Meetup Break..

Almost all of us who discussed were too "sure" to meetup. The day was set to monday but our Sardaar declared his presence today (Friday) so we decided to meetup the same day.

Avik/Yogesh did not team in since they had other appointments and the rest of the folks were safely assumed to be out of the meet. A few final phone calls and mails later Piyush and me left from offie at about 7:15 pm negotiating the buggy traffic. Piyush was to pick sanjay from Mayfair whilst I voulenteered to go pickup the injured Sardaar(Sheetal) from his place at Aundh.

Nice chitchats snacks and tea later left with sardaar towards Chandani Chowk where we were to meet Sanjay and Piyush.

It was roughly 8:30pm when we met the duo in a smoke could at Chandani Chowk. Soon we decided to have dinner at Oasis and made a dash for the hotel. There was just 1 table for us and we took it. I mean it was near the entry, but really for people like us nothing matters. Soon the Carnivorous drunks ordered their share of booze and meat whilst I picked on some soda and 'ghaas puus'.

The talk wavered from what we were all upto to what all we did to what all we have been doing to what all we should have done. So we decided on picking up one of our un-present mates and make a mockery out of him. Soon everyone teamed in and added spice and garlic to the topic. The night was warm and it was getting foggy with the chain smokers not quiting their routine and was geting shaky with the boozers not failing to order another.

Time went by and we (at least me) came to realize all we had were some starters and a lot of 'chakna', had to order something for us starving cows. A few rotis daal and rice was the only menu for the night. So we spoke of what we could do and why we did what we did and how doing what we were not supposed to do actually made us feel right in doing what we did (agghhh!). So as we discussed one of our drunks started to count sheep dancing around his head. So he made a gallant effort getting up to freshen himself.

Another beer was the order of the night :-). DAmm, how can these guyz gulp in so much! So the drunk returned and made a gallant attempt clearing imaginary sheep off his seat and fill his mug with booze (err.. its a different thing he never dared take another sip).

The talk then transcended to why they ordered so much beer and how on one of the trips we had to face the fright of the night :-). Well the time was ticking through the night as we decided to walk out. The waiters by now were stacking up chairs and tables.

Outside we had some paan and the smokers puffed through the cloud, as we aimlessly walked down the parking lot discussing what we did and how much we had and how we had came here once upon a time and that we should meet quiet often.

Now astride our mobikes I decided to trail Piyush and Sanjay. We(Sardaar and me) were worried if these guyz could actually drive through? I mean all along the quiet deserted mid night roads Sanjay kept wishing us 'Good Morning' "Ekdum Good Morning ho gaya hai boss" and cursing the oncoming traffic. When I synced up with Piyush to confirm some directions, gave it a pass since he was wide squint eyed scaling the road like a hawk :-).

Soon I left Sardaar at his place then rode down to Sanjay's place to see if they reached in one piece. Sanjay said Piyush left him and was on his way home.

Once back home smsed Piyush to confirm his arrival -"Ghar pahunchte hi sms kar dena", I got an immediate reply "Nahi". Then in about 15 mins got another sms from him "Reached" :)

Are you crazy!!!

That's a reaction I got from my folks when I said I would be getting a bicycle. Yes I have been on an impulsive high with a few adventure activities off late. Things that used to seemed a far cry for me were not when I got the high pulse. It all started with my trekking endeavors and eventually what seemed jumping off cliffs for me became a reality with me hanging on a midair swing. What seemed like a crazy idea to me transcended to reality when I went on a numb ass circuit from Pune to Gokarna.

Isn't jumping off cliffs and walking off weak ledges enough? I did not know the answer for this, since when in that impulse I was willing to take on anything in that direction.

4 years back, when I joined in this organization I was one of those fun loving outgoing and an all TP guy. Adventure sure was something that stayed with me but never in an expressive manner. I mean I had been on long drives -Car drives- umpteen amount of times. I have been on numerous trips and outings. Never before had I done any sort of treks as in a real trek nor had I done anything that got me close to the levels of endurance I encountered the last few years.

4 years before, I always thought of the adventure "freaks" to be extremely channel/narrow minded and way too prosperous ($$$) to undertake such activities. I never understood nor could easily formulate what made these people do what they did. I mean I sure wanted to get a taste of all those things but simply could not. I was happy and content with what I was doing then.

VxTrek was something that looked different and exposed me to the concept of organized treks. I mean I had trekked before, but not really with the passion of trekking. Soon made a few good friends and we too started embarking on many treks. The passion took me on a high as I got comfortable and understood the few basics for a good trek. The basic do-s and dont-s, that I never thought of before. I did 'accomplish' many good treks and came to realize that its never about the destination, its the path that matters. Trekking not only gave me the high of adventure and endurance but also very much educated me on decision making. Trekking is not simply walk along a path and u are done (sure it is if you do it just for the heck of it). Long treks need planning like which path to take , how to manage food, what are the fallback plans? etc etc. Trekking also introduced me to cope up with individuals on a trek, and when given a chance take important decisions. I really loved (and still do)trekking and when was in the high of it, really most of these things were simply reflexive. The best gift of it all -loss of weight, stay fit, enjoy, smile on your face and feel free :D. (yeah I know this sounds like one of those 5th std/ composition 'trekking' ... )

Paragliding was another activity I started off with, but it really never went to far. I really enjoyed those 7 days at Japaloupe farms and taking off hills. Those few moments in flight were simply for myself and could scan the scene around to get a birds eye view and the wonderful topography the hills, plains, valleys had to offer (and not mention the man made structures - roads, dams, farms etc.). I always wished I had continued with paragliding, and still get goosebumps just thinking of the same. Paragliding was not different than trekking, that is here too I had a lot of decision making to learn. It was not just jump off the cliff and land, you need to understand the aerodynamics of the glider, the air flow-direction-strength, the topogrpahy of the terrain you are flying over etc etc. At the end of 7 days I was very comfortable with the glider and had a lot of fun at the same time! The best part of giving 7 days- I flew the glider solo all the time :)

Bike rides too had caught my fancy. I had been driving the car for a long time and never really understood at that time the need of riding a bike. Driving the car has its own charm, and I shall never ever take that away! I mean try driving the 4 wheels in a crowded street or rip down the open highway at break-a-neck speeds- its fun and has its own highs. But I still wanted to relive the passion of 'balanced riding' :-). So got the bike all done and embarked on one of my best bike rides till date. Again, its not just fun and games riding the bike. A lot of planning, and decisions need to be taken with this as well. Sure I have done just one of those long rides but would love to get on more soon.

So yes these were more or less the new activities I had gotten myself totally engrossed into in the last 4 years. It was not wonder my folks thought "wasn't jumping and running off cliffs enough?" when I asked for the bicycle.

Bicycling I know has its own charm, and highs. Something I wish I could take up soon before it gets too late. Being a forum member (more silent now-a-days) at bikeszone got to know and see many people transform from motorized to non-motorized or atleast keep and option of a non-motorised vehicle. Its just been so long now I have been dreaming, have started to loose interest...

Why all these thoughts now? Well... had to do some reality checks on myself. :-)

Bored to Death

The last few days/weeks have been grossly inactive. Not much fun activities, nothing new going on. All was the same, having done nothing for so long I was getting sluggish. Well I hope to embark on a trek in one of the coming weekends, that should instill some much needed break in me.

Well just to add more to my delima, we had one of those routine re-orgs. and had a whole bunch of presentations put by the Big Bosses. To top it today we had one of out "new group" meetings.

We did expect the meeting to be more in line of what the new group would be and what our roles would sound like. Unfortunately the meeting took me through one of the most pathetic 1.5 hours of my life. I am being honest here, never before have I felt so confused or giddy after a meeting.

The meeting basically started with an introductory round like "I am A working on B for X years" , then came the talk which sort of said what we would be doing and who the new folks were.

I honestly did not know that we would be having any new faces in the group, for all I understood we were the same group with a new name, well the truth had a new mood though.

Soon the meeting went into the technicalities of the new group, and started getting intense into the micro level discussion of what the new folks were doing all these years .. err (my bad) months. It did seem ok at the start to know these new found folks and be a little bogged down to the fact that these guyz did some real hardcore "w.o.r.k". Thats about when things went bad.

The manager started talking about all the little nitty gritty this group did, and then it wavered into a single channel discussion about the new folks and all the technical (most words were simply Jargons for me )difficulties they faced. And this discussion never seemed to see the end of day. It went on with new mails and colorful excel sheets with rows and rows of technicalities which did not even remotely sound familiar.

Initially I though it maybe due to my recent apathy over being in this group thats making me feel this way, but soon realized everyone apart from the "new members" were counting sheep or scratching their eyes or rocking the chair or simply giving blind stares around. I felt confided, continued crossing my legs and tried to rub the grease off my pants.

Soon I could see the notepad in front of me with a flow chart and I had really enjoyed that chart and everything that went into making that chart. I mean I understood everything about it and got this huge grin on my face and -lo- the grease still stayed on pant refusing to budge to my relentless scratching. Boy had I started day dreaming.

But again, I thought why I dreamt about that flow chart which I made some 4 years back, the very next week of making that flow chart I had resigned from my previous job. Then I though of the days in my current company and I got really enraged at the way in which the management had always tossed our group from one to another. Dammit the grease is not fading... so I stretched my legs pushed the chair back folded my hands relaxed as the dim presentation of the excel sheet continued to scroll and so did the jargons.

Another guy from our older group was trying out at an MNC, little did I expect him to try that. So Shailesh had rejected his offer from this place, since he thought this place was new and the position was a little risky. Why wasn't I ready to quit or rather why was I all charged to quit and yet sticking around. Maybe the comfortable chair made me not take the decision. Dammit now my legs were stretched too long and then people were still walking around their cubicle that could sight through the transparent glass wall. The excel sheet had changed colors and was on a new worksheet. Piyush was still trying to keep his eyes open as Mandar looked as his hoes and kept scanning the room with Abhishek still rocking that chair.

Both the scroll-tab and fonts on this worksheet were so small that no time in the world would get me out of this torment. Thats when the manager said, "I guess we can discuss this offline" and many of us smiled :).

By now I realized my looking up or down consistently at a stretch and the background score of unknown jargons were getting me all dizzy. Soon the manager asked if there were any questions. The original us were used to keep quiet but that was not the case with these new Knights (atleast one of them).

Damm I wish I had a broom stick, which I could shove down his throat and wack him left and right. This guy had even more jargon knowledge and enjoyed playing jargon-jargon with the manager. Damm I recollected the Ashok Kumar mimicky from the previous post .. I felt no different and relished on the prospect of giving a Shatrugan shot "Khamoosh .. Ayyeeee.. Bhishumm". I had that huge grin again.

The meeting ended half an hour post schedule as someone else who had booked the conference room kicked us out. It never felt so good to be hustled out. I was still shaky and dizzy from the meet. The world around me went spinning and all looked or seemed over-brightened, damm was my grey taking in the much necessary blood.

Once back at my cubicle I shut my eyes and rested my face in my palms as I tried to recover from the onslaught and forget it as one bad dream.

Never before have I ever faced or been bored to death by a meeting, this was my first. Donno how many more are headed my way :-)

A typical day in an IT company

Something I typically would not have blogged (in the sense showcasing someone else's stuff), but this video is too cool to be denied.

The video simply shows a day in a s/w engineers day at the office from 11:30am to 6pm.

All credits go to the creator and characters depected in this video. I have NOT created this video nor am I involved in any sort with this video. All credits go to the owner of this video. Simply cool and very well edited!

Hillarious!
nJoy!
======================================
Seeems like the hosting the video is taking up a lot of bandwidth so here are a couple of links for the video:

link1
or
link2
or
link3

=======================================