130 on those roads without even feeling the heat!!

Today was spent wearing a boxer and a t-shirt and cleaning away the house. Standing on the chair and cleaning the hands of the fan really reminded me of the days when didi and I used to do such stuffs on Sunday and on holidays!
Today was Dhanteras and so went with family to buy some ghar ka samaan like spoons and cups stc. I was prepared to face huge crowds in the mall, but was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as crowded as I had imagined. This was probably because it was a working day. But I am sure tomorrow is going to be one heck of a day where all the amlls will be jammed up with people.

The other thing that I miss about Delhi is the Mall concept. Bombay barely has malls due to the exorbitant land prices there. But in Gurgaon, there are more malls than houses and they mushroom all over the place. It is really a nice concept coz you can roam around all day in the same place which is air cooled and has a plethora of different shops.

Well tomorrow is going to be a long day. Its Aman’s birthday and I have thousand things to do.
Lets c wats up tomorrow!!!

Sunday ko "Jab We Met"

Sunday is the only day when you can really think of really going out in the sun and enjoying. This is because the entire Saturday goes down in trying to unwind and take stock of the gone week and so the next day is the time when you can really plan out and “do” something.

So I got pretty early and the cooked myself a couple of omelets and toasts and began with playing a couple of games on the X-box. This concept of virtual large screen video gaming is beginning to catch up with me as well. So after a nice early morning, I decided to catch up on a movie with Shefali. So we went to Inox and bought the tickets for the next show of “Jab We Met”. Well I seriously think that the ticket prices are skyrocketing and no amount of reasoning can provide the rationale for a 250 buck ticket for a second row seat. Well the only rationale that I think is that stupid people like me go and spend and so they price high high higher!!!

Well since the show was a good hour and half later so we decided on pleasing our gastric juices by feasting on some nice paratha’s . So we headed off to “Only Paratha”. This is another place with good or rather awesome food but the prices don’t really justify the taste.

So we had some Chat and parathas and then proceeded for the movie.

Movie per say was nice. It was from the makers of “Socha Na Thaa” and the fact that I really like his first movie was the driving force behind coming for this movie. And true to his caliber he did not let me down. The movie like the previous one was very simple love story told simply without and not needed drama or action. I truly believe that KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is surely the solution to every thing and that’s what he did. I believe that any movie that makes you smile after 3 hours is a good movie. And that’s what happened after this movie.

Well so this was a Sunday that was well utilized and yess I enjoyed to the fullest!

Saturday: Review at CMS & Brilliant Dinner at Hotel Marine Plaza

I am a firm believer of the fact that weekends are for complete rest and laziness. But this was not to be. I had a review on Saturday for the Capital Markets division in DB house. This department deals with FX and everything related to it. Well so I was a little anxious about the whole thing as I did not want to mess it. That’s the reason why I opted out of the movie on Friday night.

The review was very positive and after a 3 hour long written and a sumptuous lunch with the Director of the division, I was off and ready to rock n roll for the weekend. So I met up with Shefali in the evening and decided to go out for dinner. Since Chandragupta has now become more of a home affair than some kind of an outing, we decided to choose Marine plaza hotel this time around.

Marine Plaza:
To understand the importance of Marine Plaza, I need to give a background to it. Marine plaza is a 5 star hotel right on the Marine drive and has awesome food albeit a little expensive. Well the “little” word before expensive is quite an understatement!! Well I really cant make out the difference in the taste of the food but I sure can make out the difference in the weight of my wallet. So I prefer to avoid it. But then there are people who love it and so force me into accompanying them there. Not that I don’t like the place, but only till the time my wallet remains in status quo pre and post dinner.

But this time was different. Coz this was after a long time that we went there. The best part about the buffet there is that they have a table of Chat which is there and so more than the dinner we were busy savoring the Chat. Also its deserts are next to none and so it sure is a complete paisa vasool.

So the Saturday was one to be proud of! Nice and expensive!

Did someone plan my life?

I have always wondered how I got to the place where I am right now. And today the most I wonder about is my professional life. Well if you would have told me that I would be a banker at any point of life, I would have probably either ignored you for your ignorance or more so even mocked at you for your non-sightedness.

Although all my younger years were spent thinking how I would get into army like my Dad and probably go to the same places as him. I wanted to be in the Para’s like him. But one thing that I was always sure of was that I would not be a doctor like him. So that meant that I would not join the same regiments as him. But nevertheless it never bothered me much and I thought that joining my dad’s profession would be a natural progression.

What my family thought of it?

Dad: Well I don’t know if he ever imagined me working. All he wanted me to do was do eat well, keep healthy and keeping myself involved in everything from sports to music to studies. I don’t think he ever thought of a profession for me. He called me a “lambi race ka ghoda” and all conversations that even remotely were directed towards my career were put on hold. I am I glad? I am so very very thankful of him for having given me a freehand in everything I wanted to ever do.

Mom: Well all my mom ever wanted was for me to be in the army or the civil services. Like all moms she was probably more worried about the stability of my career than anything else. She once had me consult a “Jyotshi” and inquired if I would join any of these professions. She was flabbergasted to get a negative answer from him. But you know moms and even in their worst times they never quit spill the beans. Well I must say that she never ever voiced her preferences for my career even though he has a huge affection for the above professions.

Sister: She is once who has never hid her feeling and has always voiced her opinion quite vociferously. She was sure from day 1 of her life that I would not be joining the armed forces because this place was for people with no brains and that I was probably destined for my better things. Also she was sure that I would prepare for engineering exams and try to get through IIT. Well I did break her heart by getting through DCE in the second attempt but that never ever shook her confidence on me.

So that’s what I think my family had in mind all the time when they saw me grow, fed me, saw me off to schools and other growing up stuffs.

But what about me? I mean what did I think while growing up? As I said I always wanted to be like my dad (well tell me who doesn’t think that ways!!). But after my tenth and seeing my sister do well, I started thinking more about engineering. But I always quite knew about my abilities and so was more interested in going for some sidey college and having fun.
But as they say, fate never goes by your plans. So I got through DCE, and well, getting through that is another story altogether. I will get back to it some other time.