RISHTA BANANA

In an earlier post I had mentioned about writing a memoir titled: "Rishta Banana", this has 2 unique meanings. The first being the obvious one of 'Match Making' in Hindi, while the other is something that can be classified as a belief in this part of India, and has got something to do with the fruit 'Banana'...

In my numerous matrimony interviews I would notice that the prospective bride's family would visit us with a bunch of bananas. On subsequent enquiry with few elders in my family circle i learnt that: Banana being considered as a seedless fruit, when carried to a matrimony interview and presented to the bride/groom's family bears a positive impact thanks to its seedless nature.

Thus i realized Banana would be the apt name for my memoir. However, I'm giving up the idea of a memoir and want to make it a semi-fiction novel, similar to the novel '2 States' by Chetan Bhagat, inspired from real life events. I have started to record all my experiences thus far in this tricky world of 'Rishta Banana'...

The front design of the book would have 2 bananas: one representing a bride and the other representing the groom which are tied together by 3 knots.

I have no time frame to write this, I want it to look as realistic as possible but the message from this book should be like: "Quest of Simplicity is imaginary, what matters is the individual's perception".

First Pay - Cheque!!!

Life's full of experiences sweet & bitter, though we all vividly remember our first experience, it could be anything from the first gift we received to the first date we had. It always remains fresh in our minds no matter how many times they repeat... unfortunately i don't remember the first gift i received and I'm yet to go out on a first date :)

But i do remember my very first pay-cheque, it was 8 years back at the end of monsoon of 2002.

I received my first salary and the amount was RS.1600/-, the accountant of the marketing firm i worked for called me to his desk and handed an envelop and said: "Congrats! your first salary, may the digits improve as you progress in your career". I was dumbstruck, holding the envelop in my hand... my first pay-cheque, my first hard earned money and its all mine... this excitement brought a sudden rush of thoughts ranging from buying gifts for my mother to treating all my friends, and I didn't want to waste any time in realizing my thoughts, I noticed the cheque was made by State Bank of Hyderabad, Victoria Layout Branch. I was desperate in en-cashing the cheque. I ran to the parking lot, took out my bike and drove as though there was no tomorrow, i took just under 5 mins to reach Victoria Layout from my office which was then situated at Indiranagar 2nd Stage. I just barged into the bank not realizing that the transaction hours were well gone by, I found the teller and demanded him to 'en-cash my first pay-cheque, since its from your bank'. Noticing the excitement in my face, the teller instead of reprimanding me for my arrogant behavior, calmly asked me to fill up a challan, enter my account details and deposit the cheque, for which I shouted back at the teller "I don't know my account number nor do i have an account in your bank, but the cheque is from your bank so please take this and give me my money.." before I finished my talk i started getting back to my senses and realized my foolishness... I stood froze staring at the cheque.... by this time the entire bank which was witnessing my erratic behavior burst into laughter. I was apologetic for my stupidity and hastily made an exit from the bank, on my way out the teller called me back and wished me all the best for my career! was that sarcastic or genuine I could never make out since I wanted to run away from that place as quickly as possible...

I have been operating my savings bank account since my high school days and was well aware on how to get a cheque en-cashed, but still the thought of my first pay-cheque drove me crazy and i forgot everything I had known about banking.

This was the greatest stupidity i have ever done thus far in my life. Its amazing that recalling our first experiences always bring a laugh on our face even though when we experienced it we would have been frowning at ourselves or others...

Back after a Break!!

I'm back to blogging, after a break. I was busy with few things ranging from my nephew's birthday at Singapore to 'my date with Salmonella typhi'. Done with all of them now back to life as usual... few pending blogs, I have resumed the 'Book Census' and should be back with the final result in few weeks time.

As for my 'partner preference', the quest of simplicity is still on... i am planning a short memoir of my experiences in quest of simplicity!!!

The name of this memoir would be 'Rishta Banana', which in hindi would mean Match Making. However, there is always a twist in the title... i'd brief on these in my next blog titled 'Rishta Banana' :)

Partner Preferences...

As my quest for simplicity (to be read as marriage blues), continues... i can't stop but pause along the profiles of prospective brides and try to imagine how would the guy look like if he were to truly match the preferences set. As I'm still not able to visualize such a guy i leave it up to the reader of this blog to help me out. To ease out the imagination process i list some of the partner preferences i found in a matrimony site:

"Should be settled in Bangalore (Proper). Should not be very orthodox or Conservative. Should be broad minded. Should be an independent decision maker."
> Has anyone seen a Bangalore (Proper)?


"A life partner and a best friend for life... a partner in crime and rhyme :) "
> whoa.. partner in crime!!! was i looking at a bride's profile?


"I would like him to be intelligent, well educated, smart, open minded and independent, patient and extremely compassionate towards animals :) cheerful, cultured and has great faith in GOD and respects family values."
> Extremely compassionate towards animals, i thought i was thinking of a human bride :D


"I am looking out for a guy to whom i can look up to at any times to come, he should be smart, friendly, respect others and be able to take his own decisions independently. He should give that free space to me and should not dominate. we should have that comfort level while speaking to eachother. He should be Vegitarin,Non-Smoker, Non-Drinker and donot have Dating habbits."
> Ayiooo if i don't date this bride to be, how can i marry? truly amazing... i would love to see the guy who marries this bride ;)


"We are looking for a groom who is well educated and well settled and has hailed from a respectable family with broad minded thinking, decent looks, traditional and friendly nature. The guy's parents are also expected to be friendly and broad minded with basic etiquettes with regards to the respecting of the girl's parents and thier family. The information provided by the groom's family should be true in all respects."
> Looks like there would be an 'agreement paper' to be signed by the bride-groom and his family, which will thereafter be verified by an independent body :D


"Basically we are looking for a Boy who preferably in the same profession and understands the marriage relationship very well."
> I guess i need to read a book "Marriage relationship for dummies" ;)


To be continued...

The summer of 007!!!

It appears that my BP (Blogging Pressure) is on an all time high, since this is my 3rd one for the day :)

Here i write about my most special moment I have come across thus far in my life. It is an incident that happened 3 summers back (i.e. in the summer of 2007). I was asked by my company to packup my stuffs and make a splash-dash to Nantes (western France), where my H.Q is located. I was excited and tensed to undergo my first ever trip abroad.

I made it to Paris and then reached Nantes by the fastest train at that time, the TGV. The TGV took just about 2 hours to travel a distance of 405km from Paris to Nantes. I had to spend about 4 days in Nantes and on the 5th day i returned back to Paris, hoping to spend "An Evening in Paris" so that i could catch my flight back home on the 6th morning.

I put my luggage in a locker in the central railway station of Paris and then set about roaming around Paris equipped by just 1 map, my colleague had marked out for me, suggesting the places i have to visit to justify my presence in Paris. I ventured out in Paris with just 2 French words in my vocabulary "Merci" & "Bonjour".

My first halt was at the Eiffel Tower and the first view is still locked in my vision every time i close my eyes. The feeling of standing in front of the Eiffel was quite nostalgic, since 23 yrs back my father had visited the same place. I had thought of visiting the exact spot and then may be ask someone in my 2 word vocabulary french, to take a picture of me holding the snap-shot of my father posing in front of the Eiffel tower.

However, this was not to happen since i couldn't get a print of my father's snap and thus imagined the place in my mind and got myself photographed by some kind British tourists. Though after i got back to India, i figured out a way to put myself along with my father so that both of us were posing in front of the Eiffel tower with the only difference being 23 yrs of time. I ended up with a snap as given below:


The genius in me, tried to think a bit into the future and i could further improve the customization of the above snap so that it questions what is in store for 23 yrs into the future and finally i ended up with a snap as given below and its still a big question for me and only time will tell what happens then, who knows i may get to post the part-II of this post sometime in 2030:


These are indeed the priceless moments of my life and it makes me hum the Bryan Adams Song:

"Those were the best days of my life,... the summer of 007"

I am my father's son (naanu nanna appana maga) !!!

I am my father's son, (naanu nanna appana maga).....

This is what i murmured to my tuition teacher BVN (B.V. Nagaraj), when i was in class - 10. This statement made him freeze for a moment and he burst out with a big laugh and questioned everyone in the tuition batch "Who is not his father's son in this batch?, Raise your hands".... How or why did i make this statement? read more to know more...

It was the summer of 1995, i had just about finished my class-9 exams, should i say i just scraped through from class - 9 to class - 10. As was the custom those days i had to get myself admitted to some good tutor and get additional coaching for Maths & Science, the 2 most crucial subjects if one wants to become an engineer / doctor. It was decided that the best of the lot as a tutor would be B.V.N, who incidentally happened to be my headmaster at BHSS.

I got admitted to BVN's early morning batch, which was mainly dominated by students who were coached from class - 9. A classmate of mine who went to BVN from class-9 was rather surprised & a little shocked to meet me on my first day at the tuition for 10th.

It was also those days, when i had just learnt how to balance a bicycle without falling over and since the first batch started at 5.30am (for some reason, the best time for a student to study), i was anxious to ride my cycle (a Philips brand, 24" bar which was by that time 35 yrs old, bought & assembled on the day of Ayudha Puja by my father for a mere sum of Rupees 220/-).

I somehow gathered the courage to request BVN, for a change of batch timings so that i could atleast plan to catch the first bus to reach Banashankari (the locality where BVN resided). I approached BVN and requested him for a change in batch-timings and he questioned back for a reason. I was by this time nervous and had to give some convincing answer to make him accept my plea. I replied back with my dilemma of a class-9 student who has just learnt the art of balancing the bicycle.

Noticing the stupidity in my reply, BVN tried to understand who is this boy and asked a question "neenu yaara maga?" (whose son are you?)... for an already anxious guy in me, i completely misread the question & replied and said "naanu nanna appana maga sir!" (i am, my father's son sir!). Though it was a logically accurate reply, it does sound strange to announce in front of the tutor :(

This was the most funniest reply i guess BVN ever got to hear, no wonder he laughed so loudly that the entire tuition batch had been silenced and i am not sure how many in the neighborhood were woken up by his laughter at that time of the day.

I think, all of us try to give a very standard reply to certain questions and thus end up making a mockery of ourselves. Nonetheless, though i was tensed that day... my request was approved and i was shifted to a different batch.

But my stupidity also created a new identity for me that day. Ever since that incident, till my last day of tuition for class - 10, BVN would always address me as "appana maga" (father's son) ;) :)

The best part of BVN's tuition was he never taught with a blackboard, instead he would work out the problems along with us if it was Mathematics, else simply dictate the notes closing his eyes, if it was Science.

What a great personality BVN has been...

Stuck without the Net :(

Writing this post, after a week of disruption in accessing the internet from my PC at home. Exactly to this moment a week ago as i wondered should i get to blogging or not, the net pulled out and i had to do quite a bit of exercise scanning the PC to be sure there wasn't any loose ends or sockets. When it was clear to me that net wouldn't work it was about half way into the night.

I shut down the PC and retired to the bed, a sense of sadness prevailed, a thought that i have lost something close to me and i began to recall those joyful days when I'd spend hours together on the PC browsing the world over. By far it was the most saddest moments, it also said how obsessed I've become by the bug called 'internet'.

The next day morning, i broke the news at home and there was a gloomy atmosphere, people thought what did this guy do all of a sudden? Soon after i had to scurry through the various documents i had from the service provider to see if i could bring back to life, my dearest buddy the 'internet'. After a frantic search i was dejected that i couldn't find any useful information. Though the search ensured i had the opportunity to clean some of the untouched & dusted files & folders.

A complaint was booked with the service provider and thereafter we received a phone call each day from the servicing agency asking the same question, "has the internet resumed? ". The think-tank at home varied from thoughts of replacing the PC and opt for a laptop to even canceling the existing service and opt for a new one. Amidst these thoughts, i also started realizing how addicted i have become to the 'net bug' :(

Finally, today afternoon whilst i was still having a swing of thoughts in buying a laptop or changing the service of net, i got a phone call from home and was told "internet has regained consciousness & its out of coma". What a relief it was....

Now I'm back on the net, at the odd time in the night and writing this post, which happens to be my first to get published, to ensure the 'net is indeed back to life' ;)

When i look back on my lifestyle over the past 1 week i found that:

• I went to bed early and had good amount of sleep and relaxation.
• This helped me to have a better focus at work and hence handle some tough situations with much ease.
• I got to read quite a few magazines & technical articles about my work domain and thus work on a vision for 2010-11 year.
• I got to clean some the the dusted parts of my cupboard, while i searched for the not to be found service provider documents.
• I could teach my mother how to switch on the system and verify whether the net was working (this system is about 12 yrs old and has to be logged into windows from the dos prompt).

I could do a lot of things i wanted to do for a long time, all these happened with just 1 week without the internet. May be somewhere there seems to be a certain amount of over-dependency on the internet.

Hence i have decided henceforth i must observe something called "NET WEEK" on the lines of "EARTH HOUR". During this time, i will keep myself away from the internet and take a stock of how dependent or independent am I in regard to accessing the Internet...

It does help, to get 'stuck without the net' ;)

Book Census - 2010

Its that time of the decade, when the Census dept gets its act together to have a head count of all humans in our country. This happens once every decade and its quite crucial to know where our population stands and other aspects as in the male / female ratio etc. This was the field my father used to work for a decade ago, however he expired exactly at the stroke of the previous census, and hence this census brings back some fond memories of him.

In a similar stance, i have thought to make a census of the book collection i have. It would be called "Book Census - 2010". This census would help me to have an idea on the total count of books and hence the cumulative expenses incurred in accumulating those books. All these days i have had an approximate count of 300 books at an average pricing of 200 rupees per book, which would amount to a total investment of 60,000 rupees in just about 5 years time. I have been reading a lot and thus collecting a lot of books ever since i got into my present job.

I am right now in the midst of the counting of the books. I would be shortly putting up a statistics of the:

• total count,
• titles,
• author,
• publisher and
• cost.

Keep watching for this post....