Turning ONE!

March 16,2011 - A day in my life which would end up meaning so much more to me than just  a new chapter in the book of my life..

For a change... I am not ranting here... This is just a feeling you get from thinking back, a fortnight before a very important day in your life...

I was a novice when I started working in my first company in 2011. Straight out of college and having no intentions of persuing  Economics further on, I was pretty lost on the path I was taking.

The harsh realities and drama of life aside, I really didn't know what to do next. I had no idea how to start looking out for a job. Should I also start encircling vacant job positions columns in newspapers or do I keep on checking out Naukri, Monster and Shine - hoping to land up a decent job (whatever that meant!).

I was just a graduate. Not even a topper or anyone that great or SHINING! I tried my hands here, there, everywhere. I knew I did not want to be a banker. Nor did I want to be a teacher. I did not want to study economics. I definitely had no desire to try my hands at Hotel Management. So what was it actually that I could do???? The one MBA entrance exam I cracked turned out to be the only one I was actually interested in cracking. As luck would have it, I did not clear the interview but the experience I had there was unforgettable. I made new friends. Got to know people from different backgrounds.. different cultures... They were all just.. so.. different!!!

I moved on.. finally landing up in a Marketing communications company. I was doing officially what I was anyways doing at home after my college - Facebooking!! My parents, not fully understanding what their daughter actually WORKED, used to tell relatives and friends that she gets paid to check out Facebook from office! :P

I have always enjoyed playing with words and this gave me ample opportunity to EXPLORE!! It was a good six months there and I pretty well enjoyed it.. But I always craved for something MORE!!

Again life intervened... inspite of all the on-going drama it keeps on shoving, this time it managed to hit me.. HARD!!

I still moved on... But now what... I either could sit and mope around or again give entrance exams for MBA or else I could start looking out for another job. But what now? My colleagues from my previous organization had moved to similar roles in bigger companies. I wasn't sure I really wanted that. As confessed above, I wanted MORE. I wanted to learn more.. I wanted to explore more.. I wanted to open my eyes and myself to things I did not know existed, beyond the realm of what I was doing inspite of knowing fully well there was a whole world left to be explored in my area of 6-month expertise.

It is true.. opportunities come when you least expect them. A friend of mine suggested this big media agency to me. Hah! I laughed on his face, wondering why would such an agency take me - an almost-fresher. I still went ahead and gave the interview.

Honestly, I was not that impressed with myself. I wanted to have researched more.. dug out more.. But when the D-Day came, it just came and went past.

Again I told this friend of mine of my uncertainty of cracking this particular interview. In the meanwhile some other, very well-performing social media agency offered me a job.. I hesitated... I had a feeling there was something else that was waiting in the wings.. What.. How... Where... When? I had no idea!!

But soon something wonderful happened! I actually got through my 2nd home as I call it - GroupM!! And I must say, I felt verrry verrrry excited and hopeful than I had felt in a loong loong time. Yes.. that was it! It gave me something to dream about.. something to put my heart and soul into..

I know I owe a lot to my seniors and colleagues of my previous company .. all of them so different from each other.... yet soo similar in a lot of things... Each and everyone carried sucha warmth. I still sorely miss the morning samosas and chaii... but then again the last one year in GroupM has taught me soo much... with sooo sooo much more to learn. Again, what.. how.. where.. when.. I have no idea...

Sometimes I get a feeeling, I now know this and I now know that. The very next day I realize, my slate might still be almost blank... with a plethora of things yet to be learnt...

But yes.. I am gonna turn One very soon.. And I shall blow candles celebrating my 1st birthday.. with GroupM!!! :)

The talks...

Not having anything to talk about either means you have shared all your "talks" with someone else or you have reached a stage where "talks" just don't matter anymore... Which one is it I wonder...

Ramblings of a brand-victim!

Ok. So I am the latest victim of a big brand and its pathetic after-sales service. I have had two very bad experiences with two very well known brands. Sounds familiar?! Huh, read on.

Story 1

You see, I consider myself an intelligent buyer and hence feel all the more cheated! I DO NOT buy anything without thoroughly researching it! Especially if that something would cost me a bomb! So when, I got myself a defected piece of beauty worth 18k, it really broke my heart. More so because I had spent months researching about just the perfect NEXT PHONE for me, once which would suit all my needs (or most anyways) and wouldn't make a whole in my pocket (it did!).

I have been a devout user of Nokia all my life. More so, because I just started working 2 years back and the phones I had earlier were either passed on by my sister or bought by parents - typical kahani in lotsa Indian households, or was some years back atleast! So whenever I got an opportunity to buy a phone, I got myself a Nokia, knowing it would last me. I am someone who'll keep the phone on her lap while driving and drop it when I disembarked from the car. I am someone who knows the moment I'm away from my phone it would ring, even though it can stay sleeping almost all the rest of the time. So I rather keep my phone on me all times than be told later on I didn't pick someone else's call :P So Nokia fit the bill - mobile internet wasn't that much in demand back then and the college kids like me needed a phone to just "Stay Connected".

The experience was fine. As is with most Nokia phones. You know it won't just conk off like that. You can keep on dropping it n number of times and NOTHING would happen to it (trust me, this comes from experience). So even though I could not experience then all the cool things that you can at a cost of 5k today, I was pretty content with what I had.

Then came the "Working Girl" phase. I was independent - financially! I don't know how many people truly connect with this term, but I am someone who's been born and brought up with the sense that one should be financially independent if nothing else! You shouldn't be dependent on ANYONE. And so even though what I was earning was meagre, it felt as if I was earning a million bucks!

One job led to another and a lil growth, monetarily as well! Now, it was time to end the life-long relationship I had shared with Nokia. With hesitation, I took the BIG STEP. I researched and researched, not even going into "Can I buy an iPhone" phase bcoz well... An iphone is an iphone! I kept dangling between the obvious choices of Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson.

I talked to friends, I went to shop after shop, I read articles, checked out reviews, post-mortemed THE PHONE from every angle and FINALLY decided to go for the kill! OOOOHHHHH  - What a thrill!! My phone has till now been one among my top 3 BIG PURCHASES (Yes, I consider 18k to be BIG!).

My romance with Android began and the honeymoon was simply mind-boggling! Sadly, it lasted 10 days! Now not having been married in real-life ever, I do not know if the actual romantic honeymoon also lasts this long only, to give way to a sour after-marriage experience!

Okay okay. FOCUS!

So, off goes my phone one day. BLANK. Empty! I tried every trick in the book to revive it. Nothing happened!! My heart goes thuduk thuduk.

So off I go again to Google baba, find out the the nearest suthorized Samsung service ceentre and put it in my To Do list.

But wait a minute! There's another villian in the story I haven't introduced as yet!

The Mobile Store!!! The name sounds familiar,eh? The Red signboard with those ddumb creatures sitting inside. I knew I was making a mistake sumhow, trusting an authorized The Mobile Store retail shop over some unknown private mobile shop. So what happens? They guarantee me this and that and all that jazz. Promising to be at my service any time, so if ever there's a need to get ANYTHING repaired/serviced in my phone, I DO NOT have to go personally to a samsung service centre. That did it! That just closed the deal. After all, I am a busy working woman now, with no time to spare for family or friends (grrrr...). Howsoever would I find time to go to a service centre.

Coming back to me story and the essential importance of a useless Mobile store is that as soon as my phone concked off, I remembered this ass of a man who had told him to pass the phone 2 them to get repaired. Once I reached that very man at that very SUPER USELESS The Mobile Store, The man refused - point blank! To add insult to the injury, they told me if I dropped my hone in wwater, they still might be able to TRY but this was something they can't help me with. WHAT THE FISH!!

Seriously guys, please shut down your joke of a mobile store and go inside  one of the phones as an app killer!!! Bluhdy idiots.

Anyways I go to the nearest samsung service centre and voila! They are equally USELESS!!!

After requesting them profusely, talking to thee brand manager, area manager, even district manager, all theey tell me is "Ma'am we only replace the phone within 1st 4-5 days, uske baad we can only repair it"

Is this a circus that's going on? Anything lasts the first 4-5 days. Reality seeps in only later on!

I still agree, after being assured of a complete "alright" phone in the manager's words.

Again the relieef lasted only 2 DAYS. Yess... that's the maximum time I could seamlessly enjoy my phone. Since then, either it shuts down suddenly, or it deletes my song from the playlist, or shows some stupid black  where my camera pictures should be or just doesn't GO BACK!!!

I must say I LOVE MY PHONE but I AM SUPER SICK OF SAMSUNG!!

Such a bad product and such pathetic after-sales service - from both Samsung and mobile store - they should take a reality check and understand - they are losing out on some key customers. I would definitely not let my friends and family buy a Samsung even though it has Androidified the world!

Enough of this BIIIG Brand. Another love affair with another equally useless - but online- brand would soon follow!!!

The angst of Self!

2 months and not a post. 2011 gave way to 2012 yet I maintained a stoic silence. Was it for want of words? Or lack of stories to write home about?

Not really. So many times I picked up my laptop and starting writing away mindlessly.. pouring my heart into words.. Either what I wrote could'nt be put in a blog or it was something I  left mid-way, not sure myself how to carry on.

I do not have anything to write today. Or may be there is soo much I need to express that my feelings struggle for priority. Yet I fail to understand what is it really that I want to write. Have I lost the power to express my angst? In trying to put my feelings under a cold grasp, have I lost the ability to express even the most innate feelings.

Again my answer comes to a naught!

What's wrong with them anyway?!

DISGUSTING. REPULSIVE. SORDID. REVOLTING.

No, I'm not trying to improve my vocabulary here! That can happen even without practicing on these upsetting terms. However, there are some times in your life when you are forced to pull all your strength and deep dive into your vocabulary to try and find terms which, even if not precisely, somewhat pay justice to your feelings and bring out things from the abyss of your heart.

23 years and counting. Yes, that's the amount of time and life I have spent amidst men - excuse moi - creatures who are popularly called men. Every day brings yet another facet of these creatures to the fore and every day is yet another blow to your faith in justice. Justice to humanity. Justice to mankind.

Don't worry. I am not a man-hater. Nor am I here ranting relentlessly just for the fun of it. Trust me, at the end of a tiring day, the last thing you want to do is act like a cry-baby. However, this couldn't wait. Not any longer.

Last night was yet another night when I could let loose my words (read : swear-words). Already having been worried into a late-night working sister who doesn't pick up your calls or sms'es back saying she'll be even later than 11pm working late into the night in back to back meetings, the last thing you want is to hear that her car got rammed! BLUHDY HELL!!! You cannot help but be thankful to someone, somewhere that she's reached home - safe, unhurt.

However, later when you hear the details, about how a rowdy and impatient cab driver, driving like Schumacher from the wrong way on a one-way street rams the car, backs the car and runs off like a rat into his hole, you can feel your blood pulsating and feel like killing that son of a gun (mind my language).

How this previous para fits into the essential theme of this particular blog post isn't quite as illogical as one might be thinking actually. One might argue that a woman might have been doing exactly the same thing and I wouldn't have uttered a word just because of the gender in question. However, the fact that every second man on the street drives like he owns the road is something which irks me to no end.

Despite this apparent I'll-drive-like-mad-i-own-the-road phenomenon, there is yet another thing which is limited to Indian men. Yes, the very own male species of our patriarchal society. Actually, somehow, when they were young or in their early childhood, they must have been told by their parents/family/society that it is their right to urinate - in front of the whole world. After all, privacy can go to hell. I'm sure they must wonder every day which idiot thought of coming up with a decent, civilized toilet. The road is their relieving zone my friend.

Why can't these seemingly normal humans understand that their bladder works pretty similar to that of a woman. When women can control and hold it in, why can't they. Even if the bladder completely revolts and forces them to go find a place to pee, would it bee too much of an effort to find a secluded place, away from the hustle and bustle and close vision of the world.

If there's anything worse than a man peeing on the road-side is a man who pees there and is proud of it. These men have a degree in Masters of Disgust. They pee on the road, constantly scratch their balls, dig a hole into their noses and burp/fart in public as if people are waiting for another round of disgust from them.

Why are we like this? One can't even say these qualities are limited to the uneducated, illiterate people. They still might be excused, for no one taught them basic hygiene and how to act/behave when in public. But what about those driving-in-civic-still-spitting-paan-out-of-the-car people? What about the expensive-suit-and-boots-flaunting people who burp loudly before entering into a meeting with their corporate honcho.

Why are we like this? Would it be too much of an effort to TRY and being CIVILIZED and DECENT.

An early morning sms from my sister brought me a hearty laugh and at the same time a sense of irony of how we have got used to, what else but disgusting behavior from our NCR men. This is how it read :

" A group of men peeing the side of the national highway, chests thrust out like a peacock in heat, looking around proudly to see who's noticing. Who dare beat the NCR man in disgust factor?"

No one, I'd said. They win hands down!!! Sad, but true.

A sorry is just another word!!

When a sorry cannot undo the damage already done..
When apologies don't mend a bleeding heart..
When the bullet's already outta the gun..
When all you do is mourn and shun..
The very being which caused the greatest hurt..
The winds have blown over..
The trees don't dance no more..
A sorry becomes just another word..
Another excuse for the big, bad world...

~~Deeksha

The other side of Delhi

We sometimes forget how beautiful some things and places are, till we see them again in times of utter silence and peace.

Since moving to Gurgaon, I'm forced to compare the two cities again and again and sadly there's not much difference between the two. The same rude, impatient and flashy people are there in both the cities. Why shouldn't they? After all, Gurgaon is teeming with the Delhi junta, either those who commute here everyday for their jobs in the sky-high fancy buildings or the others, like me, who chose not to travel in the crazy traffic everyday and have instead moved to the NCR.

Frankly, I don't miss Delhi. Not much anyways. I'm probably one of those very few Delhiites, who's not that proud of being one. Mostly because of the kind of people we are, the qualities I have listed earlier. But no, this blog isn't my frustration about the kind of people we have in either of these cities. That is for some other time.

Today, It's about the other side of Delhi. The beautiful one. One which we often miss in the dusty, pot-holed, traffic laden streets of the city during the day time. This side of Delhi is can only be discovered when most of the busy junta have returned to their homes, and are soundly watching their Just Dance or Bigg Boss or some such stuff. They wouldn't give two hoots about what's happening outside their homes.

When some crazy, moneyed, pistol-flaunting Bolero owner isn't running around the streets killing innocent toll-boothwallahs, one must roam around the city at night and be engulfed in its beauty. The wide roads, the cool breeze and dark night are so welcoming that it actually makes you fall in love again with the city.

Today was one of those nights, when despite of seeing cars here, there, everywhere even at 12am, I still could enjoy my ride. It was AMAZING! The wide, traffic free roads were a welcome change to the choc-a-block traffic that's a common sight at any time of the day.

The people were speeding even then, making zig-zags and flaunting what great cars and driving skills they owned, but for a change I couldn't bother less. I just wanted to enjoy my drive. I would've stayed home while D picked up E from the airport, but there was no way I could miss this opportunity to drive at night. I wasn't disappointed and when I saw the glowing moon in the sky while waiting at one of the red lights, I just smiled to myself. I was so much at peace with myself, with the peace around me, no crazy rush to reach anywhere.

So yes, Delhi is beautiful. It's got a certain charm about it which most Delhiites and outsiders love. But then again, why must one wait for the night to fall in order to be able to enjoy the beauty of this place?