Life is good if.......

Just a passing thought on what can make life good. Life can be good provided:

1. That you do not have to work but still get to bitch about people who work. Now what can I do if I am born Dilbert?
2. That you play cricket for India just because people in your state rout for you and will stop at nothing less than dethroning the ruling party otherwise. I wish I knew which state I belong to.
3. That you get to kiss Jackie Chan and show your buttock to lurking lens men even though the movie you acted in does not have your presence. I would prefer a Nicole Kidman or a Halle Berry, but are they willing?
4. That you win Booker Prize and marry five times with girls half your age or less by writing slander about your religion. Sorry, no luck here. My religion has smaller number of Holy Books and more of the slander, and no body cares.
5. That you get extra time on prime spice channels by letting your co-star rip apart your flimsy bra and expose the hot stuff in public. Unfortunately, I don’t have those hot stuffs due to God’s humiliating discrimination against men.
6. That you are the President of United States of America and were born a ranchman with no specific linguistic skills. I could be one if only my brother could be a Chief Justice. He chose to be yet another engineer!
7. That you are politician from Uttar Pradesh whose phones are tapped even though all you talk from your tobacco chewing mouth is shit. I am a good guy and don’t chew tobacco, so nothing doing here.
8. That you publicize yourself as visionary leader of the railways even though your rule in the jungle state proves you visually impaired, or euphemistically, alternatively gifted. What about me? I can’t afford such vision. No, can’t have that. Better luck next time.
9. That you are the canine of multi-billionaire hotel heiress with screwed dressing sense and all other senses. I am in my own dog state of mind. If only I could swap the state of mind with canine physique. I have tried pulling the tail out of my back but to no avail.
10. That you are a financial consultant writing blogs on the internet that only your wife reads and comments on, and you are too proud of that. Ohmigosh, is that I? Yes, that’s why my life is good. Yeah, it is.

That explains smile on my face. The snap was taken by a friend at work by his cell phone, and I wish to thank him through this. I also wish to thank Sutapa and Sanjeeth and, of course, my wife who spend some of their time looking in to my blogs.

Dilbert and Santa Claus

Dilbert and Santa Claus could be strange bed fellows. But they were whom my bed seemed to accommodate. I am an ardent fan of Dilbert. May be because I look similar and have similar lifestyle. I identify with him and his ways seem like been-there-done-that to me. Scott Adams is a genius. Staying oceans apart, he could create my character. My sense of humor, or rather the absence of it, my engineering education, my cubicle dwelling, and the rest which I can not mention on the website for fear of life sucking tube attached to my abdomen, are all there. Sometimes I feel that I may have run out of his comic strip and have disguised in the other corner of the world lest Scott puts me into fearsome ordeals. D for Dilbert and D for Dipesh may not be too far fetched to be considered a point in the case. But due to such long race against Scott's imagination, I might have developed amnesia and hence, do not remember much about my origins. But as they say, you tend to sense what belongs to you. I have always loved Dilbert stories and have felt my necktie rising upward to kiss the knot. I have felt the same homely attachment to my cubicle and the same regal authority over my staples, eraser, sharpener and binders. I am the king of my desk and my chair, and somehow they resemble Dilbert's. Too many similarities to brush aside my faith of being an incarnation of Dilbert himself!

Hey, I was talking of Santa Claus too. Yup, I bought one Santa cap and bought gifts for myself, my bed, my chair and my tea pot. After the role play, I invited the cap to sleep with me. That was my appreciation of the need for constant support from Santa, without whom Dilbert would not have got all his wealth. Dilbert needs Santa and his gifts, and hence, I made them sleep together.

On a serious note, my wife is the Santa for me. The most precious gift herself, she keeps giving me nice presents. So in a way Dilbert and Santa are not so strange bedfellows after all.

Time for me to sign out. When it comes to hogwash, I can go on and on. Enjoy.

Batman to Catman

The day began with cat cuddies. There is a cat that stays in the basement of my apartment. The moment the elevator's door opened at the basement, this cat meowed and jumped over to the other side of my feet. The cat was not apprehensive about humans there and was possibly in a morning playful mood. I moved out of the basement and stood in open basking under the not-so-ferocious sun. The cat with its abdomen arched and raised tail was approaching me. The raised tail was stiff like the flag masts that team leaders carry in the sport events. I was scared. Was the cat going to attack me? I was talking to my wife on my mobile phone and I began describing the cat and its activities to her. She was excited. She loves cats. Meanwhile, the cat began rubbing itself on my shoes, trousers and my laptop bag. And it kept meowing. I was not afraid then. I took the phone to my knee height so that Supriya could hear the cat calls. As expected my cutie cat back at home in India was delighted. Much before long, the cat began rolling on the ground with its brown and black thin stripes of fur brushing the concrete floor. This cat was acting a dog, and wanted to play!!! But I had my office and the transport arrived. And I had to leave the cat playing with itself.

That reminds me that on Christmas, I had put on a cat mask. Was that mask spooky? It seems that the mask left some imprints on my face and this cat could recognize that. Hmmmmmm..... a cat knows how to identify its species. Oh, my God, I am a Catman!!!

Touch Me Not

My wife got a job and she says that she is not excited. That’s what your second job could mean, particularly when your first job was flying. Supriya has been on a roller coaster career path. She wanted to do an MBA after her engineering in computer science and information technology, primarily because she never liked to get glued to computer screen writing software programs. And once she got in to her MBA, she landed up with an offer of job of air hostess with Indian Airlines. She had dreamt of flying as her career, not so much from a career or compensation perspective, but because flying seemed exciting. And her elder sister was already working with Alliance Air, which made the decision easier. After two years with Indian Airlines, the concerns of our marriage and my insistence on her doing rather a creative job, made her quit the job and go back to her business school. Another year or may be a little less of hard work and focus on developing a managerial perspective has finally fetched her a good offer. The company is one of the Big Five of Indian Software firms. I was with TCS, biggest of these Big Five for about a year and had been to their training center at Trivandrum for a two-and-a-half months training. Training was fun and so were the TCS people working at the learning center. They strive to input as much as possible and set the benchmark high. I hope the same holds for Supriya's firm too. Supriya will have to shoulder the responsibility of being the face of the firm's pursuit towards learning and development and hence, excellence. No mean task that is. But what else should one expect from her? She is a gem and gem shall She be always.

I looked into an old photo album and could get the picture in which we stood by the banks of Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad. We were not married at that time and I had traveled from Mumbai to be with her on her flight to Hyderabad. We had requested a passer by to take a snap of ours. Supriya was shying and as you can see, her lips read 'touch me not', but I had no such qualms and was fairly comfortable with my wife to be. The other snap is from our visit to lotus pond on Christmas Day. We were married by then, as looks obvious from the way we clung to each other.

The Day After

The day was tiring,
And the night was dark.
The work was pain,
And recess was stark.

The bosses were firing,
And the peers barked.
The computer conked,
And the calculator sparked.

Tea spilt over,
And the ink pen leaked.
Floppy got corrupt,
And the flash drive irked.

The clients fired,
And support staff fumed.
The shirt was sweat flushed,
And the self inside fused.

The spiny words hurt,
And hot tears hair combed,
Aspersions tweaked and veins itched,
And pitches raised and nerves numbed.

All but the day was over,
And life was still in and kicked.
Footbridge remained intact,
Though the ropes were lost but threads were picked.

Good lord that it’s another day,
Alive it is to help make amends,
Beautiful morning into good day promises to be,
And with rays of hope the time contends.

Life Futile

In the cold quietness of the winter morning,
I let the window open and mist roll in,
And chill runs through my spines,
To think of what future holds for me.

Like an illusion I have followed my dreams,
But with milestones reached, goals fade away,
Just as my steamy breathings in the air,
And make my thoughts vigorously sway.

With the wind biting my feet and spinning head,
Realization downs upon my moist eyes,
Life is but a wild goose chase,
Futile is the desperate run for the highs.

No matter how precious are the trophies won,
There is always a battle at hand,
War but continues till the soul perishes,
And it becomes a chapter unread of the bygone.

Rich and Poor

The one who bores the bags on sand on the back,
The one who bleeds to the commands of misery,
The one who tears the seeds into trees,
And the one whom upon befallen the sky,
They cry their agony out to their tombs.

The blessed one who bites the fruits of success,
The blessed one whose fame knows no bounds,
The blessed one whom about history writes home,
And the blessed one who owns the fate of others,
Smell they sweetness in the dried blood clots.

Disparities in this world between the rich and the poor,
Omnipresent they were, and are, and will be.

(The photos are the ones I took on my two trips to London of a mannequin that transformed itself in to the two avatars as you may see.)

New Year Begins with Prayers

So this is New Year. Already three days into it. I have a lot to write for the past three months that have been spectacular. All have, however, become part of history. Future promises to be better. It may not always be smooth, may not always be easy and may not always be as expected. Unpleasant surprises and harsh weather are as certain parts of journey as the journey of life itself. Hence, God's mercy is sought always and everytime. May He give us strength to withstand rocky paths that He might have chosen for us. Amen.

My darling wife picked prayers for me at the Hyderabad Church on the New Year. They are as follow:

"The Lord Himself goes before you; He will never leave you nor forsake you".

And

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding".

Pray my heart, pray. For my God always listens and does the best for us. May this year be another wonderful experience of living in His creation.