I married an absent minded idiot! Now I know I have no one to blame because I knew him for around 2 years before finally tying the knot. But in my defence: 

I didn’t see the complete extent of absent mindedness earlier –the arranged marriage advocates would am sure like to jump in and say that ‘Dekha! Shaadi se pehle sab achcha lagta hai’. True. In most cases, not for us though, coz I have friends who will vouch for the fact that we were never the ‘he is the best’ and ‘she is the best’ types. We saw each other’s faults, me more than him I guess and to be fair to him, I don’t have too many faults. J 

To quote the famous philosophers – Ace of Base “I saw the signs…”, I did. Here is one example: 

On the first anniversary of our decision to see each other, I reached his house with a gift of a shirt and a tie. I entered and said “Hiiii! Congratulations, here I bought this for you” and he looked at me with a very wide grin and said “Hey thanks man. Come in.”. He took out the gift and told me he liked it. After about 10 minutes or so, he comes out of the kitchen looking as confused as Basil Fawlty “Kaaliya!, What was the congrats for??” At which point, I politely told him to “Go Die” and then helped him reach the edge with some taekwando I learnt as a kid. 

What I put up with these days though, is an order of magnitude higher than the mentioned incident. First of all, he never remembers to call any of his friends or family and I am the official complaint box. So messages abusing him in many languages and degrees of anger flood my inbox. And friends I can still handle, but family is another story.  

I try to come across as the nice bahu, and keep reminding him to call the elders in the family regularly, he is obviously respectful and assures me that he will call them in a second. Usually a second lasts anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and a half. But when it comes to calling people it usually translates to “there will come a second in the future, distant future, when I will talk to them, you don’t worry”.  And before that momentous second comes, they have called already and I have had one round of scolding from everyone. He, however talks to them completely normally, not even acknowledging even a hint of a problem. And usually after the call, he is all smiles and tells me, “See dear, I spoke to them no.”  

I am just using this blog to a) absolve myself of all responsibility and b) get some sympathy from anyone who is reading. To this end, I present another example: 

Me, the absent minded idiot and my parents are waiting outside Pragati Maidan to enter into an interior decoration fair in Delhi. He volunteers to get the tickets, a task simple enough for any normal human being with an average or even below average IQ. My gallant, intelligent, super quizzer, excellent writer and MBA from the best institute in India hubby comes back with the tickets. I would have been very proud of him, but here is what happened:

AMI (Absent minded Idiot) : “Oh God! There were too many people in the queue, I got pushed a bit but look I got the tickets, lets go inside.” 

Me: “Oh great, you got all tickets?” 

AMI: “Yeah all 5 tickets.” 

Me and Mom (in chorus): “ Why 5, its 4 of us right?” 

AMI: “Umm…hmmm…Yeah but you see one extra is for the driver” 

Me: “Good, but I drove” 

AMI: “Yeah I was just kidding, its for your brother” 

Me: “How sweet. He is not in India at the moment” 

AMI: “See I got you again, I just got two for you….coz they might have a weight restriction like those airlines …you know the ones who charge for 2 if you take extra space and you know I think in a way its fair….” 

Me: “Don’t say that no. You know it happened just once in the blueline….”  

All our friends have been asked innumerable times, about their jobs, what their parents and siblings do, surprisingly, he still has friends who do take the trouble of calling him and not sceaming at him everytime he says, “So I will call you later today”. 

And this from a person who can tell you the boiling and meliting points of all elements in the periodic table , IN  ORDER, and other such completely useless information. 

The sheepish laugh and wise cracks at the end of every such stupidity is what saves him time and again. I am sure after I post this, he will ask me for the blog address for the nth time, despite the fact that he created it for me.    

I have the weirdest luck with jobs. 

I have done 2 internships in my student life and now am on my second job. Everywhere I go, I have tons of free time, work just disappears. When everyone around is cribbing that the work is too much and pressure is killing them, I am peacefully going through blogs, doing crossies and sudoku to kill time and nodding along whenever the topic of work pressure comes up.   

Also everywhere I have been for whatever short period of time, I have brought the house down. 

No I mean literally.  

Major accidents have happened everywhere, thankfully, all without any loss of life. Parts of buildings died though.  

My first internship was at an IT company of some repute, known to be hard task masters. I went in with the some expectations. I got work in spurts and by that I mean, decent amount of work before lunch. After lunch I used to chat with friends, most of them were taking out time to talk to me whereas I was looking for anyone who changed their status from busy to available.  

I used to occasionally change my status to busy so that my friends don’t think that I am too velli (I know its very sad!). On a few occasions I have told friends “BRB” and then moved to another window to talk to other friends so that I sound busy (I know its even sadder!!).  

One night, during my last fortnight there, a fire erupted in the office causing minor damage. I didn’t make much of it at the time, little knowing that this is one in a series of such incidents. 

The second internship, as a part of my summers from my B-School, was at an international bank. I liked the place and went in with plans of cracking the scene there. I spent majority of my time chasing my boss who was a very senior and, as a result, very busy man. I used my time to make fancy graphs and do some snazzy analysis. Also I started talking online to other friends who were facing an internship experience straight from hell.  

I just counted my blessings and moved on in life. 

I tried to push back the feeling that it was happening all over again to me, by doing what I do best, Eat!! And being in Delhi made it soooo much easier. Aah Delhi food! But that’s probably for another blog. The feeling of Déjà vu returned when in the last week of my internship a floor of my building collapsed. Speculations followed from my friends that the collapse was linked to my project there. Some also said maybe firms should take special permissions if they wanted to put people my size in their building.  

Its not that the projects were too small, just that after having a long period of free time, the moment I got work, I jumped on it and finished it too soon. I tried to pace the work, but like an engineering student fond of the spirits who has come back from a break at his teetotaler home(oh what a bad and convoluted comparison..yuck!), I couldn’t help but work without stopping.  

At the time, I thought, I am being over-enthusiastic and as an intern, I should not expect too much work. Thankfully both projects turned out fine but I couldn’t say I knew how corporate life was. 

My first job had a really long rotational program and I went through around 6 months of classroom training and stints in 3 different departments. My stint in treasury sales was the only one where work was regular. I had enough free time to proof read my boyfriend’s blogs and other pieces of writing but overall there was work.  

The other two departments I spent time in, the first had work which ended at 11:30 or 12, the second I had no work for around 2 weeks straight. I found my favourite blogs, and explored the wonders of wikipedia. I started hating the thought of being at work and doing nothing and of going home and answering questions about what exactly my role was.  

I hated it when HR said “you should take initiative”, I did. I asked everyone for work, and they had nothing. When I got work, it was work, which no one else would touch because it was so bad. I found the situation very funny most of the time and irritating some of the time.  

A long stretch of really jobless days and yet another fire in the office later,  I decided I deserve better work and moved to a firm which was known for making people work a lot.  

As soon as I joined, I was given some important work; I worked happily and worked well.  Now the status of work is that I am writing blogs to fill up time. The saving grace is my boss also knows I have no work and is trying to come up with interesting stuff for me. 

If and when any accident happens here, I will know its time to leave.

I was recently tagged by Sidin to write in 8 random facts about myself. Set me thinking that since most things about me are very random, its easy to write this one so here it goes. 

Here are the rules:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
4. If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Base or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

And here are the facts: 

1. I am scared of heights. In Class XI, being the house captain, I nearly cried when the swimming instructor told me to jump from the 3 meter diving board. I had nightmares of jumping from that board for a week after which I did jump. I haven’t tried, but am sure I would still be scared of repeating that feat.
2. More than one of my friends hated/disliked me when they met me first. They still don’t know for sure what the reason is for sure but some of them said, I looked like a snob.
3. I like movies/music made for the masses, Amar Akbar Anthony, Namak Halal, James Bond movies, I like them all. I like ‘Apni to Jaise Taise…’ from Lawaris and ‘Mind blowing Mahiya…’ from Cash and from ‘Itsy bitsy Teeny Weeny…’ to ‘Un dos tres…’.
4. I am pretty good at sports. I have played a lot of them, have been decent at most, though not brilliant at any one. The top of my mind list is Basketball, Badminton, Swimming, Table tennis, Throwball, Volleyball, Long jump, Discuss throw, Shot put, Javelin throw, Kho Kho and a few others. I want to learn squash and have played tennis only a few times. And as an exception, I have come last in a race once.
5.  I cut my brother’s hair once. I was playing hair stylist for him and he had to go to school with a really REALLY bad hair style for some time. I got slapped for that at home but it seemed like fun at the time.
6. I hate pretentious people and pretentious behaviour. I hate being different for the sake of being different, having a different choice in everything, just seems to be trying too hard. I hate it when some people will not admit that they don’t get a movie or a painting and praise it instead.
7. I have been planning for a haircut forever and never seem to get it done. I am too scared.
8. I think political correctness is over rated. Changing facts to ensure PC and not laughing at something funny because of PC is stupid in my opinion. The guidelines for acceptability are personal but taking offence at the drop of a hat is stupid.

Thats it folks. And the next lucky 8 people are :Disha, Noodle, Anupam, Inja, Makdee, Bharathi, Abbu and Rashmi. Please to blog people.

Back at work after what seems like a nice long break. Work seems much more boring after that, though I now know more people and know them better in office, so being in office is more fun. Excellent offsite! Aah! Kumarakom, Kerala. Excellent property, brilliantly green, awesome fun overall.

10^th August ’07 – Around 1:30 A.M.

We reached backwater ripples, in the middle of the night after watching Don (the new one) in the bus from the airport to the hotel. The first memory for me will be getting off the bus and hearing the ‘Animatrix’ screaming “There are open loos!!!”

After a quick bite and a round of everyone’s rooms and making a lot of noise, we called it a day. When we checked them out, its basically around half the bathing area, which has an open grill on top. Scary in the first go but when you use it its not so bad (You just have to constantly pray that no coconut pickers choose the tree visible from where you are standing)

10^th August ’07

The next morning was a day of team building exercises, with a team from Strawberry outbound. We learnt from them that our decibel level the previous night had shaken one of the coordinators out of deep sleep, and we were slightly embarrassed but also proud of the fact that the college time noise levels were still very much there.

Excellent activities, some indoors, a few out in the rain and the slush in the lawns. My team didn’t win many (actually we just won 2 out of around 7, one of which was disqualified on technical grounds), but still excellent fun, we were all very tired by the end of it.

We went for a fairly uneventful cruise, and took some pretty pictures. Kathakali performance arranged by the hotel, we expected it to be boring before we started, primarily because most of us didn’t understand the language. It was ok at first and slowly, the dancer involved all of us, we laughed and it was fun. The expressions though funny at times, were so diverse that you cannot help but appreciate the talent of the guy.

The team is made up of very young people, most in their early 20s, so even after the day of tiring activities; quite a few were enthu about the dance party. ‘A’ who compiled the song list had done a very good job. The dance party started after that and we had multiple requests and changes of songs but it went well, everyone enjoyed but slowly people started being lost to fatigue from the activities in the day.

11^th August ’07

The next morning was supposed to be the slow bit, the meeting on the organizational goal and plans, our departmental goals and PPTs on different topics by some people in the team. Also there was a talk/discussion with HR which was supposed to last around 2 hours (Groan!).

Little did we know that it would be an action packed day, where there were fiery sessions about what is going wrong in the team and little pains and cribs and issues came up, we got a bit of ‘daant’ from the bosses to get our act together soon.

The work related presentation also went well, with most people showing interest in it. Quick lunch and then the HR session.

IMHO, this session turned out to be the one which ensured a fair amount of bonding in the team, everyone spoke up with the HR person being the self proclaimed devil’s advocate. She did her part and everyone did theirs. Everyone had the same problems and we all came together. What will be the outcome of the session? No idea and no expectations. As they say a common enemy makes people come together, here common problems brought people together to some extent.

We started the party around 7.30 in the evening with two of the new joinees or the ‘bachchas’  came up with a nice game and took everyone’s trip, they talked about someone’s antics on the dance floor, someone’s comments during the day and someone’s demeanour in general. It was all in good fun, and I think (and hope) no one took offence.

The music and dance after that was fun, people danced on everything from ‘Sweet Child of mine’ to ‘Tirchi topi wale’. I think everyone appreciated that the boss and the big boss also participated without any hassles and had fun together.

After the party ’spirits’ were ‘high’ and some of the high-spirited people provided entertainment for all, some sang for us, some clarified the importance of mental mathematics and also some key financial concepts, we had a good laugh at everything.

We were nearing the end of our offsite, nothing was planned for the day, and we were to leave for Cochin the next day.

12^th August ’07

Breakfast the next day, comprised giving some people a recap of what they had been up to in their state of inebriation.

Action shifted for some to packing and for some to the Carrom and TT tables. We left for Cochin and the bus trip had ‘hajaar’ rounds of  Dumb C and on some of them we laughed our heads off.

Small trip to the dutch palace in Cochin, which was not too exciting and straight to the airport  which meant more Dumb C and highly entertaining Punjab da puttar.

Thanks to Go Air, we were at the airport for 3 hours, where we spent all our time and most of the money shopping for random stuff, banana chips, cashews, other food and spices and everything in general.

We made up for not tasting any mallu food on the trip, for some reason the hotel people only served us food which was non-mallu. We had paneer, paranthas, and all sorts of veggies and fish made in Bengali style.
 

13^th August ‘07

Back in Bombay and back at work. Boss will kill me if he realizes, I have been doing this for a long time, but had to do this, just wanted to say:

A big thanks to our Gujju Ben, Punjab da puttar, Ms. B (and anyone else I am missing) for the fun fun offsite!! J

 P.S. We saw little of the backwaters, but what the heck. At least for now, we can talk about the backwaters and say ‘been there, done that’. No one remembered to bring the pics to work today, otherwise would have posted some.

P.P.S. Now I am bored.

I have over time; read many blogs about North-Indians being stupid for calling people from the South of India “South Indians”. How when the term “madrasi” is used, its offensive to people from other states. Some of the blogs are funny and am always laughing away to glory at them. I personally think of writing a blog on the quirks and weird behaviour of punjus and it will be one long blog.  

I fail to understand the need to get so offended at the behaviour and the hyper reactions of some of the people who seem to think, their personal identity is being insulted when someone thinks they talk in Tamil rather than in Telugu or Kannada or Malayalam. I have been asked by a lot of people if all Punjabis wear a turban and them confusing Hindu-Punjabi with Sikh or being called North-Indian, Northie, or BNIs (Bloody North Indians J) as I read on some blog has not offended me. Think some people are more sensitive (or have some reason, which I am not aware of, to be more sensitive). Also I think being offended is now our national past time and these people are just doing what is popular. 

Being stupid 

How many people do you know who look at people with Mongoloid features and call them Chinese or South–East Asian? How many people would hear their language and say he/she was “saying something in Chinese”?  We accept it right, despite knowing its not correct technically. Probably because to the untrained ear, the languages sound the same or the difference in features are not strong enough to differentiate. In DU, the North-Eastern students are regularly referred to as Orientals (now that the previous and offensive “Chinks” is taboo). Even calling them North-Eastern, does not take into account their difference and assumes they are similar. Even now calling someone a gora or firang is not a sign of stupidity, it may be politically incorrect but not stupid.  Just wondering why its not ok to say South Indian, when saying North-Indian, North-Eastern is ok? And why is it not ok for North-Indians to confuse between the languages from the south when they do sound similar to most people? Honestly, I don’t really care but I have some free time in office and a vella mind. Have a nice day peoples! J

Hello everyone!!!

Special Hello to the 2 people who might read this blog. Just starting this one, Being an MBA(Don’t judge me because of that), before starting I thought to myself (I do that a Lot!), is there a target group for this blog? What is the Genre this blog will fall in? The answers, just like the result of a market research project were very vague and as useful as playing with Australia is to the Indian Cricketers ego.

Anyways, the infinite wisdom (or stupidity) in my mind has told me, the blog is targetted at anyone, who is vella/velli. The fellow professionals, who are being paid to fraud their way through the week, so that they can use that money to party on the weekend, the students who when they take a break from their heavy schedule of gaming, anyone else who has decided to visit a lesser known blog as their good deed for the day. Welcome one and all! About the Genre, the answer from MR was much clearer - It falls into NO GENRE AT ALL! Anything which is interesting enough to share, or weird enough not to discuss with the my friends and family, will find its place here.

A very special message to all the people who will now or in the future, dislike or hate this blog, get pained or irritated - In my profile you will find, I have described my personality as Scary as hell! It is not one of the things which people write to appear more interesting than they are, Its the absolute truth. I am not called Kaaliya for my sweet nature you see!

So enjoy the blog!! (You better!!!)

P.S. The site would have been up yesterday, could not find an old piece I had written earlier, so still looking for that. Found one which I will post soon.

N.B. Wrote this is Mid Jan 2007, no place to post then, so posting now.

Time. Time is at a premium! We hear frequently. I just want to meet some such people, want to talk to them (just a few minutes, won’t take much of their time) My question is: Really??? Time is at a premium right now?? Can I sell some please; I currently have a surplus, in fact have had a surplus for the last one and a half years, had I known, I would have made a killing by now. Which also brings me to another point, EXCUSE ME!, who said time is money, is it?? IS IT?? So, you are then reading the blabberings of the Richest Indian Woman….Oprah! you have competition!!

Anyways, my disguised unemployment leads to me spending time reading about anything and anyone on the net. A close friend just got an admit into NUC, Woohoo(!!!) Sim, Very happy for you. Went to her blog and read through a lot of stuff she had written, started searching for Duke’s (another dear friend is there) and found her on the website, quite cool to see her name there. Wondering how all of us, my gang of friends have landed up in different corners of the world, Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, North Carolina, Hyderabad, and Bangalore etc. Pretty cool, The group (called negro umbrella – which has 2 interesting stories behind it), is now rocking but still very much in touch.

In this whole friend searching, I googled for another friend who is into blogging and at ISB these days and saw a lot of links for her name and her blog. This obviously made me think, maybe someone somewhere has put in my name on the net, maybe of all the places I have been, the school, the college, the institute, the place of work, anywhere, has some reference to my name. Maybe one of my friends, my acquaintances, even people who hate me, have left a remark for me, a compliment, a hate message and in the day of racial slurs, a slur about me, my age, my being horizontally challenged, my having a pathetic good for nothing job, my snort while laughing…ok I must stop, getting slightly depressed. Anyways, moral of the story, no reference to me, anywhere on the net.

I should have my name on the net you know, it would feel nice to read it. I am sure my parents would make it their homepage and wallpaper, hopefully. A biography of me on the net, an interview with some celebrated reporter, when hopefully I am more celebrated than the reporter, unlike the Roshan Seth hosted Jeena Isi ka naam hai, seems like one of the spectators from the set have jumped on to the center and are being talked about, its quite funny. I saw one episode while surfing and then kept thinking, have seen this woman somewhere, in a detergent ad, as a newsreader or in one of the million K serials. Still can’t figure out.

Anyways back on the point (trust me there is one….I think), so my bio on the net in a few years from now, should hopefully read something like:

Kaaliya Kapoor, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in India currently, was in conversation with Karan Thapar. She is a true case of sad-job to sexy-businesswoman type of story. She is known worldwide for her creative talent and her business of <will be something good, I promise> is making waves all around the world. Her portfolio of clients include, the Bachchans, Brad Pitt, Mathew Perry, and many other noted celebs and heads of state. Apart from the award for the most successful entrepreneur, she has also won the MTV God-she’s-too-pretty award and also the brouhaha award for amazing sense of humour. She was recently on the Oprah-Winfrey show, and O has told NBC that she has learnt a lot about life and work from this great woman.

Etc etc…

Seems like a nice thought…doesn’t it?