Monkey see, monkey do

The penultimate in the long list of schools I’ve attended had an hour a week dedicated to ‘personality development’. It was a sham; I doubt if any of our personalities developed a great deal during those sessions spent staring blankly at trees (soul-searching, they told us) in the cruel Madduland sun. Then again, it was a welcome break from the rigmarole of classes, 'slip' tests, assignments and whatnot. Plus the course was taken by this sprightly old man named Mr. Srinivasan who was nice enough to create corny nicknames for all 38 of us. He even carried along a jar of toffees to distribute during classes, so all was well. “Be yourself!” was one of Mr. Srinivasan’s many catchphrases, which was inevitably followed by a “You are unique!” in his trademark Tambi accent, with ‘n’ inevitably replaced by its huskier cousin (as in ‘ta tha da dha NA’).

Over the years, this is a dogma that has been thrown at me time and again by every counselor worth his salt. I, for one, never really bought the idea. I am prone to hero-worship; at times, even mimicry (like most other Cancarians, Wiki tells me). The entire concept of individuality is a myth floated around new-age self-help gurus and modern babajis. Role models, heroes, idols- what are all these but euphemisms for the human mind’s basic tendency to ape those around it? For all the talk of evolution, the sixth sense and all that garbage, a part of us still believes in dropping our hats simply because the hat-seller did so too.

I have had my share of heroes- Dad, Sachin Tendulkar, (Sir?)Ryan Giggs and, of course, Holden Caulfield. Even so, never has my urge to ape been exposed in all its filth and ugliness as it was during my first few months in R-Land. Which brings me, at long last, to today's lunch and why I’ll be telling my grandchildren about it many moons from now. Surdy Pop, Lefty, The Hairy Scouser, Bang-bang and The Decayed Canine sit before me as I devour another round of Dynasty’s heavenly Paneer Kali Mirch. Pulki and his Milan jersey, sadly, are conspicuous by their absence. For a few fleeting seconds, I am a wide-eyed freshman again- awestruck by the men(?) who now sit before me; keen to mimic everything they did- their mannerisms, their repartees; even their profanities seemed classy in an inexplicably adolescent way. The following spring reinstilled some semblance of wisdom in me. I began to see the Canine for the overtly-profane pseudo-haddu he truly was. Lefty and Bang-bang had their falls from grace following their failed attempts at ditching the Jedi and finding themselves a missus. Surdy, I strongly suspect, never forgave me for hitting his girlfriend with a paper plane on that ill-fated Bhawan Day.

Lunches like these will join a trillion others in my ‘Those-were-the-days’chronicles. As I wrestle with my third naan, I can’t help but reflect on the fact that what was once a fairly routine affair will now become a thing of the sepia-tinted past. I could probably snatch a dinner or two with a couple of them. All at once? The optimist in me asks me to focus on the paneer instead.

The halo that once surrounded them has faded away, the fascination is all but gone. And yet, the five (six, including Pulki) still remain special, each in a way of their own. With them gone, R-Land will be bereft of heroes; there’ll be no faces to look for at Nesci on a sultry free-afti, no rooms to crash for a late-night session of South Park. As mushy as it might sound, life just won’t be the same again.

There is no charm in growing old, I tell you.

Sweet dreams are made of these

For all the fuss I make about my rejection of destiny, luck and all that jazz, my iconoclasm succeeds in eluding me in times of need. Pascal’s gambit, I suppose.

It was another of those Saturday afternoons. The ceremonial ablution had been completed, the watery dal swallowed and the Gmail account checked and re-checked. ‘Write editorial; Photocopy power systems notes; Prepare for instrumentation TS’ read the to-do list I’d super-glued to my wall earlier that day. They could all wait. Two more hours would have to be killed before the long overdue visit of the Two Moneymen. IPL it would be for now, I decided. Much to the delight of a good many of my darker brethren, the Deccan Chargers seemed poised for a mammoth score. Five minutes into my arrival, three wickets had fallen and 200 now seemed a distant dream. There. The minority Mumbai Indians crowd now looked at me with an added sense of respect. With Tendulkar dropping a sitter minutes ago, a new messiah was needed. And he was found in the long-forgotten corners of Azad Bhawan.

My rating further soared an hour later. Tendulkar got Mumbai off to a decent start, with Duminy and Dhawan still to come. However, a five minute spell saw the three men throw away their wickets cheaply and put Mumbai seemed all but beaten. As luck would have it, it was precisely during those five blighted minutes that I chose to make the long trip to Nesci for a cup of coffee- my fifth of the day. “How could you do this to us?” exclaimed one distraught supporter. A few Harbhajan swings and misses sealed Mumbai’s fate. It was a lost cause now- even my presence could do little to alter the course of the match. The minority Mumbai crowd was left heartbroken, though my promises of staying rooted to my seat for every Indians’ game for the rest of the tournament lifted their spirits a fair bit.

The rain-gods were my next target. I prayed for the Chennai-Kolkata match to be washed out, to save me the trouble of reasoning with Cautley's bonehead of a canteen-wallah. They duly obliged. It was my day all right.

Nothing, though, could have braced me for the next forty five minutes. I gave the first half of the United-Spurs game a miss, choosing to attend The Two Moneymen’s generous treat at CCD instead. 2-0 down, read the scoreline on my return to Azad. “I hate saying this but my hope is thinning with each passing game,” I texted the Maddu Minion. Again, my arrival turned things around in a manner that I hadn’t imagined possible even in the wildest of my wild dreams.

A superhuman performance from Wayne Rooney ensured that Heurelho Gomes’ goal was breached five times in the next forty-five minutes. 5-2, the final score.

Liverpool, Juventus, Bayern Munich 1999, Tottenham 2001, Everton 2007, Aston Villa 2009, Tottenham 2009. The catalogue of great United comebacks has entered another chapter. Football, bloody hell!

P.S: Another football post. Apologies, Al.

Monday Morning Blues

I have always been a huge fan of liquor adverts. McDowell’s and its uber-lame ‘make-it-large’ series apart, most breweries come up with fantastic stuff to coerce the teetotalling millions into giving their principles a break. My all-time favourite is the Royal Challenge advert that was aired in the late ‘90s- the one where a guy practices his golf on a flight. He pulls off a fabulous putt and looks around hoping for applause, only to find his co-passengers in various stages of stupor. The world would be a far more wonderful place if only you could somehow pick your audience for each moment- you scratch your nose and every pair of eyes at Nesci looks on in disgust; later the same day, you score a stunning volley from 15 yards out with only the hapless goalkeeper and a couple of defenders in attendance.

I had my Royal Challenge moment earlier tonight, a tête-à-tête that I would have liked all and Kondy to overhear. It had all the makings of a highly forgettable conversation- I was into the last few minutes of a highly forgettable weekend, United had just lost to Everton and HOG and his threats of a back were still looming large on the horizon. I was hardly in the mood for any human contact, let alone three halfwits that proudly called themselves ‘True-Blues’. The next thirty minutes were a pleasant surprise- a reconfirmation of my constant accusation of Chel$ki being the embodiment of all things ugly in the beautiful game.

I never thought I could ever come to loathe anything more than Tutti-Frutti ice-cream and Liverpool FC. Then again, for all our hostility, there is an undeniable undercurrent of mutual respect in the Manc-Scouse rivalry. With Chel$ki, though, it is plainly a case of pure, unadulterated hatred. Strange, indeed, that only eight years ago, I eagerly looked forward to our trips to Stamford Bridge. Though never a fan, I really enjoyed watching the likes of Zola, Gronkjaer and Gudjohnsen play. Along came Abrahamovic with his oil. Chelsea would never be the same again. Nor would the Chelsea supporter. With the arrival of a bottomless bank account and an all-new squad, a new Chelsea supporter was born- one who did not mind the drab football Mourinho’s men played week after week as long as they brought (bought?) the silverware home. A Chelsea fan who turned up well in advance for the United-Porto game but leisurely sipped the Azad canteen’s heavenly mango shake fifteen minutes into his team’s own quarterfinal against Liverpool. One who spent hours cooking up lame Gtalk status messages, all on the recurrent theme of ‘I hate Man. United’ (Try this for creativity- ‘Roses are red, violets are blue; whatever you say, I’ll say F-U M.U.). A Blue who did not care how shamelessly Drogba dived as long as he won the all-important penalty. A Stamford Bridge where all in attendance believed that the end justified the means, no matter how many careers were ruined along the way.

Tonight’s result left me gutted. Fingers will be raised as they indeed should be. Everton were by far the hungrier of the two sides. While Moyes rattled off instructions to his players minutes before the shootout, Fergie seemed to be asking Macheda what flavor of ice-cream he wanted for dinner. Even so, the kids did us proud; our youth squad tore apart the side that stands sixth on the league table, with nothing to show for it. The situation I faced was a hopeless one, though. How do you explain the importance of a youth academy to three ‘die-hard’ Chelsea fans? How do you make them understand that not every club bought all its players from West Ham and some still believed in grooming home-grown talent? How do you tell them that every player started off at a youth academy, gained experience, peaked and turned thirty before joining a club like Chelsea? Exasperated, I tried another argument. I asked them about Maniche, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Steve Sidwell and dozens of other talented players who were bought at the prime of their careers, only to be discarded a year or two later, no more than shadows of the players they were on arrival at the Bridge. ‘What have you got to say about Andriy Shevchenko?’ I asked them. ‘Or Carlo Cuducini?’ ‘Just three words,’ replied True Blue-I. ‘Manchester United sucks.’

I rest my case.

There and back again

The first cries of the pani puri vendors announce the break of dawn. The Arabian Sea glistens in all its glory once again. Pigeons and gulls fly over us and further inland. The sun couldn’t seem to make up its ruddy mind whether to shine in all its cynical glory or let the cool breezes endure. The distant silhouette of the Gateway of India is soon surrounded by specks of human bodies. The auto and rickshaw wallahs arrive in the hope of an early customer. The beggars pick up their rags and rehearse their heart-wrenching wails. The eunuchs are up, going around doing whatever it is that they do. Another day in the life of the world’s greatest city has just begun.

It has been quite a journey. Forty eight hours ago, I was in R-Land trying to make a dim-witted hexagenarian see reason. With us getting richer by 75k (with a fancy 4' by 2' cheque to prove it) and a mail from the Tatas heaping an undue amount of praise on us, the milk of human kindness would rise like a tide in the old man, we thought. All that remained was mere paperwork- he would sign the blighted application and be done with it, perhaps with a few words of wisdom- a ritual men his age can’t seem to do without. None of that happened, though. Except the homily with the words of wisdom, of course (“You're still young. Many big opportunities will come your way. And not all of them will clash with your examinations. Har! Har! Har!”) Far from amused, I set off anyway, deciding to do a “Screw you guys, I’m goin’ home.” The last word, of course, has no place in the present context.

Three uneventful rides (aboard a bus, flight and an auto-rickshaw respectively) found us at the hallowed gates of the Taj Mahal Palace. As embarrassing as it might sound, this was my first stay in a 5-star hotel. I have flown first class only once in all my life, and that was also on a ride to the Schiphol when the KLM officials were kind enough to offer me a free upgrade. A flight journey is invariably synonymous with a packed Cathay Pacific 400-seater or four hours of Omaret Yakobean aboard Air Arabia's Boeing 737s. The ordinary folks that we are, my family and I are loyal customers of the RCI Resorts and the Midway Motels of the world. An odd Sheraton stay makes my day. The last line rhymes, by the way. That I had another first-timer for company helped, of course. I still made a fool of myself, but it was reassuring to have someone by my side through all my buffoonery.

My blog turned two earlier this year- an occasion that I, in a spate of laziness, conveniently chose to ignore. The forty posts notwithstanding, my blog is far from the complete chronicles of my life in R-Land that Miss Muffet keeps referring to. Strangely enough, the most memorable events are the ones that don’t find a place on my blog. The two trips to Allahabad, the ushering in of the new year, the Dark Knight at Satyam on my birthday, the encore two days later, Nihilanth, Watch Out, the 28th of August, 2007- the high points of the last two years are all conspicuous by their absence. Some moments are too sacrosanct to write about, perhaps; some memories too special to be shared. My third trip to the financial capital in as many years is the newest addition to the aforesaid list.

B for Baster

Even by the high standards I’ve set for myself, 3-2 will go down as the most miserable sem yet. It’s the worst of both the worlds, I tell you- the initial vigour has long evaporated; while senile nostalgia is still a year away. Bakar sessions at Alpahar are few and far between. Every half-decent girl in the insti either calls you ‘sir’ or is an M Sc student. Even foosball isn’t fun anymore. If I had to pick one word to sum up pre-final year, it would have to be ‘regretful’. Trust me, that’s all you ever do. The six-pointers regret their CG; 8 pointers regret the fact that they haven’t got an intern yet; those with an intern in Germany yearn for one in Spain; those with one in Spain long for a trip to Britain; others reconcile themselves to sixty more days in the insti, courtesy BHEL Haridwar. The 'grass on the other side' proverb never was truer. It’s all strangely reminiscent of that HDFC advert (the long-haired guy envies the guy with a funti, while the funti looks longingly at a bald guy with a necklace, who in turn jealously eyes the aforementioned long-haired guy. Remember?)

I was short-listed for an interview by Regal Beloit. The last statement has drawn two kinds of responses. Most people instantly come up with wisecracks that range from the reasonable (“Does Deloitte have a thing for ‘happy’ males?”) to the downright lame (“Deloitte will be well-lit”), mistaking it for the consultancy firm that has recruited the Three Wise Men. Inevitably, I respond, “No, it’s Beloit- with a ‘b’, as in debt; and not with a ‘b’, as in Venezuela.” My batch-mates, though, are more conversant with the happenings in and around the Old Library. A tad too conversant, in fact. Most seem perturbed by the fact that I made the cut in the first place. New theories on why I was selected while 8.5’s and 9.1’s were shown the door are propounded every other day. At any rate, the interview was taken by two males: A and B. A was the quintessential haddu bloke- heavy voice, lousy accent, a tongue-twister for a surname- the whole nine yards. He was the tech-guy. B was the HR guy, and was A’s opposite in every possible way, as you’ll see.

A: Tell us something about yourself.

Me: Rehearsed speech laced with lots of jargon- dynamic, proactive and whatnot.

A: Why haven’t you done any projects?

Me: My area of interest is electric machinery and their design. That’s primarily an industrial field- apart from the basics, there is little that can be done in labs. This is the first opportunity that came my way and I jumped at it.

A: Fine, what about the summer breaks?

Me: I spent them lazing at home. Do you have a problem with that, mister?

Industrial internships aren’t encouraged in our insti after second year. Plus, I’d had a really strenuous year and was eagerly looking forward to spending some time with my family. That I got bored to death within a fortnight is a different matter altogether.

A didn’t seem amused. B chuckled, though.

B: So, Abhishek. I see you are an avid quizzer and also the editor-in-chief of a magazine. Shouldn’t you be looking for a non-technical intern?

Me: Those are my interests, sir. But I really can’t picture myself writing or quizzing for a living.

B chuckles again. A grunts.

A: Doesn’t your college have courses with compulsory projects?

Me: We have had case studies and assignments, sir, but no compulsory projects, I’m afraid.

B: Anyway, the elections are approaching. What do you think about them? Do you see any change in the general trend this time around?

Me: (Had no idea what he had in mind. Beat about the bush for a while) There is the third front, for one thing. That apart, there are campaigns like Lead India and Jaago Re, which shows that people are looking for ways to change the present system. And it’s about time too.

B: I see you’ve also spoken to Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam (referring to some dumb interview I did for my school mag a million years ago) What did you think of him as a President?

Me: (Clueless. Fatte to the rescue again) In India, I think the President is more of a representative than a head of state. As the constitutional head of state, Presidency is more about the stature of the person and the image he portrays of the country, and I believe no one did that better than Kalam.

A cleared his throat. I half-expected another ‘where are the projects?’ It didn’t come, thankfully.

A: Do you have any questions?

Me: I do, sir. As much as I want to join Regal Beloit, there is a fair chance that I might return empty handed. What, then, do I get from the intern, apart from experience?

A: Some irrelevant bull on the history of Beloit and why it was the greatest company ever.

B: Frankly, the money apart, this is the best intern you could hope to get for the simple reason that at the end of the internship, depending on your performance, you could even be assured of a job in our HQ at Beloit, Wisconsin. As an electrical engineer, I can’t see what more you could ask for. Does that answer your question?

Me: It does sir. Thank you very much. Good afternoon.

B: Good afternoon.

A: Grunt.

Ek Sau Bees Minute

Kick Off- 10min: Call up Bihari Potter and ask him where he plans to watch the game. Decide to make the Great Trip to the Gaon(TM) and pay Leftiekins, Raps and the other Lords of the Farmhouse a visit.

KO-5min: Call up Leftiekins to inform him of TGTTTG (TM), only to be informed of his date with Messrs. Moet and Chandon.

KO-3 min: “Lefty is getting drunk- Jawahar it is then,” reads the message I send Bihari Potter. The miser that I am, I choose to ignore the 'Delivery Failed' message that arrives a minute later.

2 min: The Alter Ego calls up from Tambiland to express his fury at the absence of Rooney from the starting lineup (or the bench, for that matter). “Fergie knows,” I reassure him, before going on to share my two-pence worth on the rest of the starting line-up.

5 min: Cross the roundabout beside the E&C tower (which, I’m told, is oddly named ‘Kranti Chowk’). 

7 min: The Decayed Canine calls up from Pune for the starting lineup. He can’t watch the game as Tata Consulting Engineers Consulting Engineers didn’t see the need for something as superfluous as a net connection and wanted me to keep him abreast of all major developments at Wembley. An obedient nod and a dozen swear words later, I hang up and resume my long journey.

11 min: Meet BeKayEll at the entrance of Jawahar, who instantly sets off on a rant on Dilli 6, Abhishek Bachchan’s fake accent and the absurdly hairy kaala bandar. I politely inform him that I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep.

13 min: The mention of the hairy creature reminds me that I’d sent the Hairy Hick and Bihari Potter off on the Great Trip to the Gaon(TM). I call up B-Pot and deliver a rehearsed speech, placing all the blame on Leftiekins' frail shoulders.

18 min: Reach the Jawahar TV Room, only to be welcomed by the sight of Ramnaresh Sarwan and co. tearing apart a hapless English seam attack.

21 min: Reality finally dawns on yours truly. Abuse Subhash Chandra and the pitiful excuse for a sports channel that he runs, before setting off for Sushi’s room with the Hairy Hick and Bihari Potter, who had just arrived.

Half Time: ‘0-0’ reads the big blue box on ESPN Soccernet. The 50000-something members of the Manchester United Orkut community agreed, before adding that the second half would be telecast live on Zee Sports.

47 min: Another reality check. Zee Sports was facing technical issues. East Bengal vs Mohun Bagan it will be, then.

49 min: Long ball from the flanks falls perfectly to a defender, who makes a hash of his clearance and, more by luck than judgement, the cross found its target. ‘Good football all around,’ remarks the nasal commentator. Was that sarcasm, I wonder.

57 min: Can take no more. Set off for the canteen and ask for a packet of Lays. “Lays nahin hai, chai piyoge?” enquired the vendor. Just not my day, I think to myself.

62 min: Return to Sushi’s room and try to find a half-decent live-streaming site, only to view the hazy contours of a guy in a yellow jersey, with a lot of noise in the background. Cursing the Jawahar Wi-Fi, we reconcile ourselves to the live commentary on GameCast.

75 min: ‘United ki fat gayi! Vidic on for O’Shea,’ exclaims a jubilant Kangaroo Kid. ‘Why does he care so much?’ I wonder, only to be reminded by Sushi that Chel$ea’s only hope of silverware this season was the Champions League, where they’d first have to get past Delpiero and co. There are some things money can’t buy. For every thing else, there is Roman Abrahamovic.

120 min: Full time. No goals. For the third time in two years, we were involved in a penalty shootout at the Wembley.

FT+11 min: Foster is the man. 4-1 to United. The four of us huddled, just as we had after that night at Moscow.

FT+ 25 min: The Alter Ego calls up again. ‘We are the champions,’ I sing into the phone, much to the amusement of the others at the Azad Canteen.

FT+ 874 min: I remember that I hadn’t updated the Decayed Canine yet. I spend the last two bucks of my balance on a message. It reads:

“The Carling Cup is ours. Two down. Three to go. Glory glory Man. United.”

Of Free Kicks, Auschwitz and EE-305

Life has its own ways of putting the mediocre in their place. The odd Devarshi Patel apart, we are all shown our respective places on the social ladder so often that we accept them without a whimper. The kiwi doesn’t fritter away its good karma praying for flight. The crow doesn’t spend all its life cursing its Creator for the voice He had bestowed it with. The Scousers don’t weep all day over the fact that they’ve won just about nothing in the last two decades. One way or another, we reconcile ourselves to the fact that we suck. To varying degrees, of course.

Then again, there are a good many who live a life denial, merely to feel better about themselves. The image of John O’ Shea hopefully eyeing every single free kick comes to mind. Defiance is one thing; delusion of glory quite another.

It’s been an awfully chilly month and the weather’s put paid to all my hopes of making a good first impression on the men in front of the blackboard. It isn’t my fault, you see- the soporific effects of winters are well-documented. Never one to throw in the towel, I have been working that extra bit harder for the spotlight, however big a nuisance Lady Slumber made of herself.

It was a deceptively banal Friday afternoon and I was one tutorial away from a long-awaited weekend. The Journeyman, whose reputation as a tyrant preceded his pot-bellied self, arrived sooner than we’d expected and turned Room 311A into what seemed like Modern India’s answer to Auschwitz. Sparing myself the drudgery of solving the worksheet didn’t help a great deal either. The situation was growing grimmer by the moment. I had to separate myself from the DANPARC-clad masses and time was fast running out.

I didn’t have to wait too long though. “Why is an asynchronous machine known so?” bellowed the Journeyman. The discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, Buddha's enlightenment, the fall of the WTC, the manufacture of the first Snickers bar - there are some moments in history that the world will never forget- moments when the destiny of the world would literally change courses. This was one of those moments. Twenty pairs of eyes stared in collective disbelief. The waves in the faraway sea ebbed for a fleeting moment. The frigid January breeze paused. A hand had been raised. A voice long-suppressed was asking to be heard. It was mine.

I strung together a reply laced with every single bit of technical jargon I was aware of. The impossible had just happened. The Journeyman had been silenced. Staggering, he exclaimed, “Dela, you’re the man.” That, at least, was how I’d pictured it in my mind. Truth, as always, wasn’t only stranger but harsher too.

“Utter rubbish”, he exclaimed with an expression that wasn’t unbeknownst to me. He seemed to want to add to that, when, thankfully, She Who Must Not Be Named interrupted. “Sir, the actual reason is that *random electrical funda goes here*.”

Cristiano Ronaldo lines up a long free kick. Two yards away, John O’Shea watches on in mute envy.