A D(raining) week...

It’s been a rainy week in Mumbai, and I keep getting calls from an agitated mom and agitating relatives asking me to stay put at home, warning me to be careful, and in general being a nuisance. Like this is something earth shattering in Mumbai. Rains and Mumbai are synonymous and this is probably the least rains that Mumbai had seen in the last six years that I have been here and being in Powai, I can safely assure that life has never been more comfortable. So yes, all those flood images on the television do not apply to my life. I am on top of the world, literally, given that the entire Hiranandani area is at a higher altitude. We did get stuck in office one day, but that was more due to stupidity of donating my umbrella rather than life threatening rains. However, thanks to the turbulent weather, our weekend trip to Panchgani did get cancelled, and I can’t crib enough about that.

Otherwise it’s been a pretty uneventful week: lot of bills to pay, yet another cooking episode followed by yet another marathon washing exercise, shopping at sale (even in Mumbai you still get skirts for 60 bucks! I repeat, 60 bucks!) and in between my busy schedule, I did manage to get some work done as well at office. Now that we are inundated with work with all the companies coming out with their 2nd quarter results, I don’t feel quite so useless, which is good for my emotional well being. But yes, this blog is still my “cake”. The “cake” theory states that while a job and making your living is extremely commendable, especially in such times when jobs are hard to come by, you still need a passion, a reason to live for, a challenge to strive for, i.e. you need your “cake”! So while corporate finance, treasury, FRM and CFA are eligible for that “cake” status for some people and a fancy inter-company competition which may end with a dream vacation in Europe for others, for me writing and dreaming about writing still continues to be it. So yes, since this blog is my only mode of expression as of now, this IS my cake, ok, if not a cake, definitely a big large chocolate pastry!

But the highlight of the week was obviously my successful blood donation attempt. After my previous two attempts were unceremoniously rejected on medical grounds, this time I was considered healthy enough and as I lay there minus one mother dairy packet of blood, I felt extremely elated, though my right hand felt a little numb. So growing up has many dimensions as I am starting to discover: from confusing bill payment exercises (which are very confusing indeed) to taking care of sick people to blood donation to sodexo management (do not underestimate the importance of this very tricky business)…

P.S.: Thank you Vodafone, Airtel, Reliance Energy, Newspaperwala, Maid, Westside, Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, and most of all, landlord, I am broke again!!

This n That!

Now that I am one month old in the organization, I am starting to feel more comfortable with my new environment: i.e. being a nobody, not having much work, not knowing what to do with my life and conforming to a system that I don’t agree with. But yes, not withstanding these minor roadblocks, my life is pretty smooth! The idli, the mini meal and the channa kind of seals the deal! Not to mention the occasional Garcia, KFC and ITC Sheraton treat. And when we are too bored, the “deep-diving” and “the whisperacy theory” keeps us busy!

So yes, we do have high hopes: 42 inch LCD TVs, DVD players, playstation portables, expensive mobile phones, and of course Sony Vaio laptops. We also have loans to pay off, deposits to reimburse and debts to repay, and expensive exams to register for. And the money in our accounts is irreversibly depreciating. So while it’s fascinating to wander around E Zone pretending to be rich yuppies who can afford all the luxuries paraded in front of us, the truth is that we are the kinds who take a round, ask meaningful questions that excite the sales guys and finally settle down on the comfortable couch in front of the above mentioned 42 inch LCD, watch Will Smith and Eva Mendes looking even more gorgeous than we thought they were and discuss our realistic financial status. So after we have accounted for all our expenses, we are left with a budget that can barely buy kurtas, shirts, sarees and coffee mugs for our family. So we gracefully take our leave from E Zone, empty handed after empty promises of coming back and head to Westside and Spykar showrooms before the sale gets over! So long for all our “first salary” extravaganzas. But we reason, it’s the thought that counts and the gesture that matters, rather than obscene displays of material riches! As long as the “tadaaa factor” is there, satisfaction is also there.

So as the world moves on, as the Williams sisters bag yet another grand slam title and as India finally takes a bold step towards civilization by decriminalizing homosexuality, my life continues to be as confusing as ever, as much of a roller coaster journey as the bumpy rickshaw ride on a rainy Saturday night, as wrapped up in the past as it is in the future: the minor glitch being the present!

The Man (Boy) in the Mirror!

In the early nighties when I was growing up sans FM, sans satellite television and sans gossip tabloids, western music meant just two names to me: Madonna and Michael Jackson, both around the same age, both in the prime of their careers and both legends in their own way! They made as much news for their music as they did for their extra-musical activities, and as kids we eagerly imbibed as much of it as we could access, at times going to extreme lengths just to get a glimpse of that fantastic dreamland (Neverland being only a miniscule part of it) and living vicariously through it. I remember being confused for a long time about who Michael Jackson exactly is: I mean, the very basics, I mean, a man or a woman, I mean black or white! His plastic surgeries, his antiques, his personal life- none of it survived the media onslaught, none of it was handled with dignified silence and none of it made it any easier for him. Most of it just added colour to his already colourful personality as his face became whiter, his appearance ghastlier. For somebody who had been in the limelight ever since he was five, for somebody who had sold his right to privacy for his right to fame, for somebody who had thrived in the media glare, he was still the kid who craved for attention and yet didn’t know how to handle it. While the world worshipped him, while the youth imitated him and while the women fantasized about him, he himself was an insecure, vulnerable and largely misunderstood child lost in the big bad world. From multiple surgeries to multiple marriages and fatherhood, from having the world at his feet to seeing it disappear, from being one of the richest entertainers in the history to a pauper reduced to abject poverty, he had seen it all. Scarred forever as a victim of child abuse, he found solace in the company of a pet chimpanzee, and later in teenaged boys in his very own version of Disney land. Marred by allegations of paedophilia, he found comfort and romance in the arms of women who were more of a caregiver rather than an arm candy to the “King of Pop”.

So while Michael continued to live life as a child trapped in a grown man’s body, he also continued to make impeccable music which took the world by storm. From Thriller, to Bad, to Dangerous, to HIStory, to Invincible, he was unparalleled as an artist. While I watched his moonwalk moves in awestruck wonder, tapped to the beat of “Beat it” and “Billy Jean”, laughed at the irony of “Black or White”, and stood up in reverence to “Heal the world” and “The Earth Song”, I couldn’t help wondering how this supremely gifted person with his supremely good intentions (he holds the record for contributing to the most number of charities by an entertainer) can so royally screw up his life!

He may be the media’s favourite bashing boy¸ he may be the crook’s easiest target, he may be the greatest anti hero of this century, he may have lived alone and died alone, but he is definitely the little kid who never grew up, the pop icon who lost his way to stardom, the celebrity who never really celebrated his success!

Alice in Wonderland!

30th June, 2009: it was going to be a big day in my life! I was going to get paid my first salary (I know I have worked before, but that was just an interim thing, while I waiting for something else). So yes, for all I care, this WAS my first salary, and I was badly in need for it. I was already running on borrowed money and sodexo coupons and for the first time in life, I knew what it meant to be broke. So I dressed well (as well I could afford to), armed myself with my brand new atm card and chequebook and internet banking password of my brand new salary account, and then, I headed to office with aspirations of being rich.

For the rest of the day I checked my account online every half an hour (which kept showing a dismal zero as available balance), I kept staring at my cellphone waiting for that promised sms from HDFC saying that my account has been credited, I refreshed my mailbox intuitively hoping for that mail informing me I am finally rich… between all these, I found time to ping every possible acquaintance on the IM trying to squeeze out some inside information about that hallowed moment when we will get our salary. I asked my seniors who annoyingly cool about it, assuring me that it would definitely be done ANYTIME before 11:55 p.m. But that vague concept of “ANYTIME” was not good enough for me. I needed to know the precise hour and the minute so that I could plan my future (future here implies immediate alcohol consumption plans). After I was put through some extremely sad practical jokes by dumb colleagues who call themselves my friends, after I had abused the entire world a million times over and after I have had the affordable sandwich at the café for dinner) at 8 p.m. I was still poor, I was still sober and I was extremely dejected. So like everyday we set off for home gloomily, our party plans put on hold yet again.

And then, and then, and then it happened. One of us received a sms, and he just stood still, his face blank and his expression white as he extended the phone to us! Yes, it was the lonnng awaited sms from HDFC Bank declaring me as “rich and famous”. Well, may be not famous, not yet, but rich definitely! And suddenly the guys were rushing towards the ATM with me struggling in my heels and running behind them as I tried to keep up. My hands trembled as I inserted the card for the first time in the slot. Not surprisingly I got the pin wrong and was asked to enter it again. But finally, it was there, right in front of my eyes! Rs. 1.5 lacs balance against my name. MY hard earned (ok, not so hard earned) money! I took a mini statement of the cash position of my account on 30th June, 2009, 8:55 pm which I intend to take to my grave. And then I withdrew some money to fund my drinking plans. And then I called up parents, friends and other random people to share this landmark moment. This was bliss, as I had ever known bliss!

I rushed home, changed hurriedly in the dark (first power cut in my new house) and for the first time I felt like dressing up to go drinking and this time we were determined to graduate to an upmarket resto bar with good music and karaoke instead of our usual shady pubs and happy hour drinking binges. And, yes, vodka followed by tequila shots is great: good enough for drunken late night conversations.

The BEST supper!

Yesterday was a ground breaking day in my life… I COOKED, or more specifically I TRIED TO COOK!

Now why on earth would I do something so uncharacteristically outstandingly mindblowingly impossible? The reason was simple: as simple as a rotten gobi, or more precisely, an about-to-be rotten gobi.

Our home has a very simple modus operandi . My flatmate cooks, she bakes yummy cakes and she shops for relevant groceries, i.e. rice, dal, spices, vegetables. I mostly eat out, or order in or gleefully accept whatever she dishes out, and so far I hadn’t really ventured to figure out what we store and where we store, and how all of it looks like. So while I am content with the eggs and the Maggie and the bread, I can hardly distinguish one spice from another and terms like dhania powder, lal mirch and turmeric barely make any sense to me. No correction, they barely MADE sense to me. Please note the past tense! Because since yesterday night, I am no longer a cooking virgin and yes, I know how to add spice to my life, I mean cooking. So far my kitchen exploits were strictly guided by my mom’s expert instructions, but now that I am all grown up and alone, I can manage with valiant directives over the phone, a few downloaded recipes from the net, detailed descriptions on the IM and Q&A sessions with colleagues with a little help from padosi who has more experience in the kitchen than I do.

So it all started with my flatmate mourning about the rotten-to-be gobi and her inability to come home early enough to cook. And since we are both broke, we appreciate the value of each penny and consider wastage as a criminal offence. So clearly letting that expensive gobi rot wasn’t an option. So the only other alternative was that I should cook it, as impracticable as it may sound. I borrowed some money from her and on my way back after managing to convince a very (I repeat VERY) skeptical padosi, we bought rice along with Maggie and pepsi (back up options).

And, ladies and gentleman, at the auspicious hour of precisely 9 pm, I started peeling potatoes and that life changing gobi! The next couple of hours were kind of a whirl that I never imagined I would put myself through as I tentatively navigated through uncharted territories and alien objects like oil, spices, not to mention microwave and non stick pans. My padosi was a little more steady, a little more confident and a little more comfortable than I was. I managed to burn the gobi and what was initially intended to be a curry, ended up being a fried, burnt variety, but which was still edible (or I would like to believe so). Padosi came up with a dal which he proclaimed to be amazing (and in absence of better options, I agreed)
So as we messed up the kitchen, as our sink was filled with dirty utensils (as if we fed an entire baraat), as we sat there exhausted at 11 pm, as we ate our first home cooked meal in one month, I felt so blissfully happy: my first cooked meal, as terrible it was, it was THE BEST SUPPER EVER!

Happiness Quotient>Poorness Quotient

Right now I love my life; it’s not perfect, but it’s as close to perfect as it ever was! Yes, I have no money (not even to pay the autowala) and yes, I am still single, and yes, I don’t enjoy my job as my hypothetical idealistic hopelessly romantic alter ego would like to, but I AM very very happy.

I love having friends who bring home alcohol and chicken as we get drunk, as we make noise, as we go out at 230 in the morning for chocolate mousse and as we somehow squeeze ourselves on the bed, the sofa and the divan. It reminds me of my childhood when I would do the same with my cousins in a small two roomed apartment with my mom perpetually grumbling!

I love the cafeteria food: it’s cheap, it’s simple and it saves me the headache of worrying about food. The same old idli for breakfast, the same old mini meal for lunch and the same old leftover dinner all for 50 bucks works wonders!
I love my mundane life in spite of disappearances of “beautiful” dustbins and appearance of deaf and dumb maids after three rounds of interviews and cat poop on the window!

I love the fact that I get to have weird guests who turn up late at night and then we land up at somebody’s place even later to wish them happy budday and mess up their flat and then go drinking when the bar is about to close and then end up spending 200 bucks for a single flame shot (described as 2 mins of ecstasy inclusive of the 1.5 mins of foreplay)

And I love discussing hypothetical parental ground rules about my hypothetical kids and the hypothetical games and the extra- curricular activities that I will impose on them!

Hypothetically Speaking...

At times when you are sitting at your desk, post lunch, desperately looking to come up with “deep actionable insights” and failing miserably, your mind drifts away to hypothetically important issues which lose their significance the moment you pen them down (like right now… I am supposed to comment on some four financial parameters and after two days of struggle I have given up and decided to comment on my life instead: the not-so-important aspects)

So I am still to receive my first salary (one more week to go) and I have Rs 7 left in my account and I am paying off kind padosis not through cash but through Sodexho coupons.

I hate running into my senior in the washroom, especially when we are in the adjacent loos and we hear one another pee and come out sheepishly, not knowing what to say.

I indulge in day dreaming and futile discussions with friends over the IM, planning a hypothetical trip to some hypothetical place when we finally get our hypothetical salary.

I finished my first peg of whisky without getting drunk and I can finally claim that I have “acquired” the taste for it, though I still can’t claim I like it. When did drinking become a proof of sophistication? It’s similar to reading classics. You love to claim that you have read it, but secretly you know you didn’t enjoy it.

I dislike Fair and Lovely shade cards, BMI, excel sheets, CV shortlisting and surprise engagements: all of which lead to drinking with hypothetical friends and walking alone and lengthy late night conversations and sarcastic chowkidaars.

I know I should do something useful with my life: like FRM, CFA, IAS, or at least journalism but all I do is obsess about hypothetical situations.

All said and done, a lot of things in my life are, well hypothetical…