First Mock CAT-Sunday 17/08/08

I had a strange feeling as I was getting ready for my first mock CAT ever today. Feelings as strong like I were a young warrior getting ready for my first battle. Although it may sound farfetched considering that I will have to face these battles, every Sunday from now on.

My love or passion or obsession, whatever you may choose to call it began about 6 years ago, when I was preparing for IIT JEE. My thoughts then were influenced by the people I had around me. I used to see geeks everyday in my class, thinking that all these guys can think about is Math, Physics and Chemistry. I thought if there were an exam which would test the general attitude towards life, attitude towards taking challenges, extra curricular knowledge, I could beat them hands down. It is a very normal human attitude( or so I think) that everyone thinks highly of him/herself. So, all these thoughts used to race through my mind whenever I got lesser marks in my exams, ridiculed for not being so intelligent as other people.

Then I came to know about CAT. Although the written exam is still the one which geeks crack, but my expectations were more from the interview in which the person and not his knowledge is tested. This may seem fairly utopian now, but then that was my thinking.

Now, 6 years later as I was getting ready for my first CAT, I began to think, what was I thinking then? I am not even capable of becoming a manager. Whatever experiences I have had since then have forced me to have second thoughts about my ultimate dream. I am no different from any engineering graduate. I have done nothing spectacular in either my acads nor my extra curriculars nor my personal life that is to say neither I am a first class with distinction neither I am very good at quizzing or gaming neither I have a girlfriend (of all the three, the latter hurts me the most!!).

I sometimes wonder, what right do I have even to dream about getting into an IIM? Shouldn’t I be happy with my current job, getting decent salary for my age, slow and steady progress in the company? Live forever in this god-forsaken city Kolkata (don’t even get me started about it) unless some opportunity knocks elsewhere.

It is then that my ego comes and tells me, no Sudhakar, you are good, you are different from the crowd, you are special. But am I really that only time can answer. As of now, I am getting ready for my next battle; the next mock CAT that is.

?

Internet is tricky.

If i write something personal here, it shows up on peoples search results. Had read an article where companies google all sorts of shit about you when you are about to be hired. Does this blog show up when you search me?

I should check the privacy settings.

Stuff ruminating in my brain needs to be let out. But where?


Working in the place where I work is getting difficult by the day. Im not getting along with either my boss or my coworkers. everyday there is a part of me that cries out for change which doesnt come. Not that i have not tried getting it. but even trying seems to be too much of an effort now.

Every once in a while i think about preparing my resume and posting it on job sites. and then i dont do it.

May be im too lazy. may be i dont want to quit here. cant really put a finger on the root cause.

But i have to try. i cannot see myself working here for the next year.

But where will i go. what will i do there. will the job accomodate my idiosyncracies, my off-days. I guess i cant really know unless i make the change.

My low self esteem isnt adding much to the equation.  But is it low? or is it an accurate judgment of my abilities.

Im not much of a charmer, but then i dont have much technical knowledge about my field of work.

Where do i fit in this world?

Im 30 going on 31. i should have had this thing figured out by now.

It has been so long since i have had a real conversation with someone.

Have started working out...well sort of....that helps bring out some minuscule amount of positivity.

I hate this feeling of inadequacy in anything i do.

Life is not fiction. because in fiction, things have to make sense. Dont remember who said it though Was it GRRM?

 

Whiling Away...

All this time, i have been whiling away my life....

reminds me of that sms forward i had received some time back....about a carpenter who was a few days away from his retirement....

what have i been doing all this time??

Watching YouTube mostly...and the videos I watch fall into 3 categories (much to the dismay of my brother)

1. Saturday Night Live (SNL)- this has to be the most awesome collection of acting talent..i have liked it on my fb page as well. the sketches are just mind-blowingly good. wish there was just as much freedom of speech in a country like ours...

2. Craig Ferguson- i mean, there's a limit to which a guy can improvise on the spot, but this guy breaks it all. singularly most talented late night talk show host. obviously, since I have watched most of his videos- i have begun to observe a pattern, but nevertheless- its the spontaneity which i love.

3. Top Gear- being in an automotive company and an anglophile, can i really ignore Top Gear?? Just watch the videos to see what I mean. Jeremy Clarkson/ James May/ Richard Hammond/ The Stig- I love you guys!!


On the personal front- well, same old same old...

Bubbye!! See you soon!!

Hello Again!!

realised i haven't written anything in a long, looong time....

no dearth of topics, believe you me

tis just that i wasn't  the right amount of  'drunk' in this while...

guess all of my posts have to be sober from now on....will try and put my anger to a good use...

new post will come soon!!

or as newspaper ads say - "watch this space for more"



PS: shr- i've heeded to your warnings....likhunga jaldi hi

The Metamorphosis

"Arey Sir, aapki mom aayi hui hai na"

"haan"

"aapka to cigarette/ daaru sab kam ho gaya hoga"

"haan"

"achha hai na sir"

"haan"

I was chatting with D today when this little piece of conversation i had earlier this week, came to my mind. I was bitching as usual about missing my colony room etc. when D said

"u are an employee and u are a son, u are not u"

it felt so apt, this piece.....

all our lives, we are sons, students, employees, husbands, fathers, society chairmen and if lucky enough to survive, grandfathers.

when do we become ourselves....are we even allowed to do that?

Reminds me of 'We the people'....

P.S- Currently unable to collect all my thoughts and bring them out-  will be continued....

 

  

The Ludlum Bullshit

Something written a long looong time ago....just thought would be apt for the moment. Had to bribe a policewallah to lodge an FIR

"

Funny ain’t it….as some of us Indians who’ve grown up reading Ludlum or Tom Clancy or for that matter any B grade author who talk about spies, espionage, under cover agents, covert operatives come to terms with the stark reality that stares in our face today…..

Jason Bourne, one of the more famous Ludlum characters, is an under cover CIA agent, part of some Treadstone or Blackbriar program…..gets attacked by amnesia, is one deadly assassin and is wanted by police all over the world. Wherever he goes, people follow to kill him…which they don’t..because he’s that good.

Can u imagine our very own special undercover agent Jaikishen Burnwal (a very pathetic degrading of Jason’s name)….who has infiltrated the ranks of any of the trillions of jihadi outfits and succeeds in killing their top man. Then, he runs all over the world with fake passports, huge amounts of cash deposited in numbered SBI or UCO bank accounts which freeze if you are unsuccessful in opening them in three attempts???

The very simple reason is you can’t. Because there isn’t any Jaikishen Burnwal who is out there risking his life to save us fools. Although you might find countless Jaikishen Burnwals (JB…just to avoid typing this typically Indian looooooong name) at the traffic signal chewing gutkha or smoking a bidi…probably taking a hafta from the panwaala and thinking that he would get biryani for his wife today.

Why only Ludlum, take Hollywood movies for example..The Recruit, James Bond series, The Bourne Trilogy, The hunt for red october, or any other spy-action movie for that matter. Agreed, most of it may be the writer’s vivid imagination but there must be some fragments of truth in it? Why can’t we assume that atleast there’s an undercover agent in atleast the local municipality if not the ministry of defence.

The people who join the police or the CBI here, do not join to fight crime. They join so that they get a government flat, a fat pension package and countless other perks. There are no undercover agents. Who would want to be that when you can lead a normal life just sitting in the office gobbling up samosas and leave the office at 5 p.m.

 "

Just Lyrics

Meri raah bhi tu, mera rehbar tu

mera sarwar tu, mera akbar tu,

mera mashriq tu, mera maghrib tu....

saahib bhi mera, murshid bhi tu...

tere bina ab main jaoon kahaan?

a stanza from the song 'rangrez' of the movie 'tanu weds manu'

people might find this to be a ridiculously unknown song and i might be christened a hipster

but even 2 years after its release, i love this song. 

it also happens to have a  much more profound effect when i'm drunk. 

is it that i miss someone or that i have no one in my life is pretty much a debatable question.