If I keep talking about marraige & related issues, my age and that of my friends' circle is to be blamed for it. Also the unique phenomena of arranged marraige (unique to the Indian culture vis-a-vis cultures over the world) often creates interesting material for writing, which is another driver for me for writing on the subject of marraige so often.
Recently, I was talking to one of my friends, with regards to a guy whom she had met for the purpose of matrimonial alliance. She had complained after the meeting that the guy was too shy and probably didnt match upto her. She also mentioned that the guy rejected her even before she could use his shyness as an excuse to reject him. Shyness I thought, that was a lame excuse to reject him considering that first meetings could be pretty unnerving for many guys. Especially those guys who arent used to talking to girls, and i must say such a segment in our society is indeed a majority if not available in ubiquity. Shocking but true, that inspite of the era of liberalisation, the men seem to be still living in a cocoon while the women have hatched out & going guns over the cocooned specie.
Anyway coming back to my friends and her opinion about the guy whom she met, I granted her the fact that the guy didnt match up to her for the sheer reason that even other than matrimony, a lot of guys that we had known in our MBA days stood no chance in front of her flair & smartness.
Probing her further on the issue, on another follow-up call, she told me that the guy whom she had met in the one-off date which was suppose to materialise into life-long matrimony, had recently got in engaged to a batchmate of his whom he had been seeing during his college days. She also added, that his apparent shyness was owing to his non-chalance for materialising the meeting into anything beyond, and also the fact that he didnt try and match up to the girl he was meeting(inspite of being MBA from one of the top institutions in the country) was a deliberate attempt to look and seem dumb. Reason for all this was now clear and obvious - he had already had his heart fixed, so rejecting my friend inspite of her drop-dead gorgeous looks & amazing personality didnt sound so shocking. What shocked me though was, why in the first place did he come to meet my friend? The answer to that brings me to the main issue that I wanted to highlight in this post.
I think the answer in some small ways is connected to what came up in my previous posts too. The fact that our conservative society still considers love marraige a stigma, has a lot to do with the point I am driving to. The point being, often girls & boys who have already decided on their life-partner from amongst their colleagues, batchmates or acquaintances, find it difficult to confront their parents on their choice. To simplify the confrontation process what they do is ask the parents to find someone for them, whom they would pre-decidedly reject, and after having met a few they can easily blame that their choice isnt being met and hence they offer their pre-decided partner's proposal. The whole drama just adds legitimacy to the process of chosing a bride who was once your girlfriend.
This is exactly what happened in my friend's case, the guy already had someone in mind, and was using my friend as a tool to make his parents realise their incompetency in finding the apposite life-partner for him. I appreciate the fact that he had at least made up his mind on whom he wanted to marry, I also appreciate the methodology he adopted in making his parents approve his choice - which was not by imposing it on them, rather allowing them to grow upto the concept that they are not able to find the right match for him, and it is best for him to chose his partner himself. It often unjustifies the stigma factor associated with the journey of transforming love into marriage.
Now what I dont appreciate here is the fact that he had to make use of 'rejection' as a means of getting his point across. I still cant fathom how easy it was for him to make use of some third party to get a message across between himself & his parents. There are two contentions that I have in this whole situation. One is the fact that the guy made use of a third party. A party who is foreign and very liable to feel bad for being used i.e. if she realised that she has been used, which in my friend's case she did. I didnt like the fact that someone was dragged into this because you had politely convey a message to someone who is dear to you without hurting them. The second issue is very grave -'rejection'! How many times has a guy complained about having proposed a girl whom he has been secretly admiring for a long time & having being turned down after pouring his heart out...more often than not you will hear a guy in situations like this, and thank God it is guys who are in this situation more often!!...because women in general have bigger egos when it comes to being rejected by the opposite sex. And even if we look beyond how each gender takes the issue of 'rejection', one would agree that 'rejection' for any living creature is not the best of feelings to cope with. Whether it happens in the process of establishing a matrimonial alliance, or can be guessed from the sullen face of an orpahned kid vis-a-vis a chubby gay face of a doted only-child of parents, so much so a domesticated pet vs. a stray animal. Each of these are intense examples of rejected living creatures. Thankfully however, of these two contentions only one can happen at a time, because if you are feeling bad about being used by the guy, then you know you havent been rejected. Or else if you think you have been rejected, then you dont know that you have been used.
And while every person can have his/her own unique style of conveying harsh messages across to their near & dear ones, all I would request for the general betterment of the society is that dont make use of rejection routed through a third party to get your message across to your loved ones. Remember, what goes around, comes around, you could do this to someone today, and end up having this done to you some time later. Be careful, the most precious smiles are not only of those who are yours, someone who is not yours could look much more beautiful smiling than frowning!!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
The coveted Engg+MBA combination
At IITK, as a student of the department of industrial and management engineering, training to graduate with a degree of MBA, i had always noticed a certain scorn in the eyes of my professors towards the students of the MBA programme in the department. The reason was obvious, a highly pedantic institution like IIT Kanpur just didnt appreciate creating postgraduates in a field which spelled "jack of all trades, master of none", which is what MBAs are believed to be in the industry. They are suppose to know a little of everything, and all of nothing. Thats understandable from the plight that the industry sees in the form of the managers who manage subordinates of varied backgrounds with equal elan!!
Coming back to the professors' contempt of students whom they thought were adulterating the skill that they had before hand - 'their engineering degree'(considering that IITK MBA program was open only for engineers). Last weekend I met two of my department professors from IITK, who had come down to my office to deliver a lecture series on 'Quantitative finance'. I realised that not only these professors showed contempt towrads the adultorous MBAs, they had another genre of people whom they didnt consider worthy of respect. So if I may state the chronology of determination of worthlessness of an individual, it goes as follows:
1) If you are not an engineer - boss you are hopeless!!
2) If you are not an engineer and you are an MBA - you just dont have any hope in life!!
I think the contempt towards non-engineer MBAs from professors of hard core technical institutions is not so difficult to fathom...
all i was concerned with that atleast i had 50% hope in life because i was an engineer, and for the remaining 50% that I had lost because of doing an MBA...boss, now i cant do anything about it!!
Coming back to the professors' contempt of students whom they thought were adulterating the skill that they had before hand - 'their engineering degree'(considering that IITK MBA program was open only for engineers). Last weekend I met two of my department professors from IITK, who had come down to my office to deliver a lecture series on 'Quantitative finance'. I realised that not only these professors showed contempt towrads the adultorous MBAs, they had another genre of people whom they didnt consider worthy of respect. So if I may state the chronology of determination of worthlessness of an individual, it goes as follows:
1) If you are not an engineer - boss you are hopeless!!
2) If you are not an engineer and you are an MBA - you just dont have any hope in life!!
I think the contempt towards non-engineer MBAs from professors of hard core technical institutions is not so difficult to fathom...
all i was concerned with that atleast i had 50% hope in life because i was an engineer, and for the remaining 50% that I had lost because of doing an MBA...boss, now i cant do anything about it!!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Its in the air !!
Today I happened to speak to someone from good old IIT days. This guy Yash, graduated from the bachelor's course in the same year as I did from MBA. After graduation he joined ITC, while I moved on in the banking domain. In IIT, we were introduced to each other by virtue of him having been the coordinator of the English Literary society before I was. I remember having interacted with him for a lot of reasons other than the ELS. One such was the protest on George Bush's visit to India, which I was almost dragged into because my beloved Prof. Rahul Varman had taken a lead on it. Anyone on campus knew that I could be lured into anything in which Prof. Varman was party. And I have strong reasons to believe that Prof. Varman knew that himself. Anyhow...that shall be a different piece of analysis...that requires more data and hence I shall refrain from doing....
Coming back to my telephonic conversation with Yash today. So far there have been several occassions when I resurrected contacts with some old pals from campus ( considering I have a habit of losing contact easily), but never did the experience feel so unique as it felt today. The primary reason for that was the industry in which Yash works - manufacturing!!
In today's world the manufacturing industry though has not lost importance but sure has lost mention. With the services sector booming, and India haing been labeled as the next big place for churning & exploiting human capital in an intellectual arena, the mention of the manufacturing industry seems to have thinned down. Not only that, with most of our generation(those with our kind of educational background) choosing the services sector over manufacturing (i guess the choice for most of us in our generation is pretty easy & obvious,looking at the abundant availability of jobs in this sphere) availability of people who could even give a fresh perspective on what the industry looks like & where it is heading towards is not ample. Looking at the dearth of such people, my conversation with Yash was rather refreshing.
Though the kind of problems that Yash mentioned existed with his job, were pretty much similar to what any youth of the services industry would also portray but the flavor & light in which he portrayed those experiences were unprecendented to my knowledge.
He mentioned about the level of excitement in his job during the inital days, when he was being trained & the process in which he was working was being established. He mentioned having reared the process right from having to buy the machinary, getting it installed, having it run, and then graduating into the mundanity of monitoring it. I dont think these sequence of activities are any different for anyone in the services sector. I myself have been in Bank of America since the inception of my process, and have seen the same steps happening in the flavor of 'services'.
He mentioned considering the option of doing an MBA in order to break the cycle of what he is currently doing. Very similar to what any engineer who has got into the cycle of software engineering would want to do. But the different flavor to his reasons for doing an MBA was the unavailability of ample jobs in the market, which is pretty understandable, considering that this sector is very mature in India, and place for today's youth who is constantly looking for a challenging role is scarce.
He mentioned about politics at work place, and I think the unanimity of that can be felt right from service to manufacturing to home as sectors. So nothing much to elaborate on that.
All in all, during the course of the conversation we came to a point wherein we said that though the problems that we both were talking about have similar underlying principles, another major problem that we have had is that after having spent time in IIT (me for 2 years & him for 4 years) our definition of intellectually challenging jobs had changed leaps & bounds. Which was also one reason why we were in the state of believing that our jobs have an element of mundanity. I confessed that my demand for intellectual challange had changed so much in the 2 years I spent at IIT & I wondered what it did to someone who spent 4 years there. To that Yash made a very unforgettable comment. He said " It wasnt about 2 or 4 years, It was all about the air we breathed. It was about the air of that place that made so much difference in the way we think & percieve challenges". I couldnt have agreed more!!
I told him that last week was MBA alumni meet at IITK, and I didnt go. One way I had convinced myself on not going was by asking myself whether I had achieved enough to go back & stand proudly in my alma mater. But the truth remains my alma mater doesnt ask me that, my alma mater is indiffferent to that, my alma mater is off the rat-race of assessing someone by their resume, their visiting card or their payslip...that is where I know that my alma-mater has more substance, and there is something about its air that makes it overlook so much in me and still consider me a part of it.
Even across sectors - manufacturing & services, there seemed to be unanimity on the fact that "There was something unusual in the air of IIT..."
Coming back to my telephonic conversation with Yash today. So far there have been several occassions when I resurrected contacts with some old pals from campus ( considering I have a habit of losing contact easily), but never did the experience feel so unique as it felt today. The primary reason for that was the industry in which Yash works - manufacturing!!
In today's world the manufacturing industry though has not lost importance but sure has lost mention. With the services sector booming, and India haing been labeled as the next big place for churning & exploiting human capital in an intellectual arena, the mention of the manufacturing industry seems to have thinned down. Not only that, with most of our generation(those with our kind of educational background) choosing the services sector over manufacturing (i guess the choice for most of us in our generation is pretty easy & obvious,looking at the abundant availability of jobs in this sphere) availability of people who could even give a fresh perspective on what the industry looks like & where it is heading towards is not ample. Looking at the dearth of such people, my conversation with Yash was rather refreshing.
Though the kind of problems that Yash mentioned existed with his job, were pretty much similar to what any youth of the services industry would also portray but the flavor & light in which he portrayed those experiences were unprecendented to my knowledge.
He mentioned about the level of excitement in his job during the inital days, when he was being trained & the process in which he was working was being established. He mentioned having reared the process right from having to buy the machinary, getting it installed, having it run, and then graduating into the mundanity of monitoring it. I dont think these sequence of activities are any different for anyone in the services sector. I myself have been in Bank of America since the inception of my process, and have seen the same steps happening in the flavor of 'services'.
He mentioned considering the option of doing an MBA in order to break the cycle of what he is currently doing. Very similar to what any engineer who has got into the cycle of software engineering would want to do. But the different flavor to his reasons for doing an MBA was the unavailability of ample jobs in the market, which is pretty understandable, considering that this sector is very mature in India, and place for today's youth who is constantly looking for a challenging role is scarce.
He mentioned about politics at work place, and I think the unanimity of that can be felt right from service to manufacturing to home as sectors. So nothing much to elaborate on that.
All in all, during the course of the conversation we came to a point wherein we said that though the problems that we both were talking about have similar underlying principles, another major problem that we have had is that after having spent time in IIT (me for 2 years & him for 4 years) our definition of intellectually challenging jobs had changed leaps & bounds. Which was also one reason why we were in the state of believing that our jobs have an element of mundanity. I confessed that my demand for intellectual challange had changed so much in the 2 years I spent at IIT & I wondered what it did to someone who spent 4 years there. To that Yash made a very unforgettable comment. He said " It wasnt about 2 or 4 years, It was all about the air we breathed. It was about the air of that place that made so much difference in the way we think & percieve challenges". I couldnt have agreed more!!
I told him that last week was MBA alumni meet at IITK, and I didnt go. One way I had convinced myself on not going was by asking myself whether I had achieved enough to go back & stand proudly in my alma mater. But the truth remains my alma mater doesnt ask me that, my alma mater is indiffferent to that, my alma mater is off the rat-race of assessing someone by their resume, their visiting card or their payslip...that is where I know that my alma-mater has more substance, and there is something about its air that makes it overlook so much in me and still consider me a part of it.
Even across sectors - manufacturing & services, there seemed to be unanimity on the fact that "There was something unusual in the air of IIT..."
Monday, April 14, 2008
Comments & Feedback
A few days ago, I read a post that elicited the importance of comments left by readers on a blog. I personally think that comments left on one's blog, are indeed a source of encouragement for the writer. Infact feedback mechanism of any sorts, does provide the writer a zeal to write more and write better.
For the past month or so(eversince I have been blogging avidly), I have got feedbacks of several kinds. Some people who like to comment on a particular idea/philosophy, give feedback in the comments section of the blog. However, there are others who like to comment on an overall level, on my overall writing skills & the ideas that I express in general. Such people come upto me personally and comment on my work.
I must say the feedback so far is not only encouraging, its overwhelming as well. A couple of the feedbacks that I got in the recent times (that stand out in my memory) are as follows:
My friend from engineering recently told me that the stuff I write, is something that she and a lot of people in general( her assumption) can relate to. Of course when she said it, I accepted it gracefully, and I was indeed graced, considering that after several years of having lost touch with her, she decided to break the silence, pinged me and reported on my good writing skills. I was honored!! Now comes the reason why I am not too happy about that comment. When I look back at the comment made by her, I see an inherent contradiction in what I thought about my writing and what people think they are reading. I always believed that my ideas and philosophy are unique. I always thought, I think out of the box. But now it seems I dont!! I guess, thats the peril of having aggrandized a huge philosophy & a fixed mindset for years before deciding that u need to blurt it out, and you chose a blog to do that. Also I would say it is a limitation of a means like a blog, which creates more of a monologue, than actually an exchange of ideas. Or rather I should say that it is my blog which is more of a monologue (otherwise I have seen some other people write on their blogs & recieve hundreds of comments on every posting). In cases where comments on apost are abundant, the ideology expressed in the post, is liable to castigations, and inquisitions which eventually tell the author of the uniqueness, or the orignality of the idea and at the same time apprises him that what he/she is writing about is of concern to people. I would also like to point out here that my friend did mention that my writing style is very orignal, which i must say I accept with great pride, even on second thoughts!! Anyway, as long as the feedback flows in, whether through the comments section or through personally delivered remarks...I dont mind it!!
Another feedback that I recieved was: one of my friends really liked my one-liners. Though a lot of these one liners are not orignal, I think it was a feedback that I should be rather be proud of. In this fast moving, perpetual time-crunched lifestyle, if I express an idea or thought in just one line. What more can 'everyone in a rush' around me ask for...
All in all, I have recieved some handsome comments & feedbacks on my writing, which makes me feel proud of myself and my writing skills. For those who havent made their comments yet, mind you...good or bad...I am waiting!!
For the past month or so(eversince I have been blogging avidly), I have got feedbacks of several kinds. Some people who like to comment on a particular idea/philosophy, give feedback in the comments section of the blog. However, there are others who like to comment on an overall level, on my overall writing skills & the ideas that I express in general. Such people come upto me personally and comment on my work.
I must say the feedback so far is not only encouraging, its overwhelming as well. A couple of the feedbacks that I got in the recent times (that stand out in my memory) are as follows:
My friend from engineering recently told me that the stuff I write, is something that she and a lot of people in general( her assumption) can relate to. Of course when she said it, I accepted it gracefully, and I was indeed graced, considering that after several years of having lost touch with her, she decided to break the silence, pinged me and reported on my good writing skills. I was honored!! Now comes the reason why I am not too happy about that comment. When I look back at the comment made by her, I see an inherent contradiction in what I thought about my writing and what people think they are reading. I always believed that my ideas and philosophy are unique. I always thought, I think out of the box. But now it seems I dont!! I guess, thats the peril of having aggrandized a huge philosophy & a fixed mindset for years before deciding that u need to blurt it out, and you chose a blog to do that. Also I would say it is a limitation of a means like a blog, which creates more of a monologue, than actually an exchange of ideas. Or rather I should say that it is my blog which is more of a monologue (otherwise I have seen some other people write on their blogs & recieve hundreds of comments on every posting). In cases where comments on apost are abundant, the ideology expressed in the post, is liable to castigations, and inquisitions which eventually tell the author of the uniqueness, or the orignality of the idea and at the same time apprises him that what he/she is writing about is of concern to people. I would also like to point out here that my friend did mention that my writing style is very orignal, which i must say I accept with great pride, even on second thoughts!! Anyway, as long as the feedback flows in, whether through the comments section or through personally delivered remarks...I dont mind it!!
Another feedback that I recieved was: one of my friends really liked my one-liners. Though a lot of these one liners are not orignal, I think it was a feedback that I should be rather be proud of. In this fast moving, perpetual time-crunched lifestyle, if I express an idea or thought in just one line. What more can 'everyone in a rush' around me ask for...
All in all, I have recieved some handsome comments & feedbacks on my writing, which makes me feel proud of myself and my writing skills. For those who havent made their comments yet, mind you...good or bad...I am waiting!!
Thanks Gaddu!!
"I love DD National!!", if my sms inbox reads a message like that, I know it can be no one other than Gaddu.
Rahul Gadahire, alias Gaddu was my batch mate in MBA at IITK. This guy is the most jovial yet wierdest person I have come across in my life. And what makes me conclude this about his character is his amazing habit of smsing the most out of the blue one-liners available on the face of the earth. Just the other day, he smsed me saying "main pak raha hun". Now the first reaction that anyone would have on recieveing such an sms from someone is to call up the person and cheer him up. Gaddu being a close friend of mine, I had enough reason to respond immediately. And guess what, when I called back all he could talk was in mono-syllables, and when I ran out of conversation, which was about 2 minutes after dialling in, the conversation boiled down to the mundanity of "aur bata". After a couple of aur batas, the choice was limited, so we hung up. This is typical of Gaddu, he usually is short of conversation, but mind you, he is an amazing listener. When he was in Mumbai (he shifted to Gurgaon a couple of months ago), any time i used to be frustrated and wanted to blurt out my frustration to someone, I knew he would just be a patient listener on the other side of the phone, or sometimes a mirror reflection away from me, on a breezy evening at Marine Drive. That guy has amazing capacity to listen, his silence shouldnot be mistaken for his dumbness, he does offer open-ended solutions/analyses of the problem at hand, once he listens to it all.
My camaraderie with Gaddu began during our placement season at IITK, when he was unplaced and needed someone to cheer him up. I am not too sure if I did ever cheer him up, but I did spend quite a lot of time with him then. Thereafter he got a job in Delhi & me in Mumbai. He, so very disliked Delhi that he just left the job in a couple of months & came to Mumbai to find a job(Mumbai is also his hometown). During the year (or little more) that he was here, we had great fun (all the wierd types). From walks on marine drive, to dinner at bade miyan- colaba, to running to catch local trains on a rainy monsoon evening at lower parel station (not to forget he was the one who first introduced me to the concept of using local trains in Mumbai, i must thank him for all the adeptness that i have developed in the same now).
But i guess, Delhi always had a soft-corner for him. So he is back there once again. But his wierd sms's just keep reminding me that he is there. The surprising part is the range of these sms's. From: "what is bounded rationality?" To: "tell me the name of some german movies to watch" and sometimes a PJ : "Dont read this sms, its very dirty...a white dog fell into a mud puddle...chhheee so dirty!!" I mean his sms's have this capacity to make u think for a moment, even though you may eventually ignore them in the long run.
Another aspect of this guy's personality is that he manages express his concern in a very wierd form. I still remember when Sandy had got engaged, he called me up very concerned saying, "tujhe pata hai sandy kisse shaadi kar rahi hai? u know whom sandy is marrying?". I replied unperturbed, "ya, she told me, he works in wipro..." and i went on with all that sandy had told me about her would-be's profile. He just cut me short and said "do u know what his name is?". Then i was perturbed, I thought, probably she is marrying some big-shot, who has a big claim-to-fame, but i perhaps missed out on that detail. So i inquired. He replied "His name is Pulasta!"...my reaction was "who is he?". To which he said "Sandy's would-be husband". I was irritated. But before I could express it, he replied, "I asked Sandy what this name means, and she said it was Ravana's grandfather's name" He went on"pata nahi yaar wo kisse shaadi kar rahi hai...mujhe to chinta ho rahi hai...I am worried!!" My first reaction was a chuckle, not at the description of Pulasta's name, but the anxiety it had induced in Gaddu. Of course my next reaction had to be some words of solace for Gaddu, " Dont worry yaar, she will be just fine!!"...He said dejectedly " I hope so...". She sure is fine even after 4 months of marraige, as per the update from her side, yesterday. So I know I didnt console Gaddu in vain.
Of course Gaddu never went to Sandy's wedding to validate if she really was going to be fine. He claims that by policy he doesnt go to any of his girl friend's wedding(meaning his female friends' weddings). He tells me that he maynot even turn up for my wedding, unless its exceptionally convenient for him. I have told him that I have already granted him forgiveness for not making it to my wedding, so there is not compulsion to be there. I appreciate people's policy & philosophy, as long as they are candid about it. And thats why Gaddu & my friendship has worked a long time. We are just too candid...we never shun from saying "yaar tu mujhe paka raha hai/rahi hai."
As I write all this, i am reminded of another incident in the recent times in which a very excited Gaddu called me up. His words were " Hello shubham, do u know what is serendipity?" I was quite taken aback, i mean anyone who knows me well enough would know that I bear a reasonably good vocabulary of the English lanaguage, then why test me!! then I thought maybe since he doesnt have a dictionary with him, thats why he is asking me this...anyway just as I began to explain he blurted " guess what, I was just strolling down my street in Dwarka singing some songs, and I passed by this couple. Just when we crossed each other, the couple turned around and yelled 'Gaddu'"...ofcourse i had to ask " who were they?"...he said very casually " they were Neha & Amit"( Neha & Amit were also our batchmates at IITK).....ohhhh...i thought to myself...now i knew what serendipity means...cool...see Gaddu is such an amazing tutor too!!
Gaddu was close to quite a few people in IITK, another of whom was Gaddi - that was the epithet given to her because of Gaddu & her closeness on campus, which used to raise the brows of our batchmates. I must say Gaddu took Gaddi's epithet in the most sporting spirit, though Gaddi did complain once in a while. Everyone on campus knew, that there was nothing romantic between Gaddu & Gaddi, but just that the jingle of Gaddu & Gaddi ( together) sounded so melodious, that they were targets of some bantering. That was the cute part of Gaddu's personality.
All said & done, this guy is adorable for his sheer love for DD National, his love for movies of all genres & languages, his tendency to get pako-ed, his capacity to crack poor jokes, his concern, his tutoring, his contraversial association with Gaddi and most importantly his capacity to listen. Thanks Gaddu, for always being ready to lend me your ears!!
Rahul Gadahire, alias Gaddu was my batch mate in MBA at IITK. This guy is the most jovial yet wierdest person I have come across in my life. And what makes me conclude this about his character is his amazing habit of smsing the most out of the blue one-liners available on the face of the earth. Just the other day, he smsed me saying "main pak raha hun". Now the first reaction that anyone would have on recieveing such an sms from someone is to call up the person and cheer him up. Gaddu being a close friend of mine, I had enough reason to respond immediately. And guess what, when I called back all he could talk was in mono-syllables, and when I ran out of conversation, which was about 2 minutes after dialling in, the conversation boiled down to the mundanity of "aur bata". After a couple of aur batas, the choice was limited, so we hung up. This is typical of Gaddu, he usually is short of conversation, but mind you, he is an amazing listener. When he was in Mumbai (he shifted to Gurgaon a couple of months ago), any time i used to be frustrated and wanted to blurt out my frustration to someone, I knew he would just be a patient listener on the other side of the phone, or sometimes a mirror reflection away from me, on a breezy evening at Marine Drive. That guy has amazing capacity to listen, his silence shouldnot be mistaken for his dumbness, he does offer open-ended solutions/analyses of the problem at hand, once he listens to it all.
My camaraderie with Gaddu began during our placement season at IITK, when he was unplaced and needed someone to cheer him up. I am not too sure if I did ever cheer him up, but I did spend quite a lot of time with him then. Thereafter he got a job in Delhi & me in Mumbai. He, so very disliked Delhi that he just left the job in a couple of months & came to Mumbai to find a job(Mumbai is also his hometown). During the year (or little more) that he was here, we had great fun (all the wierd types). From walks on marine drive, to dinner at bade miyan- colaba, to running to catch local trains on a rainy monsoon evening at lower parel station (not to forget he was the one who first introduced me to the concept of using local trains in Mumbai, i must thank him for all the adeptness that i have developed in the same now).
But i guess, Delhi always had a soft-corner for him. So he is back there once again. But his wierd sms's just keep reminding me that he is there. The surprising part is the range of these sms's. From: "what is bounded rationality?" To: "tell me the name of some german movies to watch" and sometimes a PJ : "Dont read this sms, its very dirty...a white dog fell into a mud puddle...chhheee so dirty!!" I mean his sms's have this capacity to make u think for a moment, even though you may eventually ignore them in the long run.
Another aspect of this guy's personality is that he manages express his concern in a very wierd form. I still remember when Sandy had got engaged, he called me up very concerned saying, "tujhe pata hai sandy kisse shaadi kar rahi hai? u know whom sandy is marrying?". I replied unperturbed, "ya, she told me, he works in wipro..." and i went on with all that sandy had told me about her would-be's profile. He just cut me short and said "do u know what his name is?". Then i was perturbed, I thought, probably she is marrying some big-shot, who has a big claim-to-fame, but i perhaps missed out on that detail. So i inquired. He replied "His name is Pulasta!"...my reaction was "who is he?". To which he said "Sandy's would-be husband". I was irritated. But before I could express it, he replied, "I asked Sandy what this name means, and she said it was Ravana's grandfather's name" He went on"pata nahi yaar wo kisse shaadi kar rahi hai...mujhe to chinta ho rahi hai...I am worried!!" My first reaction was a chuckle, not at the description of Pulasta's name, but the anxiety it had induced in Gaddu. Of course my next reaction had to be some words of solace for Gaddu, " Dont worry yaar, she will be just fine!!"...He said dejectedly " I hope so...". She sure is fine even after 4 months of marraige, as per the update from her side, yesterday. So I know I didnt console Gaddu in vain.
Of course Gaddu never went to Sandy's wedding to validate if she really was going to be fine. He claims that by policy he doesnt go to any of his girl friend's wedding(meaning his female friends' weddings). He tells me that he maynot even turn up for my wedding, unless its exceptionally convenient for him. I have told him that I have already granted him forgiveness for not making it to my wedding, so there is not compulsion to be there. I appreciate people's policy & philosophy, as long as they are candid about it. And thats why Gaddu & my friendship has worked a long time. We are just too candid...we never shun from saying "yaar tu mujhe paka raha hai/rahi hai."
As I write all this, i am reminded of another incident in the recent times in which a very excited Gaddu called me up. His words were " Hello shubham, do u know what is serendipity?" I was quite taken aback, i mean anyone who knows me well enough would know that I bear a reasonably good vocabulary of the English lanaguage, then why test me!! then I thought maybe since he doesnt have a dictionary with him, thats why he is asking me this...anyway just as I began to explain he blurted " guess what, I was just strolling down my street in Dwarka singing some songs, and I passed by this couple. Just when we crossed each other, the couple turned around and yelled 'Gaddu'"...ofcourse i had to ask " who were they?"...he said very casually " they were Neha & Amit"( Neha & Amit were also our batchmates at IITK).....ohhhh...i thought to myself...now i knew what serendipity means...cool...see Gaddu is such an amazing tutor too!!
Gaddu was close to quite a few people in IITK, another of whom was Gaddi - that was the epithet given to her because of Gaddu & her closeness on campus, which used to raise the brows of our batchmates. I must say Gaddu took Gaddi's epithet in the most sporting spirit, though Gaddi did complain once in a while. Everyone on campus knew, that there was nothing romantic between Gaddu & Gaddi, but just that the jingle of Gaddu & Gaddi ( together) sounded so melodious, that they were targets of some bantering. That was the cute part of Gaddu's personality.
All said & done, this guy is adorable for his sheer love for DD National, his love for movies of all genres & languages, his tendency to get pako-ed, his capacity to crack poor jokes, his concern, his tutoring, his contraversial association with Gaddi and most importantly his capacity to listen. Thanks Gaddu, for always being ready to lend me your ears!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
