E1 memories

I wanted to write a post about some of the things I don't want to forget. This post is going to be a 'dear diary' post.
I was just talking to KK the other day (who by the way is expecting a baby in March - yay!) and could not recall the area in which most of my friends in London stay. 3 years since I moved out of London and I was never good with names in the first place. I was in London in September 2010 and I did get lost inside tube stations and had to resign myself to reading the noticeboards (such a tourist-y thing to do).
Back to the topic, this post is about my stay in London. My closest friends stayed next to Tower Hill station - zone 1 - but right on the other end of the circle line from my high street Kensington flat. There was a communal garden on the first floor which was the scene of a few summer parties and some a lot of random wine drinking.
My birthday was celebrated there - number 26 - I wanted to go home and sleep and was wondering why all my banker friends who had to be in office (much) earlier than me kept hanging around for no apparent reason. I realised soon after that  there was a cake to be cut which happened only at midnight.
There was a flat in the Pump house mews which was vacated only recently by its distinguished occupants now   happily multiplying in Wimbledon. This flat was just under two minutes away from this garden. I remember one completely mad party at this house - once when the hosts were respectably drunk even before the first guest arrived. I made a fool of myself at this party (quite happily if I might add), insulted one or two people and then fell asleep only to wake up a few hours later still wanting to rejoin the party, which had moved out into another flat in the same complex.
Most of my weekends were spent here in E1 in 2005. I  honed my cooking skills here - scrambled eggs and omelettes and chicken were cooked and devoured with great tenacity here. I am just an average cook, but my friends made me feel like a chef (in substantial measure because of the fact that I was happy to cook). Because of my hostel upbringing, I used to see things between friends in a very tit-for-tat manner. Every exchange had to be equal or it would be resented. However, I saw that people were extra nice in London - not only to me, but to each other as well. I was taken care off and it felt nice. Taking care of young men  boys meant having patience for untidy and unruly behaviour, an ability to cook a lot of food and watch it being gulped down and constant leg-pulling and so on... doing all this every weekend and sometimes even during the week showed a depth of character much beyond what is encountered in some of the 24 year olds I meet today. I had lucked out. .
Summer in London meant long walks longer sit-ins at parks. The park in front of my flat in Camden, Hyde park, Green park, Greenwich, Battersea park - none were spared. There were long meandering walks - a few of which ended in the Beer garden (not so) near Sloane Sq. station which served huge pitchers of LI Tea (made in about 15 seconds flat).
I remember having dinner at the Masala Zones and experimenting with places like Andrew Edmunds. I remember listening to unending cribs about the rain and the cold and equally nonstop stories about the fun during the summer. 
I remember watching a movie called Polar Express when 3 out of 4 of us were asleep and a musical called Les Miserables (2 out of 4 here too). Movies which fared better included Sarkar (with 'angel' written on Katrina Kaif's T-shirt who appeared wearing this for a milisecond but was long enough for two of us to spot it and agree on the words) and Swades (We loved Gayatri Joshi and the songs were touching).

*I need to report a few strange dreams (with one particularly abstract dream just after watching black swan) but am going to park that for now

Closure

Both of them were present, albeit with their new families. They were acutely aware of each other. They had played this game in their heads many times before, one of them had. They could have looked into each other's eyes and exchanged a lifetime of stories. This is what they had always done. This is what had drawn them to each other. Stories. 
The beginning was long removed from the present. It was a summer and an half from half a lifetime ago.Simple kindnesses were shared. There was always a shudder when things which did not make sense ended up happening. You wanted them to happen. You made them happen. Even though it did not seem that way, it was meant to be. Closest friends could not tell the difference. Even their own heart was not let on into the secret.

There was always the real world. There were always threads. From the past and the present, from near and from far. Thread which tugged and threads which pulled. 
The real world finally caught up. It cut the lifetime back to its summer and a half frame. 
When it finally happened, nothing actually had to happen. No one walked up to reassure anyone. It was not required. The smile said it all. 
_________________________________________________________
My attempt to sound like an Indian origin author. No theme easier than this one.

Five year plans

How important is a planner to the plan? If the plan outlives the planner or if the plan and the planner are no longer in the same frame of reference, then what. I do not think I am making  any sense...

I have made plans all my life. Here is an example of a plan for things to do before I turn 35:

1. To get married
2. To travel to Peru, south of France, Morocco, Egypt, New Zealand and Kanha national park
3. To have one or more child
4. To own a house/home/flat
5. To donate 50 computers to Netarhat school
6. To be fitter than I am
7. To be connected to friends and family

There are instances of co-planning, but the conspirators are far removed from my life now.
Life will always be about planning and I have a long term co-planner moving in just over a week to live with me for the forseeable future and beyond :)
I just hope and wish that the plans are fulfilled to varying degrees of success. I hope even more for more and more planning...a plan captures the present, future and even the past within itself.

I dreamed a dream....(the same dream again!)

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high and life worth living...

(Susan Boyle sang it out and swayed so many people - me included - I had heard this song for the first time with some of my friends falling asleep on my shoulder in a theatre in London and impact was no where close to Ms. Boyle on a 14" youtube window)


Then I was young and unafraid
Dreams were made and used and wasted.....
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

I had a dream my life would be
So different from what I'm living....

Anyway, this post is about a dream but somehow thinking about dreams and i started thinking about the last few lines of this song. It is not a repetitive dream, but there is this particular theme (se1) around which I dream about everytime there is going to be some change in my life. I have mentioned this earlier (here and here). In fact, given my lucid dreaming tendencies, last night, when I was having another one of these dreams, I was not even surprised. It was more like a "here we go again" moment for me. But I thought I will write about it to make sure that I record this for future introspection etc.
Why this dream?
If my head was a personal computer, remembering something is like accessing a hard drive and then playing it after decoding the file. A dream is also about accessing the same hard drive, but using more fuzzy decoders and maybe even about accessing different parts of the hard drive. The point is that this is a closed system. There is nothing new going in, especially if you are dreaming about the past. The only inference is that such points in my life always activate this particular set of memories in my head.
Or not even that.

Stretching coincidences

I am not a superstitious person. For me, a coincidence is a random event which, out of randomness, is linked to past or present events in such a way that causes further thought or excitement.
I am also somewhat lazy and need to fill up some of this time when I am not doing anything with thoughts. I take every excitable coincidence and analyse it to the limit. It is like connecting random dots to see if a picture emerges. The catch is not in how the dots are placed. The catch is in the number of dots. If you have enough dots, you can draw whatever you want.
What happened was this - I met someone (s1) who reminded me very strongly of someone else (se1). The funny thing is this - every time I have something new happening in my life, I experience an se1 event. Usually, it is a dream or an email. This time it was an entire person. It has been quite a while since se1, so I am not sure if I remember things completely/correctly, but still, it was quite close to what I remember.
So yes, stretching it is what describes it completely.
So, envigo.blogspot.com was visiting this weekend along with wife. I got to meet wife's sis envigo's brother. Overall, it was a great weekend except for one unpleasant incident.
The things we talked about included:
1. My life
2. His job
3. His future plans
4. The recession
5. Why I like living in India?
6. The case of two/three Indias in existence today and the overall apathy of everyone involved (us included)

The last topic was depressing, a bit more than I would have imagined. I will definitely have to write more about it.

Recently acquired the complete monty python series and have to go through it. I still have not managed to get the last four episodes of house season 4.

The first copies of my Nana's book got sold - envigo.blogspot.com being the first customer.

Dark humour

An example from the economist -
"Perhaps fittingly in an economy that is in danger of sliding into depression, the only stock among the 500 in the S&P index that finished higher was Campbell’s Soup"

I have not been able to write anything over the past few weeks - general lethargy due to bad scheduling is to blame.

Inertia, innovation, evil, implosion and I-am-too-cool

This one is going to be a roll call of things in my head.
Inertia - The head count at office has stayed put for just under two months now and that is depressing. The fact is that we got a very big new client but an existing client reduced business due to internal issues so our numbers remained constant, because of which our head count did not change. Now with September almost over and the Diwali madness about to start, I am not very certain of hitting 20 people as planned earlier. Basically, if we do not hit 20, it would mean that I was wrong twice. Earlier, I had forecast a headcount of 10 by the year end. Given that we got there in June, I then re-forecast and thought we would now do a 20. To be wrong twice, by a large margin for a small business is not very impressive.
Innovation - Take a look at diffen.com - it is a wiki based website where you can find out the difference between Bourbon vs Whiskey or between a Nokia and an I-phone. If you want to, you can add your own pages or contribute to existing pages. My friend has built this website - he owns it and codes for it. He has a regular job and this is something he has gone on weekends and in the evenings. There is no advertising and the website generates more visits than some of our clients! I had noted the somewhat above average size of this boy's head when I had met him for the first time in 1997, I had known that this boy will go far.
Evil - The launch of chrome by Google is evil. Will it not be picked up by people who try new browsers? Who are these people - these are the people who use firefox today. Wasn't Google supporting firefox? Would this not hurt Firefox more than Microsoft? Does Google even care?
Implosion - Large banks in the US. The financial services sector in the US is slowly but surely imploding. Stock prices of all major banks have fallen. Quite a few banks have closed. Bear Stearns went without a whimper. Lehman seems to be the next one. Quite a few people I know work in this sector, out of the UK and US. They have seen some very good times and I guess what is happening is cyclical. I wonder how long will it be before things bounce back.
I-am-too-cool - My candidate for this year (and for the past few years as well) Farhan Akhtar. He made Dil Chahta Hai. He topped it up with Rock On. The movie looks good, feels good and sounds good. This man sings, writes, directs (not for Rock On) and produces. When he is producing, he lets the director have his way. Loads and loads will be written about him and the movie. I will only add this - Notice the way he says "Yeah" in the movie! Also, Please watch it.

Bachao Haseeno se...

So the movie was ok, but I think there could be more interesting endings.The original plot is here for those who have not seen it and don't want to.
Part 1 -
This part of the movie remains unchanged - Raj (RK) meets Mahi (ML) [song] and then moves on - Sleeps and then runs away from Radhika (BB) - Meets and then falls in love [song] with Gayatri (DP) [This point in itself was a good ending for a somewhat pointless and hence an average movie. However, Gayatri says no to Raj and this is something he can not handle. Raj wants to apologise to every one he has ever hurt with his wily ways. Given the length of the list, he decides to apologise properly to the top two he had hurt the most. He sets off to apologise to Mahi and Radhika.
Part 2 -
Mahi:
Raj finds out that Mahi has a husband. He meets Mahi who has her parents visiting her at her house. She does not recognise Raj. Raj tells everyone that he is a friend of Mahi's younger sister's fiancee. There is a wedding going on and there is singing and dancing [song]. Mahi's father recognises Raj takes him to meet Mahi. This time, Mahi is able to place Raj and remembers the incident. She calls her husband and the two of them have a laugh about it. Raj asks for forgiveness. Mahi does not understand and Raj explains his reasons. Mahi can not believe that Raj is being serious and she and her husband have another hearty good laugh.Mahi realises that Raj is quite serious so she sobers up and tells Raj that her life was not affected for more than a few hours after that day at the airport. Raj leaves. [no song]
Radhika:
Radhika is a regular Rakhi Sawant, who does item songs for a living. She is a b*tch as a boss and she fires secretary just after an event [item song]. Radhika holidays alone (!) in Italy and Raj has to go there to meet her. Radhika offers the job of her secretary (read servant) to Raj on a whim, to see if he is really serious about apologising and he does. She gives him a tough time running errands, but Raj works very hard. Radhika has a soft spot for Raj quite quickly, but continues to give him tough errands.  There is a party where Radhika flirts with a few men [song] and tries to see if Raj is getting jealous . After the party, Radhika tries to seduce Raj [song] but Raj resists. Radhika is impressed and tells Raj that they can start a new life together [rain song, Radhika trying harder!] and that she has forgiven him. Raj apologises for not feeling the same way about her and leaves for Australia. Radhika curses Raj.
Gayatri:
Raj comes back to find out that he has been fired. Raj also needs to leave the country as his work permit will expire in a month. He tries to meet Gayatri. He finds out that Gayatri was heartbroken after he left and Rahul (enter Abhishek Bachan) supported her. One thing led to another and Gayatri and Rahul are now dating. She has completed Bschool and plans to start a new video game design company with Rahul. She also wants to marry Rahul as she thinks that she wants to settle down and have a family. She tells Raj that Raj had met her when she was "very cool" but Rahul met her when she was completely miserable and yet took care of her and has brought her back to normalcy. Raj sits in a plane for Italy and remembers Radhika's curse.
Movie ends.

Bin-dra, done that!

Every one knows by now about this, but just wanted to record this moment for posterity and as a portent of things to come....

 

(Image courtesy - wikipedia)  

(There has to be a model by which one could predict medals per country - independent variables could include media density, per capita state spend on education and/or sports.
Random thought - if every one wants to work less, why dont we have 4 day weeks and 3 day weekends?)

The Bombay Plan

If you know your history, you will know that the Bombay plan referred to a plan which called for rapid industrialisation of India by using a large infusion of public funds. The plan was backed by prominent Indian industrialists including JRD Tata and was circulated around 1945. Surprisingly, it was formulated by leading businessmen and industrialists but it called for substantial state intervention in industrial development. Historians say that the first few five year plans were based largely on this plan, even though the plan did not gain any official backing or recognition.
However, my Bombay plan was very different. It involved running around bombay for two meetings, which went ok. It also meant meeting most of my IIMA friends under one roof with a few notable exceptions, and not doing anything significant other than resting and eating for two days. I think my plan was more successful than its illustrious older namesake.
Five years since I passed out and a large majority of my friends today are those I met at campus. I wonder if it this is something to be worried about or take inferences from. Does it mean that I have stopped meeting new people? Does it mean that I am boring and have not been able to make new friends? I think I am ok in making new friends.I have made new friends, but not so many of them and I do not hang out with them in the same way as I hang out with my campus friends.
At the same time, I think that I like to spend more and more time with them is because even though we might not share similar thoughts, we share similar attitudes. There have been numerous situations where a very demanding task has been confronted by an equally demanding disregard for all things important and critical. I think campus did that to us. The laid-back-ness of such gatherings,therefore, is awe-inspiring. (About ten of us could not arrange for ice cubes and we could not also decide where to go on Saturday night).
The whole of saturday turned out well as well. (With all of us every thing has to turn out in some way. Notihng is planned). A full English followed by rest (RG - I dont need to sleep, I just need to lie down for a while; MM - I have stuff to do in the house) followed by some biryani and some playstation. Always hits the spot. I think life in bombay is a bit like life in London - every one stays away from family and has plenty of time over the weekends.
Bombay, on the other hand, never ceases to amaze with its traffic, congestion (such a mild word compared to what actually happens in Bombay) and rain. Each one of us had our traffic tales for the day and week, but it was all soon forgotten. Kebabs from Carter road and single malt from Dubai soothed our jarred nerves and restored our faith in humanity. I wanted to stay on on Sunday as well, but it was my sister's birthday back in Delhi, so off I went.

What's the Catch?

It was love at first read. The first time I read it was in college. It helped me during my MBA entrance interviews as well, as it played the part of my favourite book, favourite author and also the last book I had read (it probably was). There is something about the Catch because of which I keep coming back to it. So do a lot of others it seems. It has been voted one of the best novels of all times in several surveys.
Someone once told me that one of the reasons I was not floored by "Catcher in the Rye" was probably because I did not read it at the right age. With Catch 22, I think I got it right.
What did I like about it?
The humour. Black and dry and variations of the same.
The confusing narrative, which jumped from place to place and person to person and forward and backwards in time - all in the same sentence some times.
The characters - Yossarian (the anti hero, ofcourse!), Ex-PFC Wintergreen, Milo (The capitalist) and Dunbar. in fact, all the characters were like different possible roles one acts out in real life. Many a time, I have spotted Wintergreen, Cathcart, Yossarian and Dreedle in real life.
The book is also a melting pot of so many underlying themes - the arguments of one person's welfare versus many, the sanity inside insanity, heroism and the lack of it, the absurd extremes of bureaucracy, the absurd extremes of normalcy as well, love versus lust - it never fails to excite.
Heller also made disguised references to earlier works and usually let his characters take the opposite position. For example, Yossarian is the opposite of Achilles all through the book when he always chooses his life over others. He is also the opposite of Jesus, when he choses to make a deal with the colonel.
I used to have a very worn out copy, which had survived the college hostel, numerous train  rides between Delhi and Mangalore and long rainy evenings in London. I got another copy as a birthday gift a few years ago. Getting something you really like is nice. Always.
The next book which comes anywhere close is "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. But that is another post.
(Also, blogger sucks!)

Life and times at L 326

I work at Envigo and love it, though I will be accused of being biased. There are about 12 more people here - the number keeps changing (increasing) though this month is the first month this number has not changed till now. They may not share my opinion, but chances are, that they will.
There are a few simple things which make Envigo a good office -
 - work timings are not emphasized, work is
 - there are clear and mutually agreed upon appraisal documents
 - client work is rotated amongst the team and across functions
 - there is ownership of performance - both good and bad
 - analysis is emphasized upon, reporting is only an enabler
 - the food is good and there is beer once a month
There will be some profit sharing, once there are some profits to be shared.
More than an advertisement for a job, this post is a snapshot of the way things are here, in what will be referred  later (if there is one) as the "early days."
What are the things which need to change -
 - Documentation of a few processes needs to be improved
 - Mind numbing carelessness by the promoter has to be tamed
 - A good agency person needs to be hired - we can learn a lot from such a person
 - We need to move into better premises

Field Marshals and something else...

Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw passed away a few days ago. I read about it in the TOI (see below) and also was pleased to note that the economist wrote an endearing eulogy for him. I had read a bit about his temperament and was not too surprised to read about his retorts to Madam Gandhi (about whom I have a lot to say, but will not, given the recent case of Gandhi versus Vaid, I will keep my opinions to myself)

It also gave me the opportunity to read a bit more about him and about the only other Field Marshall the Indian army has had - Field Marshall Cariappa - who was at the helm of the armed forces during 1947. Reading about him, I felt that he was quite important in the mindset with which the Indian army was born with (in 1947) and developed it. The army prides itself (again very little data) for its secular credentials and a little part of it flows down directly from Cariappa.

Cariappa, after retiring from the Army, was made the Indian high commissioner to Australia. He was not very keen about this, but Nehruji insisted. As a result, he found his way into Canberra's high society. I do not think anyone could really handle him - a war veteran who had fought for the British and had been instrumental in stalling the Japanese (Which in turn helped keep Australia safe), highly learned and well versed in poetry and philosophy, while at the same time, with a tendency to speak his mind (a somewhat unnecessary skill for a diplomat). He travelled all over Australia and soon knew a lot more about Australia than many native(?) Australians. Australia had a white only immigration policy at that time (which is quite a laugh now, given that the Aussie government now is prepared to spend Australian tax payer dollars into attracting indians into settling there - highly skilled ofcourse). What angered him as a soldier was that with a white only policy, Italians and Germans (countries which Australia fought against in WWII) were welcome to settle in Australia, while Indians, who had fought on the same side as the Australians were not.
I am not sure why I am talking about him - have meandered from Maneckshaw but reading about this time and some stories about Maneckshaw and Cariappa were fascinating.
I dream of a day when the demand for Indian work permits outstrips its supply.
Or you could just walk in into the country via Bangladesh!
Topic change.
Dramatic topic change.
I noted some very interesting things on Google analytics.
It made me happy.
Because of that, I need to bring this up as well - I might have talked about this earlier on this blog - that for me, a large part of companionship is about having a witness to my life and for me to bear witness to someone else's.

Dreamsailing - contd.

As I had referred to before , lucid dreaming could be quite fun. The one from this morning I will narrate - There was something I really wanted a few years ago but could not get it at all. I think I came close but then things went very wrong and have not really been set right since.

So, I get this dream last night with characters related to the theme above. About five minutes into the dream, I realise whats going on . Instead of being greedy and quickly tweaking things to the way I would like it to be, I went on to have a conversation. I really wanted to understand what was going on the heads of the others involved, and this was just about the easiest way of doing so. It was good while it lasted but I had to get up as my friends (visiting from India) were ringing the door bell to let them in - they just got back from Amsterdam (a 12 hour bus ride).
I went back to sleep immediately after that but the dream did not come back.
I was analysing the conversation and realised that the other characters in the dream were saying things which I would have wanted them to say. In fact, it is not so cut and dried. They said things which made sense to me. Actually, they said things which did not make sense to me. But, knowing them, in a way it did. In yet another set of words, if I were to imagine myself in their place, I would have probably said the same thing.
This means that a lucid dream is the psychological equivalent of a closed system (as it should be).
I could NOT have come up with something from outside. The source of information, no matter how fantastic they seem, are coming from somewhere inside my brain itself.
Ho hum.
Good while it lasted.

St. Ives.

I do not think that I like any other part of England more than Cornwall, and even within Cornwall, the two villages of St. Ives and Carbis bay are my favourites by far. I can not really put my finger on what it is about these two places - they abound in the charm offered by small English towns and villages - picture perfect houses, winding lanes, lush greenery and maybe not very common even with the rural landscape, a blue-green body of transparent water which stretches as far as the eye can see.

I had a lot of fun here on my first trip, it was tantalisingly close to being perfect. The cool thing was that this time when I went back there, every thing about the trip changed - the people I came with, the things we did, the places we went to, and even the weather. Even so, I think I did not mind too much. I still thought about the first time around, but I had much-o fun nonetheless.

What is there to do in Cornwall? If travelling from London, the killer way to save money is to travel in groups of four and then buy tickets at Paddington. This way, you can get a super saver ticket, which is basically a 50% discount, enabling you to travel 6 hours each way by train for £35. Probably the best way to spend time in Cornwall is to divide time between spending time at the beach and travelling to other beaches and spending time there. I am not joking, but the way to do it is to spend like a day or something on one of the many beaches in and around St. Ives - Carbis bay being one of the best for just lying around. The second day can be used to travel to the many other beaches in the areas - Sennen's cove, Land's end, Porthocurno and also to see Minack Theatre. A special note about Minack's theatre - it is an open air theatre, with the Atlantic as the background in most of the sets - mindblowing. Such beach-hopping can end at Penzance, from where the train can get you back to London.

Another not to be missed spot is the Porthminister Cafe - memories of a curried lamb and some excellent starters still warm the heart and comfort the soul. It is one of the better places to dine at, in St. Ives. It has views of the ocean and is a nice place to be for sunset. Do book in advance.


My next post will be about job hunting in London.