Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Weekend away from Madness....

OK, I have always thought of finally settling down in a small town when i am done with my corporate life, and with whatever limited knowledge I have about the cities, Lucknow and Patna, along with BHopal and Jaipur top the list. And this weekedn I was in Lucknow, I just felt that I really need to cut short the maddening corporate life that I am currently into, and well...settle down in one of these places. Well, to begin with, was in Lucknow on Thursday...and what a day it was, lazing around, with people, relatives and friends, who actually have time in their lives, they are also working, making money and carrying on with their lives, yet they have so much of peace and time in their lives, that I was jealous ;P Went "Gunj-ing" , had chaat and kulfi, and some amazing mango sessions, with taaje tode hue dussehri aam....and just to bring out the contrast in life, I was actually trying to attend to a official call while at Hazratgunj, while the rest of the people were enjoying shopping, and that was when I had actually applied for a chutti, and was on a vacation.....mera vacation aur unka working day...need i say more.... People talk to you as human beings, traffic is easy, and no one is in a hurry. People actually talk to you, "aap" is the order of the day than the "tu" we are all used to.....wtf am i doing with my life??? and as if to rub salt in my wounds, the next couple of days were at Siwan, a small town on UP-Bihar border, bang in the middle of the "purabiya" belt.....have some property there, and so have to go there every once in a while,used to actually go there and spend the entire vacations while in school there with my family---playing games in the huge house, and spending the veneings in AAm and Litchi bageechas, that's a place that belies every conventional logic we have, Delhi- AC is the order of the day, and here I was in Siwan, where there was no electricity for more than 4 hours in the 2 days that I was there, and there was no sweat, I could sit in the room inside the 100 year old house that we have, and there was cool breeze.the only time i needed bijli was to charge my cell:)....there are people who could tell you endless stories about your family, and you know the entire mohalla and a lot more people, when the person sitting in the municipal property tax department knows your family and the linkages within, I actually slept under the stars, on the roof of the house, gazing into the sky - into the millions of the stars, of all shapes and formations....staying in flats in delhi, ihad simply forgotten how stars look like, except for those late night ice creams at India Gate :) All this was at a level of city, but what stands out the most are the people, there are millionaires in Siwan, with shops and lands and businesses, and there are literal cliff hangers, people with chai shops who do not even earn say 50 bucks a day, and they are all happy, they know each other, and the families know each other, the chai wali from the chowk was actually sitting at our place, talking to my mother , who apparently is the "bahu of the town", the amazing thing was that she was happy and content with what she ws doing, unlike all of us thouroghbred MBA and engineers who think two hoots before jumping another job for a few thousand or few lakhs.....businesses open at 530 in morning only to close at 10 in the morning and then open again in evening- 5-8 , since it was too hot in the afternoon, and people wanted to just go back home...you could actually survive with 20 rupees for 3 square meals in the day, and yet again no one was in a hurry....I really wish there was a way that i could go back and do something in Siwan, something that ll keep me busy, and gets me money too, and I'll be more than happy to go there and settle down. One of my batchmates, NItesh , belongs to Ptna, has a job in Patna with a multinaitonal salary....and i feel there is no way anyone can beat it..... come to think of it, what keep these people happy.....is it the simplicity of thought?? or is it the lack of oneupmanship.....I may be a pauper living on literally nothing, but people were calm and would offer tea to anyone who comes to them.....why can all of us not be like them, what do they have or know that we don't??

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Thoughts on marriage

Almost a week since last post, and the week has been the same old one...one of my very good old friends had some peculiar issues about her marriage, something that I could not think of a simple way out, but it leads me to think of an even more important point in the whole issue of marriage.... OK, in a nutshell, the guy had a long lost affair before he got married to this friend of mine, and now the ex is back for a short stint with the flame rekindled, leading to turmoil in all lives concerned. My Friend, let call her S, has a difficult situation at her hands, and there are no shortcuts or knee jerk reactions possible here. There is this other friend who insists that such things would keep happening in a arranged marriage, if either the guy or girl has a pre-marriage affair or relationship, and to an extent I feel she is right, but at the same time a lot depends upon the people under question and their maturity. Not everyone would do what S's husband is (apparently)upto. But here's the pertinent question- as human beings which are always thinking, would such a relationship be viable, or would the entire life be always a comparative study between the first flame and spouse? Another discordant view comes from the psued people who have multiple relationships before marriage- now would complicate matters further- since there would be more points of comparison, or would it be more simpler, since there are no set benchmarks, and the special relationships would not be there to compare, I do not know the answer, and would really want to understand. OK, Why m i pondering over it, since i m also trying to look for someone right now(??), and have no idea as to what impact it may have on the choice of girl. The simplest way out would be to fall in love with a girl, get to know her, and then settle down with her...picture perfect, but the same is not possible always....in fact that has an inherent problem attached, you never get to see the back of the person you claim to love, since more often than not, you are enamored by the "power of love" so i m back to the square one....no ways of marrying is a foolproof way, it appears that i had a chance, and i squandered it away....is it too late now??

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Another week....projects- professional and personal

well, a happening week it was, projects in real life and professional life, and while the professional project is difficult, the trouble in completing it pales in comparison to what has been the status of my "personal" project....did some good research based work at office, all that remains is to draw conclusions....and well that's the difficult part...but i think i now have the hang of what i would be doing over the next few days...and so it would be over in time, and in line with expectations....market surveys can be done for sectors, minus the sector that is going to define the rest of your life...the market research for the marriage prospects:) ok, back to the oft-flogged topic of marriage....one of my friends skimpy from IIMB, has an amazing series on the entire market and concept of arranged marriage, well, he's the topper of our batch and no wonder the style of writing reflects that....loads of management fundamentals, analysis, cases being presented, but i think i agree with the underlying thread of the series...i do not know how to add a link to one particular article, so here's the link to his blog i am thinking a lot about the kind of girl i should get married to , considering the kind of profiles that get thrust in front of me almost on a daily basis now.....and i realized that this is a problem with no check-lists.....i tried shortlisting girls based on my understanding of the family values....small educated family girls would be better off- i thought since they would be raised in a family similar to ours....similar family values, i maintained that business class families would be a no-no....and that the girl should be decently educated, and by that i meant....either a PG in a decent subject(which means MBA, sciences, English or economics)..., or a professional(the most abused word in the marriage domain...it includes just about anyone and everyone......doctor, engineer, architect, dentists, fashion designer, interior designer, CA, CS, CWA...and i dont know what all...well for me it meant only doctor, engineer and dentists)...again the choice of subjects does mean any bias towards anyone, just this that i thought that these lines of education would probably make the thinking a little common....the above covers a real broad spectrum of girls, and from whatever i understood by talking to the "prospects" and their families is that there is something amiss in this entire arrangement. well, that is something i am pondering about for quite some time, and it seems it needs more thinking....i don't know what to think further, if i be too close ended, that would leave literally no one to choose from....so its the marketing principle coming to the fore....prospect, and then shortlist, and then do a more thourogh research, and then shortlist further, and then finally make the call...provided even you meet the criteria set on the other end for all these tests.....who said marriage was a easy thing...:)