Today my maternal Grand Father passed away... No I am not very upset for some weird reasons. He was a great person and epitomised a generation which was known for family values, "goodness" and humility. But the way he got treated by his own children has disturbed me so much over the last few years. I realized the fraility of a person as he started ageing. Age took away almost everything from him and that's when I started realizing the cruelty of life. I hope he forgives us for all the pain he endured from his own people.
Hearing this news from my father, I almost paused to realize Death is an absolute truth. Every day we approach an inevitable truth which none of us can deny. That just reinforced my belief that I need to enjoy my life as much as possible before it gets taken away from me. I always thought I will work extra hard and try to live a legacy for my next generations. But now I want to be a little selfish. I want to enjoy to the hilt so that when I am old and alone, I don't repent the choices I made when I was young and that I don't have the urge to live any more and I can have a peaceful death on my terms.

Training over....

Today is my last day in New York....Things during our training flashed by really fast... Met so many new people from the biggest MBA schools like wharton, harvard, MIT, LBS etc.... It felt good :) When I look at our bunch of people, I see two kinds of people:
1. People who had the power of information, they knew who to talk to, how to talk to others and were from the best of the families where there dad was a hotshot prof at some of the biggest names in the academia.
2. People who struggled, who had the fire in their belly... They did not know where they were going ... what they wanted...but they wanted to be the best.

Surprisingly I still think there were not too many people from the 2nd group. When I visualise these groups over a period of 10 years, somehow I see the first group doing better in their personal and professional according to the societal standards of happiness and success. There are quite a few reasons why I think so...
1. Most of the people in the second group have beginning to lose that hunger. They seem to have over burnt themselves.
2. They have good intellectual capacity but when they are left among 20 strangers, they are quite uncomfortable.
3. Somehow 2nd group has been so much single minded on achieving what they wanted, they have so many chinks in their personality and social life that they might feel incomplete in life ..
4. They have started wondering what life is for? How do you define success and happiness?

I am sure anyone can understand which group I belong to :)! I am not sure if I can say I am happy but somehow even at the risk of sounding arrogant, I think I have been successful SO FAR. Today, I have the luxury of thinking about these shits which my other friends don't have. I have a chance to improve my personal life while others are screwing their personal life amid a turbulent professional life... When previleges don't come to you in a platter...you got to take your chances and it's extremely difficult to maintain the fine balance. But I wonder, which way I should go now....There is so much to be achieved professionally and it's so difficult to fight your loneliness, about the things you miss on a weekend or a weekday evening and you want to live a fuller life.... I don't understand what is the correct balance of professional and personal life... Everyone seem to know their balance....I don't because probably I don't understand what I mean by personal life....Probably I never had one !

My days in New York

The last 1 month spent at New York were one of the better days of my life. There was no tension, nothing to compete for and I had enough dollars to support my over indulgence. I am doing everything I have never done and is legal :)) Am I happy? I think so...For the first time I like the idea of not being answerable to anyone! Not to my boss, not to my parents and most importantly not to myself. I like living in extremes...the 12 shots of tequilla for a newbie drunkard I think is a good proof :) . Somehow I don't believe in moderation as a way of life! The incremental pleasure of 1st tequilla shot is far lower than the 12th one and I can certainly vouch for that ... so why stop at the first shot? When I think of coming back to London, my heart sinks. I don't want that mundane routine which was so mind numbing and boring. I have planned few things for myself like trying to learn squash, dance, gym and roller skating. Let's see if I can complete even one of them. Life I have beginning to realize is all about initiatives and leaving your hesitation and ego aside. If I list the initiatives I have taken in NY I think I can count atleast 3-4 in the last one month and in London I have hardly taken any initiatives. Probably that explains the fun I had in NY even when as a city I like London a lot more than NY. When things would have settled post mid Nov, I guess I will try being a bit more adventurous and make my life more complete :)

Knowledge?

why is it that life at the other end always looks greener? Why can't we be happy and content with what we have? what constitutes happiness..... At times you need one reason to get ecastic and at times a slight digression leads you to depression.... i wonder why can't we always live in a state of ecastasy? These are very fundamental questions which always keeps me confused about what am I doing with my life, where am I going... ? I wish I could just take my thinking hat off my head and stop pondering...People say happiness is with in you ... sorry mate, but I can't find it! At times it drives me crazy ....and at times I feel how stupid it is to think of these arbit and time pass questions... I think I am getting a convert in terms of the need to have a spiritual knowledge...the need to touch base with myself..to know who I am .. When I was a kid, I remember having dreams similar to this as to who I am, what will happen after my death, what is my purpose etc etc...and these were probably the result of watching too many religious soaps but the fact is there is definitely something more to education than what we learn in arts, science, history etc.... Why did we never make a good headway in terms of these basic questions than finding how to fucking keep ourself alive longer without making those extra years any more happier....I guess I just need to take a beer break and cut this post off :)

A milestone completed...

Today the 2 years of gruelling journey of MBA at IIMA got over. I have got my MBA degree from this institute :) I started writing this blog when I was about to graduate from IIT K. Two years hence, everything seems changed. The higher I go, the more uncertain and unpredictable life becomes. The 2 years of journey got condensed in 2 seconds during which I received the degree. It's a mixed feeling receiving the degree. I have really got attached to this place and I know I will miss every bit of it in the difficult journey ahead. Sometimes, I really feel I am more suited for academics and I love the life style an academic institution offers. I wish to be a student all my life but alas life is not that simple :) Today I am chasing my and my family's dreams but few years down the line I really wish to do it my way. I always wished to get into the upper class, live life in style without worrying whether I can afford this or not. It may sound so materialistic, but when you see your peers enjoying stuffs and you denying yourself basic comforts, I feel I deserve for once to earn as much money and see if that is indeed happiness....
This is probably the end of a small period in my life and I am making a leap into the job arena. I really need lots of prayers and well wishers that I can carry off from where I have left IIMA :)

GOOD BYE IIMA !

The next 5 years....

Yesterday night as usual, Jhango and I had nothing better to do except kill time drinking tea in Food King. The discussion as usual veered from his marriage, girlfriends etc to some more philosophical topics like "What do we want in life?"
To a simple and innocuous question like this I had no answer! Lest I forget, let me enumerate what was my response to the questions.
1. I want lots of money
2. A very good personal life. Despite all constraints , my father managed to keep the family so bonded and close. He devoted lots of time for us and literally held our hands through our entire life. The detachment has started setting in but I still feel connected and grateful. I will definitely not like a career focused life where I don't have time for my family.
3. I want recognition for my professional success.
4. Life is said to be lived in few moments. To have those prized moments, one needs to have experience new things, new emotions and live different lives at the same time. I want to be a banker, be an academician, work for an NGO, be an entrepreneur and what not. And for that I want some independence and an individual who genuinely believes in me.
5. I want to be seen as a person who is not seen as someone who wasted hist talents and underachieved as most of my friends think it's true.

The tale of Barista

March 10, 2007
Time: 8 PM approx
Scene Actors: Khatiya, khainchu, jhango and me
Context: All four passing by the barrista after having a dinner.

So, the story starts......
After having the first flush and the biryanis Khatiya and I were as usual fighting over how fattu we were in terms of girls .... the debate on who among us was a bigger loser and then ........................
Suddenly, we see a girl in barrista in white dress. For the first time after a long long time, I liked someone and felt like putting a fight and guess what I was given lots of incentives for that too. Jhango and co. put a bet that if I say hello and sit besides her, they will give me Rs 500. Btw I still think sitting and talking and knowing her was a bigger incentive [:P]
There began an eternal struggle of a fattu man trying to take a giant leap. I jumped up and down, moved to and fro, had few scoops of ice-creams and what not, to help me make that leap. Still I could not do it ... I felt stupid and defeated. Khatiya was ready to do it and had it not been for the phone call that she got, Rs 500 was totally his. Btw the repercussions could have been worse too as with in 5 minutes her BF comes straight to the barista.
So, at this stage I have two basic questions:
1. Mera number kab aayega ?
2. Main fattu se stud kab banoonga :)) ?

Everyone wish me good luck and some confidence :(