Monday, August 28, 2006

Uneventful yet pleasant....

The weekend is over and thankfully Clifton is no longer flooded. I liked driving to work today, now im just hoing for the gravel to be removed from one of the main turns and then a couple of other areas to be smoothed out and the traffic to be made decent and the noise to come down and the signals to disappear and to get a.........aaah....too much wishful thinking!!! but hey.....you never get anything unless you actually hope or wish for it!
 
The weather is pretty pleasnt now. The sun is out, but mercifully doesnt attempt to roast us out when we step onto the street and the wind is blowing pretty pleasant these days. On saturday I took my mum to one of her cousins places that was a 30 min locating activity. I had no plans to hang out there so I tried to hook up with a few friends, thankfully neither they nor I confirmed on the meetup otherwise it would have been tough. I wouldnt have been able to make it. We found the house after driving trough the same lane 3 times in a pursuit for their name plate! Interestingly enough, they had a very desi name spelt angrezi style hence it was over looked, but I did remember passing by it in the very first go.
 
Sunday, I woke up with a killer pain in my back. It happens everytime I sleep beyond 7/8 hours and is sort of bothering me. But the best part is that it goes away within a couple of hours once I'm out of bed and moving about. Maybe I'm just not used to lying arond, that be good...no?
 
We drove around in search of a couple of home appliances and I showed my new office to mum and the bros that were along. She be happy.
 
They say no news is good news, wich essentially means that people can in circumstances be happy without any material changes to ones life. The occurence of an event is often unconnected to happiness.
 
My phone is still dead and if any reader of this blog knows anyone at PTCL, can someone please please help me get this fixed? its getting to my nerves now! Im actually on the phone right now and listening to PTCL's music as I try to register yet another complaint about the damn thing!
 
Oh, and the attack of the random orkut adders has started yet again. I think they come in waves and hunt in packs. Sometimes there is complete and utter silence, other times they comes on 2s, 3s and once even 5 at a time!
 
Sick!

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Darkness falls

I spin in silence, between the winds and the shadows. The darkness creeps deeper, the shadows, fight stronger, each racing to survive. The winds, seemingly calm, stir up moments of time, lost so far behind. The only thing thats real amongst all this, is the self inflicted pain, possibly only to see if I were still alive.
 
There is a hole in my skin, the blood refused to flow, I dress myself in thorns, yet I feel not the slightest pinch. My thoughts are broken, ideas frozen, emotion silent. Someone else is there,  beyond repair. What I have turned into. There, is now someone else, I am lost.
 
How I wished the night had never fallen. It fell, I fell, broken to infinite pieces. As I sit here, searching, stealing, hiding from it all, recollecting myself in whatever manner possible. There is very little that can be done.
 
There is the complete, and there is the part. I am the part, my whole is broken. My life is broken. Everything around me fades, into the darkness, into the black light that blinds me, casting shadows that shower the flames that have fought back from within me.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Moving in...Flying out...

Moving into a new office is just as much hassle (or a reason to start afresh) as moving into a new home. I have formally moved into the new office today and things so far look good. The internet service is here (after a long wait the other day), the tea will taste different for reasons of change of a tea making person. Lunch menus will probably change too, not to mention an A/C that i can shut off when I dont need it. At the other place, while I started out with a room to my own, I ended up sharing it with a partner and another company employee. The company employee was not our company, he belonged to the company we were situated at. This place, however, will be more to ourselves.
 
The business partner has his own room, I have my own, with a sweet little black coloured glass-top table and decently toned down lamps. Not to mention this place actually has access to sunlight :).
 
Tons of stuff yet to get and we'll keep coming across with things that we feel are missing. Not to mention, heres an opportunity to make this place actually look like an office.
 
Will post pix of the new place soon enough....but currently more important on my head is the day-out-of-town trip I need to make tomorrow.

Back...

So here I am again. The rains have been quite a pain. Blessings they may be, but considering the damage it brings to a poorly infrastructured city, we are better of with lighter showers, provided they occur on a slightly more frequent basis.
 
The long long weekends really put me off. Considering my world domination plan, there are several things I need to do on certain time frames. If one time frame is missed, there is inevitably a domino effect.
 
Im currently at the new office, waiting for the ISP guys to come and configure the internet service here. Hoping all goes well soon, I plan to move into this new location with in the next 2/3 days at most. The view is good here, there happens to be a nursery right opposite my office, which makes things kinda pleasant. Now all thats needed is a set of window shades / blinds or something that functions to that effect, a power socket near my seat, a better chair and some rubber plugs to stop the glass on my table from moving. Oh yeah, no telephone sets here either.
 
The sky looked pretty ominous this yesterday, thankfully no hard rain, else a lot would have been washed out again.
 
It drizzled a while ago and I have external meetings.....lets hope things stay sane.
 
 

Saturday, August 19, 2006

The Thursday Tale...

Here i go again, blogging from my cell, thanks to my dead phone line which has left a significant deal of my home in communication darkness.

Phone has been dead since noon on wednesday, thanks to blind ploughing activity in one of the plains which damaged the cables.

Come thursday, i left for office a bit late since it rained slightly on wednesday too, which has tendencies to have extremely lasting effects on your car at times.

While on my way to work, i used almost a million tissues to wipe off the perspiration after feeling like a constantly-lightly-squeezed-wet-sponge.

Office was cool, started raining at 4, little did we know it would be that mad!

When i left the office at 5:30, i was having a tough time looking out the car thanks to the constant condensation on the windscreen.

Managed to drive, slowly, steadily, only to find that i was heading for the worst jam ever. Just as i took a turn at regent to hit sf and went down by less than a km, everything came to a standstill. Then on, there was movement, only a few metres or so.

The rain was beating down hard, very very hard, and actually did a very thorough body cleaning job of the car.

I started contacting friends, who i assumed were stuck in the jam on the same route in an attempt to gather info.

One friend had lost her car to flooding under a bridge about 3 km down the same road and that point was my eventual path of passage. The lack of movement there was the reason this entire hold up was taking place.

There were signs of slight movements every few mins or so and we did move a few inches once in a while. The only logical option was to sit out, and wait till the movement was realistic.

The rain stopped a few minutes on and i battled the traffic on my left to move into a service lane and parked there.

My growling tummy only found a drink since the store at the nearby fuel station only had drinks and lubricants. I preferred the former.

I waited out a good deal of time, about 3 hours listening to music, smsing friends be im-ing over the phone.

Traffic started moving and it seemed the the water was clearing out.

Jumped into the cockpit again and charged down the road. 10 mins down, saw another holdup and was guided to use to opposite side of the road by a gang of young men who were helping people cross the divide. I jumped in too and resumed my charging down the road. Eventual conclusion: another jam. After waiting there for about an hour, i saw people pulling u-turns and actually heading the way that the road is supposed to be driven on.

I teamed up with bro, who was stuck nearby and we decided to take the tariq road route, which had been pronounced clear thanks to the radio updates, but not without grabbing a bite.

We rendezvoused (is that a word?) at a kfc on the same road, and after discovering that they were out of stock, we hit kfc at tariq road. Killed the fire in the belly and then drove straight home.

Got there by 1.30 in the night, but couldnt help noticing the thin number of cars in the area. I guess many more people still stuck in the jam.

Crashed in bed. Off to sleep. Friday was obviously a bad day to head to work, so i chilled at home, watched v for vandetta.

Its saturday morning now, light drizzle in progress, i hope no more mad rains come through. I hope my phoneline gets fixed?

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

30 min indie movie review....

For those wondering, the movie did not last 30 mins, but for me, it started and ended after a merciless crash within those 30 mins. The following post will answer a lot of queries regarding my disinterest in Indian flicks. The post is not meant to hurt anyone, and is purely an expression of my personal opinion regarding a particular indian movie.
 
Said movie is titled "Corporate" and was about the ups and downs of the corporate world in India. I started watching the movie where 2 "top executives", the CEO and the project head were sitting discussing the ground water contamination levels at the bottling plant location just 2 weeks prior to the launch of a soft drink.
 
Question 1, if the company is a soft drink company, why does it need a project head to start off with?
Question 2, one of the top execs was the CEOs brother in law, the other was the female the brother in law had a relationship with. What sort of corporate was this?
Question 3, the company was projected to be a foreign firm (lets keep it at franchise at the moment). What sort of foreign firm will allow such callousness?
 
Coming to financials, this company, was in operations, and was about to have a Rs. 4,000 crore public issue. Why the hell cant they talk in normal numbers?/ Rs. 4,000 crores = Rs. 40,000,000,000. Now thats one huge public issue for a company thats already captured 60% market share using ONE plant!.
 
India is a huge country, even Pakistan has 4-5 bottling plants for Pepsi alone! So if it already has that much market share, what other business does it want? 40 billion is a huge amount! Over 7 billion USD! That has to be the largest public offering in the world ever! pretty ambitious they be I guess!
 
The group itself, was over 20,000 crores....so approx. 36 billion USD in size? Thats massive. With that kind of power under your belt, even the prime minister would shit a ton of bricks before bothering you. So why the hell were they scared of a bloody enquiry commission? and they made it seem as if the law is very strict! such BS i swear! What happened to the Bofors scandal? What happened to the Tehelka people? What about the persons implicated in teh Union Carbide incident? For those who dont know, the Union Carbide pesticide plant disaster in Bhopal is one of the worst in industrial history after the Chernobyl disaster!
 
Nothing happens to anyone.
 
This movie was clearly written by someone highly impressed by the corporate world, but obviously knew nothing.
 
I watched Inside Man last night, a dialogue from Denzel Washington: Don't bullshit the bullshitter.
 
Its pretty self explanatory why I only watched a part of it.

A long long weekend.....

A long weekend started with a quickie....all saturday I was out of home getting on ething after the other done and then finally got home at about 11.30 or something. Good part is my home PC is now back to its functional self hence I shall now be able to load a lot more music into my lappie. That process was stalled ever since my monitor frizzed out on me about 2/3 weeks back and we held up because of the moist weather. It was happening to quite a lot of people, therefore sadness subdued, selfish me.
 
Nothingness prevailed on sunday, except a beautiful beautiful rain spell that left us all.....well...spellbound seems like the right word to me. Monday, Independence day. I really moving post by Jaded here. It left me mesmerized, so true to the core, so honest, so sadly, yet madly true.
 
I also, for the first time in quite a while, watched an indian movie (now that wont be completely true, i just watched about 30/40 mins of it). That, id like to dedicate a whole post to......but I also watched 2 movies almost back to back...after ages!
 
Im catching up....i like!
:D
 
 
 

Friday, August 11, 2006

Beauty Contest.....

NO!!!! Not the one you guys are thinking....this one is purely in I-Banking terms. Projects are paraded before prospective investors, and the greediest one who has an appetite takes a jump at it and a stake. Its not on open biddings, Its like every prospective investir gets his/her private show ;)
 
The interest, ofcourse, is followed up by term sheets and Investors try to offer the best terms for their participation. Heres where the game gets real dirty. You take X investor's termsheet, and use it to get better terms from Y. You end up doing multiple rounds to each one of them, and each time they improve terms!
 
The investors know this happens, but they cant help it either.
 
So apparently as it may seem from my un-moving party dude image that im having a beauty contest at the party den im famed to have, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!! THAT IS NOT THE CASE!!!!
 
The answer to our project lies in a beauty contest, so we concluded in our meeting on wednesday.
 
I guess a week or two to go.

Stuck.....continued

Alright...so lets kick this off where we left off. I was thinking weather I should be taking the risk of venturing onto the road or not. I actually did go down, but very frankly, came back up after being scared. Ive seen that road well enough and have also used it to a great deal on for the greater part of a year during those timings. Something definitely felt wrong.
 
Started a chit chat with the restaurant manager and he served me tea, desi style, the way we like it, as against the standard menu tea they generally serve. Ah...good one that was.
 
Was getting updates on the traffic scenario on the other exit from my elder bro, who ventured into a road and told me things were moving. I told him to let me know as soon as he could find a decent passage through. The minute he hit Sharah e Faisal, he gave me a buzz, and let me in on his clear entrance. I followed his tail though and voila....an open road.
 
Sped down like mad and was home in 20 mins (once i hit the road that is).

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Stuck!

This post is titled so because its the position im in right now. Who thought id be blogging from my cell sitting in an Indulge cafe on my way home only cos i was stuck in 2 consecutive traffic jams.

Its mad. I was driving from iic, pulled a u turn near the cm house and headed for clifton through the bypass. After wading through clifton to kh-ittehad, i cant get on to the sh-e-millat ext.

Its been a while and the traffic looks pretty bad on the opposite side.

There is some sindhi drama being shot here, and the whole staff is looking. This place is never crowded hence i guess im not the centre of attention right now.

I wish the roads open up soon, cos my plans of headin home early look dashed right now.

Dost sent a message, finally some contact with someone i know. Low on cell credit, hence would have tossed call to someone.

The movie staff is goin, they have wrapped up things. Im takin another look out the window, looks like things are movin. Point is, e i want to take the shot?

Trade mark action in progress: they shall now play the music i want them to.

:D

Monday, August 07, 2006

Lunch rants!

Im sittin at office right now....waiting for my GODDAMN lunch!!!! When the hell will it arrive? I can feel a washing machine turning around in my tummy!!!
 
Pirates was good last night, had fun at the movie and in a way...I like this Jack Sparrow charachter. He has an interesting way with words and not to mention a fine wit that goes with it.
 
Im busy otherwise....but I scanned through my Orkut today...and actually deleted friends I did'nt know...sounds weird I know....friends I did'nt know. They were friends only cos that was their orkut status......and thats about it. In real life...I did'nt know these people. Ive also made a brush on ratings.....so some may see changes.....rest.....I apologise to.
 
Now....where the hell is my lunch???

Friday, August 04, 2006

Something happened. I just don't know what...

It feels that something has happened. Today was one of the many days when I feel and try my hand at creating something, I have lost the ability to create. I fail to be able to describe a moment. I have lost vision. Once a man of perception, has lost all sense of all he had. I feel lost, barren, broken inside.
Through time I have moved from a story teller, a playwright, and a poet of sorts to what I am today. Nothing. The inability to create makes me feel like I am beyond my body, just a spirit, disjointed from the world. I feel unable to hold, shape and word things the way I want to.
It is purely and induction of the state of mind that I am going through, or rather I have been going through for over the past 4 years. From the end of my advertsing days to the end of marketing management to the start of entreprenurialism. Its been a long joirney. So llittle done, so much more to go. I am not tired, but I contemplate at times as to where I have been and where I belong. Those I have destryed and not those I have made. Those I have lost and those I have gained. Money is no object here.
Introspection leads to analysis, something I believe we must all do from time to time. I do not say we sit and calculate the cost of our actions, whether emotionally driven or calculated. What's done has been done, cannot be undone. We move on just learning what our actions have yielded.
I have realized that to this day, I have gained inner peace, or rather isolated myself from the inner me. Maybe thats just how inner peace is supposed to be. Silent, soft, unstirring.
There is so much more to be said, so much less felt though. Too bad, I dont have the words, or the expression to create it now.
Its like telling a story while you are gagged up, or telling it while you are facing the katabatic winds on a dark night in the December arctics. Maybe telling your story a hundred feet below the tumoultous sea. Each time all alone, each time you are drowning, each time knowing that you are losing yet carrying on. All a means to the end, knowing that its there, but just doing whats needed, not caring what it will bring you or anyone else.

Silent Raindrops...

A silent raindrop on the window sill. A soft stirring harmony of the raindrops crashing to the ground around yoy. Each a universe on its own, each a dream, a life, a planet on its own. Millions fall by us every minute of this dawning day All gone, forever smashed to a million pieces together, only to come beneath our feet, only to flow back, silently, to meet the dead souls of their own kind.
The ocean endless, never silent, forever relentless. Beating upon the shore, again and again and again. How we mean everythin on the land and nothing in the vast ocean. How we trample smashed droplets under our feet, sweep them away with our wipers, dance when they fall and cry when we fall because of these tiny disjointed microcosms.
The most that we feel with every drop is is sweet tingle on the skin, so soft a goosebump for so short a time. Stirring memories long gone, emotions that were there, but maybe never. Dreamscapes that once were, now barren hinterland.
The universe is not what it used to be, neither will it remain what it is today. We keep changing, everything keeps changing. How we wish we could hold on to what we have today, never let go of what we have so firmly close to our heart, mind and soul. How we wish that time stood still, how we wish that moments cease to kill.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Logical Twists

Its surprsing when you connect with old school friends once in a a while to realize that everyone is so different from what they wanted to be. I personally was a science freak, and had visions of hard core on ground engineering assignments and planning. What I do now, still is engineering, in a way, but more on an enterprise structural level.
I bumped into an old friend from school on Orkut, Waqar. He was a sure shot MIT kid who was predicted in some CERN or NASA lab. The guy works with a Hedge Fund in the US. Noman was never an accounting and finance guy, he does risk reporting at a major local bank. Goofy was a software kid, he is now an equities research analyst at a major brokerage firm.
I guess it has a lot to do with our education. The role of logic is very supreme. it defies logic of how we all ended up so differently from what we aspired to be. What re-affirms logic, is that we are all (in a way) doing exactly what we would have done if we ended up with our dream jobs. The only issue now is that our dream role is now being applied to a whole new spectrum of business units.
Its strange. Its beautiful. Its life.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Wet Tuesday

Its a wonderful wet tuesday morning and its 9.04 am as I start typing this post away which will be emailed to my blog. Thats so much mor convenient than actually going to your blog, posting it and then publish testing it. This just takes away a lot of hassle.
 
I'm home today, considering what I went through yesterday. I battleed the elements in my drive to reach home safe. even though I left the office at 1.30, It was the flood at Main Clifton Road between the Clifton Bridge and Teen Talwar hit people the worst. Several cars were seen stalled and I kept pushing mine through. Once on the bridge, it deserved a nice long petrol breather.
 
Roaring down Shaharah e Faisal, the water was still flooding most parts, especially the left lanes, hence all traffic was moving glued to the right and yes, it was seriously seriously moving. At 3, I realized I wont be able to make it home for lunch, hence I camped out at DD Tipu Sultan and had a nice little lunch and watched the traffic ease out. It did and I hit the road again, only to Mashallah easily sweep down to home in under 20 mins. Yaaaaaaaay!!!
 
Right now though, my back hurts. I've always had this problem when I sleep too much, no matter where I sleep. Anything over 7 hours and I end up witha a killer pain that lasts upto 3 hours.  More rain forecasted for today and tomorrow. Ill stay home today.
 
The new specs update, yes I found the balance :)

Popdex Citations