Forced Ambition? (Kabhi kisi ko Mukammal jahan nahi milta)

If you cant avoid something you can surely delay it ….
seems i’ve been doing just that but everything has its limits and mine seems like been reached.(That might explain such a huge post).
It all started off on a bad day
You get up early morning and see your goldfish die…swear that no more of them (umm at least for a few days)
You login to you mail and there’s a mail that the project you worked on just isnt running at the client end.(Never mind that clients dont follow instructions…You just hit the run button and whoosh alls supposed to work…thats why we outsource. )

You just login to your demat account to see your great string of losses all because of one days senselessness.
And then started the real one..the real dilemma the real pain.
I am called in and told i MIGHT have to go to US for 1 or 2 weeks as there is some need in a domain i really am not much into.
All this since i was interested in an onsite project(Gosh that was 6 months back to escape well something else……..damn but well how do i escape now……what an escapist i am)
But then it wasn’t something i was prepared to risk and so i really outdid myself in finding some very perfect words to convey that i wanted all options open and by going onsite for 15 days i am not willing to risk that.
When the sr lead says many things can happen i latch on to that beautiful line
“Yeah many things can happen and so i cant commit”.
So at least from my end i did what i could so that if something does work out for me miraculously at least i am not blackmailed saying i ‘ve not been commited.
It was a beautiful ploy though from my leads…send me for 15 days and tie me up for a year
or 6 months….and if you are greedy enough its what many would die for.
But herein lies the catch….i am such an escapist , lazy slob who relegiously reiterates
“Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy” (as in this post).

When i ask why me esp since this involves less work and more knowledge transfer i am told that i should be looking towards my next goal i.e Lead
Now when i say i am more technically inclined(i dont mean it really…this depends on my mood…i just am moodily inclined to many things) i am told that unless you are a genius(which i clearly am not i admit unless i factor in Calvin’s definition of a misunderstood genius ) everyone must get into management and grow.
Heck why must i ….why am i force fed your definition of growth and then you call it an individual development.
Now herein lies my root cause of angerWhy do we have to grow to the level of our incompetence(Ok i personally dont beleive i will be an incompetent lead but than who wants the stress of being a competent one or the heartbreak of being one more of those sucking incompetent ones i’ve always maligned).
Everyone in the team though finds me either weird or that i’m being a tad too smart ….
but what they dont get is my definition of success varies from theirs.
They think on the lines that why does this uninterested girl get an opportunity that we’d kill for.
Anyways i am a hopeless sceptic….
I think going onsite in December sucks…its so cold here it’d be frozen there in a small remote town all by myself.
I will have to do manual boring stuff and deal with a set of subordinates once i am back who expect me to answer everything for months on and on just because i met the client for 2 weeks.
All this when i know nothing is CONCRETE it is all still a requirement.

My friends tell me of a job opening somewhere and i say oh well thats too far to travel in this traffic(She says you are ridiculous…first go and get the job .)My take is plain why put in effort when the reward does not interest you.
This friend of mine has a job in one of the most prestigious MNC in India and she is unhappyas she has too much free time (root cause here is she does not like the people she has the free time with) and gets bored and depressed as no work.

I just find it so nonsensical …i mean heck who cares what people are…i enjoy myself soo muchand i can do so much if i just have the time.(Read books , Browse /Write blogs if nothing else).
Anyways finally i managed to watch ‘The Devil wears Prada’ and i liked it a lot really though the line to toast for me in my mood was“To jobs that pay the rent“
I could add …allow me to have a room/ internet/ buy books and so on….

But then the fact remains one never gets what you want andmost importantly when you want it.
All this so touching written by Shahryar and sung beautifully my that great voice i love of Jagjit SinghAn all time favorite of mine and every line in this poetry is so very true.I will try to transalate it to the best my ability.
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kabhi kisi ko mukammal jahan nahin milta
kahin zameen to kahin aasmaan nahin milta
(No one ever gets an easy world…
Some dont get their share of earth and some their place in the sky)

jise bhi dekhiye vo apne aap me gum hai
zuban mili hai magar hamzuban nahin milta
(Wherever you look at one is lost in oneself….
youve got the ability to speak but keep longing for someone who understands your language/words)

bujha saka hai bhala kaun waqt ke shole
ye aisi aag hai jis men dhuaaN nahin milta
(Who has been able to quiten the revolution of times,These are fires which dont have smoke)

tere jahan men aisa nahin ki pyar na ho
jahan umeed ho is ki vahaan nahin milta.
(In your world it is not that love is nonexistent
you just never find it where you expect it from or want it from most)
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Such Truths of life….sung so melodiously

Some Appalling words....

L&T's chairman  interview in DNA now amused me no end and made me a tad upset too.Just because he is not finding enough Engineers to fulfill his plans the way he has narrated
his problems is sad.But what was worse was the way he was insisting that IT companies should not hire Mechanical and Civil Engineers .I was kind of appalled ….hey do you really think it is fair just because you need them badly and you can't afford them you deny them opportunities.
Is there nothing called free choice. After all whats the guarantee that if IT companies here dont hire them they wont move to the US or elsewhere. Also why this discrimination especially since the fact remains whatever be the industry what is taught in the colleges is hardly ever useful as it is
in whatever is the arena of work.
Also isn't it unfair that  if you had made a choice of mechanical/civil or even say arts at a young age…you are not supposed to change the stream forever and get cast in that for life.How can some one with such wide experience and visions speak such.

L&T definitely is a very admirable company for me more so than the famous IT companies but then when he complains that IT does not build India  our IT Engineers only work for US , one should remember the fact that L&T today gets opportunity to build India's infrastructure today because there is a need…a need kickstarted majorly by IT.
He needs to innovate and find a way to inspire those engineers, attract them and  not inspire others to cut off their livelihood and make it easy for himself.

Weekend - Jab we Met


Circumstances caused me to have to wake up at 8:30 morning on a Sunday(which is like a rarity in my life) to catch this movie around 10:30. ...and i walked in few mins late but in the end it was worth the effort .
I loved it quite a bit....I cant think of anything special to say about the movie honestly - except that its quite refreshingly sweet - and yeah by the end of it you wish Shahid Kareena stayed together in real life too.
Their chemistry was real cool and that i beleive was what i liked most.
Shahid Kapur also was looking quite nice apart from that business suit look which was a bit too much for his frame.
I enjoyed the self indulgence in a way of Kareena's character in the movie. And then u just hum
Yeh ishq hai...baithe bithaye jannat dikhaye....

One of my friend who watched it in US (in US they watch it somehow earlier than me always)buzzed me up to say how much it reminded of her own self eons ago...so i am told i must watch it and then we'll talk.....
and so talk we did all about 'ghar ke parde' dreams gone haywire.
Life is comically tragic in its own way as they say.

Another friend from college days came over from the US and i take her around and come home as late as i am allowed. She's been seven years in US and is visiting after 4 yrs though she hardly looks any different from 7 yrs ago.She's amazed at the way people spend out here...down there in the US indians hardly spend she tells me.In fact indians are more prettily dressed out here in cool tops than in the US she tells.
Then i'm given a quick lead of how i should move over to US too for all our very own woes but i remain indecisive as a pendulum in this matter.
Its funny how you lose touch in just a few years ...when people started walking out during the interval in the movie i am asked how much time will be the interval...30 mins..
I say yaar 15 mins only and she quips how will all these people who go out get back in so fast..hmmm.
Then though i tell i dont want it , i get that shiny bronze nail polish...we've moved over to matte colors since college ...
but friends lovingly remember you just as you were.
We move around in restaurants and look back on our college days when we used to count pennies for a cool drink after the tiresome mechanical labs.
Our outlooks vary ...our perspectives vary...its our memories that remain etched.

Last week was all about how to invite stress into your life.....movies friends and then WORK
I mean work had to be finished but life gets tougher when it has to be done in a place with poor infrastructure but well i am stuck here for n reasons....and everything i touch out there fails these days...
and I'm hating it.

Just want to get well soon and then think of what to do with myself - my job that is -
cause i know i wont get to do anything really with myself.

why isn’t it ever unfair in my favour?

So its Diwali and i am posting on this blog out here…..
That pretty much implies i am not into crackers
and i have had my share of watching the sparklers from the balcony.
The last 10 days have been a strain heavily on me …..
…..so straining that my only refuge was Calvin….and
i promptly updated my signature lines to
"Reality continues to ruin my life "(and it sure does…god or whoever
has such a bad imagination)
Does Calvin rock….or what…I certainly dont remember every strip of his
or all the names and stuff but his one liners i tell ya….Thats all
thats there in this world.Bill Watterson you just are great.

I got my much awaited and debated appraisal….
and i am asked Are you happy and then leaving no chance as the
expression my face
became clear i am told "You should be happy".
Gosh how people love to control other people's emotions too …
At home parents/family tell you …you should like what they select
/give.At office its the boss.

Damn i dont even get sympathy once i get outside with my pay
cheque….cause i am told and true it is that except for a few excellent
i've got the 2nd or 3rd best possible deal at my grade. Hmm the only
line i could think of is
"In the kingdom of the blind….one eyed is the king".

Whatever it is the thing is its over and i ve reached a dead end in my
career too apart from my life which seems to be perenially stuck
there.

Added to it my healths been at its lowest since probably years
and nothing really scares the living daylights off me than bad
health.My imagination runs riot …and i just congratulate myself once
more that despite being a topper in biology at school i never wanted
to become a doctor cause blood and gore and my imagination(developed
by unintentionally watching those UGC programmes on brain surgery
/skull drilling …i puke almost whenever i remember that).I would have
imagined all the diseases i studied on myself.
One of the best decisions of my life….not taking up biology beyond school.

So sitting tired and staring at some horrible work at desk I casually
remembered Bill gates and Calvin together and some farmers exploited
by middlemen.
This is the crux story of outsourcing which i figured out by some
chance glances at figures on some computers at work.
In the US the company saves $4000 by outsourcing a $8000 work to
india. Super saving $4000.
The company here thus bills 1 Engineer around $4000 to this us client
and pays the engineer $ 1000.
Assuming a $500 administrative expense per engineer our dear
entrepreuner makes a cool $2500 profit.and they say farmers are
exploited by middlemen.What about poor us….But we lack the courage to
bet on and be an entrepreuner …hmmm.

Gates said: Life is not fair get used to it.
Calvin:"I know ….but why isn't it ever unfair in my favour?"