The Butterfly Effect ...

Coincidences, coincidences ...
I watch the movie barely last week, i am thunder-struck by the concept, the beauty of the ending, and think of reading up more on the chaos theory.

Turns out, i don't need to. Get a practical first hand, within days.

So, if memory serves me right, how do they put it -

"It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world."

Well, transliterate that into -

"Snowfall in Overland Park can cause you to lose your baggages in New Delhi ..."

So obviously, i learn about it the hard way.
A flight from Kansas City that was supposed to depart at 3pm, gets off the ground at 5:30pm; when salt has finally melted some of the heavy snow on the runway. The flight has a fated passenger to Newark. No points for guessing who. The passenger is turning and twisting in his little seat thinking of the next flight he is sure to miss. The accursed flight touches down at Newark an hour after the connection as left. After running 40 gate terminals around the airport (i land at gate 67, and takeoff at 103), i reach half panting, with almost zero hope, to see a plane to Peurto Rico departing instead of the one to New Delhi.

Now comes the hard part - locating someone who can help me solve this muck.
I ultimately trudge back down to don't know where; trying to locate a help desk. Surprising as it may seem, nobody on the airport knows what a help desk is !! I finally manage to see a long line at one terminal. Curiosity saved the cat this time. I happen to identify it as a 'Service Center' for Continental airlines. After standing in queue for about an hour amidst other helpless beings as myself, i realized i wasn't the only one hit by delayed flights. Pain reduced, you ask? Probably yes. Self sadistic pleasure i would call it.

Ultimately, i managed to get to the "agent" at the desk, identified the problem and asked for a solution - which came in the form of a quick tour of Amsterdam. I was to be re-routed to Delhi via a stop-over at the Schipol. Not again, i thought. If i missed my connection again, i would be stranded in the drug and sex capital of the world. Not a bad place to be though, especially when as the air-hostess put it - you don't require a visa in the Netherlands, only a smile.

Dreams, dreams. Reality came crashing down when i was instructed to take a sky train, find my shuttle, and retire to the nearest hotel for a one night 'complimentary' stay with a couple of meal vouchers, which would pass off as loose change at those hotel rates. Barely a few hours of putting up, and you leave again at 12 noon check out time. I wasn't in a mood to hang around at $100 a day. So back to the airport, where after the usual strip search at immigrations, i put my butt off to sleep on the lounge. Apprehensive, with no clue as to where my luggage was currently (despite the assurances from the helpdesk that it would be re-routed the same as me), and no idea of the departing gate, it seemed like a flight in itself, stuck in a seat for 7 hours, hearing every announcement, no where to go.

Well, cut to the chase, i came, i saw, and i went away. Schipol airport was cool in the festive season. Huge Christmas trees, lighting, and the mistletoe. Two eight hour flights and a stopover later, i found myself without my baggages at New Delhi and in love with the KLM flight attendant. As obvious, all she did was smile flirtatiously, take her baggages and leave - leaving me at the conveyor belt, head swooning, both for her and looking at the suitcases go round.

After spending Christmas night at the airport, trying to locate my bags, nothing came of it, and i had to file in a complaint. Its been over 7 days since i last saw my bags at Kansas. I havn't heard from the authorities at the airport, or the CO/KLM flight group. Pleaded with the IGI help center but to no avail. They find themselves as helpless trying to trace my bags.
So after giving up hope that i would ever see my precious wardrobe again, with all the new business suits, shoes, watch and stuff (includes the chocolates i was pestered for), i had decided to go ahead and buy myself atleast a new razor before anything else.

But surprisingly, some other butterfly must have fluttered its wings in Tokyo, because a windfall occurred this evening. As i was midway through this blog post, i get a phone call, immediately recognizing the KLM office number. I answer with a bated breath, and hear the good news. No, my cat is not pregnant. But something will get delivered. My dear baggages arrived at my door step late night - everything sealed and perfectly intact. I couldn't have done a better job myself.

So with all tension dispersed, i finally decided to gorge on the chocolates myself, rather than take them to the place where they were intended to go. As it is, most were melting. Too tempting to resist. My sister dug in as well. I feel good now.

That's one lesson learnt. Better let the official laptop get lost in transit than your personal luggage. Atleast then the office will be supportive in trying to locate it ...

While my guitar gently weeps ...

For the people who were wondering where I was this whole time - in geeky Arnie style i say - Inverse of Asta Lavista Baby - I am back ...

Judging by the pathetic level of PJs i have gone down to, I personaly realize the amount of pressure i have been under lately, and see my pent up thoughts going down a drain.

Back from a week spent in Silent Wilderness.
Thrown right back into the cacophonous populace.

I put up my blog title as my messenger status (without having written about it yet). People asked me the reason behind it - well the obvious reason was the Guitar that i saw hung on my wall with dirt accumulated over the jacket, with no one to care about it - forgotten and lost. I have kind of been feeling the for a few days now. Instances where the wrong items grabbed the wrong attention and the real good stuff - no - the great stuff - got lost in the middle of somewhere !!

Wrong priorities, unhappy endings, feeling of betrayal, lack of trust, loss of passion, overcome by apathy, grumpiness galore, rise of anarchy - the past revisited, the present distorted, the future foreseen.

Been a bit busy with GMAT and stuff - and seriously - the only 4 lettered acronym i can think of for it is PITA. With only a week and half to mug up English, "Lays American Style", it was a hard task unwinding all the basic grammar rules and re-learning English as quite a different language. It was an interesting experience, as all such first-time experiences are. But i would have appreciated it more if it were art-for-arts-sake, and not simply a grading system which judges you based on how well you can correct "me and I". Truly speaking, seriously, would it really - and i mean really - matter to any top-notch university if the sentence articulation was slightly off mark, but conveyed quite fairly the meaning it was constructed to convey.

Given the fast pace of all activities, who is going to stop and think for the next moment if "they did it" or "they had done it". Point is - the job was/had been 'done' - without mattering when in the past it was done. We are no detectives investigating a crime where time line and speech would have (could have?) mattered. Will it ever create a dent in my presentation if did not start my sentences with However, while others may, firstly, summing up !!

Alright - i'll be the first to agree i am not the greatest exponents of the language - but without pride taking a fall, i am not the worst either - written or spoken, English is something i think i can convey my ideas reasonably well in. Fundamentalists might argue that Yoda spoke wrong English - but hey - the French use more of Passive voice and the Germans put their verbs before their subjects - both of which Yoda regularly indulges in. And yet, and yet - we all get what he gibberishly speaks (apart from the whole With-you-may-the-Force-be, My-young-padawan concept - we are not Jedis, right?)

Do the readers feel my anger and frustration is vent upon the GMAT because i scored miserably in test - not really - in fact i did better in the english section than i was doing in any previous practice tests. My score was decent (my personal target was 700+ which i passed comfortably) if not phenomenal, and i am happy with what i got compared to the input i put in. Obviously, since humans are never the content species, they'll always crib if they fall short of the best. What am i to say - I am human too.

And that is the reason i see my guitar gently weep - even though i notice it not, it sees me transforming into something i am not, something i aim to be which i dont want to, struggling against the odds to get even, doing what my heart does not believe in, holding onto things i should let go, and missing those little joys of life that truly matter.

I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it need sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps

I don't know why nobody told you
how to unfold you love
I don't know how someone controlled you
they bought and sold you

I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps

I don't know how you were diverted
you were perverted too
I don't know how you were inverted
no one alerted you

I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at you all
Still my guitar gently weeps ...

(George Harrison)

The Portrait - Musings of AAA batteries personified ...

I am sick.
And I am tired.
Not of my own life though.

But of every Tom, Dick and Harry blabbering away like a "AAA" battery on a topic they have no inkling about (i hope this particularly quoted sarcasm doesn't go waste on the people intended, though i doubt since they have limited comprehension of what black humor might be), trying to make a tea-party out of it. Well it made me change one of my gibberish mood swings to this - "Money people earn for work they don't do ..." - and then probably go on to act as if the work got done because of them. Well, its not hard to put 2 and 2 together for people who inter-visit 'common' blogs often.

Well, i don't want to harp on these petty issues (oops - i really meant people)

All my frustration apart, i do not deny a couple of teeny-weeny truths probably there are in all these writings and stuff. But there has to be a way of putting it effectively across, without making it sound so gung-ho and repetitive and blatantly obscene. Take for instance the chai-waala dhaba postings by Dingy and AJ. I couldn't kind of really find one different from the other. No hard feelings AJ. But man, get your creativity going dude. I am sure you can phrase out the same thing in a much better manner using a decent (if not better) idea.

/* PS with Edits */
I am sorry AJ - it was NOT meant to be a personal attack on your creativity what-so-ever. I simply beg you to use your creative talents on something which is not so trivial. Reading the same issue day in and day out with half the junta not knowing the correct info and trying to provide their 2 cents on everything pissed me off. I apologize if what i meant actually came out incorrectly (which i accept it did when i re-read it) and i caught you in the line of my frustration firing. That is what blogging is meant for :)

I cant respond to comments right now due to some proxy issues on this stupid network.
As i told you, dil pe mat lena - lets put together our heads much more "creatively" and try and loosen Mr. AS of some of his hard(ly) earned money during lunch on wednesday ...
/* End of PS with Edits */

And apart from these 2 blog posts, there were a couple of others, but too insignificant for me to mention here ...

All in all, i decided to fall back to my only form of creativity - poetry writing. I had ended up reading one of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories called "The Oval Portrait". So i decided to use it as my theme to fire up a few lines by myself which could probably describe the situation in a much more positive/optimistic outlook rather than the mundane-sombre-deadbolt approach people try to take. I personally don't look down upon my chai stall. In-fact, i consider it to be a piece of art. As opposed to the contrary notion of a chottu chai waala, tea-preparation techniques can be vocational in themselves. I am sure many wouldn't agree with the lines crafted below, in that light - but to them i say - who cares - i blog because i like to - "i blog because i think" (OK, thats stolen from Descartes, but he is not going to turn in his grave for plagiarizing it)

So here goes my le' imbecile. Without any visible firm bashings like the others !!
For people who cannot link the artist, or the exhibition, or the lady-love to known events and surroundings - well shame on you !!
I truly think that with a little effort and vodka (reference: Unni) you will understand it. There are a couple of interpretations, i as a poet thought out.
Good luck ...

THE PORTRAIT

Oh ! What a painter he was, an artist so fine
He could sketch from gothic frames, to a mural with intricate design
Never did art exceed its greatness so, in that era
Those pictures were more real than Gods Zeus or Hera

Once to the Paris Art Exhibition he went
where he fell in love with an angel, from heaven sent
He married her and brought her home
with a single desire to paint her, standing next to the Elyssian Dome

She was a maiden unparalleled in beauty and form
to be challenged only by the genius' artistic storm
Never did she like his involvment to become so deep
that he completely forgot her, even in his sleep
But a gentle, loving, obedient wife she was,
so she allowed herself to be portrayed for his cause

To capture that face on paper, he would like a madman work
never would he budge from his seat, though the night shadows around him lurk
For weeks together with the eisel in front of her spread
she sat in the dark high turret, a single window overhead
But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which stretched from day to day
that he shut himself up, keeping even his loved ones at bay

He could not see the dark, despaired health and spirit of his bride
who even in this time of gloom, yet had never cried
From the ardour of his work he never rose
to see the shattered, dying countenance of the lovely lady he chose

When finally his masterpiece had been completed
and the bristles of the paint brushes with the oil color reserves had depleted
then did he rise to admire his art, his child
none could achieve such greatness, even with an imagination so wild

"This is life indeed" , looking at the portrait he said
and he turned around suddenly to regard his beloved - SHE WAS DEAD

Driving in the fast lane !!

No, this is not another philosphocial or lifestyle or marketing mantra based concept.
The topic post is just what it says - quite literally - driving in the fast lane - on the roads ...

Its been now close to a month (or two was it?) that i have started driving on the "bad wolf" roads of Delhi and Gurgaon. It still feels like you are going to get gobbled up by the raging-bull traffic around you.

I have that dreaded L-sign still taped to the back of my car windshield. Dreaded not for me - but for people around me. The L-sign, especially "red lettered" that it is, invokes for some the tendency to live (and fight) another day (by passing the learner very very slowly and safely) and for others the wrath of a woman scorned (horns screeching and honking at learners who inevitably find their vehicles stoppind dead center of a traffic jam on a green signal, others wanting to zip through by).

Well - for me - its been there, done that kind of stuff now. I think i can drive decently well now (by my standards atleast) on main roads and negotiate tricky traffic. I however, am still not into the thick of how things drive into "danger zone" yet. I play by the rules. And that is what will get me killed someday on these roads.

I thought, and still do, (and i know pretty sure i am not delusional on this) that in Delhi/Gurgaon (actually in India as a whole), the driving is right-handed. Which means, by pure logic that you overtake a vehicle from the right, and hence the fast lanes would be the rightmost lane on any road. Why then for the love of defied logic, do people with cars that cannot go more than 30kmph on a freeway, want to travel in the rightmost lane. That too when all 3 lanes on their left are totally empty. And when you tend to be driving at 100kmph, if somebody jumps in front of your car, then God save him/her (I doubt if even He can manage to do that).

And its not just private vehicles. But for some reason, the trucks and tempos think of the right lane as their daddy's as well. No matter how much you honk, blink your lights, cuss at them, show them the finger - it just isnt going to move them off that track. Then out of sheer frustration, you change lanes from right to left (mind you, i have given the left side indicator as well), but just about as you are doing that, some other guy, coming straight from playing Road Rash 2, crashes past your left rear view mirror jarring his horn, only for you to shift back again in the right lane behind the tempo and repeat the infinte cycle to try and overtake it.

I can understand the pain the Formula-1 drivers would be feeling when driving lap after lap behind a slower car, trying to find that perfect corner, that moment when they are just about close enough to sling shot from the slip-stream and overtake the car in front. But till then they must wait and wait and wait - and brake and brake and brake if they get too close enough for comfort. Reminds me of Massa's Ferrari behind a debutante's Spyker at the end of the safety lap in the European Grand Prix. A dream come true for the rookie to lead the race on atleast one lap, but the impatience of Massa and Alonso to get past him.

Well for me its not so drastic as January and May as it was in this F1 race, but as O.Henry would put it - its still a clear case of October and June.

So as i have learnt, driving in the fast lane is easier said than done. Didn't really know that the phrase used by so many 'gurus' really meant what it actually was. Nothing figurative. And the world thought it was euphemism ...

Tryst with Peanuts ...

I have gone 'nuts' over this last week. And simply because of peanuts in my life - both literally and metaphorically.

Monday began with me taking the hardest decision of my life yet - withdrawing my name from the B-school roles, with some finally feeling a relief, and making quick money (Yes, there had been bets over me joining or not to the order of a few K i have heard). I also got to hear an earful from a few others who felt that for 'peanuts' i could have graduated from one of the better mba colleges in India. The ROI would have been amazing given the minuscule fee structure.

The same day there came the devastation - the organizational cost cutting plan which reduced our bonuses to peanuts and increased our salary to Peanuts (please do note that the change in capitalization of 'P' here is discretionary and can be reversed any #$%@ day I want). Reminds me of the Dilbert strip a co-employee circulated in the happening of this event.

And as if that was not enough, i succumbed to my allergy to actual salted peanuts and got my larynx in a bloated state, the consequence of which was high fever, body ache, throat infection et al.

I am still recuperating from all this peanut sickness, and i doubt that, though the physical pain will subside, mental scares will ever get healed.
The only good thing i feel now is by going back and listening to Coleridge and Beck and Pope !!! In the advent of this, i added yet another video clip to the post of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner below, with the recital of some verses. Enjoy it.

And to the one who said that the B-school fees was peanuts, i say, go check my bonus - thats peanuts, the fees refund i got was a 7 course meal compared to that ...

Peanutting off
Perky P