Thursday, June 12, 2008
no time to blog
Its almost an year since I last updated my blog!!! Time flies... As I look back I almost spent 950 hrs out of 8760 hours in commuting between house and office 130 hrs walking to the bus stop and waiting for the bus. And 250hrs in traveling between blr and hyd. And this doesn't include the time spent on road commuting to shops or restaurants.. Oh!! and one hour calculating all this. No wonder I dint get time to blog.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Bus Journey - The one with nut character
My cellphone rang pulling the chain of my train of thoughts.. It was the same person who had called me about an hour earlier.. and since the call was not from any of my female friends, it was easy for me to say.. "still in the bus.." and cut the call... But after the call, the trian took a totally differnt route altogether.... I started thinking about the ITPL buses.. the long journeys that i take everyday.. searching for the reasons why i am still taking those buses.. .. though i felt it is not too far.. that i would start taking buses even on weekends and go somewhere and comeback.. just for the sake of making the day complete!!...
I really do not understand why software companies are outside city as if they are chemical factories that manufacture mass destructive biochemical weapons.. whatever be the reason.. i am shuttling all the way from city to this jungle day after day.. And thanks to the ultra modern infrastructure facilities that are available here, i endup spending 3 hours a day, on average, on road..
I thought I should do something about it.. I might not be able to change the infra-structure of bangalore.. And i might not be able to take companies into city.. but I can at least give moral support to all those who suffer like me.. So with that noble thought in mind.. I thought, i will write about my experiments with ITPL journeys..
To start with..it is just the cumulative effect of all the sins that you committed in all your previous incarnations that made you get into an ITPL company..and the only positive way of looking at it is.... all your sins will be called even after this... and you will be out of this re-incarnation cycle.. If this view didn't help you much.. let me tell you.. that everyday, is a new day and will throw new challenges to you.. and you have to solve them to move ahead. If you managed to do some good deeds the previous day.. and if your stars extend their cooperations to you, you might get some interesting co-passenger, who makes you forget about all these traffic jams.... at least for that day.. But if you are as lucky as I am, and ever since you started differentiating between genders, year after year.. you happened to end up in a class, which is the only class in the whole school/collage not to have 'interesting' people... my sympathies are with you.. I read somewhere that theory of relativity applies to human psychology too.. when you learn about people with more ill luck.. you will feel lot better.. If it makes you feel better, you should know that I own a personal record of 4.5 hours one way to ITPL.. I could have reached my hometown in that time.. Even if your lucky, Murfy's laws are more powerful than any other laws of nature. An apple thrown into air might or might not come back to ground, but the day you when you think all your good deeds made your stars to be on your side...and you do not mind a traffic jam at that time.., the bus just zooms at 60mph as if someone has set a 'speed' bomb. And, once your co-passenger gets down, situation comes back to square one.. you will be stuck in jam.. and you reach home as late as any other day.
Slowly you get used to the facts of life.. though some times you may wonder, if you are a s/w professional or a bus conductor.. you might tell yourself in the beginning that you are cultivating a cool hobby of "traveling" . See evenNayanTara likes it.. It feels so nice to know that you and Nayantara are like minded..isn't it?. But this wont help long... with continuous "traveling", your positive attitude will cease to exist.. and you start realizing that probably this is not what she meant by saying her hobby is "traveling"
At this point of time in life.. you feel the necessity of self help books.. you start realizing how the the 450M$ industry of self help books reached that stage.... after reading few books you start finding positive aspects of ITPL journey...
You start realizing that ITPL gives you good amount of time for yourself.. which you normally don't get if your are not taking an ITPL bus. where in this busy world, will you get time to think about yourself.. And you are getting 3 hours a day of precious time all for yourself.. Isn't that great?
And if you stay awake in the bus, you will get to know psychology of different people.. You see all educated people driving randomly in all directions..and creating traffic jams.. and you wonder why the hell they are doing like that.. and after some time.. if your bus driver uses the same technique move ahead of trafic by not following rules and creating trouble to others.. you feel proud of him.. forgetting all the things you thought about others just few minutes ago.. When will you learn all these psychology lessons.. if you do not board an ITPL bus?
Now that we are on this topic, let me tell you about a classic character.. whenever I take 8 o clock bus, I happen to see this character sitting in the first row.. always on phone...talking LOUDLY as if he is on a old trunk call.. From the appearance and age.. he looks like a some project manager level (I really pity his team).. he keeps yelling/commenting at the people who stop the bus on the way at non-designated stops, saying.. it is because of them, that he is getting late to home..!!!.. (he must be good at group discussions in college).. and his interesting remark got my attention.. and i started observing him.. only to know later that he is going to comment me next..As soon as i was preparing to get down at my stop, he started talking to another like-minded aunty about asking the ITPL guys to remove my stop from the bus route... WHOA!!.. ITPL ko tere baap ka jageer samajh rakha hi kya? Tu Ek kaam kar..apneliye ek bas lele.. jo ITPL se seedha tere bedroom thak jaata hi.. I wanted to tell all this.. but there wasn't enough time to react.. the bus has already reached my stop and i had to get down. Later realized that if no one is getting down at my stop.. there is an alternate way the bus can take to reach the next stop which will avoid two turns . and probably save around 30 seconds of travel... Now whenever there are people who are getting down at my stop.. that makes this character go restless cos THAT MAKES HIM REACH HOME LATE!!!... And me being a bigger psycho who always love to irritate such characters... purposefully stayed late the next day to take the same bus... He was as usual complaining about the guys who were getting down at non-designated stops.. And as the bus neared my stop..he started asking the bus driver if there is another bus route towards my stop instead of this bus... and just to irritate him more, i took more time to get down than usual and that gave me immense pleasure.. which made me forget about the tiredness of my journey... And this continued for few days and one fine day as the bus reached jayanagar.. the restlessness started growing on his face.. and as the driver took the bus towards my stop..the guy finally asked me.... if i could get down at a different place and walk from there..which, as per him, is around 100 meters.. (I wanted to ask him which school he attended)... Thats it.. he had given me the chance i was waiting for.. a chance to get enough pleasure that would last for another month... and I gave him a smile in answer.. a smile that speaks more than words... that hurts more than any four lettered five lettered or six lettered word that you can think of.... And that is the last time i heard him commenting.... Had i not taken the ITPL bus, i would have missed all this fun... now who is a weirdo.. him or me?
Journeys in ITPL buses are filled with many such stories.. this will go on and on.. I shall continue this topic later.. with another incident in this series..
Till then, keep doing good deeds... and they will make your journey less painful. And stay away from all sorts of bad deeds.. they gonna make you sit in a two-seater with some bad smelling adnan sami by your side.. :-)
I really do not understand why software companies are outside city as if they are chemical factories that manufacture mass destructive biochemical weapons.. whatever be the reason.. i am shuttling all the way from city to this jungle day after day.. And thanks to the ultra modern infrastructure facilities that are available here, i endup spending 3 hours a day, on average, on road..
I thought I should do something about it.. I might not be able to change the infra-structure of bangalore.. And i might not be able to take companies into city.. but I can at least give moral support to all those who suffer like me.. So with that noble thought in mind.. I thought, i will write about my experiments with ITPL journeys..
To start with..it is just the cumulative effect of all the sins that you committed in all your previous incarnations that made you get into an ITPL company..and the only positive way of looking at it is.... all your sins will be called even after this... and you will be out of this re-incarnation cycle.. If this view didn't help you much.. let me tell you.. that everyday, is a new day and will throw new challenges to you.. and you have to solve them to move ahead. If you managed to do some good deeds the previous day.. and if your stars extend their cooperations to you, you might get some interesting co-passenger, who makes you forget about all these traffic jams.... at least for that day.. But if you are as lucky as I am, and ever since you started differentiating between genders, year after year.. you happened to end up in a class, which is the only class in the whole school/collage not to have 'interesting' people... my sympathies are with you.. I read somewhere that theory of relativity applies to human psychology too.. when you learn about people with more ill luck.. you will feel lot better.. If it makes you feel better, you should know that I own a personal record of 4.5 hours one way to ITPL.. I could have reached my hometown in that time.. Even if your lucky, Murfy's laws are more powerful than any other laws of nature. An apple thrown into air might or might not come back to ground, but the day you when you think all your good deeds made your stars to be on your side...and you do not mind a traffic jam at that time.., the bus just zooms at 60mph as if someone has set a 'speed' bomb. And, once your co-passenger gets down, situation comes back to square one.. you will be stuck in jam.. and you reach home as late as any other day.
Slowly you get used to the facts of life.. though some times you may wonder, if you are a s/w professional or a bus conductor.. you might tell yourself in the beginning that you are cultivating a cool hobby of "traveling" . See evenNayanTara likes it.. It feels so nice to know that you and Nayantara are like minded..isn't it?. But this wont help long... with continuous "traveling", your positive attitude will cease to exist.. and you start realizing that probably this is not what she meant by saying her hobby is "traveling"
At this point of time in life.. you feel the necessity of self help books.. you start realizing how the the 450M$ industry of self help books reached that stage.... after reading few books you start finding positive aspects of ITPL journey...
You start realizing that ITPL gives you good amount of time for yourself.. which you normally don't get if your are not taking an ITPL bus. where in this busy world, will you get time to think about yourself.. And you are getting 3 hours a day of precious time all for yourself.. Isn't that great?
And if you stay awake in the bus, you will get to know psychology of different people.. You see all educated people driving randomly in all directions..and creating traffic jams.. and you wonder why the hell they are doing like that.. and after some time.. if your bus driver uses the same technique move ahead of trafic by not following rules and creating trouble to others.. you feel proud of him.. forgetting all the things you thought about others just few minutes ago.. When will you learn all these psychology lessons.. if you do not board an ITPL bus?
Now that we are on this topic, let me tell you about a classic character.. whenever I take 8 o clock bus, I happen to see this character sitting in the first row.. always on phone...talking LOUDLY as if he is on a old trunk call.. From the appearance and age.. he looks like a some project manager level (I really pity his team).. he keeps yelling/commenting at the people who stop the bus on the way at non-designated stops, saying.. it is because of them, that he is getting late to home..!!!.. (he must be good at group discussions in college).. and his interesting remark got my attention.. and i started observing him.. only to know later that he is going to comment me next..As soon as i was preparing to get down at my stop, he started talking to another like-minded aunty about asking the ITPL guys to remove my stop from the bus route... WHOA!!.. ITPL ko tere baap ka jageer samajh rakha hi kya? Tu Ek kaam kar..apneliye ek bas lele.. jo ITPL se seedha tere bedroom thak jaata hi.. I wanted to tell all this.. but there wasn't enough time to react.. the bus has already reached my stop and i had to get down. Later realized that if no one is getting down at my stop.. there is an alternate way the bus can take to reach the next stop which will avoid two turns . and probably save around 30 seconds of travel... Now whenever there are people who are getting down at my stop.. that makes this character go restless cos THAT MAKES HIM REACH HOME LATE!!!... And me being a bigger psycho who always love to irritate such characters... purposefully stayed late the next day to take the same bus... He was as usual complaining about the guys who were getting down at non-designated stops.. And as the bus neared my stop..he started asking the bus driver if there is another bus route towards my stop instead of this bus... and just to irritate him more, i took more time to get down than usual and that gave me immense pleasure.. which made me forget about the tiredness of my journey... And this continued for few days and one fine day as the bus reached jayanagar.. the restlessness started growing on his face.. and as the driver took the bus towards my stop..the guy finally asked me.... if i could get down at a different place and walk from there..which, as per him, is around 100 meters.. (I wanted to ask him which school he attended)... Thats it.. he had given me the chance i was waiting for.. a chance to get enough pleasure that would last for another month... and I gave him a smile in answer.. a smile that speaks more than words... that hurts more than any four lettered five lettered or six lettered word that you can think of.... And that is the last time i heard him commenting.... Had i not taken the ITPL bus, i would have missed all this fun... now who is a weirdo.. him or me?
Journeys in ITPL buses are filled with many such stories.. this will go on and on.. I shall continue this topic later.. with another incident in this series..
Till then, keep doing good deeds... and they will make your journey less painful. And stay away from all sorts of bad deeds.. they gonna make you sit in a two-seater with some bad smelling adnan sami by your side.. :-)
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
2BHK house with attached Maid!!
When do you call yourself "lucky"... When you get a blind date and she turns out to be Illiyana.. Or when you get a chance to dine with Anushka in her new 3BHK flat;-).. Or a rain dance with Mamta mohandas.. Or a free invitation to new year eve celebrations party where Mallika She.raw.at is performing.. Or you get an instant home loan from SBI.. Or Trivikram Srinivas comes and asks you to help him in directing his next movie..!!..
None of these things happen unless you somehow manage to corrupt the Matrix. :) And IMO getting a neat house in good locality for a reasonable rent as a bachelor in this Silicon city also falls pretty much into the same category.
While I was enjoying my long vacation in my hometown after an accident, my friend here, had a tough time searching a for a house for us with restrictions like it should be located on ground floor.. or lift facility should be there.. etc..etc.. Finally after breaking few coconuts, he found a "good" friend, (well a separate blog only can describe this new friend!), and through him, he got a nice beautiful ground floor house in very good locality.. everybody liked that house.. and I even remember my bus-mates passing envious comments like.. "aap ka ghar tou white house jaisa lagraha hi"!!.. yeah... right.. just the intern is missing!.. "Oh wow!! its so close to Jelly Beans you are so lucky!!.". (got to know later that its a children's play home). Never thought it could be a reason to consider oneself lucky!!
But, seriously, its a good house, in a very good location.. with a nice park opposite to house.. always filled with health conscious people.. (yeah you are right! ;-)) running around....and a pretty wide road..with no traffic...And not to forget the girl in tight jeans.. who accompanies "crazy", the puppy..
But all these things came with few weird terms and conditions attached..
- The Varandah light should be on till 10 o clock in the night.. even if you sleep at 9..
- And that light should not be on whole night.. again, even if you sleep at 9!.
Well it isn't that bad..considering the plus points it has.. is it?
- Don't open windows of any room when you are not in the room.. thieves may come inside! Make sure all doors are closed... Make sure the light in front room is on till 9 so that people.. (read it as thieves) think someone is in the house!! .. blah blah.. and more blah blah..
Safety conscious. Nothing wrong in it!!.
- No permission to get your own maid for work. If at all you need a maid to work then only owner's approved maid (that is owner's maid) can work in the house.
Wow..You are getting a good house and you don't need to search for a maid.. sounds great.. hun..?
So the maid is fixed.. what's next..
- not just maid, but her pay scale is also fixed..
Ahem! ohkay!
- and the raise in her salary is also fixed..
Irrespective of whether you get a hike or not? ok!
- The maid would come to your house only after she completes work in owners house.
Hmmm!! It doesn't really sound that great now..does it? But still fine.. every package comes with its own pros and cons. (I hear someone saying "Well.. Not with a Maid!!")
Actually it worked out OK for us as bachelors. But only after my friend got married and moved in with family that he started getting the real pinch.
After his marriage..
- The maid got a huge salary hike more than 120%..
Have you ever got such a hike? Seriously.. Not over 7 years time frame!! in A single pay hike??
- She comes only after 12 (positively) after finishing all her duties at owners house.
Boy..You should see how much work she does there at owners house.. Have you ever heard of bonded laborers?.
My friend's family slowly got used to it... even when she was coming late.. or even when she did not come.. they somehow learned to manage..
Now since the owners do not have anything else to think about.. they start thinking every other thing and then start feeling that four is too big a number to live in 2bhk house! Cos it takes 215.5 ltrs more water per day compared to two ppl.. and 1.534 units of more power consumption everyday.. and 6.22K avogadro numbers of more Oxygen molecule consumption and Over and above, 21 minutes 32 seconds of more work to the maid!!.. that is not acceptable!!!
And all these thoughts make the Lady of the house scream one fine day, "You guys are giving too much work to the maid and if you continue to do so, she will stop working for us!! And moreover giving that much work is against all the labor laws. So why don't you buy a washing machine?!!".
Sometimes life doesn't give too many options to choose from... and thus a brand new fully automatic (semi-automatic would call for some manual work!!) washing machine becomes part of their life from the very next day.
If you are wondering, how he is still managing without a change in his address, there comes the savior, the little whizkid, his daughter, who is the only person on the mother earth, that i know of, who could control this land lady!!.
Till now, no one managed to get as many smiles, screams out of joy, from that little one, as the land lady got. The way she screams in joy when she sees her, one has to see it to believe it. And that very act is making the land lady cool a bit.. and thus they are surviving.
Boy, I have to find out how my friend trained the little girl. I would definitely need it, if I decide to stay in this city after marriage.
So.. thats about it.. any takers for this package of 2bhk house with attached maid? I can give you mail id of the owners, once my free lunch/dinner invitations stop coming from there! I had a dinner 2days back there, so not in this week! but still.. let me know!
PS: The girl in jeans, is a 'lady' in jeans now, but the park is still Green, if that helps!
None of these things happen unless you somehow manage to corrupt the Matrix. :) And IMO getting a neat house in good locality for a reasonable rent as a bachelor in this Silicon city also falls pretty much into the same category.
While I was enjoying my long vacation in my hometown after an accident, my friend here, had a tough time searching a for a house for us with restrictions like it should be located on ground floor.. or lift facility should be there.. etc..etc.. Finally after breaking few coconuts, he found a "good" friend, (well a separate blog only can describe this new friend!), and through him, he got a nice beautiful ground floor house in very good locality.. everybody liked that house.. and I even remember my bus-mates passing envious comments like.. "aap ka ghar tou white house jaisa lagraha hi"!!.. yeah... right.. just the intern is missing!.. "Oh wow!! its so close to Jelly Beans you are so lucky!!.". (got to know later that its a children's play home). Never thought it could be a reason to consider oneself lucky!!
But, seriously, its a good house, in a very good location.. with a nice park opposite to house.. always filled with health conscious people.. (yeah you are right! ;-)) running around....and a pretty wide road..with no traffic...And not to forget the girl in tight jeans.. who accompanies "crazy", the puppy..
But all these things came with few weird terms and conditions attached..
- The Varandah light should be on till 10 o clock in the night.. even if you sleep at 9..
- And that light should not be on whole night.. again, even if you sleep at 9!.
Well it isn't that bad..considering the plus points it has.. is it?
- Don't open windows of any room when you are not in the room.. thieves may come inside! Make sure all doors are closed... Make sure the light in front room is on till 9 so that people.. (read it as thieves) think someone is in the house!! .. blah blah.. and more blah blah..
Safety conscious. Nothing wrong in it!!.
- No permission to get your own maid for work. If at all you need a maid to work then only owner's approved maid (that is owner's maid) can work in the house.
Wow..You are getting a good house and you don't need to search for a maid.. sounds great.. hun..?
So the maid is fixed.. what's next..
- not just maid, but her pay scale is also fixed..
Ahem! ohkay!
- and the raise in her salary is also fixed..
Irrespective of whether you get a hike or not? ok!
- The maid would come to your house only after she completes work in owners house.
Hmmm!! It doesn't really sound that great now..does it? But still fine.. every package comes with its own pros and cons. (I hear someone saying "Well.. Not with a Maid!!")
Actually it worked out OK for us as bachelors. But only after my friend got married and moved in with family that he started getting the real pinch.
After his marriage..
- The maid got a huge salary hike more than 120%..
Have you ever got such a hike? Seriously.. Not over 7 years time frame!! in A single pay hike??
- She comes only after 12 (positively) after finishing all her duties at owners house.
Boy..You should see how much work she does there at owners house.. Have you ever heard of bonded laborers?.
My friend's family slowly got used to it... even when she was coming late.. or even when she did not come.. they somehow learned to manage..
Now since the owners do not have anything else to think about.. they start thinking every other thing and then start feeling that four is too big a number to live in 2bhk house! Cos it takes 215.5 ltrs more water per day compared to two ppl.. and 1.534 units of more power consumption everyday.. and 6.22K avogadro numbers of more Oxygen molecule consumption and Over and above, 21 minutes 32 seconds of more work to the maid!!.. that is not acceptable!!!
And all these thoughts make the Lady of the house scream one fine day, "You guys are giving too much work to the maid and if you continue to do so, she will stop working for us!! And moreover giving that much work is against all the labor laws. So why don't you buy a washing machine?!!".
Sometimes life doesn't give too many options to choose from... and thus a brand new fully automatic (semi-automatic would call for some manual work!!) washing machine becomes part of their life from the very next day.
If you are wondering, how he is still managing without a change in his address, there comes the savior, the little whizkid, his daughter, who is the only person on the mother earth, that i know of, who could control this land lady!!.
Till now, no one managed to get as many smiles, screams out of joy, from that little one, as the land lady got. The way she screams in joy when she sees her, one has to see it to believe it. And that very act is making the land lady cool a bit.. and thus they are surviving.
Boy, I have to find out how my friend trained the little girl. I would definitely need it, if I decide to stay in this city after marriage.
So.. thats about it.. any takers for this package of 2bhk house with attached maid? I can give you mail id of the owners, once my free lunch/dinner invitations stop coming from there! I had a dinner 2days back there, so not in this week! but still.. let me know!
PS: The girl in jeans, is a 'lady' in jeans now, but the park is still Green, if that helps!
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
