Wishful Thinking

Imagine that you are attending a seminar/conference/lecture and the host says that the best questioner would be awarded. Now imagine, surprisingly enough, you come up with one such question and you are dying to ask it out loud!


However, at your very moment of limelight, some strange person, whom you never even noticed coming into the hall, spoils your moment of glory by asking the same question in an amazingly superior way. You get unfathomably tongue-tied, seething and hell-to-the-power-of-infinity degree distracted, waiting for the seminar to end. Sometimes my thoughts tend to fly so high that a drastic downfall is almost inevitable. At that moment, I dearly wish that my thoughts were unique - that the questions which come to my mind hadn't occurred to anyone else - and above all, that I be considered an INTELLECTUAL! :P

Crazy but true.

All this said; now consider an altogether different scenario. Let me give you an example. Suppose that you have bought the latest android phone in market, but due to some very strange reason, every time you try to make a call the phone turns off! Or maybe, you are at your office and while testing some software you get an unheard-of error message. What is the first thing that one would try under these circumstances? I normally ask people around what can be done about this. Then when I do not get a satisfactory answer (which happens most of the times that you are desperately in need of help – like Mr. Murphy's Law) I resort to Google.

Google almost always has an answer to everything – whatever be the problem you can always count on Google. And the reason Google is so helpful is BECAUSE it connects together people with the SAME questions, same thoughts!!

Life is ironic.. :-)



The irony is that you can't use real rain to make movies.

- Greg Kinnear

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Songs just seem to fill your head 'n heart every time you listen to them... written by someone you don't know - someone you probably never will get to know and yet somehow speaking your heart out with his/her words , successfully too. Miraculous, isn't it!

Lines that never could be born of an ordinary, yet somehow conceived so fully by the ordinary themselves! It's like Einstein mentioning the term "Theory of Relativity" without having to explain what it is all about, as if the E = mc2 formula had been in there all this time, just hidden at the back of our heads!

I don't know what the moral of the story is or should be. Should I explain things optimistically, or be a pessimist or the plain-pragmatic one?? These are the lines that made me think all of this,

"Someday I'll wish upon a star,
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me,
Where troubles melt like lemon drops,
Away above the chimney tops,
That's where you'll find me"

and they will be the ones I will keep wishing upon..... :-)

Journey to my office

Last day there was a survey going on at my office regarding various factors which included facilities provided inside the office, transport, environment etc etc. At the end of it there was a comments section, that I did not take the pain of filling up (which is, by the way, very much like myself). Therefore, I decided to write a blog about it, I mean, what I might otherwise should or could have commented!




So, here it goes.



On weekdays, except for occasional (read very very “rare”, like an oasis in the Sahara desert) holidays, I wake up in the morning, pray that I don’t miss the office bus, make haste, get ready (all this while, still praying – “Oh God, please don’t make me miss my office bus, I promise I’ll get up earlier tomorrow!”). Thus, mostly with God’s grace I manage to make it to the bus stand on time.

Now, for most IT professionals reading this (and not having to come to …… say “Arrow-storey”, coz that’s what I’m going to call this place, as I couldn’t find a better Bengali to English translation for the name) – you must be wondering what nonsense this is all about. How can travelling to office be so important? It has always been a secondary concern. The only thing that matters most is how long you stay at office and NOT how to travel to the place. But believe it or not, travelling to AR-ST can be painstakingly difficult at times without office buses. Therefore, if you miss it you are DOOMED!!



Once I’m on the bus and all geared up for the journey, there comes this second …. errr….well….obstacle! The first quarter of the journey, I must say is not very disagreeable, and neither would have been the remaining three, had my nose not come into play! 

Confused??!!

Allow me to clarify …

My story starts just around the corner (okay, I’m a You’ve Got Mail fan!!  ), when the main bypass road splits in three directions and leftmost one bends leftward leading right into our very own AR-ST grounds. Lots of small industries have cropped up in and around AR-ST. They are meant as a source of income to many, I’m sure of that. And yet I can’t seem to hide my handicap of not being able to bear the mere sight of them. Reason for my disliking them is that, these industries are the source of such an olfactory sensation, that I fall short of words to describe justly!!

Every time a tiny speck of smoke particle resulting from the above employment, gets into my nose – all my violent streaks surface. And I have to keep my fists clenched hard so as not to do something that might be considered “unladylike”. Luckily for me, I happen to carry a handkerchief with me and that comes to my rescue! All through this half an hour stretch, I keep my savior (read handkerchief) clung to my nose.

Finally, comes the hour when the journey is about to end. With another bend rightwards the office building comes into view. The surrounding – away from the hustle & bustle of a city, with open meadows and a very welcoming office gate – altogether are very pleasant to look at. But I must warn you about the canal cum high drain that flows all along the boundary of the office premises. Despite the pink liquid flowing through it (that sure does appeal to ones sense of visual aesthetics), it simply unnerves a person’s olfactory nerves. And no amount of shielding your nose can protect you from its clutches.

Yours sincerely,

Poor Employee of some office in Arrow-Storey 



P.S. – All the information published here is absolutely my exaggerated version of the original story in a humorous way. There is no intention of hurting any sentiments whatsoever. If any comment in the blog above offends anyone in anyway, please accept my sincere apologies, as that is not at all what I had in mind.

Perceptions

Misunderstandings, fights over them, break-ups, heartbreaks (accompanied by a tear or two) - are all links of the same chain. And the main culprit behind all of these is the age-old MISCOMMUNICATION! No wonder our teachers always prompted us to hone our communication skills - in school or college or even now, only now that the teachers are 'events' instead of real life people.

Just think how differently people are prone to think, or just how differently they tend to express their thoughts. Had this been a vocal session, I would have read out some phrase in three different tones - a statement, a command and the third, something funny or something unconventional. However, this blogging-spree restricts me from doing the same. So I'll try explaining this little unusually.

Coming back to my trend of connecting my blogs to songs (they're just so inspiring!), here we go:

1.) All of you must have heard the very popular, almost chart-topper, item song - "Munni Badnaam Hui Darling Tere liye". Some people (mostly the old school ones) will crinkle their noses, while some others will find it to be ver-r-y ver-r-r-y entertaining ( ehmm..! ;) )

2.) There is one other song, that I find to have an uncanny similarity with the above. Any wild guesses as to what that might be (I'll give you a chance to think, before letting you on to the answer)

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No its not 'Sheela ki Jawaani' :S

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Ain't 'Jalebi Bai' either...... na-ah :|

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Hint: Remember when people said that Rabindranath Tagore had written songs for any and every occasion - this one's inclusive.

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The song that I'm talking about is - "Ami tomar preme hobo shobar kolongko bhaagi" ! Now does that ring a bell?

I know this is a very square form of expressing my thoughts, but what can I say - the similarities actuate me into doing this!

P.S. - With all due respect, I am too slight to offend Mr. Rabindranath Tagore or his creations. He was, is and always will be the iconic legend and the heart-favorite of all Bongs :))