Regrets

One of my friends lost out in the race of love which is not unusual, given that so many people go through a similar kind of feeling at least once in life. (Including me... Sob! Sadly!!~!!)

In the end she was bitter about the whole experience. (Anyone would be). Then came the denial phase where in she was bugged bout anything remotely related to having a relationship with anyone for the rest of her life (as she says in her frame of mind)

“What’s the use?” she said. “It always ends badly”, “Nothing good comes of it”…. “In the end all you are left with is pain and regrets”

That is one interesting point of view on life. Should one keep on the safe side of the road and not venture into the unknown. Just lead a simple life with no spice, but with the assurance that you wouldn’t get the pain or the hurt or the REGRETS. Not even try to go to a place where one puts everything out there, in a try to feel good, feel connected, feel safe, feel loved, and feel wanted?

A life which has not felt all the pains can never reap the pleasures of the joys. But this doesn’t gel well with a person who just got dissed in the midst of it all.

My take on this is everything and I mean EVERYTHING good or bad comes to an end. In matters of the heart, you put yourself out there, and try. Whether you win or you loose. It all has to come to an end someday …………..somewhere ……………..somehow. So one should not stop one’s natural instincts to act or react to a situation contemplating the regrets which will come out of it. That essentially would kill the true person you are as you don’t act in accordance with what you feel inside.

And as far as regrets……………….. I say give me regrets…………… give me all the REGRETS….. Till I get to keep all the good memories too.

Gulty Shadi

No sooner that I woke up on the 30th morning I felt all the aches and pains form the tiring trip I had the previous day. But I had to get up & going to Vizag, a city which personally I like a lot because I think it is the only place in India where one can still find good NEAT clean decent beaches unlike other places like Chennai or Mumbai plus my buddy Goli stays there.

But the occasion this time was to attend a colleague’s wedding. I almost had half a mind to skip it, but given that I know so little of Hindu traditions and marriages, sad cuz I am supposedly a Telugu Brahmin, I decided to go through with it.

Travel was very different this time. I wasn’t flying (I wanted to). It was the train this time, and the painful part was that it was sleeper class. (Ouch). It amazed me how the mode of transportation I used so many times in my college life and my life before that, was close to intolerable for me this time round. The train seemed very dirty, hot & smelly (yuck hate that pungent smell & or when train hits the brakes and you get that metallic smell). I had forgotten the feeling. The last time I had gotten into the second class bogie of a train was almost 5 – 6 years ago.
But I dint wanna sound snooty and go for the A/C bogie cuz it was a bunch of us traveling and was of the common interest of everyone that we traveled that way.

Newes on to Vizag. It wasn’t much different from the Mumbai heat or climate, but just a tad better. It was the 12.00 in the noon on 1st May by the time we reached Vizag. Was a holiday for most of us as it was the May Day or better know as Labour Day. The wedding was early on the 2nd. So we had some time to kill. All of us went to another one of my colleagues place and to the famous Simhachalam Temple.

Pretty much routine huh, but what bowled me over was the seeing my colleague, he was a sight. I mean never seen a guy apply mehendi to his hands before this (which later my mom told was the usual practice sitting the example of Aby junior). But seriously guy with mehendi on his hands, geez I don’t buy it, even more was the fact that he had written his soon to be wife’s name as the design. How tacky. But what was even more intriguing was the fact that he had put that red thingy on his feet. I really dunno what you call it in
English but as far as I remember they call it ALTA in Hindi.

The marriage was lesser than average and the arrangements for stay and food were far below what I thought it would be. Was all very forgettable and I would prolly have to come back read this to remember any of it.

The only good thing about the trip was when I met Goli, and drove the new Swift DDIs along the beach road. The car was awesome. Much better than anything else in the same class in India. Guess the Maruti guys figured out their CRDe stuff quiet well. No wonder such a long waiting period. My Santro suddenly seems much lesser.

Goli & I just hanged for a while before I took on the torture of the smelly train for the second time in as many days.

The bee went cruising

It was an early start to a long, and I mean lo0o0o0o0o0ong day. I had to wake up early and catch my flight to Mumbai. Things were pretty nice till the flight landed. Then as soon as we came out of the airport the heat struck me. OMFG… how do people live in such sultry humid hot conditions, was bad... real bad.

In spite of me constantly telling my colleagues, they insisted that we opt for the Black n yellow taxi rather than the prepaid cool cab I suggested.
BIG MISTAKE which they later (much later) suggested was a wrong move. Any ride of that quality in that kind of heat would leave you sore. Wonder how andy, anjali or GINA for that matter of fact travel during such times…….
The long taxi ride took us to the convention center where we had 4 hours of presentations to go through before we could head on for what we all assembled there to do. THE CRUISE.

Presentations were not bad. But some people left me wondering as to how high profile marketing guys can be so0o0o0o0o0o boring and dull… thank god the hall was air conditioned or wud have been impossible to get a quick nap in between all the noise….

The clock struck 4. We all headed out to our buses (managing 300 people …I was thankful that I was the guest) after the long queue and 3 sec checks we finally entered the Cruise which was pleasantly nice……. The Superstar LIBRA.

I couldn’t wait to get in had never been on one before, for starters it much bigger than I thought it would be (Much lesser babes than I thought I would run into …. L sadly)


Everything was stacked up pretty nicely, the interiors were nice, the decors, the staff courteous... although it took most of the guys some time to understand their English……. Most of them were from Singapore and Korea…….

The room although smaller than I thought it would be …… (the stateroom seaside) was nice . Just great for two, would be a killer thing if u are with a loved one ……. Nice beds and all, with a beautiful view thanks to the typical round look out window. The holy place was small, in fact if you r thinking of havin a hot shower with your girl on this cool cruise ……… naaaaaa………….. it aint happening. One person can barely stand let alone two. Everything that they gave was minimized in volume, all the shampoos soaps shower gels etc were in the gel form … dint mind that as it has been ages since I moved on to shower gels form soaps ……. Though my roomy wasn’t too fond of it …..

Then came the time to explore the ship a little, 10 floors (decks as they call it) in all…………….. My room was in deck 2. # 02224.
Deck 5, 9 & 10 were the happening places………… with the casino and other joints like a small shop... a bar …….. Show arenas…………… in deck 5…

Deck 9 and 10 having the pool, Jacuzzi... health club etc……. I missed out to book for a massage at the spa ……… but the guys did sign me up for the Las Vegas topless cabaret (900 big ones) … funny that it was called that cuz all the artists were from Brazil…. Newes …… the show was scheduled for midnight ……… and was almost amusing to see the guys lining up from 11:00 pm to get front row seats ……… I kept telling them they aint gonna find no erotic dancing ………… but isn’t it human to hope against hope…….. so when the show was over most of them were disappointed……… I liked it ….. Cuz I knew it would be artistic rather than erotic………

Much before that we had our usual awards ceremony, which again is nothing but guys sitting and waiting for dancers to shake dere booty in between the awards…….

I spent most of my time alone. Not really wanting to get into official banter ……… had my two best buds giving company. Bacardi and coke ….. And I was doing just fine with them ……..

It was almost 1 in the night when we were thru with all the shows ……. We hit the casino then, I am not much of a gambler, after seeing my friends loose sum money at black jack ….. I went on for deck 9 ……. And spend time with my I-pod and pack of milds………. Was almost 3 by the time I hit the sack………

Woke up at 8 …. Sun already up ……… went to grab sum grub ……… food was nice ….. Loads of breads... I love breads… all kinds of them ……. After a quick break fast I hit the pool and the Jacuzzi…. Even that was tuff to keep me cool in the sun. So I was off to my room by 10……. Spent some time with the tube... it was then I realized that the night before was the world cup final …….. Not that I am into cricket …….. but I am usually more aware of what’s happening around me… always good to strike up a conversation when in company of someone ………

Couple of hours of that then a quick lunch …….. Again the food was fabulous. Was almost 1:00 so went settled my bills and was ready to disembark by 2:00 It was then I realized how good they are with managing people…

There were really cup of things which anyone would appreciate. They were excellently staffed. You would never long to run into one of them if you are stuck up … they managed the crowds even with their language problem very efficiently …. Quite diff to us … our off guys struggled to manage 300 odd people ….
Be it the way they handled the crowd coming to settle their bills or the way they managed the crowd the day before during the mandatory emergency drill.

By the time I came out, I was looking forward to heading back home and a good rest as I had to travel to vizag the very next day for my friend’s marriage.

The flight back was ok, although I wasn’t thrilled to about the 10 minute weather turbulence, or the way the pilot took off from the runway just as he was about to land. Was a major communications mess up there… kingfisher is loosing its touch I guess. The flight to Mumbai wasn’t great either; it was an hour late with no communication to the passengers. Sad, now even kf standards are going down.

All in all the experience was hectic, tiring and almost satisfactory. Almost cuz I thought would have been great if this trip was the 2 days cruise where I could have actually relaxed, or would have been with my boys or with my girl. But then since I don’t have a girl and all my buddies are busy working ……… guess this is as good as it gets as of now.

No regrets though, after all that is one thing I can strike off from my things to do before I die list. Thee bee went cruising.

fall out boi is fading away

Had been listening to a lotta FALL OOUT BOY lately........nice tracks too.....sugar we're goin down....... where's ur boi tonite.......
























many a times the lyrics went allcrappy on me, but the music remained in mah head. Another sting from me OTH watching days. (sha i miss OTH)
lately its been fading, dunno why? why do all songs u listen to fade away sooner rather than later.
guess goes to show good thing dusnt last for ever. but the song is the same.must be me.over did it. or maybe now that i remember every sngle tone and word of all them sings. aint deriving the essence of pleasure i used too.
get bored soon. story of all mah relationships.
cant afford to have sumtin new everyday ......with the same thing........ can we?
newes no fret .. onto the killas now ......... Cuz i am Mr Brightside.

6 Billion Souls

SIX Billion People in this World…
SIX Billion Souls

But sometimes all you need is...
ONE

LIFE is a SALE

The past week, I was just thinking about of couple of different scenarios, be it when my neighbor was talking to her 8 year old kid or when I was attending a leadership management program in a shitty resort in thane. It occurred to me that all the things we do and all the situations we go through can be defined in terms of a sale.

Maybe I pen it in these terms because I am in a marketing function and I come across these words day in and day out, but when you do actually think about it life turns out to be a SALE.

Say for example a hard core sale process:

You are a salesman and you go to a person to sell a product. Suppose it is a huge commodity. So when you are actually pitching in the sale what you do is talk bout the product and the good things bout it and so on. Whether the sale is made to the customer or whether he denies you, a SALE is made.

Either HE buys your concept of the product and takes the product, or you buy his concept of why he doesn’t need the product. In any case the sale is made. The difference lies in a person winning or loosing, (if you can say that) is who closes the SALE. The one who closes the sale wins.


I was talking to bout **neighbor who was talking to her 8 year old kid** this aint no sale process but here also you can define what happened as a sale.

The mother wanted her kid to go do his home work, and like any other normal kid he dint wanna. So the mom sold her concept of how terrible things are gonna be for him if he dint do what she told him to. The kid bought this concept and went on to do his homework. The sale was made. The Kid bought it.

But when the father was around and he wanted the boy to stop playing and eat his food, the kid started cribbing and crying. The father let go. The sale was made. The father bought the kids concept of why he dint wanna eat the food. The kid sold his concept of not eating the food in the best way he knows and the old man backed off.

U talk to a friend, he tells you what to do and you do it, he makes a sale. You don’t do it and he agrees to what you put across as your disagreement, you make a sale.

When you just hang with friends or when you share a smoke with your colleagues where in you end up in friendly humorous banter, there is always a battle of wits. You buy their crap of a joke or you bowl them over by yours. A Sale is made.

You attend an interview. You talk to the guys on the other end of the table. You try to sell your services in a manner which you think is right for them. In the limited given frame of time (be 10 minutes or an hour), they try to put you in the frame which they have in their mind. They think you are good enough. You make a SALE. Then all of you sit down to bargain your Salary ….. Or package….. Or renumeration, you ask for XXX $ & they give you XXX – 10 $ you agree, they make a sale, you bargain and make it XXX – 5 $ you make a sale.



Cases like these where certain specific acts happen can be confined to a sale very easily.
But the trick is how to define it when you going about doing what you generally do with 100’s of people around with whom you don’t have a particular connection. 90 % of the time in your day, (whether you are working or not) when you are out talking to different people, you hear loads of things like what people did or what they are gonna do, maybe sometimes advices, etc. the catch lies in places where you agree and still don’t do it, or where you hear something like an story, or an incident you agree on the face but really don’t buy it and just shrug it off. Then the elementary question in terms of sale chips in as to whether a SALE was made or NOT.

I think a sale was made. You dint buy what he/she said or did or the advice which he/she gave you (typically when a boss advices you. All you do is nod and shrug it off and don’t think bout it) cause you really don’t connect in any way so you don’t think it is worth it. You don’t buy what the other person sold and you never tried selling what you thought was wrong. A sale is made in such cases also.

WHY? Well the other person giving all the crap, which you choose to listen but not agree, has made a sale because you never put a word against it. You agreed. So he made a SALE. Maybe it’s just a virtual sale but he thinks in his mind that it is done.

Like right now when I’m writing this I am making a sale. If you are agreeing, you bought it. If you are nodding, you bought it.

One can question if a virtual sale, when the seller thinks you have bought it when you have actually ignored it, is an actual sale or not. But then I would say in such a case LIFE made a sale. You certainly dint because you dint tell him that he was wrong. He has a false opinion that he has made a sale, which would in due time bite him in the ass. i am talking of the law of avarages. what is done today will have consequences. Meaning then life would teach him the hard way. In such a case Life Closes the sale and a SALE is made.

So LIFE IS A SALE.