Value of Money

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Random

What is the true value of money? Which factors constitutes something to be deemed as within the limits?

Clearly, only the monetary value alone doesn’t decide that, even when I limit the situation to only one person’s view. Let me illustrate

1. Within a span of a month I make two our chases – a $13,000 used car and a brand new $1,600 road bike. Both had cheaper alternatives that would have easily fulfilled my requirements; especially in case of the car I could have saved $1000-$5000 on a cheaper alternative. Yet the unanimous feedback is somehow I have gone overboard on the bike while no one questions the car purchase.
2. A friend who asks for advice on used bike purchase refuses to look at the $200 priced options I share with him saying his budget was only $100 and he didn’t want to overspend. Yet on the same week he pushes me to join him for a weekend outing; the cost per person easily goes above $100 per person but not a single concern on that!

“Value” of money sure is an interesting concept. 🙂

Late-night Comedy (Pun intended)

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Mumbai, Random

Last night the lady and yours truly headed over to The Blue Frog for a late night gig by The Other People. It was good fun; retro music by the band, a great crowd, and some awesome dancing numbers by the band had the crowd in full tempo.

So around 2, we decide to call it a night and head out towards the parking area. As so did most of the crowd, it was quite a mess with the few valet staff trying to handle a large (more or less drunk) crowd, all impatient to get their cars. As a result, there were people who had been waiting for over 15 mins (like us) and a few lucky buggers who got their vehicles within minutes. And as a result, a few tempers did rise.

Behind us were a bunch of cute 20ish chicks, who certainly had been waiting for some time for their car. And the moment they see a valet getting freed, they pounce on him. And the Q&A starts

Cute Chick (CC): Bhaiyaa, kab sae wait kar rahe hai. Gaadi kahan hai?

Valet (V): Madam, gaadi number batao, abhi check karta hu.

CC: Mujae kaise malum! Aap ko pata hona chaiye na.

V: Um…. Madam, aapki gaadi hai.

CC: Bhaiya, baadi gaadi hai. Maroon color. Renault ki hai.

V: (Completely flustered by now) Madam, gaadi no chaiye hoga.

CC: (Getting angry) Bhaiya, maine kahan na, muje nahi malum. Ab kya mai ‘Papa’ ko raat ke do baje phone lagau kya? Aap yehi chahte ho kya?

V: … Madam, dekta hu … (scoots off the scene)

(Un)fortunately our car arrived right then and so we couldn’t get to hear the rest of the ‘wonderful’ conversation and how it fared with the ‘missing’ car!

G mae D

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Random

Bah. This blog (like me) needs a kick in the rear.

Funny how this blog has to face the wrath of my mood swings and other problems. Till recently it was the quarter-life crisis that literally played hide & seek with this blog. And now the moody 30s.

As Anu Kapoor would put it, Confused sperm.

Literally. Couldn’t define my current condition any better.

The ubiquitous postbox

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Random

When was the last time you saw this?

And when was the last time you used one?

Well, I got to see one yesterday near Grant Road station. Till that point I’d never realized how these postboxes had completely disappeared in metro cities. This is probably due to the wide usage of email and online chat facilities, not to forget the increasing usage of mobiles. But I had never given any thought to what happened to the hundreds of postboxes that were present in all these cities. There was a time when you could find a postbox in every locality at crossroads, or hanging in a corner.

And have they been removed in the towns and villages too? I guess not. Probably that’ll happen in the next few years, once the rural areas get connected completely to the mobile & internet networks. And then soon we’ll be seeing these red boxes as a collector’s item or in museums only!

Weekends

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LinkedIn, Nostalgia, Random

Times have definitely changed.

As a kid going to school, weekends meant cartoons. A possible Amitabh Bachchan movie running in your local theatre. A definite trip to the city zoo and gardens. Loads of cricket, swimming, and numerous other activities. Possibly a boring visit to family friends with the only gleam of hope being they’ll offer ice cream or atleast Rasna. Most important, no homework at all.

Then came college. Living in a hostel, the concept of weekends entirely disappeared except for the fact of having no classes in the two days. But then who attended regular classes anyway. Weekends mainly meant loitering around the campus doing nothing. The studious ones probably spent most of the time finishing assignments, visiting libraries and the college computer center to finish up work. The local guys genearlly headed off to their homes with empty promises of getting back loads of goodies. Weekends meant watching  movies, multiplayer games and other sitcoms on the comps (then we didn’t have laptops! 🙂) and possibly a trip to the city if any of us had the cash with us.

Then arrived the corporate world. We were no longer students anymore, we were engineers! Mondays! We started hating that word like never before! There were a few who had to even slog it out on the weekends, but they were a few only. For the vast majority, weekend meant lazing it out on the bed. Living as bachelors in poorly furnished rented out houses, weekends meant sleeping off till noon and then heading out to the nearest joints to have brunch. For the few film buffs among us weekends meant multiplexes. Head there early in the afternoon, book a ticket for the evening show, and loiter around the multiplex all afternoon doing best what single stags do the best 😉 If the crowd is less, then head off to the popular streets (M.G. Road – every city has one!) to continue doing the same out there.

Moving ahead other options open up for me. Outdoor trips. Single overnight treks, or the ones that last two entire days, weekends started meaning a lot more to me. Possibly a bike trip to the hills or the Konkan coastline. Arbit highway road trips in the night. Late night trips to 24hour coffee shops. And much more!

Now as a management graduate, it’s a completely different ball game. Officially you have these two days free for yourselves. Bullshit. Saturdays mean finishing off tasks that were left undone in the week. Sundays (especially the later half) means preparing what you are going to do the coming week. You start yearning for more than two days. Move over TGIF, OSIAS (Oh Shit! Its already Sunday!) becomes a more relevant term! You start searching the calendar for three day weekends, you yearn for holidays. Falling sick or feigning sickness is of no use, your manager gives you the day off but asks you to constantly keep in touch through mails and phones – in short, you still have to work. More than an entertainment option, pubs and movie theatres become important places where you can ignore your work aspects completely.

And they say I’m going places. Yea, for sure.

Holy sh*t

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Random

My Wordle

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Random, Web

 

My Wordle

Courtesy http://www.wordle.net/

Small Talk

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LinkedIn, Office, Random

Work – life has certainly been different for me post-mba. I work in a small organisation with 250 odd strength. That’s almost equivalent to the number of students in a PGDBM batch at XL!

There are a lot of pros and cons while working in a small growing organisation.

Pros :-

• I have my lunch with my (company’s) CEO
• I frequently get to attend parties that only consist of me (+2 others), the CEO, CFO and MD of the company
• I report directly to the CEO
• Will update as I stay longer in the company!

Cons :-

• That’s for me to know and for you to ponder about! 😛

 

Note: There are cons. A lot of them.

Holidays

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Random

A normal day at home

5:00 a.m. Mom gets up to get ready for work. Me sleeping

6:00 a.m. Dad gets up for morning walk. Me sleeping

7:00 a.m. Mom & Dad leave for work. Me  sleeping

8:00 a.m. Bro wakes up for college. Me (still) sleeping

9:00 a.m. I finally get up. Go online. Check fbook, gmail, orkut for new pics, comments,mails etc. Start TV or watch a sitcom while munching something.

10:00 a.m. Check TV if something interesting is coming. Check fbook, gmail, orkut for new pics, comments,mails etc. Continue watching & eating.

11:00 a.m. Check fbook, gmail, orkut for new pics, comments,mails etc. Finally I remember to brush my teeth!

11:30 a.m. Loo break. Check fbook, gmail, orkut for new pics, comments,mails etc.

12:30 p.m. Ah! Lunch time! Shift myself from the computer chair to the dining table. Check Star/Zee/etc if any old SRK/etc movies are goin on – find that Baghban is runnin (for the umpteen time) Nothin better available, I start watching Baghban.

1:30 p.m. Decide to take that short nap before the IPL match starts. Before that, i check fbook, gmail, orkut for new pics, comments,mails etc.Ah! Finally a mail – some idiot in Delhi has put up a new thread on xl group. i reply back, tellin him to stop wastin other ppl’s time opening new useless threads.

2:30 p.m. ZzzZzzzzzz.z..z.zzz

3:30 p.m. Ah! time to catch Mandira Bedi with her useless comments (who cares about what she’s talkin! :P) before the match starts. Before that check fbook, gmail, orkut for new pics, comments,mails etc.

4:30 p.m. Tea time. Strangely the delhi idiot hasn’t yet replied. Yey! New pics uploaded on fbook! Time for some comments. i ping a few ppl on gtalk. No one replies 😦

7:00 p.m. 2nd IPL match about to start. Bedi’s back! (in a new dress!) Mom asks me to get some stuff from the local store. I pretend not to hear, and my mom catches my bro. Ha! Who says I learnt nothin at XL 😀

9:30 p.m. Stuff myself up at the dinner table. Still no reply from the delhi guy. I reply again on the thread hopin that someone atleast continues the conversation. For the last time I check all the sites desperately hopin someone has replied/commented/posted. No luck 😦

11:00 p.m. The world around me goes to sleep. i join them 😀

WetNite Personalities

Tags

Random, XL

Back from the last wet-nite for the Batch of 2007 – 2009. Emotions are too fresh for me to blog about the same, which I’ll touch later.

But on a parallel note, I always wanted to delve on another aspect – Wet nites give you interesting insights into the character of men, of what they are, how different they are.  Mind you, a pinch of salt required!

First come the Absentees. These are a motley of different sorts of people; a few even consider the time-period from 11 p.m to 7 a.m as only fit for sleeping and dedicatedly follow that rule; but they all dedicatedly make it a point to miss all wetnites, be it common-room or in JLT.

Then come the Couplers – Both the drinkers & non-drinkers ones. Generally the first to enter the dancing floor, and always the last to exit too. What would XL wetnites be without them!

Then enter the Casanovas – Every batch has a collection of these; with amazing grace they jump from one girl to another, making all the right moves on, and off the dance floor, and at times even putting the couples to shame 😉

Then come in the Xlers – There is no other way to refer to them. They drink their hearts (and their wallets) out, they dance till the wee hours, considered safe by the chicks, they even get to groove with the “chicks” of the batch for a while. These are the ones that mostly land up for breakfast. Every wetnite. 

Finally come the Couch Potatoes (no pun intended 🙂) These gentlemen (haven’t yet seen the female sex donning this role) are content to watch the dance floor silently from the sidelines, always found with a drink in one hand & a smoke in the other. Kindly note, they should be the ones to target if youare interested in wetnite graxes! 😀

And then there are the Singles. They desire to go about dancing with the girls but are too tongue-tied to do, and hence tank themselves up with liquor. These poor souls then go hunting for a dance partner, but are mostly shooed away with a disapproving look.

 

As for the ladies, I guess it’s a completely different game! I still haven’t been able to understand them – complex creatures, a bundle of emotions & attitudes. But maybe, someday, I’ll make a post about them 😉