I hate filling forms. It kills me. It was announced that apart from the immigration every one needs to fill another form that the health authorities in India had circulated. Then I thought, "Hey God, why did man invent a form?"
Anyways, the form consisted of five questions. 1. "Have you been to Mexico, USA, Spain, Germany, ....... (there were other countries)?" 2. "Do you have high fever?" 3. "Do you have .... symptoms?" 4. "Have you been in touch with someone who had the flu?" 5. I don't remember. It was also announced that there will be a health check-up for swine flu before the immigration. The health check-up counters were there but it had no qualified personnel. There was no check-up and the only thing they did was stamp the forms. I found it hilarious. I thought they could have simplified the form with just one question. "Do you think, you have swine flu?". Then I thought, "Hey God, why did you create disease?"
Only with experience, after you have traveled multiple times you learn the art of walking past the Indian customs. I was carrying two laptops, one of them belonged to our client and I had a letter from them stating that the laptop will go back to the US. I was asked how many laptops do I carry and I proudly declared, "Two". The guys didn't even want to look at the letter and what followed was a 20 minute argument which ended with - "Tum engineer ho, disturb nahin karenge tumhein. Bas thodi sewa kar do". I did not budge to that and it frustrated them. I got lucky as they saw a bigger fish with 6 suitcases and as they started attending their new guest I walked past them. Then I thought, "Hey God, why did man create customs?"
I got a cab. The cabbie was a nice guy and I picked up a conversation. After talking about a lot of things he told me that in 2006 he took four people to Aligarh. He could never make it there as his clients robbed him of every single penny, took the taxi and threw him in the jungle. Then I thought, "Hey God, why did man invent robbery?"
The house was a bowl of dust. It irritated me to the core. Then I thought, "Hey God, why did you create dust?"
The maid worked for 3 hours and cleaned up the house. I asked her to fix some eggs for me. After two minutes I was told that there is no salt in the house. Then I thought, "Hey God, why did you create salt? Why did man discover it?"
The maid is very generous. Most maids would be happy to have me as a client. They will get multiple opportunities where they wouldn't have to cook because I forgot to get the groceries. Not this maid. She said, "Prepare a list now and get the stuff today". As most of you will expect from me; I said, "We will do it tomorrow". She was holding her front and said you have to do it today. I said, "Fine. I will do it today but there is no need to create a list. I will remember everything". I could see the frustration but no way she was going to lose this one, "No, you will forget. Please prepare a list". I even gave her an excuse that I can't find my pen but she found one and I ended up preparing a 23 item list. I didn't do it. Next day, when she realized that I hadn't moved an inch the disappointment on her face killed me. She said, "Kaise rehta hai aap saahab?" with a sigh of frustration. It motivated me and as soon as she left I drove to a local store to get the 23 items. The enthusiasm though didn't last long, bewilderment filled me as I went through the list. It reminds me of a Sidhuism - "I was like a kid in a topless bar". Then I thought, "Hey God, why did you create food? Why did man create dishes? Why did man create spices? Milk? Rice? Oil? Why do hen lay eggs?"
On my way back I thought, "Hey God, why did you create matter? The world would have been so uncomplicated, so simpler without the body. Mind doesn't need water to drink cause it feels no thirst, food to eat cause it feels no hunger, clothes to wear cause they only hide the body not the mind, a house to live cause it's omnipresent." I thought of what the world would be if God didn't create body. I will leave it up to your gray cells to imagine the matter-less world, to paint it yourself and fantasize about it. You will fathom a lot of things but ponder on what love will be like. I think it will be the same. My personal favorite is that mind doesn't need to brush the teeth or go to the loo. A male mind doesn't need to shave and if you are an astute thinker the ladies get an even better deal.
I came crashing out of my dream as I drove by a seductress middle aged woman. She was getting in her car and our eyes met. I slowed down. She ogled me I returned the favor and then I thought, "Hey God, why did you create me?"
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Moments
No one knows better how to count hours than me. Soon I will be counting minutes. Its 44 degrees back home as compared to the pleasant weather here; no one waits for me the way I want to but it's just the thrill of getting back home.
Anyways, loneliness brings the best and the worst out of me. Someone asked me to pen the eventful 20 days that passed by, could not ignore the request. Also it gives a chance to my rusty cells that don't get used a lot these days to be put to some work.
Last year, I read Michael Crichton's book - Travels. It is a good book and I highly recommend it. The writer relates real life events from his travels to something about him or others and is pretty honest about it. I thought maybe I will use that philosophy to make this blog entry more than just a bunch of events that took place. So I will wander in any direction based of an event.
May 19 2009 New York - Camera rolling, Action
I was carrying his business suit. I was perplexed if he will make it to the big meeting on time. I was there 10 minutes before the stipulated time. The clock ticked, it was 10 minutes pass the fixed time, 20 minutes for the meeting to begin and there was no sign of anyone. I got a call and was told that everybody was around the corner. But where was he? How will I hand over the suit if he gets late? Before I could muster a plan, Mr. Sandeep Maan messaged; he was going to make it on time. Sandeep had taken a red eye from San Francisco last night and was running by a thin thread. He made it though, surprisingly before the other fellas who were following the characteristic Indian time zone. The sigh of relief was short lived as there was no place for him to get dressed. The receptionist was kind enough to suggest Starbucks next door; time was running out and Sandeep had no other option. He actually enjoyed it as I saw a huge grin on his face when he came back all dressed up. May be he got to do it more often! Other people joined us and the meeting was on shortly. For me, I have no doubts that I suffer from "punctuality paranoia". It's a disease.
Corporate details are boring. This meeting though was a test of how much can you deceive? One thing that I noticed was that lying doesn't come naturally to Sandeep. He stutters when he does. On the contrary I was a smoothie; I bet I could have beaten the polymorphic test that day. I always knew I had it in me!
After the meeting we met Pravin and headed towards Times Square. I got my camera which hadn't been put to work for 6+ months and it had to be same for one more week as after we got there I realized I had forgotten the batteries; anyways Sandeep's cell came to the rescue.
New York is unique. My poor writing abilities will not do the justice to describe what New York is all about. I will only say that I think one can probably find at least one face here for every other city, town or village in the world.
Sandeep flew back to SFO and me and Pravin spent the evening with a friend who took us to a well known place for dinner. We caught a flight early next morning to join Sandeep in SFO. The days went by and then came the long weekend which we had grand plans for. 100%.
May 23 2009 SFO, Towards Yosemite
After Gilchrist had murderously thrashed Delhi out of the IPL, we were hoping that Chennai will make it to the finals. If our grand children are lucky they will probably get a chance to see a cricket match on a regular US TV channel. 50% of people here would think of an insect when you mention cricket, the next 25% know it as a game Britishers created, the next 23% call it a version of the baseball. It kills me. The only chance we had to watch the game was online but the hotel network was worse than what you would get in an Indian village. Anyways, where there is a will, there is a way. We got to a parking lot where we could catch the wireless coming of a local company and watched the game sitting in our poor SUV. It turned out to be an average game, Chennai lost and we started our journey towards Yosemite. This one demonstrated the passion we have for the game. It's just the way one looks at it. For some it's a piece of wood and leather, for some the sound of the leather striking the wood is music.
We got a GPS device from the car rental and began our journey. We had a poor man's SUV - a Kia Rondo. The hot topic during most of our ride was to find a suitable match for SK and how to make poor SK sellable. Till date it remains an NP problem. We covered an army gal, an artistic gal, a house wife, a philosopher gal, an NRI gal and many more. It got more nightmarish than the applied mechanics problems. This discussion came to a sudden halt as we closed in on Yosemite area. We had been driving for almost 50 miles with no sign of any life. Then we saw it. It stood like a lone island in the middle of an ocean. An old fashioned building with a huge sign board that said - "Girls, Girls, Girls". A gentleman's club! If you draw a 50 miles radius circle around this point, the only thing you will get is dirt and brushes. That's America baby! Sandeep who was asleep got up as we passed by this monumental landmark and kept on looking back (OK I am exaggerating).
May 23 2009 Yosemite, Glacier Point
A long drive and we got to Glacier point - one can see the entire Yosemite valley from this point.
We saw the sunset; it was not that exciting and started our journey towards Merced, a town 100+ miles away where we had booked our hotel. We planned to get back next day and hike a trail. No, we did not book our hotel far away to save money. We simply did not get a hotel closer than that; so busy was the weekend and they tell me economy is bad.
The GPS was not helping us and neither were we. The sign board clearly marked take right for Merced but the GPS asked us to do otherwise and like the robots depicted in Wall-E we took a left turn. From that point on, it was as if a ghost had entered the GPS. It went ballistic after that turn. It would ask us to take a turn when it did not exist. We knew if we turned back we will be OK but we followed the machine rather than our instincts. That's an interesting point there. Trusting a machine more than you do yourselves. Just goes to show how dependent we are and how the society is headed towards use your brain as little as possible. Anyways we kept on going and found our way to Merced. We checked in our rooms and came out looking for dinner. We found it easily 30 feet from the hotel.
As soon as we got there we realized it was not a diner, it was a disc. The music was on; we were tired - perfect time for some beer. Merced is an American village and this place was a disc in a village. I found it hilarious as much as I found it amazing. People kept on pouring in. The funny thing was that the girls outnumbered the guys! The other interesting point to be noted was the eyes. You have definitely seen those eyes before - the voracious eyes of a guy staring at a female as someone would at the food if they hadn't had anything to eat for a week, as a pack of wolves would at their hapless prey. There was a key difference though. These were female's eyes! A couple of faces are worth remembering. Sandeep took particular interest in a gal; he and Pravin found her the "Shaadi material" and they kept on pushing me to ask her for a dance. I would have probably in my hay days but I am old now so I just had my beer and enjoyed the sight of it. We came back to our rooms after a pathetic dinner at McDonald's and I did think about it. Should I have gone to the dance floor where this babe was dancing all alone waiting for someone to join her. I think as I have grown the fear of the denial has caught up on me more than anything else. It's one more disease I suffer from.
May 24 2009 SFO, Towards Yosemite again
We started our journey back to Yosemite once again after a hefty meal at Denny's. The IPL final was on and I was rooting for Deccan chargers. Bangalore had restricted them to a low total and were doing well in their chase. We were following the match on Sandeep's cell phone courtesy Cricinfo. Up till now Pravin was refreshing the score; Bangalore were on their way to the trophy when I took the phone from him with little hopes of a Deccan revival. As I did that Symonds got 2 wickets in 2 balls. After that I simply never let go the phone. Yes, I am very superstitious about this. I don't breath in the last over of a tight game. Well, 2 overs from finish and we lost the signal. I guess I had done enough by then to ensure a Deccan win.
Let me now talk about a very different facet. I realized I was with two Schumachers who don't have any respect for a normal driver like me. As soon as I requested to be on the wheel and got on the wheel I was bombarded with some serious driving lessons. Go fast, stay in this lane, over take this vehicle, change your lane. Ufff. It kills me. I am not a novice man - I have driven 10,000 miles in the US. I had decided I am not going to drive on this trip. Sandeep specially protected the vehicle from me as Dhoni protected Yuvraj by sending Jadeja at 4 in the game against England, or the way Amrish Puri used to protect his daughter from the coolest chaps.
May 24 2009 Yosemite
We reached and started our walk towards the trail.
We had picked a trail that would take us to the top of the Vernal falls. It was a 2 mile walk towards the starting point of the trail. Nothing spectacular so far. If you haven't seen mountains all your life the sights would amaze you but for us we were still waiting for something that would set Yosemite apart from others.
The trail had three sections. We decided we will cover the first two. The first one would take us to the base of Vernal falls and the second one would lead us to the mouth of the fall.
Pravin had bought new shoes for the hike; we were loaded with Gatorades, energy bars and therefore our spirits were high!! The first trail was easy and we made it to the base of the fall, nothing worth mentioning.
The most thrilling part of our trip was around the corner. The walk to the top was along with the water fall itself. It was beginning of the summer and the water was falling down mercilessly. The unimaginable force of the water beating down on the rocks creates an awesome mist effect. A mist you need to walk through to reach the top.
The sweat and the water commingle, you are drenched in both, you see multiple rainbows, rainbows you can touch, the falling water looks like tons of milk and suddenly you don't hear the sound of the water crashing down, you don't see thousands of people around you, you forget that you are walking towards the top - for once you feel Almighty's touch. You need the proof - just look at Sandeep in this picture. He looks like a man who just attained nirvana. Who says we need art of living to tell us how to feel happiness!!
We found a spot to sit and just enjoyed the moment. Pravin and Sandeep were tiring but I was feeling good. I haven't done a lot of hikes in my life but whenever I have done them I enjoy them when I am all by myself. I decided to move on and started moving up at my own pace. I was acting like a little boy with a spring in every step of mine as I headed towards the top. I love to act like a kid at times. I guess all of us do. There is something magical, something special about being a kid. The world we live in, the world of rules awards you license to drive, license to drink at a certain age. Nature works the other way round - At the age when the world thinks you are wise it snatches a license from you that you got when you were a kid. It's the license to fly!!
Finally we got there.
All of us felt very nice to be there. A couple of very pretty faces around added to the spark. We stayed there for about half an hour clicking some more snaps and then headed back. We drove back to SFO that evening itself. I never offered to drive. We stopped at a local Mexican restaurant and had probably the best mexican food of our lives.
The GPS started its drama again. Once again taking us to the unpaved roads and we followed it blindly despite knowing the fact that the highway we were on will take us straight to SFO. We got onto some unpaved roads that reminded me of the Evil Dead's of the world. We cursed the poor machine all the way long. It was only the next day before handing it back to the car rental we realized that the GPS was set to "shortest distance" and not "shortest time". We the cream!
It was Wednesday before we realized, the day Pravin flew back to India. 66%.
May 28 2009 SFO Tennis begins
After Pravin left, Sandeep and I decided to play tennis every day. We had brought over our racquet's from India. Both of us bought new tennis shoes, I invested in T-shirts and tennis shorts so we thought we might as well play!
We played almost every day and it was fun. It doesn't matter who won and by what difference because it kept us going. I wish I had some pictures of me hitting that ripping serve down the corner. We would play for 1.5 hours on an average every day. The game made our evenings special. It also told me one thing about both of us. How much we love to win. As long as we played without worrying about whose winning, knocking the ball around hitting our shots and serves the mind was calm. As soon as we got into the "compete" mode I could see Sandeep making an extra effort and running even when his leg hurt. Simply put, he hates to lose as much as I do. I think he also saw the same from me.
One more interesting thing that both of us felt was how our mind played games when someone was watching us. This guy was looking at our game from far away but his presence affected both of us. I remember I was serving and I was thinking this has to be an ace because the guy's watching it!! Kiddish but true, while he was there the only thing on my mind was he is watching me and that he is there to vindicate my game! So now think of the guys who are on field with millions watching 'em. I would go crazy in a scenario like that! I can't imagine but it's easier for me to think about why Federer was almost in tears even before he started to serve out for the French open. I mean we mortals can't imagine the mental strength the top guys possess in any sport.
May 30-31 2009 SFO The Crazy Weekend
There are days you look back for a long long time.
The 30th of May was one such day. The Yosemite trip had our spirits rocking and we decided to hike in the local SFO area called Muir woods. Sandeep had been there before but he wanted to be there again hiking a different trail. So we got there (Sandeep drove again) and trust me it was the cold and not a style statement that I was trying to make when I dressed like that. It was a good hike, nothing special about it we slowly got to the top of it. The way up was different than the way down.
This picture on the top actually shows our new shoes!
On our way back we again saw a glimpse of American glory. We passed by a rest house where people were relaxing and having beer!!! This place was selling beer! Can you imagine - you go on a hike and have beer on top, that's out of the world.
Anyways what made the day crazy was not the fact that we hiked for 5 hours. It's the after events. We headed towards SFO downtown after the hike and spent a lot of energy trying to find a place to eat. We roamed around for 45 minutes trying to pick a place that both of us were happy with to have our lunch.
After the late lunch we got back to our hotel tired to death and decided it was time to play tennis. 30 minutes after that we were on the court. I could see the fatigue on the other side and feel it on my side. It was not the body that played for 2 hours that day. It was the mind and this just goes to show what mind can do.
The day wasn't going to be over without the alcohol. We got to a local grocery store and Sandeep got crazy about 2007 grapes. I went to buy some ben and jerries ice cream but all Sandeep could talk about was the 2007 grapes. I guess, some sales guy in one of his trips to a wine brewery told him that the 2007 grapes were awesome and all he cared about that evening was to buy a 2007 wine. Anyways we got the wine, we got the ice cream and finished the bottle, most of the ice cream and it was only after 2 am when we went to bed.
The next day was dedicated to an Indian buffet at a local restaurant and the pacific coast highway drive. After eating as much as we could we headed towards the drive. Once again, being the gentleman I am I never offered to drive. Even though it was the PCH, I sacrificed it. The drive was awesome, anyways. I also got some cool tips from Sandeep on how to smile and how to pose for a snap. Here he is just trying to give me a lesson on the same.
And here I am trying to do my best. Blame it to the Indian food or previous day's deeds - our energies were fading out fast. Sandeep wanted to go out to shopping but I was losing it quickly. The body was giving up. We decided to get back to our hotel and crashed at 4 pm. It was only 8:30 pm when we gained cautiousness. The next couple of days chugged along.
June 4 SFO The Mongolian Experience
After our tennis game and a trip to Macy's to check out a wrist watch for myself the next item on the agenda was to find a place to eat. It was only two days for Sandeep to leave so he was very picky about what he wanted to have. We roamed around and he said no to almost everything that went by. It was 9:30 pm and most of the outlets were closed anyways. On his hunch he took a highway exit and we reached the same block where he had the Indian food on the weekend. We parked our car and realized that everything was closing down; we were in a hurry and were running around to find a place. We saw this mongolian place and decided that it's our last chance. We got in there and were immediately put under the gun when the receptionist told us that we got 5 minutes to place our order.
As we sat down we realized it was a hot pot place. For everyone's knowledge a hot pot is a place where you cook your own food! The table consists of an induction heater, you order a base curry or a soup as it was called in this place and you order for basic ingredients. The ingredients consist of sliced meat, vegetables, tofu, mushrooms etc. This caught us by surprise and as soon as a waiter passed by Sandeep called him and told him point blank - "We are new, help us out". The guy was generous and explained the entire concept. We had been to a place like this before but we were under the pressure to order. We ordered the base soup and got ourselves some raw meat and vegetables. It was a lot of meat. Then I screwed up succumbing to pressure once again. I picked up all the ingredients and poured them into the bowl of boiling soup. The thing is you are supposed to add a couple of slices and eat it and so on. It cooks in a couple of seconds as its very thin sliced meat. The damage though was done before the guy came back and explained what we should have done. Anyways, despite that the food was amazing. We ate and we kept on eating for almost an hour. The spices were amazing and I couldn't resist going this last week one more time. The initial experience though could not be matched due to the surprise factor.
June 5 SFO Closer to the heart
The evening plans were pre-decided. We were supposed to go to PF Chang and have our dinner. Sandeep's love for the 2007 grapes rose once again as we ordered some wine along with our food. The wine was good and one could see the affect. On to the second glass we were already talking about stuff that doesn't come out often. I want the non-alcoholics to pay close attention here! We were actually talking about how our parents played a huge role in what we are today. We got drunk but the discussion was heartwarming for both of us and we needed more. So we headed to a find a grocery store that would be open past 11, luckily found one and got some more 2007 wine. We talked and drank for another 2 hours on the same topic and couldn't help thanking our parents. I am not good at expressing myself unless I am under the influence of alcohol (may be Sandeep as well). Anyways, hopefully I will gather the courage of getting drunk in front of my parents and say it all :). Sandeep slept blabbering something I did not understand and I don't remember how I got to my room and slept.
June 6 SFO 0%
I didn't want to accompany Sandeep as I headed towards the airport to drop him. It's not my usual laziness, it's something inside me. I hate to see people off. It depresses the hell out of me. Well it did.
I have had many trips before. I can't even count. They have been longer than the current one. Most of the times I was by myself for the entire duration of the trip. This time around though I had some amazing company and then I didn't. May be that's what hurting me more. It's hard to eat green after you have been eating red for a while!
Anyways the count is down to 84!
Anyways, loneliness brings the best and the worst out of me. Someone asked me to pen the eventful 20 days that passed by, could not ignore the request. Also it gives a chance to my rusty cells that don't get used a lot these days to be put to some work.
Last year, I read Michael Crichton's book - Travels. It is a good book and I highly recommend it. The writer relates real life events from his travels to something about him or others and is pretty honest about it. I thought maybe I will use that philosophy to make this blog entry more than just a bunch of events that took place. So I will wander in any direction based of an event.
May 19 2009 New York - Camera rolling, Action
I was carrying his business suit. I was perplexed if he will make it to the big meeting on time. I was there 10 minutes before the stipulated time. The clock ticked, it was 10 minutes pass the fixed time, 20 minutes for the meeting to begin and there was no sign of anyone. I got a call and was told that everybody was around the corner. But where was he? How will I hand over the suit if he gets late? Before I could muster a plan, Mr. Sandeep Maan messaged; he was going to make it on time. Sandeep had taken a red eye from San Francisco last night and was running by a thin thread. He made it though, surprisingly before the other fellas who were following the characteristic Indian time zone. The sigh of relief was short lived as there was no place for him to get dressed. The receptionist was kind enough to suggest Starbucks next door; time was running out and Sandeep had no other option. He actually enjoyed it as I saw a huge grin on his face when he came back all dressed up. May be he got to do it more often! Other people joined us and the meeting was on shortly. For me, I have no doubts that I suffer from "punctuality paranoia". It's a disease.
Corporate details are boring. This meeting though was a test of how much can you deceive? One thing that I noticed was that lying doesn't come naturally to Sandeep. He stutters when he does. On the contrary I was a smoothie; I bet I could have beaten the polymorphic test that day. I always knew I had it in me!
After the meeting we met Pravin and headed towards Times Square. I got my camera which hadn't been put to work for 6+ months and it had to be same for one more week as after we got there I realized I had forgotten the batteries; anyways Sandeep's cell came to the rescue.
New York is unique. My poor writing abilities will not do the justice to describe what New York is all about. I will only say that I think one can probably find at least one face here for every other city, town or village in the world.
Sandeep flew back to SFO and me and Pravin spent the evening with a friend who took us to a well known place for dinner. We caught a flight early next morning to join Sandeep in SFO. The days went by and then came the long weekend which we had grand plans for. 100%.
May 23 2009 SFO, Towards Yosemite
After Gilchrist had murderously thrashed Delhi out of the IPL, we were hoping that Chennai will make it to the finals. If our grand children are lucky they will probably get a chance to see a cricket match on a regular US TV channel. 50% of people here would think of an insect when you mention cricket, the next 25% know it as a game Britishers created, the next 23% call it a version of the baseball. It kills me. The only chance we had to watch the game was online but the hotel network was worse than what you would get in an Indian village. Anyways, where there is a will, there is a way. We got to a parking lot where we could catch the wireless coming of a local company and watched the game sitting in our poor SUV. It turned out to be an average game, Chennai lost and we started our journey towards Yosemite. This one demonstrated the passion we have for the game. It's just the way one looks at it. For some it's a piece of wood and leather, for some the sound of the leather striking the wood is music.
We got a GPS device from the car rental and began our journey. We had a poor man's SUV - a Kia Rondo. The hot topic during most of our ride was to find a suitable match for SK and how to make poor SK sellable. Till date it remains an NP problem. We covered an army gal, an artistic gal, a house wife, a philosopher gal, an NRI gal and many more. It got more nightmarish than the applied mechanics problems. This discussion came to a sudden halt as we closed in on Yosemite area. We had been driving for almost 50 miles with no sign of any life. Then we saw it. It stood like a lone island in the middle of an ocean. An old fashioned building with a huge sign board that said - "Girls, Girls, Girls". A gentleman's club! If you draw a 50 miles radius circle around this point, the only thing you will get is dirt and brushes. That's America baby! Sandeep who was asleep got up as we passed by this monumental landmark and kept on looking back (OK I am exaggerating).
May 23 2009 Yosemite, Glacier Point
A long drive and we got to Glacier point - one can see the entire Yosemite valley from this point.
We saw the sunset; it was not that exciting and started our journey towards Merced, a town 100+ miles away where we had booked our hotel. We planned to get back next day and hike a trail. No, we did not book our hotel far away to save money. We simply did not get a hotel closer than that; so busy was the weekend and they tell me economy is bad.
The GPS was not helping us and neither were we. The sign board clearly marked take right for Merced but the GPS asked us to do otherwise and like the robots depicted in Wall-E we took a left turn. From that point on, it was as if a ghost had entered the GPS. It went ballistic after that turn. It would ask us to take a turn when it did not exist. We knew if we turned back we will be OK but we followed the machine rather than our instincts. That's an interesting point there. Trusting a machine more than you do yourselves. Just goes to show how dependent we are and how the society is headed towards use your brain as little as possible. Anyways we kept on going and found our way to Merced. We checked in our rooms and came out looking for dinner. We found it easily 30 feet from the hotel.
As soon as we got there we realized it was not a diner, it was a disc. The music was on; we were tired - perfect time for some beer. Merced is an American village and this place was a disc in a village. I found it hilarious as much as I found it amazing. People kept on pouring in. The funny thing was that the girls outnumbered the guys! The other interesting point to be noted was the eyes. You have definitely seen those eyes before - the voracious eyes of a guy staring at a female as someone would at the food if they hadn't had anything to eat for a week, as a pack of wolves would at their hapless prey. There was a key difference though. These were female's eyes! A couple of faces are worth remembering. Sandeep took particular interest in a gal; he and Pravin found her the "Shaadi material" and they kept on pushing me to ask her for a dance. I would have probably in my hay days but I am old now so I just had my beer and enjoyed the sight of it. We came back to our rooms after a pathetic dinner at McDonald's and I did think about it. Should I have gone to the dance floor where this babe was dancing all alone waiting for someone to join her. I think as I have grown the fear of the denial has caught up on me more than anything else. It's one more disease I suffer from.
May 24 2009 SFO, Towards Yosemite again
We started our journey back to Yosemite once again after a hefty meal at Denny's. The IPL final was on and I was rooting for Deccan chargers. Bangalore had restricted them to a low total and were doing well in their chase. We were following the match on Sandeep's cell phone courtesy Cricinfo. Up till now Pravin was refreshing the score; Bangalore were on their way to the trophy when I took the phone from him with little hopes of a Deccan revival. As I did that Symonds got 2 wickets in 2 balls. After that I simply never let go the phone. Yes, I am very superstitious about this. I don't breath in the last over of a tight game. Well, 2 overs from finish and we lost the signal. I guess I had done enough by then to ensure a Deccan win.
Let me now talk about a very different facet. I realized I was with two Schumachers who don't have any respect for a normal driver like me. As soon as I requested to be on the wheel and got on the wheel I was bombarded with some serious driving lessons. Go fast, stay in this lane, over take this vehicle, change your lane. Ufff. It kills me. I am not a novice man - I have driven 10,000 miles in the US. I had decided I am not going to drive on this trip. Sandeep specially protected the vehicle from me as Dhoni protected Yuvraj by sending Jadeja at 4 in the game against England, or the way Amrish Puri used to protect his daughter from the coolest chaps.
May 24 2009 Yosemite
We reached and started our walk towards the trail.
We had picked a trail that would take us to the top of the Vernal falls. It was a 2 mile walk towards the starting point of the trail. Nothing spectacular so far. If you haven't seen mountains all your life the sights would amaze you but for us we were still waiting for something that would set Yosemite apart from others.
The trail had three sections. We decided we will cover the first two. The first one would take us to the base of Vernal falls and the second one would lead us to the mouth of the fall.
Pravin had bought new shoes for the hike; we were loaded with Gatorades, energy bars and therefore our spirits were high!! The first trail was easy and we made it to the base of the fall, nothing worth mentioning.
The most thrilling part of our trip was around the corner. The walk to the top was along with the water fall itself. It was beginning of the summer and the water was falling down mercilessly. The unimaginable force of the water beating down on the rocks creates an awesome mist effect. A mist you need to walk through to reach the top.
The sweat and the water commingle, you are drenched in both, you see multiple rainbows, rainbows you can touch, the falling water looks like tons of milk and suddenly you don't hear the sound of the water crashing down, you don't see thousands of people around you, you forget that you are walking towards the top - for once you feel Almighty's touch. You need the proof - just look at Sandeep in this picture. He looks like a man who just attained nirvana. Who says we need art of living to tell us how to feel happiness!!
We found a spot to sit and just enjoyed the moment. Pravin and Sandeep were tiring but I was feeling good. I haven't done a lot of hikes in my life but whenever I have done them I enjoy them when I am all by myself. I decided to move on and started moving up at my own pace. I was acting like a little boy with a spring in every step of mine as I headed towards the top. I love to act like a kid at times. I guess all of us do. There is something magical, something special about being a kid. The world we live in, the world of rules awards you license to drive, license to drink at a certain age. Nature works the other way round - At the age when the world thinks you are wise it snatches a license from you that you got when you were a kid. It's the license to fly!!
Finally we got there.
All of us felt very nice to be there. A couple of very pretty faces around added to the spark. We stayed there for about half an hour clicking some more snaps and then headed back. We drove back to SFO that evening itself. I never offered to drive. We stopped at a local Mexican restaurant and had probably the best mexican food of our lives.
The GPS started its drama again. Once again taking us to the unpaved roads and we followed it blindly despite knowing the fact that the highway we were on will take us straight to SFO. We got onto some unpaved roads that reminded me of the Evil Dead's of the world. We cursed the poor machine all the way long. It was only the next day before handing it back to the car rental we realized that the GPS was set to "shortest distance" and not "shortest time". We the cream!
It was Wednesday before we realized, the day Pravin flew back to India. 66%.
May 28 2009 SFO Tennis begins
After Pravin left, Sandeep and I decided to play tennis every day. We had brought over our racquet's from India. Both of us bought new tennis shoes, I invested in T-shirts and tennis shorts so we thought we might as well play!
We played almost every day and it was fun. It doesn't matter who won and by what difference because it kept us going. I wish I had some pictures of me hitting that ripping serve down the corner. We would play for 1.5 hours on an average every day. The game made our evenings special. It also told me one thing about both of us. How much we love to win. As long as we played without worrying about whose winning, knocking the ball around hitting our shots and serves the mind was calm. As soon as we got into the "compete" mode I could see Sandeep making an extra effort and running even when his leg hurt. Simply put, he hates to lose as much as I do. I think he also saw the same from me.
One more interesting thing that both of us felt was how our mind played games when someone was watching us. This guy was looking at our game from far away but his presence affected both of us. I remember I was serving and I was thinking this has to be an ace because the guy's watching it!! Kiddish but true, while he was there the only thing on my mind was he is watching me and that he is there to vindicate my game! So now think of the guys who are on field with millions watching 'em. I would go crazy in a scenario like that! I can't imagine but it's easier for me to think about why Federer was almost in tears even before he started to serve out for the French open. I mean we mortals can't imagine the mental strength the top guys possess in any sport.
May 30-31 2009 SFO The Crazy Weekend
There are days you look back for a long long time.
The 30th of May was one such day. The Yosemite trip had our spirits rocking and we decided to hike in the local SFO area called Muir woods. Sandeep had been there before but he wanted to be there again hiking a different trail. So we got there (Sandeep drove again) and trust me it was the cold and not a style statement that I was trying to make when I dressed like that. It was a good hike, nothing special about it we slowly got to the top of it. The way up was different than the way down.
This picture on the top actually shows our new shoes!
On our way back we again saw a glimpse of American glory. We passed by a rest house where people were relaxing and having beer!!! This place was selling beer! Can you imagine - you go on a hike and have beer on top, that's out of the world.
Anyways what made the day crazy was not the fact that we hiked for 5 hours. It's the after events. We headed towards SFO downtown after the hike and spent a lot of energy trying to find a place to eat. We roamed around for 45 minutes trying to pick a place that both of us were happy with to have our lunch.
After the late lunch we got back to our hotel tired to death and decided it was time to play tennis. 30 minutes after that we were on the court. I could see the fatigue on the other side and feel it on my side. It was not the body that played for 2 hours that day. It was the mind and this just goes to show what mind can do.
The day wasn't going to be over without the alcohol. We got to a local grocery store and Sandeep got crazy about 2007 grapes. I went to buy some ben and jerries ice cream but all Sandeep could talk about was the 2007 grapes. I guess, some sales guy in one of his trips to a wine brewery told him that the 2007 grapes were awesome and all he cared about that evening was to buy a 2007 wine. Anyways we got the wine, we got the ice cream and finished the bottle, most of the ice cream and it was only after 2 am when we went to bed.
The next day was dedicated to an Indian buffet at a local restaurant and the pacific coast highway drive. After eating as much as we could we headed towards the drive. Once again, being the gentleman I am I never offered to drive. Even though it was the PCH, I sacrificed it. The drive was awesome, anyways. I also got some cool tips from Sandeep on how to smile and how to pose for a snap. Here he is just trying to give me a lesson on the same.
And here I am trying to do my best. Blame it to the Indian food or previous day's deeds - our energies were fading out fast. Sandeep wanted to go out to shopping but I was losing it quickly. The body was giving up. We decided to get back to our hotel and crashed at 4 pm. It was only 8:30 pm when we gained cautiousness. The next couple of days chugged along.
June 4 SFO The Mongolian Experience
After our tennis game and a trip to Macy's to check out a wrist watch for myself the next item on the agenda was to find a place to eat. It was only two days for Sandeep to leave so he was very picky about what he wanted to have. We roamed around and he said no to almost everything that went by. It was 9:30 pm and most of the outlets were closed anyways. On his hunch he took a highway exit and we reached the same block where he had the Indian food on the weekend. We parked our car and realized that everything was closing down; we were in a hurry and were running around to find a place. We saw this mongolian place and decided that it's our last chance. We got in there and were immediately put under the gun when the receptionist told us that we got 5 minutes to place our order.
As we sat down we realized it was a hot pot place. For everyone's knowledge a hot pot is a place where you cook your own food! The table consists of an induction heater, you order a base curry or a soup as it was called in this place and you order for basic ingredients. The ingredients consist of sliced meat, vegetables, tofu, mushrooms etc. This caught us by surprise and as soon as a waiter passed by Sandeep called him and told him point blank - "We are new, help us out". The guy was generous and explained the entire concept. We had been to a place like this before but we were under the pressure to order. We ordered the base soup and got ourselves some raw meat and vegetables. It was a lot of meat. Then I screwed up succumbing to pressure once again. I picked up all the ingredients and poured them into the bowl of boiling soup. The thing is you are supposed to add a couple of slices and eat it and so on. It cooks in a couple of seconds as its very thin sliced meat. The damage though was done before the guy came back and explained what we should have done. Anyways, despite that the food was amazing. We ate and we kept on eating for almost an hour. The spices were amazing and I couldn't resist going this last week one more time. The initial experience though could not be matched due to the surprise factor.
June 5 SFO Closer to the heart
The evening plans were pre-decided. We were supposed to go to PF Chang and have our dinner. Sandeep's love for the 2007 grapes rose once again as we ordered some wine along with our food. The wine was good and one could see the affect. On to the second glass we were already talking about stuff that doesn't come out often. I want the non-alcoholics to pay close attention here! We were actually talking about how our parents played a huge role in what we are today. We got drunk but the discussion was heartwarming for both of us and we needed more. So we headed to a find a grocery store that would be open past 11, luckily found one and got some more 2007 wine. We talked and drank for another 2 hours on the same topic and couldn't help thanking our parents. I am not good at expressing myself unless I am under the influence of alcohol (may be Sandeep as well). Anyways, hopefully I will gather the courage of getting drunk in front of my parents and say it all :). Sandeep slept blabbering something I did not understand and I don't remember how I got to my room and slept.
June 6 SFO 0%
I didn't want to accompany Sandeep as I headed towards the airport to drop him. It's not my usual laziness, it's something inside me. I hate to see people off. It depresses the hell out of me. Well it did.
I have had many trips before. I can't even count. They have been longer than the current one. Most of the times I was by myself for the entire duration of the trip. This time around though I had some amazing company and then I didn't. May be that's what hurting me more. It's hard to eat green after you have been eating red for a while!
Anyways the count is down to 84!
Thursday, April 9, 2009
The Mudita in me
If a child lives with criticism,
He learns to condemn;
If a child lives with hostility,
He learns to fight;
If a child lives with ridicule,
He learns to be shy;
If a child lives with jealousy,
He learns to feel guilty;
If a child lives with tolerance,
He learns to be patient;
If a child lives with encouragement,
He learns confidence;
If a child lives with praise,
He learns to appreciate;
If a child lives with fairness,
He learns justice;
If a child lives with security;
He learns to have faith;
If a child lives with approval,
He learns to like himself;
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,
He learns to find love in the world.
I found these lines here: Mudita
The lines above quench a the burning question. What made an erudite unlucky me?
I see a painting; a picture of 10 years; 10 years, 3652 days, 87648 hours, 5258880 minutes painted in one minuscule collage; large yet small, clear yet foggy, white yet black, lucid yet confused, logical yet illogical; the collage of my excoriate, combat, timidness, shame, patience, confidence, appreciation, fairness, faith, selfishness and love the search for.
He learns to condemn;
If a child lives with hostility,
He learns to fight;
If a child lives with ridicule,
He learns to be shy;
If a child lives with jealousy,
He learns to feel guilty;
If a child lives with tolerance,
He learns to be patient;
If a child lives with encouragement,
He learns confidence;
If a child lives with praise,
He learns to appreciate;
If a child lives with fairness,
He learns justice;
If a child lives with security;
He learns to have faith;
If a child lives with approval,
He learns to like himself;
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,
He learns to find love in the world.
I found these lines here: Mudita
The lines above quench a the burning question. What made an erudite unlucky me?
I see a painting; a picture of 10 years; 10 years, 3652 days, 87648 hours, 5258880 minutes painted in one minuscule collage; large yet small, clear yet foggy, white yet black, lucid yet confused, logical yet illogical; the collage of my excoriate, combat, timidness, shame, patience, confidence, appreciation, fairness, faith, selfishness and love the search for.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Unsolicited Update
It happened on the Friday morning. Quick decisions needed to be made. I did what made business sense. Details as usual are boring.
I canceled my trip to Charlotte, the trip I had been waiting for over a month. Some grandeur plans with a couple of bumchums gone for a toss; only for the time being though. The plan gets materialized in 6-7 weeks when I head back. So instead of being in Philadelphia en route to Charlotte on Thursday; it's Noida.
I had paid no attention to my apartment's entropy when I had flown 2 months ago as the plan was for me to be away for 2 weeks only. Things changed as they did last week and as they always do. We had a major win and I stayed back.
The apartment had an eerie stillness when I opened it. I did not recognize it. There is a lot but I picked the top five things.
5. In my absence the dust & webs had taken over and were ruling the roost. I was just on time as webs were being built on the corners of my book shelf.
4. The bedroom patio was black and battered with bird shit. Some birds had built their home on top of the bedroom AC. Who says these guys are dumb? The family was observant enough to realize that the master was away.
3. The dishes that should have been done 2 months ago appeared charred. I poured some water to realize I had some more company. Some strange kinds of leeches were making merry on the left-overs. 2 months ago it was spinach but I can't be sure.
2. Even though the refrigerator was on all the time; the vegetables chamber was a gross picture of death. An unrecognized vegetable had turned into a dark pink viscous liquid. The oranges were green. The eggplant was white.
1. A lonely apple sitting on the kitchen shelf did not reveal the pain it's inner self had gone through. It needed half an ounce of energy to change it's state from solid to liquid. Oblivious I picked it up and it dissolved in my hand.
We have won, it's all fine now. Thanks to the enduring efforts of my maid.
I canceled my trip to Charlotte, the trip I had been waiting for over a month. Some grandeur plans with a couple of bumchums gone for a toss; only for the time being though. The plan gets materialized in 6-7 weeks when I head back. So instead of being in Philadelphia en route to Charlotte on Thursday; it's Noida.
I had paid no attention to my apartment's entropy when I had flown 2 months ago as the plan was for me to be away for 2 weeks only. Things changed as they did last week and as they always do. We had a major win and I stayed back.
The apartment had an eerie stillness when I opened it. I did not recognize it. There is a lot but I picked the top five things.
5. In my absence the dust & webs had taken over and were ruling the roost. I was just on time as webs were being built on the corners of my book shelf.
4. The bedroom patio was black and battered with bird shit. Some birds had built their home on top of the bedroom AC. Who says these guys are dumb? The family was observant enough to realize that the master was away.
3. The dishes that should have been done 2 months ago appeared charred. I poured some water to realize I had some more company. Some strange kinds of leeches were making merry on the left-overs. 2 months ago it was spinach but I can't be sure.
2. Even though the refrigerator was on all the time; the vegetables chamber was a gross picture of death. An unrecognized vegetable had turned into a dark pink viscous liquid. The oranges were green. The eggplant was white.
1. A lonely apple sitting on the kitchen shelf did not reveal the pain it's inner self had gone through. It needed half an ounce of energy to change it's state from solid to liquid. Oblivious I picked it up and it dissolved in my hand.
We have won, it's all fine now. Thanks to the enduring efforts of my maid.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
What I did this weekend (29-MAR-09) - The Adventures of Seti - Thriving in recession
I had painted this adventure last weekend aware of the fact that I will be in transit the next. What Seti did in the last few months is as clear as the blue skies, but would I put down the exact same words as below if I wrote it 3 days later instead of 4 days before; an honest answer would be 'NO'. I thrive on extempore and spontaneity; therefore what one reads is not just what got written but something beyond it, something that didn't get inked, not apparent to the indolent eye. I have made minor edits today. Here we go - Crash, Boom, Bang!
9th September 2008 10:29 - Storm brewing
Oblivious of the economic recession waiting in the black like a daemon avoiding the light, holding off for the right opportunity to strike the hapless; I was engrossed in carving out my professional course. I formalized the decision which will eventually lead me to this hotel room; where I write about these facts.
13th September 2008 18:34 - The Call
Oblivious of the obvious that a call from Seti meant some stimulating times ahead; I picked up the phone thinking he is probably calling to wish me birthday one day in advance. "Lehman falls, Lehman Brothers falls!", he shouts on the other end. The salvo caught me unawares and my first reaction was obviously obvious - it did not happen. Well, it did! He said, "Recession has arrived, it's been stewing for an year but the cookie is about to crumble. I have been following the signs, people losing jobs, housing foreclosures and what not. Every body saw it coming yet they acted as if a divine force will appear from the heavens and would overturn the inevitable". Information like this seeps in over days but my lull reaction did not change his excitement. "It doesn't affect you in any way Seti, so why are you all pumped up and what the f*** are you charged about?", I asked. He pounced on to it as if he was waiting for me to pop up this question. "I am going to launch a new business in a week. It's been a while since I sailed the entrepreneurship boat and this is a perfect time. I will call you tomorrow with the details", he said and hung up.
14th September 2008 18:03 - That Day
It was 'that' day; the day most people find it hard to place their feet on the ground; check their phone every 20 minutes to ensure that no calls or messages went unnoticed and commence a long wait for the very day as soon as it's gone. I had spent all day sleeping, eating and reading. The sun was about to set, 4 people that I expected to call had already called and the others that I hadn't expected to call did not. But isn't not expecting someone to call expecting itself? Deep into these thoughts I poured myself a drink as my cell phone beeped. It was a message from Seti. "Sonny! Need your help. I want you as a non-executive member of the board. I know you won't disagree. Take the next week off. Reach Rome by Tuesday afternoon. Room booked in Cavalieri Hilton. Will refund ticket. Top secret. See you. Bye". The bugger was only worried about himself, his business and his idea and had completely forgotten my day. The drink, the fact that I don't remember his day, a trip to Rome and the fact that Seti thought I could be of help in his business made me feel better. I called my travel agent to book the tickets and started packing my bags.
16th September 2008 21:23 - A trip to Roam
I had reached on Monday evening itself. Seti had told me that Wednesday will be an all day meeting so I should make full use of the Tuesday. I decided to wander around, got to see the Colosseum, other historic monuments, Stadio Olimpico and finally got on to the metropolitana getting ready for the long day ahead. The fact that 'Rome' and 'roam' are pronounced exactly the same is not a coincidence were the last thoughts of the day.
So we began our day with the introductions. No one needs Seti's introduction, you know me better than I do, and the other two guys aren't worth any body's time and the effort to push these key strokes.
17th September 2008 09:00 - Business Plan
Soon after we were through the introductions Seti rose from his seat. "Let's move on to the meaty side gentlemen. The slides you are going to see only summarize what is already there in the detailed business document that is present in the binder in front of you. Do go through it in detail to understand what we stand for."
"Gentlemen, Have you ever felt the need to confess and seek forgiveness? I hope not, but most people do. Do you go to a temple, a church seeking forgiveness? Closed your eyes and seek forgiveness thinking that God has all the time in the world to hear you and then forgive you? But doesn't the God already know what you did? If you really believe in God then wasn't He a part of you when you did what you seek forgiveness for? Doesn't it all sound very unconvincing? Do you think the people who invest money in seeking forgiveness get it after all? Do you think it is forgiveness they seek at the first place? It's monkey shit. The reality though is that there are millions of institutions that sell forgiveness and make billions. They make a joker out of these men and women. It's all a propaganda cooked up by these companies and society. The society teaches people to seek forgiveness and then go to a temple or a church to pay for it. You know what the truth is, the truth is that ultimately what people seek is a let out. Yes! it is not forgiveness, forgiveness is just a means; the true goal is a let out.
We stand for all the people who have been fooled by this empty rhetoric for centuries. Posthee stands to create a forum where people can talk their heart out in front of others and freely share whatever they thought they would need forgiveness for. This is the real let out. Not talking to someone you don't see and are always in doubt about whether He heard you or forgave you. Sharing with other humans help. It does. We will give them this let out which is better and effective than the services rendered by the existing companies. That's our mission statement. Any questions?", he said his face brimming and teeth shining.
There are moments when you bang your head on the wall. There are moments when you want to bang your head on the wall, but you don't see the wall. There are moments when you want to bang your head on the wall, you see the wall but your head goes missing. I decided not to utter a word.
He moved on.
"It will work because we have solved a problem that has troubled mankind for thousands of years. Imagine the potential market guys, its the entire world. Look at the minimal cost. Let's pick any product or service out there. To sell it every thing has to be localized. McDonald's burgers in India, Ford's cars in India, Indian beer in USA to name a few. It is not just the products but the sales/marketing campaigns that are so different and demand huge investments. You know what is special about us, we don't need to localize - which would mean huge savings from a sales/marketing/creative department standpoint. After a point we won't need to sell because we will sell better than sex. There is nothing out there like us and by the time they imitate us we would have rushed light years ahead.
The forgiveness selling companies that will be our competitors deal in other verticals as well through which they make huge sums of monies. They sell a lot of air! May be, after a couple of years we will ourselves invest in these verticals and push the existing corporations out of business. Now, I will show you the research that went behind it and I can bet it will make Archimedes in the bath tub proud".
I had finished 5 cups of black super dark roast coffee without any sugar with a feeling that I will need half a bottle of scotch by the time this meeting is over.
17th September 2008 11:00 - Recession the Motivation
Immersed into the presentation Seti was an unstoppable force. "I broke down the human crimes into two broad categories. Stuff related to money - theft, larceny, robbery, fraud etc. went into one pool and what you see here on the slide is the other pool like murder, rape, assault, arson."
"This slide shows crime per 100,000 people in cities picked across the world for last 3 years. For 2008 the data is only till the last month. A monkey can see the pattern here. The crime rates are pretty consistent. One can see the hump around the holiday season which is understandable but over all nothing to be excited about. Now take a look at the next slide".
"Do you see what I see? If you don't then you don't deserve to be here. Since the beginning of 2008 the currency is driving a lot of crimes. What you see here of course is only what gets reported. It is said that the numbers for what doesn't get reported are even higher. The relationship between what gets reported and what doesn't is not linear either. Therefore as the reported numbers increase linearly the unreported numbers are multiplying! Pay a close attention to the next slide".
"This is the last piece of the puzzle. This is the number of people going to the temples, churches and other such corporations. You can see that people do make a point to visit them during the festive or holiday season. Once again 2008 shows a tremendous growth in the customers. I mentioned earlier that these institutions deal with multiple lines of businesses apart from just selling forgiveness. This fact makes the analysis a little harder as one tries to understand who these new customers are? Are they forgiveness seekers or interested in the other products and services? Only an astute mind could figure it out. The astonishing similarity of the 2006 and 2007 lines hold the key. Here is the final conclusion".
"The point is that there are hard cores who don't need what these institutions sell. They won't need us either. Now, there is a huge section of customers who are loyal to these institutions and invest in the other verticals. This particular section is a constant and does not vary. This section attributes to the numbers for all the 3 years. The close to constant section is the reason 2006 and 2007 numbers remain the same. Therefore the hump here in 2008 can be easily associated to the hump in money crimes in 2008. These novices that made their first crime seek immediate let out.
These are the low hanging fruits for us; customers we should be able to capture through aggressive sales & marketing and proving that our technique works better than our competitors. The fact that they made money out of whatever they did also means that these customers have their pockets full. It is easy to shed 10-20% of the loot if it helps in the ultimate goal of let out. The recession has just helped us by creating this pool of customers who will catapult us into the millions. This of course does not mean that we are not going to target the other category of goons. I believe in customer focus and would expect the same from you guys. We are creating this business to serve these folks. We have to help them come out of the entrapment created by our competitors".
Cick and Taj rose and started applauding; the kind of applaud most leaders live for but eludes them. I mocked it up well. It was lunch time.
17th September 2008 14:00 - Operations
Before lunch it was about the 'What'. After it was time for the 'How'. Three of us had been mute and it was going to be that way only. Seti started where he had left. The heavy lunch did not seem to have any sort of affect on him as his energy levels remained the same.
"We are going to buy local restaurants that have decided to shut down and we will turn them into Posthee outlets. The food & drinks menu, the chefs will be retained. The managers will be fired and trained Posthee people will be installed.", he said.
"Let's talk about what we will do and how will we charge. There are two categories of customers. One who think they need forgiveness as per the lessons society taught them and the ones who are just their to listen into people. The people who come just to listen in will pay some extra charge. Don't underestimate this market. People will be seated on a table randomly with strangers; tables ranging from 2 to 7 seats. One gets a seat based upon how much he/she is willing to pay. Once you are on the table you will share what you seek forgiveness for and listen into others as well. It is so easy sharing yourself with a stranger, but it's very effective.", he stopped and let it sink in.
"The bigger the table; the higher the cost. The bigger the table; more people you have got listening into what you think needs to be forgiven. The bigger it is the more you get to listen into others. The bigger it is the more you pay for the food and drinks. A bigger table means an easier let out. The chance one will find a crook worse than them obviously increases with the table size. Meeting a bigger crook will certainly help. I mean you think you have done bad and then you see a bugger who has done worse. Of course it will feel good. In any case, the mind exaggerates the good it does and understates the bad. Therefore two people could be talking to each other sharing their apathy and both of them rating the other one a bigger crook. Both of them would therefore get their let out. If you feel uncomfortable and rather not show your face; you can rent a mask at the reception for a cost. We will also sell these masks. Now let me move on to how the outlets will operate", he said.
"The structure of employees at a given outlet will be as follows."
"Most of the stuff here is self-explanatory. The smartest guys would be the seating managers. They are the ones who will optimize the seating based upon their experience and the crowd. I mean you could have six guys ready to pay for a table of seven. Do you put them on a table of six or make them wait? Quick decisions need to be made. We are targeting people from IIT for this job. Senior managers have to be MBAs. Junior level guys need no degree but experience will help. Posthee will start with 1 outlet in Mumbai (60 seats) and 1 in New york (100 seats). The senior managers will report into their country heads - Cick and Taj for US and India respectively. I have already bought the places. Senior managers have been hired and the rest of the hiring needs to be completed soon as the operations will begin on 15th October 2008."
17th September 2008 15:00 - Finance
The most significant part of any business - the oxygen, MONEY. This is where any business plan starts and this is where it ends an MBA would say. But Seti is no MBA and he was so confident that he said he is only going to spend little time on these slides and move on to the next topic.
"As you can see 6.3 million dollars are required to be invested in year 1. These numbers have been calculated assuming 1 year after commencement we will have 3 locations each in the US and India. As you can see, most of the cost is people. These numbers do not include the director's salaries because they don't get any. They only get dividends from the profit made by the company. Sorab will only get his dividends from the second year", he continued.
The next slide displayed what a guy seating at a particular table will end up paying. Seti said that this number was an average charge based upon let out seekers, listeners and also food, drinks, mask that these people will buy.
"Based upon the charges that you saw and a survey that was done to get appox. number of customers every day our projected earnings for year-1 are as you see on the slide"
"So gentlemen we stand to earn a little over a million. You must have observed my conservative approach when I bumped up the cost by 1.15 and reduced the earnings to 0.85. Also I assumed earnings based upon a 300 days in an year. This is just year one. I bet, as we grow you will have to design new pockets to stash the cash", he said and we took a coffee break.
17th September 2008 16:00 - Roles and Responsibilities
"What" and "How" were done. "Who" was simple. As he had shared earlier, Cick was the US head of operations and Taj would handle India. Both of them would report into Seti, the CEO. I was an advisory and will only start getting my 0.05% cut of the profit once the organization reaches year 2. Seti held 70% equity and the rest was shared equally amongst Cick and Taj. No questions were asked as Cick and Taj said they were very well aware of their responsibilties.
17th September 2008 16:30 - What's in the name?
"Any questions", he asked. As usual I decided to keep my mouth shut. He looked at me and said, "You have not asked any question Sorab, looks like you are not convinced. Please go ahead and get any of your doubts clarified". I was basically being forced into asking something and I all could muster was, "What does Posthee mean?".
"That is simple. You see Cick was OK but Taj did not agree with the initial name which I had suggested - Expose Thee. Taj talked to his family's pundit who said that for us to be a success the name has to start from the letter P and has to be one word worth 7 alphabets. I was not willing to change the name but Taj said he will not join unless we do. That's when Cick suggested that we shorten Expose Thee to Posthee. I liked the name, there is an esoteric sound to it. Don't you think so. Posthee! Posthee! Sounds like a chant", he repeated 3-4 times with his eyes closed and with that we came to an end.
I skipped the drinks making an excuse and ordered cognac from my room. I flew back to India the next day.
31st December 2008 23:59:59 - New Year
I had been busy with my endeavors and had completely forgotten Posthee. I did not bother to call Seti asking him how it was going. I got a new year call from him but we did not discuss Posthee at all. I assumed Seti must have changed his gears and moved on to something new. I did not ask what he was up to as I was simply not in the mood.
15th January 2009 11:11 - The Rise
I was bored and lonely. Every body was not. I needed to talk so I called up a couple of friends and they had their own problems bigger than my boredom. Seti was in town and even though I wanted to avoid him I asked him to come over for drinks. He was still living Posthee and that was what he talked about.
It had been 3 months since the operations started. He told me that every thing is as expected. They are overbooked and they will meet their sales target in 10 months! On both shores the response had been awesome. According to him they were smoking hot. All kinds of people would keep the place busy all the times. As expected there were a lot of crooks who had played dirty with money but very soon all kinds of customers were there. Molesters, rapists, bandits, politicians, CEOs who were getting millions even though their company was failing. They would come in with a frown and left enlightened after sharing their deed and listening into others. There was a minimum of 20 minute wait all the times. At peak hours people would wait for an hour. They were traveling in from all places. They had many positive testimonials from their customers. After all no advertisment tag line is better than a satisfied customer's quote.
"I feel releived. I could not sleep and was always haunted as if God is going to strike lightning on me. Just after two lunches at Posthee I feel alright. I want more."
"My father died of guilt after he had molested a kid in the neighborhood. He paid huge sums of money to a local company seeking peace but it did not help. If Posthee was there, he would still be alive."
"I thinked I am worst. Me bad, very bad. No, No. I see other people now. They bad than me. I am OK. No bad. I love Posthee. I take friends after any important job. They like it."
He said it was immensely popular in India although he did not understand why some Indians were pronouncing the company's name differently. For some reason they replaced the 'P' with a 'B'. I did not tell him.
1st March 2009 13:32 - The US Office falls
The sales in US dipped to zilth in February. Seti called up an urgent board meeting. Surprisingly Cick was not there. Seti had already fired him. He warned Taj to keep a check on Indian employees and not make the mistake Cick had made. A mistake that cost them their US operations.
With the let out Posthee indeed gave to its customers there was a sudden increase in the city crime. The let out made people happy for a while but they started feeling empty after a little while. They needed to visit Posthee again but they needed a reason for it. Sharing the deed already shared did not help. On the other hand, some customers were feeling let down when they met a bigger crook than them. It thus became a cycle. More crime, more let out, more business. It was all good for the business but this is where Cick and his team made a grave mistake.
They felt themselves as the reason for things these people were doing. They thought they created these thugs. Now, they needed a let out. Instead of finding it in the institution they worked for they went to the very institutions that Seti was competing against. The competitors looking for an opportunity soon caught Cick and his guilt ridden team on camera seeking forgiveness at their institution. Thus started a huge anti-campaign in which the competitors proved that the Posthee's leadership didn't have faith in their own services. It's like Coke leadership caught on camera drinking a Pepsi. This lead to a sharp decline in the sales. Cick jumped in and applied for the bail out money which every body seemed to be receiving. The goverment though was in bed with the competitors and thus the request was promptly declined. Seti decided to close operations in the US.
Taj asked Seti not to worry for the Indian office and claimed that he and his team are not morons like Cick. They are immune to any sort of guilt. He also mentioned that the outsiders they were beating; trying to kick them out of their city were allowed to stay if they would make one visit to Posthee every month.
21st March 2009 10:19 - The India Office falls
Seti called yesterday. "It's all over. We are finished. It was not meant to be. The dream is over. The very people who got their let out from us ditched us".
Posthee had fallen to Taj's enmity to an Indian company Seti had not heard of - Balram sena. Taj was scoring big with the Posthee operations and the local goons were all hooked up. The loots were on the rise as these goons needed money to pay for Posthee charges. Taj had covered a lot of stolen groud and was becoming very popular.
This did not go well with Balram sena's CEO Madarmod P. Posthee was pouncing on his customers left and right. He made an obvious plan; a plan that always worked for them - Brute Force. Recently their business had been in trouble as the youth was getting attracted towards bars and pubs which led to a drop in their sales. They applied the formula; beat up some innocent girls and succeeded to a certain extent to terrify the entire nation and remind it of their monopoly in this business. He spoke publicly against Posthee as being an Anti-Hindu company and targeted Seti. He said that Nimonia Jhandi atleast has an origin, but Seti wasn't even born on earth, let alone India. Therefore it's Balram sena's responsibility to stop Seti's corporation from mushrooming in India. He and his team of goons planned to attack Posthee, beat up the customers and raise hell in the Mumbai outlet.
As planned they charged into the outlet and started breaking every thing that came in their way - chairs, tables, bones. In the fury they did not realize that a powerful politician Dhulayam S and his friend Namard S who were in town to meet their bollywood friend were also getting their share of the let out. The customers started running every where as Balram sena created havoc. They got hold of 5 customers including Dhulayam. They blackened their faces with a paint; put the 5 of them on asses and ran away.
The next day a business man and a police officer filed law suit against Posthee claiming a million dollar each for the mental agony they had faced. Some people had recognized Dhulayam. Dhulayam in return created a political agenda out of it and claimed that Posthee has joined hand with opposition to tarnish his image. He threatened to withdraw his support from center if strict action is not taken against Posthee. All this chaos led to the inevitable. Seti decided it was time. The law suits were settled outside the court and he sent an aplology to Dhulayam. Dhulayam in return said that he is willing to give Seti a ticket for the upcoming elections.
I told Seti that I feel sorry for him and Posthee. He said it's OK, "It was time anyways and I am considering Dhulayam's offer".
21st March 2009 13:27 - New job in recession
I just checked the news and found that Taj has joined Balram sena as a vice president and directly reports into the CEO Madarmod.
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As I said, I am going to be in transit this weekend. I have an important assignment to take care of next week. The weekend after will again be mostly in transit as I head back to India. As my clients need me more than you do I am going to take a couple of weeks off and will see you guys here again.
9th September 2008 10:29 - Storm brewing
Oblivious of the economic recession waiting in the black like a daemon avoiding the light, holding off for the right opportunity to strike the hapless; I was engrossed in carving out my professional course. I formalized the decision which will eventually lead me to this hotel room; where I write about these facts.
13th September 2008 18:34 - The Call
Oblivious of the obvious that a call from Seti meant some stimulating times ahead; I picked up the phone thinking he is probably calling to wish me birthday one day in advance. "Lehman falls, Lehman Brothers falls!", he shouts on the other end. The salvo caught me unawares and my first reaction was obviously obvious - it did not happen. Well, it did! He said, "Recession has arrived, it's been stewing for an year but the cookie is about to crumble. I have been following the signs, people losing jobs, housing foreclosures and what not. Every body saw it coming yet they acted as if a divine force will appear from the heavens and would overturn the inevitable". Information like this seeps in over days but my lull reaction did not change his excitement. "It doesn't affect you in any way Seti, so why are you all pumped up and what the f*** are you charged about?", I asked. He pounced on to it as if he was waiting for me to pop up this question. "I am going to launch a new business in a week. It's been a while since I sailed the entrepreneurship boat and this is a perfect time. I will call you tomorrow with the details", he said and hung up.
Recession -> Entrepreneurship
Hmmm, my logic did not deduce what his did; but that's why he was he and I am me. I thought about the businesses that emerge in financially tormenting times where surviving is more important than thriving.
14th September 2008 18:03 - That Day
It was 'that' day; the day most people find it hard to place their feet on the ground; check their phone every 20 minutes to ensure that no calls or messages went unnoticed and commence a long wait for the very day as soon as it's gone. I had spent all day sleeping, eating and reading. The sun was about to set, 4 people that I expected to call had already called and the others that I hadn't expected to call did not. But isn't not expecting someone to call expecting itself? Deep into these thoughts I poured myself a drink as my cell phone beeped. It was a message from Seti. "Sonny! Need your help. I want you as a non-executive member of the board. I know you won't disagree. Take the next week off. Reach Rome by Tuesday afternoon. Room booked in Cavalieri Hilton. Will refund ticket. Top secret. See you. Bye". The bugger was only worried about himself, his business and his idea and had completely forgotten my day. The drink, the fact that I don't remember his day, a trip to Rome and the fact that Seti thought I could be of help in his business made me feel better. I called my travel agent to book the tickets and started packing my bags.
16th September 2008 21:23 - A trip to Roam
I had reached on Monday evening itself. Seti had told me that Wednesday will be an all day meeting so I should make full use of the Tuesday. I decided to wander around, got to see the Colosseum, other historic monuments, Stadio Olimpico and finally got on to the metropolitana getting ready for the long day ahead. The fact that 'Rome' and 'roam' are pronounced exactly the same is not a coincidence were the last thoughts of the day.
17th September 2008 07:00 - Kick off
I had asked Seti to reveal something about the business but he said that he will only mention it in the meeting. We started at 7 am in the morning and we had breakfast together. Seti was accompanied by two guys. Cick Dheney and Taj Rhackeray. I was told that both of them had been in a troubled waters recently and were looking for a new venture to clean up their tarnished image. They had been helping Seti set things up but had no clear idea themselves on the business. Seti just told them that they were best suited for the job at hand. We followed Seti to the meeting room which was located in the same hotel. It was a huge room which could easily fit in 20 people. Each seat had a name tag and a document binder. As we walked towards our seats Seti pushed a button that closed the room's only door. He looked at us; asked us to sit down and pushed another button. The lights went out and the projector made a couple of grunts while it warmed up. Like the morning sunlight the first slide came in front of our eyes.
"Gentlemen, Welcome to Posthee!", said Seti. "Our time is precious, therefore I would like to get on with the business straight away. We got incorporated and can start our operations both in India and USA. Cick and Taj obviously have some idea on what Posthee is all about. It is important for all of us, the leadership; to be on the same page", he pushed the button for the next slide.
"Gentlemen, Welcome to Posthee!", said Seti. "Our time is precious, therefore I would like to get on with the business straight away. We got incorporated and can start our operations both in India and USA. Cick and Taj obviously have some idea on what Posthee is all about. It is important for all of us, the leadership; to be on the same page", he pushed the button for the next slide.
17th September 2008 09:00 - Business Plan
Soon after we were through the introductions Seti rose from his seat. "Let's move on to the meaty side gentlemen. The slides you are going to see only summarize what is already there in the detailed business document that is present in the binder in front of you. Do go through it in detail to understand what we stand for."
"Gentlemen, Have you ever felt the need to confess and seek forgiveness? I hope not, but most people do. Do you go to a temple, a church seeking forgiveness? Closed your eyes and seek forgiveness thinking that God has all the time in the world to hear you and then forgive you? But doesn't the God already know what you did? If you really believe in God then wasn't He a part of you when you did what you seek forgiveness for? Doesn't it all sound very unconvincing? Do you think the people who invest money in seeking forgiveness get it after all? Do you think it is forgiveness they seek at the first place? It's monkey shit. The reality though is that there are millions of institutions that sell forgiveness and make billions. They make a joker out of these men and women. It's all a propaganda cooked up by these companies and society. The society teaches people to seek forgiveness and then go to a temple or a church to pay for it. You know what the truth is, the truth is that ultimately what people seek is a let out. Yes! it is not forgiveness, forgiveness is just a means; the true goal is a let out.We stand for all the people who have been fooled by this empty rhetoric for centuries. Posthee stands to create a forum where people can talk their heart out in front of others and freely share whatever they thought they would need forgiveness for. This is the real let out. Not talking to someone you don't see and are always in doubt about whether He heard you or forgave you. Sharing with other humans help. It does. We will give them this let out which is better and effective than the services rendered by the existing companies. That's our mission statement. Any questions?", he said his face brimming and teeth shining.
There are moments when you bang your head on the wall. There are moments when you want to bang your head on the wall, but you don't see the wall. There are moments when you want to bang your head on the wall, you see the wall but your head goes missing. I decided not to utter a word.
He moved on.
"It will work because we have solved a problem that has troubled mankind for thousands of years. Imagine the potential market guys, its the entire world. Look at the minimal cost. Let's pick any product or service out there. To sell it every thing has to be localized. McDonald's burgers in India, Ford's cars in India, Indian beer in USA to name a few. It is not just the products but the sales/marketing campaigns that are so different and demand huge investments. You know what is special about us, we don't need to localize - which would mean huge savings from a sales/marketing/creative department standpoint. After a point we won't need to sell because we will sell better than sex. There is nothing out there like us and by the time they imitate us we would have rushed light years ahead.The forgiveness selling companies that will be our competitors deal in other verticals as well through which they make huge sums of monies. They sell a lot of air! May be, after a couple of years we will ourselves invest in these verticals and push the existing corporations out of business. Now, I will show you the research that went behind it and I can bet it will make Archimedes in the bath tub proud".
I had finished 5 cups of black super dark roast coffee without any sugar with a feeling that I will need half a bottle of scotch by the time this meeting is over.
17th September 2008 11:00 - Recession the Motivation
Immersed into the presentation Seti was an unstoppable force. "I broke down the human crimes into two broad categories. Stuff related to money - theft, larceny, robbery, fraud etc. went into one pool and what you see here on the slide is the other pool like murder, rape, assault, arson."
"This slide shows crime per 100,000 people in cities picked across the world for last 3 years. For 2008 the data is only till the last month. A monkey can see the pattern here. The crime rates are pretty consistent. One can see the hump around the holiday season which is understandable but over all nothing to be excited about. Now take a look at the next slide".
"Do you see what I see? If you don't then you don't deserve to be here. Since the beginning of 2008 the currency is driving a lot of crimes. What you see here of course is only what gets reported. It is said that the numbers for what doesn't get reported are even higher. The relationship between what gets reported and what doesn't is not linear either. Therefore as the reported numbers increase linearly the unreported numbers are multiplying! Pay a close attention to the next slide".
"This is the last piece of the puzzle. This is the number of people going to the temples, churches and other such corporations. You can see that people do make a point to visit them during the festive or holiday season. Once again 2008 shows a tremendous growth in the customers. I mentioned earlier that these institutions deal with multiple lines of businesses apart from just selling forgiveness. This fact makes the analysis a little harder as one tries to understand who these new customers are? Are they forgiveness seekers or interested in the other products and services? Only an astute mind could figure it out. The astonishing similarity of the 2006 and 2007 lines hold the key. Here is the final conclusion".
"The point is that there are hard cores who don't need what these institutions sell. They won't need us either. Now, there is a huge section of customers who are loyal to these institutions and invest in the other verticals. This particular section is a constant and does not vary. This section attributes to the numbers for all the 3 years. The close to constant section is the reason 2006 and 2007 numbers remain the same. Therefore the hump here in 2008 can be easily associated to the hump in money crimes in 2008. These novices that made their first crime seek immediate let out.These are the low hanging fruits for us; customers we should be able to capture through aggressive sales & marketing and proving that our technique works better than our competitors. The fact that they made money out of whatever they did also means that these customers have their pockets full. It is easy to shed 10-20% of the loot if it helps in the ultimate goal of let out. The recession has just helped us by creating this pool of customers who will catapult us into the millions. This of course does not mean that we are not going to target the other category of goons. I believe in customer focus and would expect the same from you guys. We are creating this business to serve these folks. We have to help them come out of the entrapment created by our competitors".
Cick and Taj rose and started applauding; the kind of applaud most leaders live for but eludes them. I mocked it up well. It was lunch time.
17th September 2008 14:00 - Operations
Before lunch it was about the 'What'. After it was time for the 'How'. Three of us had been mute and it was going to be that way only. Seti started where he had left. The heavy lunch did not seem to have any sort of affect on him as his energy levels remained the same.
"We are going to buy local restaurants that have decided to shut down and we will turn them into Posthee outlets. The food & drinks menu, the chefs will be retained. The managers will be fired and trained Posthee people will be installed.", he said.
"Let's talk about what we will do and how will we charge. There are two categories of customers. One who think they need forgiveness as per the lessons society taught them and the ones who are just their to listen into people. The people who come just to listen in will pay some extra charge. Don't underestimate this market. People will be seated on a table randomly with strangers; tables ranging from 2 to 7 seats. One gets a seat based upon how much he/she is willing to pay. Once you are on the table you will share what you seek forgiveness for and listen into others as well. It is so easy sharing yourself with a stranger, but it's very effective.", he stopped and let it sink in.
"The bigger the table; the higher the cost. The bigger the table; more people you have got listening into what you think needs to be forgiven. The bigger it is the more you get to listen into others. The bigger it is the more you pay for the food and drinks. A bigger table means an easier let out. The chance one will find a crook worse than them obviously increases with the table size. Meeting a bigger crook will certainly help. I mean you think you have done bad and then you see a bugger who has done worse. Of course it will feel good. In any case, the mind exaggerates the good it does and understates the bad. Therefore two people could be talking to each other sharing their apathy and both of them rating the other one a bigger crook. Both of them would therefore get their let out. If you feel uncomfortable and rather not show your face; you can rent a mask at the reception for a cost. We will also sell these masks. Now let me move on to how the outlets will operate", he said.
"The structure of employees at a given outlet will be as follows."
"Most of the stuff here is self-explanatory. The smartest guys would be the seating managers. They are the ones who will optimize the seating based upon their experience and the crowd. I mean you could have six guys ready to pay for a table of seven. Do you put them on a table of six or make them wait? Quick decisions need to be made. We are targeting people from IIT for this job. Senior managers have to be MBAs. Junior level guys need no degree but experience will help. Posthee will start with 1 outlet in Mumbai (60 seats) and 1 in New york (100 seats). The senior managers will report into their country heads - Cick and Taj for US and India respectively. I have already bought the places. Senior managers have been hired and the rest of the hiring needs to be completed soon as the operations will begin on 15th October 2008."
17th September 2008 15:00 - Finance
The most significant part of any business - the oxygen, MONEY. This is where any business plan starts and this is where it ends an MBA would say. But Seti is no MBA and he was so confident that he said he is only going to spend little time on these slides and move on to the next topic.
"As you can see 6.3 million dollars are required to be invested in year 1. These numbers have been calculated assuming 1 year after commencement we will have 3 locations each in the US and India. As you can see, most of the cost is people. These numbers do not include the director's salaries because they don't get any. They only get dividends from the profit made by the company. Sorab will only get his dividends from the second year", he continued.
The next slide displayed what a guy seating at a particular table will end up paying. Seti said that this number was an average charge based upon let out seekers, listeners and also food, drinks, mask that these people will buy.
"Based upon the charges that you saw and a survey that was done to get appox. number of customers every day our projected earnings for year-1 are as you see on the slide"
"So gentlemen we stand to earn a little over a million. You must have observed my conservative approach when I bumped up the cost by 1.15 and reduced the earnings to 0.85. Also I assumed earnings based upon a 300 days in an year. This is just year one. I bet, as we grow you will have to design new pockets to stash the cash", he said and we took a coffee break.17th September 2008 16:00 - Roles and Responsibilities
"What" and "How" were done. "Who" was simple. As he had shared earlier, Cick was the US head of operations and Taj would handle India. Both of them would report into Seti, the CEO. I was an advisory and will only start getting my 0.05% cut of the profit once the organization reaches year 2. Seti held 70% equity and the rest was shared equally amongst Cick and Taj. No questions were asked as Cick and Taj said they were very well aware of their responsibilties.
17th September 2008 16:30 - What's in the name?
"Any questions", he asked. As usual I decided to keep my mouth shut. He looked at me and said, "You have not asked any question Sorab, looks like you are not convinced. Please go ahead and get any of your doubts clarified". I was basically being forced into asking something and I all could muster was, "What does Posthee mean?".
"That is simple. You see Cick was OK but Taj did not agree with the initial name which I had suggested - Expose Thee. Taj talked to his family's pundit who said that for us to be a success the name has to start from the letter P and has to be one word worth 7 alphabets. I was not willing to change the name but Taj said he will not join unless we do. That's when Cick suggested that we shorten Expose Thee to Posthee. I liked the name, there is an esoteric sound to it. Don't you think so. Posthee! Posthee! Sounds like a chant", he repeated 3-4 times with his eyes closed and with that we came to an end.
I skipped the drinks making an excuse and ordered cognac from my room. I flew back to India the next day.
31st December 2008 23:59:59 - New Year
I had been busy with my endeavors and had completely forgotten Posthee. I did not bother to call Seti asking him how it was going. I got a new year call from him but we did not discuss Posthee at all. I assumed Seti must have changed his gears and moved on to something new. I did not ask what he was up to as I was simply not in the mood.
15th January 2009 11:11 - The Rise
I was bored and lonely. Every body was not. I needed to talk so I called up a couple of friends and they had their own problems bigger than my boredom. Seti was in town and even though I wanted to avoid him I asked him to come over for drinks. He was still living Posthee and that was what he talked about.
It had been 3 months since the operations started. He told me that every thing is as expected. They are overbooked and they will meet their sales target in 10 months! On both shores the response had been awesome. According to him they were smoking hot. All kinds of people would keep the place busy all the times. As expected there were a lot of crooks who had played dirty with money but very soon all kinds of customers were there. Molesters, rapists, bandits, politicians, CEOs who were getting millions even though their company was failing. They would come in with a frown and left enlightened after sharing their deed and listening into others. There was a minimum of 20 minute wait all the times. At peak hours people would wait for an hour. They were traveling in from all places. They had many positive testimonials from their customers. After all no advertisment tag line is better than a satisfied customer's quote.
"I feel releived. I could not sleep and was always haunted as if God is going to strike lightning on me. Just after two lunches at Posthee I feel alright. I want more."
"My father died of guilt after he had molested a kid in the neighborhood. He paid huge sums of money to a local company seeking peace but it did not help. If Posthee was there, he would still be alive."
"I thinked I am worst. Me bad, very bad. No, No. I see other people now. They bad than me. I am OK. No bad. I love Posthee. I take friends after any important job. They like it."
He said it was immensely popular in India although he did not understand why some Indians were pronouncing the company's name differently. For some reason they replaced the 'P' with a 'B'. I did not tell him.
1st March 2009 13:32 - The US Office falls
The sales in US dipped to zilth in February. Seti called up an urgent board meeting. Surprisingly Cick was not there. Seti had already fired him. He warned Taj to keep a check on Indian employees and not make the mistake Cick had made. A mistake that cost them their US operations.
With the let out Posthee indeed gave to its customers there was a sudden increase in the city crime. The let out made people happy for a while but they started feeling empty after a little while. They needed to visit Posthee again but they needed a reason for it. Sharing the deed already shared did not help. On the other hand, some customers were feeling let down when they met a bigger crook than them. It thus became a cycle. More crime, more let out, more business. It was all good for the business but this is where Cick and his team made a grave mistake.
They felt themselves as the reason for things these people were doing. They thought they created these thugs. Now, they needed a let out. Instead of finding it in the institution they worked for they went to the very institutions that Seti was competing against. The competitors looking for an opportunity soon caught Cick and his guilt ridden team on camera seeking forgiveness at their institution. Thus started a huge anti-campaign in which the competitors proved that the Posthee's leadership didn't have faith in their own services. It's like Coke leadership caught on camera drinking a Pepsi. This lead to a sharp decline in the sales. Cick jumped in and applied for the bail out money which every body seemed to be receiving. The goverment though was in bed with the competitors and thus the request was promptly declined. Seti decided to close operations in the US.
Taj asked Seti not to worry for the Indian office and claimed that he and his team are not morons like Cick. They are immune to any sort of guilt. He also mentioned that the outsiders they were beating; trying to kick them out of their city were allowed to stay if they would make one visit to Posthee every month.
21st March 2009 10:19 - The India Office falls
Seti called yesterday. "It's all over. We are finished. It was not meant to be. The dream is over. The very people who got their let out from us ditched us".
Posthee had fallen to Taj's enmity to an Indian company Seti had not heard of - Balram sena. Taj was scoring big with the Posthee operations and the local goons were all hooked up. The loots were on the rise as these goons needed money to pay for Posthee charges. Taj had covered a lot of stolen groud and was becoming very popular.
This did not go well with Balram sena's CEO Madarmod P. Posthee was pouncing on his customers left and right. He made an obvious plan; a plan that always worked for them - Brute Force. Recently their business had been in trouble as the youth was getting attracted towards bars and pubs which led to a drop in their sales. They applied the formula; beat up some innocent girls and succeeded to a certain extent to terrify the entire nation and remind it of their monopoly in this business. He spoke publicly against Posthee as being an Anti-Hindu company and targeted Seti. He said that Nimonia Jhandi atleast has an origin, but Seti wasn't even born on earth, let alone India. Therefore it's Balram sena's responsibility to stop Seti's corporation from mushrooming in India. He and his team of goons planned to attack Posthee, beat up the customers and raise hell in the Mumbai outlet.
As planned they charged into the outlet and started breaking every thing that came in their way - chairs, tables, bones. In the fury they did not realize that a powerful politician Dhulayam S and his friend Namard S who were in town to meet their bollywood friend were also getting their share of the let out. The customers started running every where as Balram sena created havoc. They got hold of 5 customers including Dhulayam. They blackened their faces with a paint; put the 5 of them on asses and ran away.
The next day a business man and a police officer filed law suit against Posthee claiming a million dollar each for the mental agony they had faced. Some people had recognized Dhulayam. Dhulayam in return created a political agenda out of it and claimed that Posthee has joined hand with opposition to tarnish his image. He threatened to withdraw his support from center if strict action is not taken against Posthee. All this chaos led to the inevitable. Seti decided it was time. The law suits were settled outside the court and he sent an aplology to Dhulayam. Dhulayam in return said that he is willing to give Seti a ticket for the upcoming elections.
I told Seti that I feel sorry for him and Posthee. He said it's OK, "It was time anyways and I am considering Dhulayam's offer".
21st March 2009 13:27 - New job in recession
I just checked the news and found that Taj has joined Balram sena as a vice president and directly reports into the CEO Madarmod.
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As I said, I am going to be in transit this weekend. I have an important assignment to take care of next week. The weekend after will again be mostly in transit as I head back to India. As my clients need me more than you do I am going to take a couple of weeks off and will see you guys here again.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
What I did this weekend (22-MAR-09) - The Adventures of Seti - Introduction
I have recovered, almost. Everything is painful and tedious when you fall sick. Not everything though; few things actually become simpler and come naturally with it - self-pity, groaning, exaggerating (about the pain), sympathy seeking, cursing, procrastination, convincing yourself (how hard you have been working). Surprisingly enough; these tendencies do heel me. I thank the martyr brain cells who selflessly sacrificed themselves during this process and let the body heel. For once the body got the laurels. I miss these neurons badly as my idea closet blinked an out of change warning. Seti had once said - "Fuel will never be an issue; one just needs a little spark!".
Oh Seti. I am going to introduce you to a very close friend of mine. You can pick any one out of the 5 billion people in the world and find enough content to write a couple of books on their life. If you pick Seti though you can write multiple books on every year he lives. I will to my best abilities try to describe this strange character in this post knowing that it ain't enough.
Seti and I met on an airplane. We had got adjacent seats, I got the window and he was assigned the aisle. He wanted to sit on the window seat and asked me if we could exchange. I love the aisle as I sense a level of freedom attached to it, so it was a win-win situation. "By the way, I am Seti", he said. I introduced myself as we adjusted to our new seats. He had a short and plump figure. His hair were trimmed and he wore metallic circular lens glasses. I could smell the beer oozing from his clothes. Over all he had an amusing personality. I guessed he must be around 20. For the next 3 hours Seti kept on staring out and was lost in the vastness outside.
I was in the middle of nap when he nudged my shoulder and as I opened my eyes he said, "Sorry, I need to pee". After we settled back again I asked him, "Where are you headed to in India?". He told me that he stays in India 3-4 months of a year wandering places. "Seti, is that an Indian name and what does it mean?", I asked. He smiled and said, "You will be damned after you know why my parents named me Seti. My dad was an Indian and my mom belonged to the States. My parents were astronauts. They did not work for money as they had lot of dough. The job was a passion for them. They used to work for SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). On a mission dad and mom had to stay in the space for an year. In the 5th month mom got pregnant; the mission was aborted prematurely after 10 months in space. To the utter surprise of every one, I was myself born prematurely 2 months after the return. The officials fired both mom and dad for negligence. Now the thing is both mom and dad sued the officials claiming they didn't uuh uh do it. They said it was impossible doing it there in the space without the gravitation. uuh uhh you know what I mean. Well, they lost the law suit. My dad named me Seti after the incident. I am 41 now and they still insist that they didn't do it. You know what, I believe them". He stopped and thought something. Then he looked at me with his big weepy eyes and asked, "Sorab, can you think of a way of doing it floating in the air without the gravitation?". That was it for me, I couldn't stop myself and burst into a laughter. He did not mind that, he just shook his head.
The discussions continued and I guess we became friends. At the airport we exchanged numbers and decided to meet over some drinks. We did meet in a week's time. After that we met every time our schedules allowed. In India, in States, for drinks, for lunch, for coffee, for a movie. When it was not possible we would stay in touch thru emails.
Only heaven knows what happened in the space 41 years ago but the name was apt as this guy was truly out of the world. There were reasons. Mom and dad always held him responsible for their firing. The little attention that he got from them vanished after they had two beautiful daughters. To tease him they were named Flora and Fauna. He could never relate to his kins though. He dropped out of the school as he was every body's favorite joke. He was a loser.
It all changed the day his uncle gave him a bicycle when he was 8. He would get on it and ride it for miles. He would ride as fast as he could, feel the wind blow on his face and caress his hair. He self learned that he was not sad when he was riding the bicycle. So he rode and rode. He said he experienced a certain bliss one night during his 6 hours ride on the bicycle in sub zero temperatures. He said he could not define what it was but knew that he wanted it more. He thought may be his life was all about riding this bicycle. He rode, had fun for sometime but realized soon that it was not that simple. The bliss he was looking for eluded him. This did not discourage him though as he started his journey to find things that will make him feel what he felt on the bicycle. The money helped as this was the same time when his parents opened a bank account for him with endless money and asked him to leave.
He bought an expensive house and commenced his pursuit. He started playing soccer and felt the bliss he was looking for but 2-3 months into the game, it was gone. He got racing cars, worked at a church, played guitar and a variety of things. Everything seemed like the panacea in the beginning as he would feel what he felt on that cold night but would fade away soon. It frustrated him but he was hell bent to finding the magic wand. He did not know what he was missing.
When he was 18 he landed in India and his life changed. He left the panacea hunt. He said, "It was here when I realized all I was trying to do was to dismiss my existence, lose myself, commingle with the outside. All I was doing was to find a mechanism to dissolve in the surroundings. To be a perfect soluble to the air. I soon knew why everything worked in the beginning and faded away after a while. You see the point is when I begin something, it is about the thing and not me. As I progress, the me takes over. The whole point of view changes. I start doing me and I stop doing the thing". It was greek to me and I said, "What the hell are you saying?". He said, "Sorab, it's simple. I picked up tennis. I felt the bliss soon, I would dissolve in the tennis racket that I held. I could not distinguish where my hand ended and where the racket began. I was the tennis balls and they were me. A few days into it though it all changed. It became about how do I beat that guy, how do I win this point, am I better than him? Tennis took a back seat and it is that moment when you can distinguish between the soluble and the solvent. When that happened, I knew it was time and I became a caretaker to a 3 year old girl. Once again, I felt 'that' thing and it was fun playing with her and cleaning the baby's poo but within 3 weeks I started thinking - does she recognize me, my voice? Does she love me? Will she still play with me when she is old? Time to move on. You see - Winning misdirects. Competition corrupts.". I was reading Jack Welch's book 'Winning' and more importantly living in the only world I know; the world where it is all about winning and I certainly play to win. So, I could never make sense out of what he said.
After that so called enlightenment of his it all changed. He stopped looking for the magic wand and said it became his motto to do something new, enjoy till it was about the thing and then chuck it as his ego started to take over. He would stay in the States for 3-4 months, spend around the same time in India, and would just go any where in the world the rest of the time. 3 months he would immerse himself in a sport taking lessons from world renowned coaches, the next 3 do a blue collar job, the next 3 do scuba diving, the next 3 become a chef. The kind of money he had it was never going to be an issue.
He asked me once, "When was the last time you felt this bliss? When was the last time you got dissolved in the air?". I told him honestly that I don't know what he feels, what is the bliss he talks about, what it means to be dissolved and that I find it all gibberish. "That is the problem with you educated fools. No that's not the problem. You know what the problem is. It is not that you have not experienced it. The problem is that you don't know that you have", he exclaimed. I was flabbergasted by his reaction. I could see he was annoyed. He continued, "What do you do? Oh yes, you are a software architect. Aren't you? You architect this stuff, don't you. When you do what you do and create what you create there are times when you get so immersed in the experience that you don't think about the what, the why, and the when. You just do the god damn thing. That's meditation my dear friend. Those are the moments when you are dissolved, you can't be separated from the surroundings. You become an eternal part of them. Did you think the 'No expectations Karma' the Hindu holy book Gita preaches is rocket science? No my friend, it is not that. You don't need to go to a baba or get high on dope to experience the bliss I have been talking about. Truth is you have achieved that state several times. Every one has. The irony is most of them including you don't realize. You know what Sorab. I like you. I really do. You wanna know why? because I really feel glad when I see you. I feel glad because I am reminded that I didn't go to a school". He left. "Whatever", I said as I picked up my drink and turned on the TV looking for the stock market.
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Phew!!
That was a short introduction.
Please don't mind that I picked him and not you to write about. It does not mean that I like him more than you. I wrote about him cause I knew it will be easy to sell. Ask anyone in Media what sells? My stories, your stories are banal. Most of the lives are cliched. At least someone has already lived them! I wanted to see him because of curiosity, the same curiosity became the reason to make him the guinea pig and not you. They say curiosity kills the cat. See, I don't understand most of the things he thinks and things he says. Guess what, I don't need to understand it to publish it and sell it, HaHa! That's the beauty of winning! Anyways, he has been an enigma to me; I discard whatever he says as idiotic but there were times where it seems esoteric. I think he lives in a fool's paradise because of the money he has but then there are times when I think it is me who has missed the whole point.
There is lot more stuff to be shared about this bizarre guy. What I am going to do though is to let some of his 'bliss seeking adventures' do the talking.
I have already finished one adventure but give you guys time to understand Seti before I publish it. Stay tuned...
Oh Seti. I am going to introduce you to a very close friend of mine. You can pick any one out of the 5 billion people in the world and find enough content to write a couple of books on their life. If you pick Seti though you can write multiple books on every year he lives. I will to my best abilities try to describe this strange character in this post knowing that it ain't enough.
Seti and I met on an airplane. We had got adjacent seats, I got the window and he was assigned the aisle. He wanted to sit on the window seat and asked me if we could exchange. I love the aisle as I sense a level of freedom attached to it, so it was a win-win situation. "By the way, I am Seti", he said. I introduced myself as we adjusted to our new seats. He had a short and plump figure. His hair were trimmed and he wore metallic circular lens glasses. I could smell the beer oozing from his clothes. Over all he had an amusing personality. I guessed he must be around 20. For the next 3 hours Seti kept on staring out and was lost in the vastness outside.
I was in the middle of nap when he nudged my shoulder and as I opened my eyes he said, "Sorry, I need to pee". After we settled back again I asked him, "Where are you headed to in India?". He told me that he stays in India 3-4 months of a year wandering places. "Seti, is that an Indian name and what does it mean?", I asked. He smiled and said, "You will be damned after you know why my parents named me Seti. My dad was an Indian and my mom belonged to the States. My parents were astronauts. They did not work for money as they had lot of dough. The job was a passion for them. They used to work for SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). On a mission dad and mom had to stay in the space for an year. In the 5th month mom got pregnant; the mission was aborted prematurely after 10 months in space. To the utter surprise of every one, I was myself born prematurely 2 months after the return. The officials fired both mom and dad for negligence. Now the thing is both mom and dad sued the officials claiming they didn't uuh uh do it. They said it was impossible doing it there in the space without the gravitation. uuh uhh you know what I mean. Well, they lost the law suit. My dad named me Seti after the incident. I am 41 now and they still insist that they didn't do it. You know what, I believe them". He stopped and thought something. Then he looked at me with his big weepy eyes and asked, "Sorab, can you think of a way of doing it floating in the air without the gravitation?". That was it for me, I couldn't stop myself and burst into a laughter. He did not mind that, he just shook his head.
The discussions continued and I guess we became friends. At the airport we exchanged numbers and decided to meet over some drinks. We did meet in a week's time. After that we met every time our schedules allowed. In India, in States, for drinks, for lunch, for coffee, for a movie. When it was not possible we would stay in touch thru emails.
Only heaven knows what happened in the space 41 years ago but the name was apt as this guy was truly out of the world. There were reasons. Mom and dad always held him responsible for their firing. The little attention that he got from them vanished after they had two beautiful daughters. To tease him they were named Flora and Fauna. He could never relate to his kins though. He dropped out of the school as he was every body's favorite joke. He was a loser.
It all changed the day his uncle gave him a bicycle when he was 8. He would get on it and ride it for miles. He would ride as fast as he could, feel the wind blow on his face and caress his hair. He self learned that he was not sad when he was riding the bicycle. So he rode and rode. He said he experienced a certain bliss one night during his 6 hours ride on the bicycle in sub zero temperatures. He said he could not define what it was but knew that he wanted it more. He thought may be his life was all about riding this bicycle. He rode, had fun for sometime but realized soon that it was not that simple. The bliss he was looking for eluded him. This did not discourage him though as he started his journey to find things that will make him feel what he felt on the bicycle. The money helped as this was the same time when his parents opened a bank account for him with endless money and asked him to leave.
He bought an expensive house and commenced his pursuit. He started playing soccer and felt the bliss he was looking for but 2-3 months into the game, it was gone. He got racing cars, worked at a church, played guitar and a variety of things. Everything seemed like the panacea in the beginning as he would feel what he felt on that cold night but would fade away soon. It frustrated him but he was hell bent to finding the magic wand. He did not know what he was missing.
When he was 18 he landed in India and his life changed. He left the panacea hunt. He said, "It was here when I realized all I was trying to do was to dismiss my existence, lose myself, commingle with the outside. All I was doing was to find a mechanism to dissolve in the surroundings. To be a perfect soluble to the air. I soon knew why everything worked in the beginning and faded away after a while. You see the point is when I begin something, it is about the thing and not me. As I progress, the me takes over. The whole point of view changes. I start doing me and I stop doing the thing". It was greek to me and I said, "What the hell are you saying?". He said, "Sorab, it's simple. I picked up tennis. I felt the bliss soon, I would dissolve in the tennis racket that I held. I could not distinguish where my hand ended and where the racket began. I was the tennis balls and they were me. A few days into it though it all changed. It became about how do I beat that guy, how do I win this point, am I better than him? Tennis took a back seat and it is that moment when you can distinguish between the soluble and the solvent. When that happened, I knew it was time and I became a caretaker to a 3 year old girl. Once again, I felt 'that' thing and it was fun playing with her and cleaning the baby's poo but within 3 weeks I started thinking - does she recognize me, my voice? Does she love me? Will she still play with me when she is old? Time to move on. You see - Winning misdirects. Competition corrupts.". I was reading Jack Welch's book 'Winning' and more importantly living in the only world I know; the world where it is all about winning and I certainly play to win. So, I could never make sense out of what he said.
After that so called enlightenment of his it all changed. He stopped looking for the magic wand and said it became his motto to do something new, enjoy till it was about the thing and then chuck it as his ego started to take over. He would stay in the States for 3-4 months, spend around the same time in India, and would just go any where in the world the rest of the time. 3 months he would immerse himself in a sport taking lessons from world renowned coaches, the next 3 do a blue collar job, the next 3 do scuba diving, the next 3 become a chef. The kind of money he had it was never going to be an issue.
He asked me once, "When was the last time you felt this bliss? When was the last time you got dissolved in the air?". I told him honestly that I don't know what he feels, what is the bliss he talks about, what it means to be dissolved and that I find it all gibberish. "That is the problem with you educated fools. No that's not the problem. You know what the problem is. It is not that you have not experienced it. The problem is that you don't know that you have", he exclaimed. I was flabbergasted by his reaction. I could see he was annoyed. He continued, "What do you do? Oh yes, you are a software architect. Aren't you? You architect this stuff, don't you. When you do what you do and create what you create there are times when you get so immersed in the experience that you don't think about the what, the why, and the when. You just do the god damn thing. That's meditation my dear friend. Those are the moments when you are dissolved, you can't be separated from the surroundings. You become an eternal part of them. Did you think the 'No expectations Karma' the Hindu holy book Gita preaches is rocket science? No my friend, it is not that. You don't need to go to a baba or get high on dope to experience the bliss I have been talking about. Truth is you have achieved that state several times. Every one has. The irony is most of them including you don't realize. You know what Sorab. I like you. I really do. You wanna know why? because I really feel glad when I see you. I feel glad because I am reminded that I didn't go to a school". He left. "Whatever", I said as I picked up my drink and turned on the TV looking for the stock market.
------
Phew!!
That was a short introduction.
Please don't mind that I picked him and not you to write about. It does not mean that I like him more than you. I wrote about him cause I knew it will be easy to sell. Ask anyone in Media what sells? My stories, your stories are banal. Most of the lives are cliched. At least someone has already lived them! I wanted to see him because of curiosity, the same curiosity became the reason to make him the guinea pig and not you. They say curiosity kills the cat. See, I don't understand most of the things he thinks and things he says. Guess what, I don't need to understand it to publish it and sell it, HaHa! That's the beauty of winning! Anyways, he has been an enigma to me; I discard whatever he says as idiotic but there were times where it seems esoteric. I think he lives in a fool's paradise because of the money he has but then there are times when I think it is me who has missed the whole point.
There is lot more stuff to be shared about this bizarre guy. What I am going to do though is to let
I have already finished one adventure but give you guys time to understand Seti before I publish it. Stay tuned...
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The Earth 2.0 Prelude
Earth 2.0 project was underway. Not every body wanted it to succeed.
Trinabh had calmed down and thought he had assured his command. He was having dinner with the three directors. It was quiet till Vrisa popped up an important question to start a discussion. He asked - "How different the 2.0 system will be from its predecessor". Trinabh said that it will not be very different. The thing is he said it is governed by the "The Law of Dice". He said that this theory was carved out after the system 1.0 went stable. Before 1.0 there were 156 unsuccessful attempts to create a stable system. Every time something unexpected will happen and the life would cease to exist. In some systems life remained in dark age and died. In some it progressed too quickly for itself. Science never worked. It was he who came up with the theory of using the dice and wrote a paper after the 157th attempt was successful. He picked a piece of paper and said using the simple law of probability if you roll a dice N times the sum of all the attempts should be close to 3.5 * N. He put down a simple formula -
They met at the same place. Vikunth had realized that with their recent failure it was going to be tough to dethrone Trinabh. Vrisa as usual was quiet and happy that he was not fired. Gayatari was totally unconcerned with the proceedings. Vikunth created a devious plan aware of the fact that he needed full support of his two colleagues.
He knew he had to only get Gayatari on board and Vrisa will follow. Also, he thought it was to his advantage only as it will be easy to work on a female. He proposed it was Gayatari who deserved to be the chairman of the board because of her calmness. "Being a female, You are a natural caretaker", he believed in it. "Being a female you can retain calmness and make good decisions in tight situations", he didn't believe in that. What he believed in and what not though did not matter. He just wanted to use Gayatari as a step stone to realize his own aspirations.
Gayatari was not the one to fall into a booby trap easily. She said "The only thing one needs to do is roll a dice after all". Vikunth got up from his seat; his innocent eyes met Gayatari's; he held her hand as he said "It's not important that the dice is rolled, what's important is whose hands roll it? After all, don't you think the outcome depends upon who rolls it?". He kept on looking into her eyes with affection, his eyes hiding his real intentions; the same tenderness as someone looking at the prey moments before the kill. It was some performance and her suaveness convinced Gayatari. They were all in. Now, it was all about a plan and the right time.
It was an irony that the project that they failed in gave them the opportunity they were looking for. Trinabh was basking in the glory of his success and the good status coming out of Earth 2.0 weekly reports. He was invited to conferences across the galaxies to present his organizational theories and how he did it successfully. In one of the conferences he was asked by his fans to write a book on the same. He hesitated initially but had to finally give in. The book was titled "How to run a galaxy - A guide to make right decisions". This endeavour meant he had to take off for some time and it gave the trio the window they were looking for.
It was Gayatari's idea. Vikunth was impressed as he could never have thought of anything close to it. It was a double edge sword though. On one hand he was happy that she gave such an idea but on the other hand he became wary of the fact that it will not be a cake walk to get rid of Gayatari when the time came. Anyways he got his mind back to the task at hand and they accomplished it with little effort.
They sneaked into Trinabh's office; found the closet and the little golden box that stored the dice. It was kept there and would be put to use when the project 2.0 gets into phase-III. Gayatari replaced it with a loaded dice!!!
She had said - With the loaded dice the "The Law of Dice" will fall apart and thus an unstable system that will finally crash down. At that moment they thought they will ask for Trinabh's resignation and appoint a new chairman.
Simple and effective!
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What happened next?
The 2.0 system was sure enough far away from 1.0. It is a series which is on my mind in bits and pieces. I wrote today lying sick and I thought I will start with the first 2.0 concept but then I realized to write a series is a different ball game. It is unlike my previous posts where I wrote it in one sitting.
I believe most people write the end first before they write the beginning and therefore I need to work on it for completeness and harmony sake. Trust me, its not easy carving out the effects of a loaded dice. Well, I am working on it as we speak and I have estimated that the first chapter of the series will be out in late April keeping in mind my busy professional schedule (unless I fall sick for 2 weeks)
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Lastly
You must have observed so far that as soon as I finish a post I end up mailing the link, I send it on the IM and I become pushy. I have personally pushed some of you into reading it! I prodded few to let me know how they found it. I became paranoid if my constant requests went no where. Insanely I even went up to the extent of asking a selected few to forward it to their friends!
When I was about to publish my last weekend's post; I thought should I really be pushing as much as I do. Why the f*** do I do what I do and why the f*** I don't do what I don't do? The battle between the mind and the heart was not easy but ultimately it was won by one of them. Well, I announced it to a selected few and chased some of you ferociously. Reminding some of you every day.
Why do I mention it? I would be lying if I say I have 100% self belief and I need no vindication. The doubts with in trouble me again today as I try to find an answer to the same question - Should I? Honestly, I don't have an answer. All I know is that I write to connect to other minds, to peep into them and to let them have a piece of mine.
If you feel pushed and prodded, please consider my actions juvenile. Consider it a little boy's perseverance or ignorance who builds a castle with the sand, thinks of living in it, stares it with a twinkle in the eye, loses the sense of time and tries to play every trick in the book he knows to catch the attention of his cohorts towards this assembly; the sculpture that might not be worth a peanut for them but at that particular moment means the cosmos to him.
Anyways, I want to thank people whom I chased around for the last post and they didn't read, started reading but left in between, read it in bits and pieces, read it and thought it sucked, read it but did not like it, read it and did not like it but said they liked it, read it and liked it, read it and thought it was awesome in that order.
I am not sure I will be writing if you weren't here. Love you all.
Trinabh had calmed down and thought he had assured his command. He was having dinner with the three directors. It was quiet till Vrisa popped up an important question to start a discussion. He asked - "How different the 2.0 system will be from its predecessor". Trinabh said that it will not be very different. The thing is he said it is governed by the "The Law of Dice". He said that this theory was carved out after the system 1.0 went stable. Before 1.0 there were 156 unsuccessful attempts to create a stable system. Every time something unexpected will happen and the life would cease to exist. In some systems life remained in dark age and died. In some it progressed too quickly for itself. Science never worked. It was he who came up with the theory of using the dice and wrote a paper after the 157th attempt was successful. He picked a piece of paper and said using the simple law of probability if you roll a dice N times the sum of all the attempts should be close to 3.5 * N. He put down a simple formula -
N*1/6*(1+2+3+4+5+6)
As you increase N you start getting very closer to 3.5*N. So if you roll a dice a gazillion times the sum will be 3.5 gazillion. So after that many rolls the Earth 2.0 will be close to 1.0 at an abstract level. One could sense the air of vanity as he explained it all. He continued.
The patterns will be different. Mankind will find enough reasons to fight and shed blood although the underlying reasons might not be the same as 1.0. They will create boundaries which will be different. They might not have alcohol but they will have other better ways to get high, after all can you imagine a world without that! He chuckled and said that what they called gravitational theory will be discovered by someone; might be named something else and it might not need an apple. If books, internet or blogs weren't invented fools will find other ways to tell stories. In some shape or form society will be formed and the mankind will start fooling themselves and start living with certain beliefs. This harmony is the mark of a stable system! What those beliefs/rules will be really does not matter. A brother marrying a sister might not be a big deal. On the other hand they could create something where the two sexes can't live together and only meet to mate in front of what they called a priest in 1.0. A good list and a bad list will be created. They might start worshiping asses and call Sun a devil's son. Who knows? The trio left after the dinner and Vikunth asked for a meeting.
The patterns will be different. Mankind will find enough reasons to fight and shed blood although the underlying reasons might not be the same as 1.0. They will create boundaries which will be different. They might not have alcohol but they will have other better ways to get high, after all can you imagine a world without that! He chuckled and said that what they called gravitational theory will be discovered by someone; might be named something else and it might not need an apple. If books, internet or blogs weren't invented fools will find other ways to tell stories. In some shape or form society will be formed and the mankind will start fooling themselves and start living with certain beliefs. This harmony is the mark of a stable system! What those beliefs/rules will be really does not matter. A brother marrying a sister might not be a big deal. On the other hand they could create something where the two sexes can't live together and only meet to mate in front of what they called a priest in 1.0. A good list and a bad list will be created. They might start worshiping asses and call Sun a devil's son. Who knows? The trio left after the dinner and Vikunth asked for a meeting.
They met at the same place. Vikunth had realized that with their recent failure it was going to be tough to dethrone Trinabh. Vrisa as usual was quiet and happy that he was not fired. Gayatari was totally unconcerned with the proceedings. Vikunth created a devious plan aware of the fact that he needed full support of his two colleagues.
He knew he had to only get Gayatari on board and Vrisa will follow. Also, he thought it was to his advantage only as it will be easy to work on a female. He proposed it was Gayatari who deserved to be the chairman of the board because of her calmness. "Being a female, You are a natural caretaker", he believed in it. "Being a female you can retain calmness and make good decisions in tight situations", he didn't believe in that. What he believed in and what not though did not matter. He just wanted to use Gayatari as a step stone to realize his own aspirations.
Gayatari was not the one to fall into a booby trap easily. She said "The only thing one needs to do is roll a dice after all". Vikunth got up from his seat; his innocent eyes met Gayatari's; he held her hand as he said "It's not important that the dice is rolled, what's important is whose hands roll it? After all, don't you think the outcome depends upon who rolls it?". He kept on looking into her eyes with affection, his eyes hiding his real intentions; the same tenderness as someone looking at the prey moments before the kill. It was some performance and her suaveness convinced Gayatari. They were all in. Now, it was all about a plan and the right time.
It was an irony that the project that they failed in gave them the opportunity they were looking for. Trinabh was basking in the glory of his success and the good status coming out of Earth 2.0 weekly reports. He was invited to conferences across the galaxies to present his organizational theories and how he did it successfully. In one of the conferences he was asked by his fans to write a book on the same. He hesitated initially but had to finally give in. The book was titled "How to run a galaxy - A guide to make right decisions". This endeavour meant he had to take off for some time and it gave the trio the window they were looking for.
It was Gayatari's idea. Vikunth was impressed as he could never have thought of anything close to it. It was a double edge sword though. On one hand he was happy that she gave such an idea but on the other hand he became wary of the fact that it will not be a cake walk to get rid of Gayatari when the time came. Anyways he got his mind back to the task at hand and they accomplished it with little effort.
They sneaked into Trinabh's office; found the closet and the little golden box that stored the dice. It was kept there and would be put to use when the project 2.0 gets into phase-III. Gayatari replaced it with a loaded dice!!!
She had said - With the loaded dice the "The Law of Dice" will fall apart and thus an unstable system that will finally crash down. At that moment they thought they will ask for Trinabh's resignation and appoint a new chairman.
Simple and effective!
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What happened next?
The 2.0 system was sure enough far away from 1.0. It is a series which is on my mind in bits and pieces. I wrote today lying sick and I thought I will start with the first 2.0 concept but then I realized to write a series is a different ball game. It is unlike my previous posts where I wrote it in one sitting.
I believe most people write the end first before they write the beginning and therefore I need to work on it for completeness and harmony sake. Trust me, its not easy carving out the effects of a loaded dice. Well, I am working on it as we speak and I have estimated that the first chapter of the series will be out in late April keeping in mind my busy professional schedule (unless I fall sick for 2 weeks)
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Lastly
You must have observed so far that as soon as I finish a post I end up mailing the link, I send it on the IM and I become pushy. I have personally pushed some of you into reading it! I prodded few to let me know how they found it. I became paranoid if my constant requests went no where. Insanely I even went up to the extent of asking a selected few to forward it to their friends!
When I was about to publish my last weekend's post; I thought should I really be pushing as much as I do. Why the f*** do I do what I do and why the f*** I don't do what I don't do? The battle between the mind and the heart was not easy but ultimately it was won by one of them. Well, I announced it to a selected few and chased some of you ferociously. Reminding some of you every day.
Why do I mention it? I would be lying if I say I have 100% self belief and I need no vindication. The doubts with in trouble me again today as I try to find an answer to the same question - Should I? Honestly, I don't have an answer. All I know is that I write to connect to other minds, to peep into them and to let them have a piece of mine.
If you feel pushed and prodded, please consider my actions juvenile. Consider it a little boy's perseverance or ignorance who builds a castle with the sand, thinks of living in it, stares it with a twinkle in the eye, loses the sense of time and tries to play every trick in the book he knows to catch the attention of his cohorts towards this assembly; the sculpture that might not be worth a peanut for them but at that particular moment means the cosmos to him.
Anyways, I want to thank people whom I chased around for the last post and they didn't read, started reading but left in between, read it in bits and pieces, read it and thought it sucked, read it but did not like it, read it and did not like it but said they liked it, read it and liked it, read it and thought it was awesome in that order.
I am not sure I will be writing if you weren't here. Love you all.
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