Three

I look at this blog sometimes... a mere shadow of the lively acidic volatile blog that I kept in my DCE days and miss my younger, more carefree days. When there were less excels, less trackers, less presentations, but almost as many idiotic people around me. There is perhaps a moron to non moron ratio that nature maintains delicately, through Group Discussions, Interviews and Offer Letters.

In the name of the Polymer Science and Chemical Technology Course at  Delhi College of Engineering and its concomitant doofuses, Lord, let me be sarcastic again!

Or perhaps, corporate setups train free will, intellect and individual thought out of people. Anyway, I like it this way. I have been with some very smart people at times (in my SFS/ DCE/ FMS days) and sometimes you cannot really keep with their sense of humor (jokes mostly cross reference three or four different difficult to read books).

It will soon be three years of corporate slavery.

I hope my wit survives another year.

Killing Bin Laden

When you work in a big organization, things will- more often than not- go horribly wrong. If you work in a huge organization- more often than not- not only will things go horribly wrong but when they do everyone will begin hunting for that one person that took that final call before everything caught fire.

When American Navy SEALs went in to eliminate Osama, multiple things went wrong. One of their helicopters crashed. None of them landed where or how they were supposed to land (one helicopter crashed; the other one had to disembark its passengers outside the compound instead of inside). There were walls and metal gates where there weren't supposed to be any.

So your helicopter has crashed; none of you are where you were supposed to be.

You can scream and  bitch and mope and point fingers.

Or you can go ahead and kill Bin Laden.

The next time your copter crashes just think of it this way. Everything might have gone terribly wrong but there's still Bin Laden to be killed.

Tuesday morning randomness

It is amazing how sometimes words are more potent than images. 

Reading Rutherford's Mughal series right now, among other things. Mesmerized and learning a thing or two as a writer.

The magic of words

There is this game I like to play with people who have read the novel. I ask them what does a certain character in the book look like?

It is amazing how almost everyone I asked this question described Bastard as tall, possibly dark, muscular/ rugged/ huge. Hari has been described as average looking, medium height, possibly with slight paunch. I am summing up here and there- for example, some people would have only said average/ okay looking for Hari while others would have said "not too tall not too short"- and I am adding up the comments.

The amazing thing is if you read the book carefully, I have described only and only one character's (Scooby's) physique (as tall and paper thin).

That, my friends, is how words conjure a character image.

That is the magic of words. :)

The survival of the mediocrest

In politics as in the corporate world, only the mediocre thrive. 

The sharpest people will move out disgruntled by the slow pace, the convoluted arm twisting required to push something down for the greater good, the backroom politics behind every puny little decision. The worst will, of course (most likely), be weeded out. 

But from the ashes shall rise the mediocre... the ones too afraid to take a call, the guys who play safe and yes-sir their bosses, who in every project will build a backdoor exit for themselves should it backfire. In places clogged with egos, testosterone and penis envies between the high & mighty, it is the mediocre who shall rise like creeps and vines clinging on to each and every word of their power drunk bosses, following without questioning- completely devoid of original ideas.

However mediocre people are good in the sense that they will do very little harm to the cause of your organization should you have a reasonably intelligent leadership (which you might not). The fact that they will do very little good is a sidenote of course.

And your company or your country is in serious peril if you do not have an intrinsic process to weed out/ rehabilitate the worst which in most cases doesn't exist.

Waiting for the rupee to touch Rs 60 to the dollar as our government- a veritable jungle of mediocrity- fusses and fumbles!

Cash on Delivery

It took six years for my grandparents to get a landline phone. Four years for my grand dad to get a TV. 

My mother tells me there used to be one car- a Fiat- in our neighborhood. And two TVs. There used to be this fascination with the television; the 2 houses with TVs got frequent visitors. After the four years of wait, when the TV finally arrived in our home- black and white mind you- my mom and her sisters used to sit around watching programming as insipid and vapid as Krishi Darshan- which was and still is basically a ‘How To’ TV show for farmers. For half an hour, just switch on Door Darshan for a change; it really hasn’t changed much.

On an average day, I worry about maybe sixteen things in total- on average at least two at one time. The Stock Market. My investments. Home Loan EMIs. My next stint. My current stint. My career. Where my life is going. My current novel. My future novel(s). Delhi traffic. How my illnesses seem to be getting more and more vicious.

I order a watch online and it reaches me in two days flat. Cash on delivery.

I wish I did not have a smartphone. No laptop. No watch. 

I wish I could watch Krishi Darshan on TV.

I wish the damn watch took six years to reach me.

I wish I had a landline phone and a black & white TV and a scooter and a house in a small forgotten sleepy neighborhood and I wish I was twenty years ago.

When anybody can write, anybody will write

The unfortunate truth is that today anybody can get published. That, of course, includes me.

I am now in the midst of hundreds (maybe thousands) of authors- most of whom do not even know the very basics of the English language. English is subverted, perverted, converted by people who, in my opinion, should- be made to stand in one straight line against a brick wall and shot to death- not allowed to write books and call themselves authors. To bend the rules, you have to learn them first, kids!

The sad part of all this is that people today ask me "So, yours is a 100 rupee book too?" Those ruddy 100 rupee books with "Love" in their titles and a picture of a couple kissing/ hugging/ fornicating on their covers with what passes as English today underneath. Smiling pictures of "authors" on the inside jacket, orgasming at the thought of their semi-autobiographical piece of semi-pornographic trash set at large for the whole world to tolerate.

 I am not one of those people who go through life reading books or listening to music just so that they can show off in front of others. I intrinsically understand beauty. I have not read Neruda or Dostoevsky; but I have read more books in my 25 years than most people will read in their lifetimes. But still, I do not speak from a position of authority; only from a position of mind numbing frustration.

You want to write to book?

Go home, kid. Learn some grammar first.

Coverage in The Times of India

National Bestseller- If God Went to B-School

 IGWTBS now available in its sexy new cover!

Check out my latest book: The Great War of Hind (Legend of Ramm #1)

The hot new BOPWriter.com