The multiple key conundrum

My wife and I had a bit of fight last night. So that resulted us exchanging cold glances when went about our errands this morning before she left for office. Now I drop her by my car to her shuttle stop every day and come back, get ready and then leave for work. Now today just when we reached our car she announced ‘Oh! I forgot my set of keys!’ Now generally we’ve two set of locks – a Godrej one and the door-inbuilt lock. I was pretty sure that I locked only the Godrej one before leaving (I usually do that when I go to drop her) and gave her the big key to unlock the door when she comes back (I was going to be late today from work as I have a call till 9:30 and she generally reaches by 7). To my horror when I came back after dropping her I realized I have locked the in-built door too!

That means I was locked out of my home with no water/food/shelter and only my wallet (as I have my DL on that) and NO mobile phone! Just in case if you are wondering why I wasn’t not carrying my cell? The answer is generally dropping her at her stop is 10-15 minutes errand I usually don’t carry my cell with me then (I know I should though).

Panicked, I went to the guard to make a call to my wife. The guard lent me his personal cell phone and I called my wife. We both panicked for some time not knowing what to do and screamed at each other. We both started thinking what should we do next, I asked her to send a peon with the key and I asked the guard for the number of key maker. The guard looked around in his register and pointed at three contacts. Two of them were switched off and finally one responded. He took another 30 minutes to come and after much drama with hammer and chisel the door opened. I ran like a madman and logged in to my laptop to check whether any important call got scheduled meanwhile or if I had missed any reminder. Thankfully everything was alright and my wife’s set of keys were lying at our table. I ended paying a hefty sum to the key-maker for this instant duplicate key. At this point the peon from my wife’s office also arrived with the key that I had given her this morning.

Now I have 3 set of keys, my wife has none and I’m seriously late for office J

Flip-side of a creative job :/

I have often came across friends/colleagues who crib about having a routine job or not having much creative space to do in their daily errands. So here's a newsflash for you - 'It's sometime difficult to have a creative job too!'. Not sure if I can call my job 'Creative' - as I am not a columnist, graphic designer, or a commercial jingle maker but writing research notes is far more creative than what I was before - a technology consultant/software engineer.

1. Monday blues - If your job profile is creative then it is up to you to drive your own projects, push the boundaries, create your work - yes! you heard it right! No one is going to log a defect and ask you work on it. You gotta come up with your own agenda.

Sometimes, this is difficult; Especially on a Monday or a bad hair day :( . Where it's difficult to get yourself started on an interesting yet abstract topic.

2. Deadlines - Don't think a creative profile won't have deadlines at work. Sometimes it even more stringent than usual.

3. Review - When you CREATE something (..and not an algorithm or program) it's quite difficult to accept peer review suggestions and change your thoughts. Also, don't assume you will escape the 'Performance appraisal' trap :) Your idea will be judged based on market acceptance- number readers/number of clicks/number of feedback received.

Phew! End of rant. Anyway my point is, a job should have the ideal mix of creativity and routine. There are plenty of chances of you working on a presentation, writing a case study or a white paper.

Aashish Gupta's Demons in My Mind: Review

It's been ages since I had read an emotionally compelling dark novel. My diminishing reading habit only allowed me an occasional Robert Galbraith or a Robert Ludlum. So, when I started reading 'Demons in My Mind' it took me a bit of time to sink my teeth into the allegorical tone.

The book starts almost like a fable. Like a lull before the storm, we are introduced to a moribund man named Dakshesh who has given up on life and whose only hope for cure are three mythical monks considered to be panacea by his fellow villagers. When he wakes up he meets Rizwan, a professional killer, Murli, a disgraced artist and Joseph, a tortured soul mystified in his own misery.

Each one of them tells his backstories and the tone shifts from magical realism to more of a suspense thriller. Rizwan blames the world for robbing his innocence and turning him into a monster. Murli feels betrayed that he spent all his artistic life glorifying women only to be repudiated by one. And then there is Joseph, his story of loss and another character named 'Alia', who acts like a metaphor of the monks' collective conscience and how all the individual stories are intertwined. Few events are gruesome in details but they serve the purpose of shaking the reader out of his comfort zone. The book drives home the point 'The problems that often cloud our minds - are the real or creation of our own mind?'.

Not that it does not have its flaws. It takes a pretty strong stomach to go through few of the torture scenes. Few of the side characters are not fleshed out to last a strong imprint.

All in all I felt emotionally drenched when I finished the final page. It might have been a nerve-wrecking ride but the final message makes the journey worth its disquiet.

PS: Author is a friend. Still I have tried to keep it unbiased.

Meta in Ramsay!

So I was watching Ramsay Bros' "Andhera", somewhat a very atypical trademark Ramsay movie; considering the fact that melodrama rules almost two-third of the movie and there is no 'Ghost' per se. In fact halfway through the movie, I was wondering if this was indeed a horror movie or not.

But most importantly, this bit of 'Meta' was very amusing for me. During a fight scene, we catch a glimpse of another movie's poster. And guess what? It's the poster of their first, full-fledged home production 'Do gaz zameen ke neeche' :)

Orkut Nostalgia!

This post is two years too late! I know nobody gave a toss about Orkut when Google decided to shut it down in 2014 apart from a few #RIP or 'Goodbye Orkut' obituaries. But for me, it was more than just shutting off a then obscure social media platform. It was almost like an end of an era or passing of a friend.

For someone who grew up in a small town, where it is very hard to find a community or forum where you can discuss the latest Hollywood movie or share all 'Chandler Bing' jokes that you can remember, 'Orkut' was manna from heaven. More than the scraps and testimonials and funky powerkut scraps I remember the joy of discussing my favorite topics endlessly on my favorite communities. Also the peak of 'Orkut' was in 2007-08 ish when I could connect with all other candidates who were going to join 'Infosys' in June 2008 and could share our apprehensions.

From 2010 onward the place started to resemble a graveyard, a deserted town which was once prosperous but now eerily silent. Even after users started to migrate to FB, I logged in regularly in the 2939 Manchester United community (Which shifted to 0853 later). But now that too has stopped. But still, in Fridays like this, I look out of the window in midst of my busy schedule and feel like logging in to that community! One last time :(

Here are my fond memories of Orkut.


1. Creating a community 'Dev - Sacrifice in Love Story' after a character in Anurag Basu's magnum opus TV serial 'Love Story'. It had 50 members in the community's peak time, including few very well behaved members from Pakistan! (Strangely no body remembers this TV serial much!).

2. Wasting precious time in 'Boys Vs Girls' silly games (add +2 to the previous comment, whoever scores 100 wins the game! Duh!). ( One day I collaborated with another member and were giving each other high-fives and then he discovered that he is a gooner and I am a Manc and then we started abusing each other :)

3. Counting the number of scraps! I somehow crawled to 1000 scraps that too with generous helps from Jay. But sadly could not complete 2K.

4. The Infosys 2008 community. So many discussions and so much fear. 'Can we bring our laptops?', 'How should we prepare?', 'How's the food?'. It all seems pointless now. But we literally lived our lives through that community one point of time. The moderator 'Chintan Patel' was in our batch and it was like meeting a celebrity. The excitement of joining our first company was so much that one of our batch-mate had changed her display name to 'Infy Girl' at that time :) and another to 'MBT Boy' :) :)

5. But above all, '2939' and '0853' times. It still makes me sad that the platform is lost. I remember when we won the CL in 2008, that night all rules were off! and we celebrated whole night like crazy. I still miss those 'Tevezzz' and 'RRRROOOOONNNEEY' posts by 100 people after every United goal. Someone was always there to provide a streaming link, to lend a shoulder to cry on after that loss to Bayern courtesy that Robben goal, after that bewilderment in 2009 CL loss to Barca or the sheer disgust in that godawful Moyes year. Orkut, you will be missed.


PS: Remembered another memory with Orkut, and that was logging in from Mysore Infosys Campus. There used to be a 'Reliance' cyber cafe in GEC1 and that was the only place from where we could 'Legally' log in to Orkut. It used to cost 100 bucks for an hour or something (Did I remember this correctly?) and spending that from my hard-earned measly trainee's salary was the biggest guilty pleasure I indulged on those days.

Addicted to NARCOS :)

The Netflix Original series is as addictive as cocaine. I have watched a lot of series recently including Marvel's Jessica Jones, Sleepy Hollow, House of Cards and rerun of TBBT and TAHM; but I cannot remember when was the last time I had so much fun as I had watching this drug cartel thriller told from the first person narrative of a DEA agent. The cliché goes "Truth is stranger than fiction" and seldom it is as evident as in this drama.

Pablo Escobar is perhaps the most notorious criminal in the history of the world; in his heyday he was worth 90 billion US dollar! That too in early 90's! He literally held Columbia to ransom when he burnt down Supreme Court buildings, assassinated presidential candidates and created havoc among the peace living citizens.

The drama moves at breakneck speed starting from his early days when he cultivated the 'Paisa (Taxi Driver/Hansom rider) Robin Hood' persona to win among the poor citizens to ultimately being a terrorist blowing up planes and kidnapping journalists. He made a fortress 'Napoles Hacienda' at the heart of the country side which would put Saddam's or Gaddafi's palaces to shame. At one point he even arm-twisted the hapless government to allow him a special prison where no police or military will come near two mile radius of the facility. The only thing that striked fear among these lot was the fear of extradition to USA. They may be kings in Columbia but in US prisons, they would rot like scurvy mongrels. So, they formed a group called  'Los Extraditables', hinting that 'A grave in Columbia is better than a cell in US' ,with a logo designed by a top PR firm :)

The narrative is extremely realistic and the added real video footages in every episode made watching feel like 'Documentary' viewing but with lot more action and adrenaline :) Every single character depicted, from his cartel partners 'Ochoa Brothers', part-rival-part-family 'Gacha' to his mistress Miss.Universe Valeria Valez is inspired from real life. The series also chronicles the cold war between different Intel agencies of US (CIA, DEA) and hazards of living in Columbia during that tumultuous time. Wagner Moura has done an extremely good job portraying the charismatic villain.

Even though you know that Escobar would eventually be killed you cannot help the adrenaline rush seeing the military and DEA lays traps for him to put one foot wrong.

A lot of the content is taken from Miss.Valez’ book ‘Loving Pablo hating Escobar’ as well.

After 'Ash vs. Evil Dead’, "Narcos" will be my favorite series from 2015.

Alfred Hitchcock and Music..

I had been revisiting all of Hitchcock's classics last couple weeks. Most of his creations still remain masterpieces till date (Rebecca, North by North West, The Lady Vanishes etc.), but I have to admit a handful of his movies are badly dated. '39 Steps', 'Spellbound', 'Shadow of a doubt' feels like a drag these days. The British style of acting (A flat tone of delivery and sometimes almost shouting) is also a big put off. It is remarkable how the actors deliver their dialogues in a nonchalant way when the situation according to the script is pretty intense.

Anyway, a common thread that I have observed in all these movies is that of a 'Particular tune' playing a major part in the storyline. In 'The man who knew too much', the tune of 'Que Sera sera' brings out the little boy out of the confinement to his mother; In 'The Lady Vanishes', a tune is actually a espionage code; In 'Shadow of a doubt', the tune 'Merry widow' is actually a clue and in '39 Steps', a tune reminds the hero about the presence of the villain in the opera.