Random Musings

We all go through awkward moments in our lives. Maybe not everyday but in regular intervals of time. But when it does happen, we simply hope the moment goes away and we forget about it. We do we hide from them? Why dont we just try to come to terms with it? I have tried to chronicle some of them that has happened to me.

1. You meet your friend (level of friendship- acquaintance) on the street, (both of you come from opposite direction). Both of you stop and make some chit chat. You talk all you can , exhaust every subject until there is nothing else left to talk about. Finally, you both mutually and tacitly agree that its time to hit the road.

But then to yours and his/her (yea applies even to girls too, more awkward) shock, both of you are now heading in the same direction . Whats the reason? Maybe one you realised you forgot something from home or something. Now this is really wierd, you have to walk along him the whole way again until one of you hopefully branches off to the left/right. You are again obliged to make some forced conversation with him. But remember you talked about everything under the sun even that time when you cut your toe nail 2 inches too deep. So damn awkward now.

One solution to this is you either walk slower or faster than the other guy and hopefully fading away into the crowd.

2. You or/and your friend are at a restaurant. You head out to a table that has just been used and park yourself there. You see the table still has the half filled tumblers of water of the previous guy who ate. You kinda signal to the cleaner guy to clean the table, you dont want to do it as you feel guilty that this guy who is probably 10 years old has to clean tables for a living, while your bill for the meal is what he earns in a month.
(Awk moment-1)

After that unpleasent scene, are all set to order. But now the next challenge lies ahead. Getting the Waiters attention. I have been told that you can't do any of the following to address the waiter as it is considered rude. -

• Raising one's hand

• Shouting 'Waiter!' in the most dignified manner loud enough for him to hear you but low enough so that people dont stare and see what a ****** you are,
  

• 'Clicking' your fingers(the action where the thumb and the middle finger join to make a 'clicking' noise, hence called so).
  

So what else is there? By experience I have decided that the only way left is Catching the eye of the waiter. You have to raise your head high and look at any waiter who is not busy and stare until you see the whites of his eyes. Then a small inperceptible nod will clinch it and if he feels you are really worth a tip, he comes over. Another complication is this guy will thrust the menu on you and ask you for your order now. You need time , to make an informed decision after examining the menu in detail. You hope in vain he goes away giving you and your friend[s] time, but he obstinately stares at you and does not budge. You have to order now or you dont get food. Again this arises out of guilt that someone has to stand and wait on you and serve you as, probably the rich punk you are you make 10 times his wages.

Finally after you rush off your order, you stealthly glance at the guy near you(not your friend, he is as bad as you, but other tables) and you see he has ordered something scrumptious which is what you would have ordered if it wasn't for the waiters mind games and your inaptitudeness to make a decision. You can choose the right option in a DERRIDA Reading Comprehension where all of them are practically the same thing; but lo behold you cant choose what you want to eat. Fast Forward to the end of the meal and again the complex riddle of tipping comes into play. I'm not even going to go there.



If you think you have undertipped him, you leave the tip, steal 5 toothpicks+handful of that green minty stuff and run away before he can come and see the pittance you have left behind- the thanks that you have given him for his 30 mins of serving you like a slave! How does sucha waiter look- this guy here looks really pissed off ^^ , seems a close match.


3.This happened about a month back. I was on Yahoo! Msg and this dude just popped in says 'Hey, Im your batchmate from scmhrd, saw you on PG'(thats pagalguy.com not Parental guidance I aint in no movie..yet!). The thing is this dude had a real wierd name which I dont want to obv reveal here. Lets say his nick was - dude. This is how the conversation went after some general chit chat.


Me : So..You play comp.games?
Dude: Not really

Me: (Oh dang), Read Fiction Books?
Dude: Just the papers and some magazines

Me: (Aw man, gimme somthing here!) Did u see the cricket match ? We owned Pakistan!
Dude: I stopped watching cricket, its quite boring now.


Me: (Final straw, I decided to bring in the heavy artillery, girls which every guy has some interest in ;p) So..I heard pune full of cute girls huh? (I was desperate!!)

Dude: *Stunned Silence* I came to Scmhrd to do my MBA and I suggest you do the same.

*exit stage left*

Turns out the dude was in fact a dudette.

OWNED.

Posted by Raghav at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments

....and look at the startling results! NO WAI!!11

You Are 28% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well. In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

Click on the link below the pic to find out how screwed up you are! If you are less evil than me, please Im a nice guy and more evil than me..stay away from me you SATAN!!

Posted by Raghav at 4:13 AM | Permalink | Comments

..cause of some colourful Personalities I encounter..

• Teenage Punk Kids

Virtually 80% of the unwanted noise when the movie begins comes from these punks. They are the ones that sit behind you and try to make saracastic quips to either a) friends b) Girl Friends c) Strangers d) Themselves. You try to be polite and turn back and give him the subtle glance - you know you imply 'dude, please stfu trying to watch a movie'. But he knows you cant do anything cause well, your a wimp.

The punk will keep talking about either :

a) How he has seen this movie 100x times. (wtf are u still doing here ?!)
b) How this was the lamest movie ever--- ditto as above
c) Tell/Guess the ending -- Capital Punishement needed here.

• Cell Phone guys

One of the classic cases. Rich guy with the latest cell phone. Like this guy here.

The damn thing will ring with not just a small beep, no but the latest and most cacophonic ring tone given by a) Pepsi b) the latest hindhi movie c) Loser Hindhi Remix of english rip offs. He will take like 100 hours to locate the phone, now that they have become the size of a grain. He picks it up, he will pretend to be embarrrased by this ,the cell is gleaming like a lost philosophers stone which emits more gamma rays than the screen itself. Quickly cups his mouth with his hands and ducks down low to 'become invisible' to others. NEWSFLASH NOOB We can still hear you although you have shrunk 50%. He will still be in the hall for the enitre 5 mins

Complex cases include handing over phone to friend to absolve of guilt or turn left and right trying to look innocent prenteding that the noise aint coming from him. Nice try dumbass.

• Losers at the end of the row
  

One of the worst. Typical profile includes Loner, fat middle aged guy or a thief. Will come after the flick began 5 mins ago, and will make you lift your legs, water bottle etc so that he can slowly waft into his seat. He came late forgot to get the pop corn and pepsi so will again slowly move like a sloth thorught 100 seats block your view and get out to buy the stuff. Finally the intermission comes along you cast a glance at him. No he is seated happily does not budge.

IInd part of the movie. Guy drank too much, needs to take a leak , so again does the amoeba through you. U want to stab him as he passes you no doubt. My empathies.

Complex cases include people who get lost in which their row is and try the row infront of you, and then your row, effectively dissing you two times.

WORST CASE SCENARIO: OLD+SLOW+LOSER PUNK+2 OR MORE PEOPLE+CORNER SEAT+WITH BLADDER ISSUES+CELL PHONE RINGING+LONG SICK RING TONE WHICH WILL PLAY IN YOUR MIND THROUGHT THE WHOLE MOVIE


If I go to a movie theatre again, I will probably kill myself or the people mentioned above.




yes, I did that artwork myself..

Posted by Raghav at 5:40 AM | Permalink | Comments

I hate a lot of things in this world. You must know that by now. You can add one more to that list. Wondering what it is? Look the not so subtle clues in the Title and above now!

Still haven't got it?

ADVERTISEMENTS-A public promotion of some product or service

But as you know me, I always have a strong case for everything I do. Where exactly does it really piss me off?

• Television- Cricket

When I want to watch a cricket match, I err.. WANT TO SEE THE GODDAMN MATCH!

You know the Indo-Pak match is going to start at 10:00 am IST/EST/PT/GMT?! Depending on which time zone you are in. Fine, you park your ass on the couch at 10:00 sharp with the TV remote and all hyped to see the match. But does that happen? No. It’s a lie. There is some damn pre match analysis going on. Fine, it’s to do with cricket and helps build up the mood. But you see even the pre match show is sponsored by "fair and lovely" which is repeated like 6 billion times (and is like a 10000 x 1000 sq mt billboard behind the charu sharma)

OK WE GET THE MESSAGE! They promise that the game will begin in 10 mins. No 15 mins. No just 5 more. You half outta your mind now. (And did I mention about 10 comm breaks so far, even before it began). While you surf other channels during is ill fated time, you see a bulletin in NDTV saying "India won the toss- choose to field".

You are like "ZOMG!!11 wtf haxxors!?!" and you just realize you have been had. How did you miss the toss but had to endure the idiotic analysis of some dumb female doll on the pre analysis how? Thanks to our good friend addy. The ad was there when the toss took place live. Then you fume at the host abusing him. He then grins and says "Lets take you to what happened at the toss". You now hate his guts.

Finally the match begins. After two overs or so you notice like half the screen is gone. It’s cluttered with ads. From Godrej mats to ford fiestas half the screen is gone. The more irritating version would be the one that jumps and does the salsa on screen in bright orange font.

And you realize after the end of every over, the same ad still is shown? If I see another ford fiesta with abishek bachan on it, I will gag him in the trunk of the car and run it down a cliff. Two birds in one push. Whets worse than that? Ads which repeat continuously. I will never buy your product Vicks Vaporab.

Then comes the lunch session where one team is done batting/fielding. Then the analysis with more emphasis on ads then the game. For every highlight of the game we get a 'highlights package'

1. Aviva Insurance- Safe hands
2. Hero Honda- Star of the session
3. MRF- Master Blaster
4. Hitachi A/cs- Cool moments

Really..Is there no damn limit...every small little thing has to be filled with ads?

Finally during the fag end of games play with like 60 runs from 10 overs with 4 wickets or something exciting like that. You notice that actually have not seen the 1st and the last ball for the past hour or so. Thanks to the idiot operator's poor timing in balancing the max no of ads and cricket coverage. So basically, you miss anything exciting happening in the 1st and last ball of an over. Thanks to addy.

I have really lost interest in watching cricket matches because of this. It finally comes down to the money. BCCI India is the richest cricket board in the world with a whopping net worth of 220 crs!

More addys--> More Moneys---> All happys. But not me.

Posted by Raghav at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments

Last Night. I can remember it very vaguely so here it is:

1) I have a huge heavy bag with me and I set out to go to IIM-A
2) Both my parents say no don't go, but I left at 4:30 pm
3) As I walk along the road I get tired so take an auto. We chat about how he has seen Kashmir and I say "great".
4) Auto guy stops at a temple and says this is as far as I can go. Now you have to walk the rest of the distance.
5) I see many people on the left hand side of the street but the right is empty. They shout out to me to come and see some function going on. I run away from them.
6) I finally reach IIM-A but then I see a huge book from space..Its brown pages have something written on them like how I have to complete '10 steps' only then I can enter.


And then I wake up..I have had this dream before..I want to dream about something else(don't ask what :p) but this seems to keep coming back to haunt me..Its not something I dont want to have but I want to know what it fully means. Is the fact that I want to get into IIM but a divine hand tells me I have not done justice to the preperation and not put in enough? Next time this happens, I am suing my therapist. And cancelling my subscription from www.whatyourdreammeans.com , what a ripoff.

Posted by Raghav at 6:29 AM | Permalink | Comments

We all know that the internet is the uber-est thing since ATM's. I just came across this new concept called 'orkut'. I was like 'meh' big deal I've got yahoo msg and groups nothing can beat that. I did hear of Myspace but it did not have a great reputation. Apparently you get the coolest people there..stalkers+killers+pedos etc. And you know me, always on top of things esp when it comes to the internet. Got an invite from my cousin and bam! This place was really good. Pictures+Profile and the best part was the scrapping facility which is damn easy to use and kinda fun when it is public. It cannot be classified as a pure net forum(no quoting of posts) or stuff like that. I like it!

I met a lot of old school mates from sboa+nps and of course the reason I came here , my scmhrd gang. Nice to see their pics and know more about them. Orkut also has a nice system of cool/trust/sexy karma points which u get based on others anonymous voting for you..So far yours truly has got the cool+trust.Waiting for the last one :p
Another cool feature is the friends list and the communities which u want to be a part of..U can tell a lot from a person from then community he/she joins.


It has been addicting I will admit but as economists say, the law of diminishing returns has caught up with me. Or maybe I just have nothing better to do?

Posted by Raghav at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments

We decided to have a meet (all scmhrdian's from chennai) to kind break the ice and stuff, and the place for that was "Mochas"..Now this is the kind place where people with more money than sense go to..which is unfortunately why we all went! (Just for the record altogether I have lived in chennai for >16 years never been here or even the lower toned "Coffee Day" All mothers would love to have me as a son, I know.


Originally only 1 senior was supposed to come to meet the 5 juniors(us) but he got along his pals 5 more! I thought it would be kind wierd and stuff but they were really cool. What gets me is this place. U see boys/girls/a third sex here who come dressed to kill+loaded with the bling $$ + Smoke like chimneys. Now this is kinda a culture shock for me..Cause the hippest(is that a word?) place I've been to is Spencers..That too landmark at that! The ambiance is what the suckers come here for cause u got the works..kinda rustic+oritenal touch+Chinese lamps+stream on pebbles -.-

I paid 85 for a goddamn coffee late or whatever the hell it is called in Italian..Daylight or should I say twilight robbery! We had a nice time getting to know each other kinda well before the seniors made their arrival at the show. Some chicken sandwiches for one of my batchmates+ 2 awful coffee's+some other crap was ordered. The best drink of the day was a glass of water..aah tasted great after the coffee crud.

An actual 'hookah' was got in some strawberry flavor and was puffed at like an asthma patient with bronchitis..I and another guy declined politely was amazed at how liberal others were towards it.

One funny/scary/highlight of the evening was when someone broke the bottom part of the hooka machine thing and we had to cough up 3000 for it! Finally after some smart talking by the seniors and 1/2 June (not me, maybe in 2 years..) it was brought down to 1500.

Wierd.Ice melted like wax and soon we were kinda cool but I never really "fit in" with the place..Seems like a matrix with everything so artificial.

Ok, maybe Im making an issue outta this(like I do for everything) and I can hear you say 'why do u wanna come here and then b*tch about the place'? Fair enough. But I see how materialistic and image conscious the youth are today. Gotta been see in the right places with the right people wearing the right stuff. Geez..Is the opinion of another person so important you have to change for someone else? I think I am still I the past... Venues like the beach are frowned upon cause they don't have the 'X' factor. I wonder..Is it because Im an introvert I feel like this? Or is this a normal current-genx trend? I really gotta admire 1 guy here who was more bold and easy going than the seniors themselves..That's what I wish I had. I wonder if this is the same culture shock/future shock Im gonnna face at Pune..I have an eerie feeling it is gonna be like that.. But as long as I don't go to mochas or any thing like that ..im a happy camper.

Ps: We did take a couple of Pics (thanks to the Seniors who came with a neat camera) will try to get pics and upload them!

PPs: here is 1 of them..the hawt dude in the red shirt is me ;p

Posted by Raghav at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments

Its been one whole year since I actually started a blog lamenting how I bombed CAT 2004 and I created a blog to cry my heart out. Now one year later, nothing has changed, I bombed cat 2005 too and but managed to get through a decent B school if not the IIMs, a place called Scmhrd.

It pains me when I see people efforlessly cruising through the CAT. Sour grapes? I give a damn. What I can't stand is when they discover that they are uber cool when they took a "diag test" cause their friends 'pushed' them into taking it and score like 99%ile. Then they go like..'eugh..this is CAT?' ok fine your cool, smart. But keep your _____ intact.
Then in every mock cat they get 99+ and cry if they go to 98..sheesh. End up with 5 calls, get into one of them. End of Story. Then they say how life was a big struggle and how they will never forget how much they suffered..

/call teh care police.

dialing 1800-care-police-Stfu.


don't get me wrong. I really admire and even deify people who get I'M calls let alone convert them..In fact I am probably your biggest fan. But I cant stand the hypocrisy. Please. Don't insult the game. Lotta people playing here. Not cool to diss it.


Bill gates once said life was not fair. I thought since he is a rich stuffed up punk he will make up such idealistic crap. But now I realize he was right. It isn't. Some people are born with genius embedded in them like a microchip, others like me guess..Well will have to settle for second best.

PS: I' ve been getting some flak about this so Ill make it clear:

I dont like the peeps who make out a fact that they have struggled for a year to make it to the IIMs when from the very 1st mock they took they got 99+ Thats not really a struggle is it? I have nothing against anyone else! In fact I <3 IIM peeps!

Posted by Raghav at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments