Unspoken Words

Happy Diwali

2009-10-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

Wishing all of you a very Happy Diwali... May you get all the joy and success that you desire.

Meet the Salesman

2009-09-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

There is a certain salesman at an apparel store in Delhi who’s been feeling very disturbed for being labeled as a pushy, annoying and slithery pest. He has even been accused of being a habitual liar when asked the ever recurring question by his customers – “Do I look all right in this dress/shirt/trouser?” Most of his customers see him as a mindless, faceless and nameless drone who tries to sell them stuff.

I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Salesman, the anonymous store assistant who reveals the truth behind his lies on his blog named Size 30: Confessions of a Sales Assistant. Follow him on his blog as he fondly recounts his unforgettable incidents in the store, confides his deepest thoughts and laughs on his own lousy life at the store.

Read his blog, and you will never snub a pushy store assistant again. Shrewd and sensitive; Silly yet sensible… there is more to him than just a salesman. He has a little bit of me in him and I’m sure you’ll find a little bit of you in him.

http://size30.blogspot.com/

The truth about "Sucking Up"

2009-09-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

A sycophant is a servile person, acting in his or her own self-interest, attempts to win favor by flattering one or more influential persons. These actions are executed at the cost of his or her own personal pride, principles, and peer respect.

Sycophancy has its roots dug deep in the Indian culture, and even today it finds a place in several power centers of the society where bootlickers are thriving on obsequious cajolery. What’s worse is that this culture is considered largely acceptable, and often obsequiousness is glorified and disguised as loyalty or courtesy. People with power, position and prominence have always retained devoted team of courtiers to stroke their gigantic egos. Sycophants on Indian soil can be dated back as far as four hundred years to the royal courts of Akbar, regarded as the greatest mughal monarch. In his court, fawning ministers gained power and position by flattering his majesty with words of praise for his acumen in the administration of the kingdom.

Such culture is rampant on the Indian political turf, where ticket aspiring leaders play the ‘please to progress’ strategy. Garlands, bouquets and greetings have been reduced to mere tools of obsequious slavery at the highest levels of power. A recent government diktat passed in Rajasthan mandated senior-most civil servants to stand up and greet visiting MLAs and MPs. All government officials were also asked to escort visiting public representatives back to their cars amongst extending other required courtesies, even if it meant leaving their offices on a busy day. Why a MLA or an MP needs to be treated different to a common citizen at a government office? A directive as dogmatic as this in the world’s largest democracy reveals our shameful advocacy for a kowtowing culture.

Sycophancy has become an integral part of the corporate culture as well. Though your boss might claim to sniff out crawlers from a far distance, he surely loves the occasional ‘sucking up’ from a subordinate. Let’s face the facts, in most offices, the ‘Yes Boss” man is more likely to get the boss’s recommendation for a pay rise or a promotion even though his peers are far more competent and equally hardworking. In such circumstances it’s hard for employees to resist sugaring up their way to the top because if you don’t, there are ten others who will do it instead.

It’s a shame that such culture is allowed to breed in educational institutions, fostering students in to this slimy shortcut to success. A success which doesn’t come with knowledge, hard work or merit but is based on giving ample ‘lip homage’ to the educational authority. Most students realize that it’s much more fruitful to compliment their professor’s pale tie rather than pointing to his inflating waist size. The ugly truth remains that more often than not these compliments find their way to the grade cards of such ‘teacher’s pets’ so doing your professor a favor will hardly ever go unrewarded.

Who’s going to put an end to this culture? The very groups who claim to campaign for moral and ethical values in society encourage this corrupt culture within their groups. The sad fact is that no one is born with a sycophantic mindset; it is the society that directs one to this approach. The big question is: How long can you resist it?

The comeback

2009-07-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

Hey fellow citizens, immigrants and trespassers of Blogistan. I’m back once again. I was planning a grand comeback to the blog but then I changed my mind (MJ was planning a grand comeback too! God bless his soul!)

Where was I all this time? I was busy doing my summer interns with an airline consulting firm, carrying out an extensive analysis of India’s low cost aviation segment, studying consumer behavior of passengers and understanding the operational intricacies of the airline players in India…figurin what keeps these airline bums still flying when they’re broke as a joke. Much of the study was based at airports across the country… and so I also got a part time opportunity to appraise hot air stewardesses during my coffee breaks!

Two months of bliss and over indulgent eating have left me with a few extra kilos showing on my waist. I can easily be mistaken for being a part of the product testing team for McDonald’s new range of burgers.

The company management under which we (3 other colleagues from college) worked kept on impressing us, rather spoiling us, for the two months that we worked for them. We flew to some happening cities, stayed at the best places and met some of the most influential people. Despite the fact that my Sony Cybershot accidently got drowned in a Mumbai drain...we clicked enough pictures to earn decent bragging mileage on online social networks. Here in Delhi, we finally managed to compile and analyze the data into a big mean report last week.

So I’m finally back to my normal home – college daily routine (which sucks by the way) and so I’ll have more time to update this page more often. Keep coming!

City Hopping

2009-05-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

I'm off to a 20 day trip across India covering mumbai, hyderabad and bangalore. Not exactly a holiday... more of a work trip but nonetheless i'm looking forward to the travel. I'm leaving in pursuit of interesting sights, foods and company.. and if i do come accross any, i'll keep you posted. I'm off to my first destination - Mumbai

The Race

2009-05-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

Where does happiness lie? Had you asked me this question 10 -15 years ago the answer would have come before the blink of an eye… back then happiness dwelled in simple things like an afternoon spent with friends on the playstation, a family pizza outing or gazing at the most beautiful girl in the classroom. Contentment seemed to be waiting right around every corner.

With time, the meaning of happiness has turned much more complex, and its effects have become very short lived. We want things, and we want them fast, eventually when we do get those things there is no feeling of gratification and we ask ourselves – “what next?” One fulfilled need, want or wish is soon replaced by another need, want or wish, raising the bar for expectations from life. At times you don’t even care to define happiness in your own terms, and you just run after the same things others around you are running after, mistaking it for your own destination, only to find later that it wasn’t what you wanted after all. The joy of reaching the destination snips before you discover there’s road still ahead. Even if you just want to stop and enjoy the view from the road, you see that others around you are still running the race, so you keep on running along. I also walk this same road of never ending dreams and endless expectations, naively following everyone around me…. a road where happiness and satisfaction are all but a distant illusion..

Big Fat Punjabi Wedding

2009-04-15T23:07:00.001-07:00

Endless traffic jams, deafening fireworks and blaring loud music is much of a nuisance during the so called ‘wedding season’ for all dilliwallahs, unless of course you happen to be featuring on the list of invitees. I happen to visit a big fat punjabi wedding yesterday, no close friend or relative… one my ‘duur ke’ relative’s nuptial and here’s my take:

“A shimmering white Honda with a ribboned hood poses at the main entrance to the party lawn – a generous gift for the groom from the bride’s father! A tiny compensation for a lifetimes struggle – marriage. My personal observation here is that the longer the sedan, and the increasing is the likelihood of the bride having a couple of extra kilos on her frame (risk and returns principle). Not wasting time I enter the main lawns. There’s a fair amount of crowd here to give their blessings to the couple getting hitched, I’m here with a purpose too – food!

To my surprise there’s a bar counter here.. a bit like finding an oasis in the middle of a desert.. just a bit! Middle aged Indian men have a affinity to scotch similar to your car’s affinity for petrol, I personally think it’s rather boring and unadventurous… So I go for a Vodka with lime. Towards the far corner are the levis clad boys, holding beer goblet in one hand and a cigarette in another, trying to avoid coming into direct view of their mummies (Who are too busy reflecting halogen light-rays off their diamond necklace, much to the envy of other aunties)

The DJ is no good I’m afraid, playing odd bollywood and Punjabi numbers at random. Oh wait… Is that uncle dinesh dancing there? Hai Muscular, Hai Popular..Pappu can’t dance saala… Uncle Dinesh surely aint no Pappu I’d say… Unlike pappu he does know how to shake a leg .. well.. I guess we’d have to give some credit to the 5 pegs of scotch he just downed a while back.

Finishing my drink I headed straight for the buffet, the best part of the evening. A detailed menu which included the finest foods from several cuisines and a spread of a dozen desserts… a foodie delight! Barring a few exceptions, you only get married once, so that’s a good enough reason to offer the best to your guests, and food surely was the best at this wedding. While the bride and groom enjoyed all the attention being showered on them as they sat on their elevated throne, I was enjoying giving attention to the gulab jamuns on my plate.

The last time I had so much fun at a wedding was when I crashed at one after being inspired by the movie, The wedding Crashers. On the whole, despite the boring uniformity of all delhi weddings they are still fun to attend…you could think of them as ‘Eat as much as you want’ food festivals.”

On the rocks

2009-04-02T13:26:00.001-07:00

Hey there!.. I don’t know why the hell I’m writing this post…I have absolutely nothing new to tell you. No new places visited, no charming people met, no great movies seen, no interesting books read (Heck I don’t even read books!). I could talk about how I spent my last two weeks but you wouldn’t care to read (it’s been so monotonous) ummm… I could share some memories from the past..but I really can’t recall any! ..and no clever observations to tell you of.. I haven’t been alert lately.. and I’m sure you’ll kill yourself if one more person told you 25 random things about themselves.

Looks my ship’s landed on the rocks… the entire last month wasn’t great now that I look back…I’ve really been out of form (and luck) of late… but we’re optimistic that both my luck and the plunging economy will bounce back shortly!

Assignment Blues

2009-03-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

Just suffered through the 2 most frantic weeks at college, first the exams and then left half dead due to assignment submission deadlines. It wasn’t just me though; the whole class was battling it out there, trying to make some sense out of their cut+copy+paste labors. Our classroom looked a lot like Kennedy Space Center; all heads remained focused on their laptop screen as if some satellite was carefully being put in its orbit. As I looked at the tall stack of reports that lay on the table I wondered how many poor trees sacrificed their life to generate that pile-load of paper.

OK.. so I’m not too good with deadlines, but I have flair for giving novel excuses (and making sorry faces)! My professor thought otherwise though, he refused to accept my project report which I had purchased for 150 bucks a day after the deadline.

It’s at these times that I tend to get all philosophical about life. These project reports just came like hurricane katrina and blew away everyone’s imagination and creativity with studies. I could picture all 60 of us racing vigorously towards an apparent mirage (10 marks for each assignment) tightly clutching our laptops in our hands… without a sight of the finish line.

Utterly Butterly Brilliance

2009-02-25T10:57:00.000-08:00

Advertising has always been a nuisance for the public; an annoying interruption between entertainment and the irrelevant between the substance. However Amul changed this notion in the late 60s by redefining the approach towards advertising. More than 40 years into running, the utterly butterly ad campaign of Amul has now become the longest running advertising campaign in the Guinness Book of Records.

Not only have these ads made us laugh, but in some cases they have also made us pause and think. The campaign has been immensely successful because it touches on the issues which the public cares for – be it politics, entertainment, society or technology. While the loyal fans admire the utterly butterly topicals, and the speed by which they observe the social environment, the campaign has had it’s fair share of controversies.

I am posting some of my favorite topicals, the complete archive of all the topicals is available on Amul Website.

Of chaddies and pubs

2009-02-11T10:37:00.000-08:00

Underwear manufacturing companies are seeing an unanticipated upsurge in demand for undies this season, pink undies to be specific, not only because pink is the color of season but chiefly due to a exceptionally large shipment of ‘Pink Chaddies’ to a Mr Muthalik in Bangalore.

Throwing rotten tomatoes and eggs is outdated now, chaddies are the latest cult. I’m still trying to figure whether `The Pink Chaddi’ campaign has taken Gandhigiri to new heights? (or lows?). Although the campaign has gained a large number of supporters there exists a large number who feel that the campaign is a misdirection of time, effort and money. Another campaign called `Pub Bharo’ is also getting a lot of limelight recently.

While the pink knickers are busy shaming the saffron langots, it’s the pubs and the `chaddi’ manufacturers who are laughing all the way to the banks!

Ghiya Superstition

2009-02-01T10:51:00.000-08:00

I’ve always shared an empathetic feeling for guys who won’t light three cigarettes with one match fearing bad luck and girls who would blow off eye-lashes wishing for good luck. I’ve persistently tried to resist from all sorts of superstitions myself nonetheless it’s always very fascinating to learn about such notions that exist in various cultures and societies.

One such legend has given birth to a very bizarre superstition in my family; a superstition which forbids all the members of the Taneja clan from eating bottle gourd (Lauki or Ghiya).. Yes, that’s right! You would never find this innocuous looking vine fruit in my mom’s kitchen, who was warned against breech of this kindred mandate by her mother in law.

As per the legend, during the rule of Mughals, some muslim invaders were forcing people to convert to Islam or get slain. When these extremists approached our ancestors, they refused to convert, and therefore these invaders started murdering them. Fearing for their lives our ancestors ran and hid in a large bottle gourd plantation and thus managed to escape from these invaders. According to another version of this legend, our ancestors had transformed into the Ghiya itself, and when the muslim invaders started cutting these vegetables, blood oozed out from them. So it is believed that this ‘healthy-eat’ veggie saved the lives of hundreds of Tanejas.

As a gesture of gratitude for the good ol’ ghiya, Tanejas revere this vegetable – the last thing we want to do is to eat it. This means that lauki, in all it’s unappetizing forms, is always missing on my dinner table (Don’t be jealous guys!). It is one superstition I passionately believe in, and wonder sometimes how great had it been if my ancestors had also found a plantation of kaddu and karela nearby to hide.

The Service Class

2009-01-20T09:15:00.000-08:00

Things we experience in life shape our perspectives and the best part is that we don’t get to know when it happens. Every Thursday morning we would find ourselves hastily putting on our checkered waist coats and black bows in the lockers and sprinting towards The Scholar, our mock restaurant cum classroom, where Anita Ma’am (or Annie as the students called her dearly) would await us. There was a lot of work to be done once we arrived, table cloths to be laid, cutlery to be shined and the napkins folded into various elaborate patterns, but it was not the work which the students (say future waiters!) dreaded.

Early in the morning, Annie would have us all lined up like convicts, and scrutinize our grooming standards from head to toe, one at a time. Getting by with an unpolished shoe, an uncut nail or an un-ironed shirt was nearly impossible and if you were a fool enough to come with an unshaved face not even god could have saved you from her wrath. She meant business – Black socks meant Black socks (darkest shade of blue was certainly not a substitute). She would then make sure that each one of us was carrying our waiter’s kit before she assigned us our tables. In my pocket I carried a wine opener, a cigarette lighter (or matchbox), a pen and a small notepad to take the orders – these were essentially all the tools that I needed to survive as a maître d'hôtel (an elegant french term for a waiter)

In one corner of the restaurant, stood an uninviting appearing Bar counter with empty spirits and wine bottles displayed like trophies. Bushmills, Haig, Glenlivet, Talisker… whiskey names that I had never heard, seen or tasted ever in my life… Standing on the thresholds of manhood we marveled at those bottles every thursday, and just wished they were not empty!

Once the cutlery and silverware was carefully polished, it was time to set the cover. For those who don’t come from IHMs, a cover is an arrangement of cutlery and glassware on the dining table. Setting a cover is no joke.. trust me. .Fork on the left, Knife and spoon on right, Soup spoon on the outside, Dessert spoon on the inside and so forth. We surely couldn’t afford to set the cover wrong for Annie had a special fetish for twisting waiter ears.

After our much awaited break (We called them sutta breaks), it was time for table allocation. At Annie’s discretion the unluckiest waiter was allocated the principal’s table. This was an honor which no sane server aspired for; Princi used to turn up at least half an hour late, with an appetite which could put 10 hungry pigs to shame. After finishing his 4 course feast, he would send the poor guy to scout the various college kitchens for the choicest desserts. Once the class finished, we’d find ourselves sprinting back to the lockers, a feeling of triumph subsisted, for thursday was now a week away.

Now every time I see a Bushmills, Glenlivet or Talisker bottle I’m reminded of those FnB service classes, that waiter’s uniform I wore for 3 years and of course Annie Ma’am, the woman who showed us the significance of discipline in life and to look at things with a new perspective for she taught us not to observe whether a glass is half full or half empty, but instead to observe whether the glass has vodka or gin in it and whether the glass is Indian or imported.

The Big Question....

2009-01-17T12:23:00.000-08:00

As I got up from my bed this morning (11.40 am is morning, right?) a hot cup of tea and breakfast awaited me at the table, maybe this was a sign that the frantic week was finally behind me, and that a good weekend was still likely.

Nicotine intake had been exceedingly high this week (I’m starting to feel guilty), perhaps I should start thinking about quitting this habit, but I’m not habituated to thinking before lighting up one!

One of my good pals in college, who also happens to be my biggest critic, acknowledged to having read my blog. For a large part of the week I found myself finding answer to the question he raised – “Amit, why would anyone want to read about you?” Tough question!...I surely ain’t no SRK or AB! Of course this blog is not offering the path to spiritual enlightenment or the secrets of our universe neither does it give a descriptive account of my non-existent sex life, so would someone really be interested in knowing what I had for dinner last night or how I spent my weekend?

People today are audacious enough to share their private lives with the world; the confessions which they could only share with the pages of their personal diary are out on the web for the world to read. But wasn’t it fun to sneak into the pages of your best friend’s or sibling’s diary and to see their perspective of the world around us? Let’s just say I’m saving you the trouble. For me this page is about unleashing my creativity, expressing my opinion and ranting over my boring life! It’s all about life as I know it..

P.S: The non self obsessed part of me invites you to share your opinions, advice, experiences and whatever else you’d like to share

For my sis

2007-06-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

Lookin at an album in the middle of a night..
I stumbled back into time..
Im thinkin of the days when we were nine
U meant so much, confidant n a partner in crime
Oh I still miss those countless fights

U gave me strength when i was fright
Ur presence made my life bright
Ur god's gift in disguise

Pillar of support in times of need
U gave me a shoulder when i needed to weep
Sister, Ur a frend forever to keep

So much to be done in this life!!

2007-06-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

The tasks are big.. the list is long
Its a race against time.. im hardly gainin ground
There's money to be made.. fame to be found
losers lay frayed.. winners to be crowned
The road is straight.. im walkin round n round

If write my biography now.. it'll be a blank page
Im workin in hell hole.. earning minimum wage
I think i need to do something... on THIS calender date!
What the hell...i'll start tomrw.. im too tired today