Well, everyone else is doing it

Call it what you want. The me-too complex, the herd mentality [this is as much as I knew. The terms that follow are courtesy wikipedia], GroupThink, Collective consciousness, Flocking, Conformism (!). It got me to and through engineering and now a return to blogging.

Gotcha back

All these years,it's been supporting me. Facilitating all sorts of crazy moves and couch potato-ness. The Enabler, if you will. Then it gave out. And it hurts so much. I will never take it for granted again. I speak, of course, of my back [see corny title and go "aaaaah"] I've tried the balms which are an exericse in masochism. I'm doing exercises. Count 1..2..threeeeee oh holy crap that hurts. Repeat for other side. I've had garlic in coconut oil massaged into my back. Years of parental nagging has not been able to acheive what a few days of pain has : a great posture. I sit ramrod straight, shoulders back. Alas, this means no more reading of "The Best of P.G. Wodehouse" and chuckling to myself in the bus. All for a good cause. Wait, I have the radio series of Hitchhiker's Guide that I can transfer to the phone. No threat to the laughing like a crazy person, after all. Phew!
I also use a cushion. I will wrap the big belt with welcro during the bus journeys. Both the belt and the corset cut off blood circulation. However, unlike the corset which is supposed to give one an hour glass figure, the belt makes one a rectangle.
Like if you see a 6 year old's drawing of humans, if the person consists of a pail on top of an inverted pail, that person has a corset on. If the person look like a rectangle, they have the back belt on.
I dont sleep on my side anymore. After a nap, I dont get up like they do in movies and songs -- getting up immediately to the sound of birds chirping or the sunlight falling on the perfectly made up face of the actress. I roll over to the side and use my arm to support my weight. Not dramatic at all, I know. I no longer take my customary if-you-take-long-strides-people-will-think-you know-where-you-are-going. I take small steps, baby steps,even.

I don't know which one of these is actually responsible for reducing the pain or if its a combination of all of the above. I'm not going to conduct control experiments on myself. You're welcome to try. Do let me know the results.

I wanted to segue into a piece on Women's Day. I cant figure out how, though. I guess I'll cheat and use the abrupt "Anyway".

Anyway, Happy Women's Day! Thanks to the women and men who teach children/people around them that Women are no less than Men in any way. Other than in boorishness, perhaps.

"There is a season"

It's that time of the year. Its time to scrounge around to put together the one lakh investment for 80 C tax exemption. This year, in a bid to save my salary from getting chopped off by TDS I invested in tax saving mutual funds back in May. Ha! Considering the lack of dividends and the dizzying fall of its NAV I would have been better off with the tax being cut and the lesser salary accruing the savings account interest. Oh well. Hindsight and 20/20 and all that. Anyway, I still have some to invest and was researching on NABARD bonds and came across this link [ Of wives, girlfriends and home loans ]which I read only because of its catchy title. Hey, home loan rates are not all that exciting and a title suggesting scandal is exactly what would entice reluctant [and gossip hungry] readers like me. So the article talks about how existing home loan customers get screwed over while banks reduce rates to lure new customers. The columnist exhorts the "wives" [existing customers] to not sit around and mope but to make demands. If the banks call their bluff so be it.. actually move to the next bank offering a better deal. This reminds me of when the magazine [I'd mention its name but honestly I've forgotten it] we subscribed to had an ad which said they would gift a book on India to new subscribers. Dad called them up and asked them for our copy. "They" explained that it was only for new customers. Dad argued. Then he argued some more about how we were customers for 'N' years and how they should not take us for granted. It took a bunch of calls but finally that book on India was delivered home.
The point is, Stand up!
Of course, in these times, it may be slightly hard to stand up at the workplace, with the Sword of "The Current Market Scenario" hanging over one's head. Maybe there is a time to stand up and be heard and a time to sit quietly and wait for an opportune time. Or maybe that's a coward's rationalization.

The acronyms used above as far as my memory and imagination go:
TDS : Tax Deducted at Source
NAV : Net Asset Value
NABARD : National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development

And now that we are done with the serious news.. over to the weather

The weather is important, people. Not just to farmers who produce the food that sustains us. The weather is our conversation hero. It rescues us from awkward moments of silence that threaten to last till eternity. It doesn't matter if the people talking are in the same place, face to face [though does that even happen these days?] or on the phone or on chat in antipodal points. When there's nothing left to say and you still have minutes left on that calling card. When its a business meeting and there's waiting to be done for other people. When people are on their first date. When people are talking for the first time after their break up. When you bump into estranged friends and after the customary Oh! how have you beens and the What have you been up tos. When you're on the bus/train/plane with no network to be able to pour your heart out to people you really know*, you can always turn to the person beside you and say, "hot/cold/wet, isnt it?"
[sweet sound of conversation playing]
Iiiiiits Captain Weather to the rescue.

*Also, when you really want to update your blog and cant think of what to write. Its hot enough to make you glad if you are stuck in an air conditioned office for a good part of the day, isn't it?

Ten things I learnt at Work.

So Huzaifa over at axshuzaifa.blogspot.com came up with a list of Ten Things You Would Not Have Learnt If You Didn’t Attend Graduate School
After the invariable stabbing of envy over someone having completed their Masters' passed and I moved on to the self-pity stage of having nothing much to show for my 2 years' of work experience except loss of hair, increase in blood pressure and body fat, I decided I'm going to make a list myself.


1) The power of cc : Time in which the work gets done by the recipient is in inverse proportion to the designation of the person in cc.
CC also leave a beautiful trail. Of course, people kept in cc may not really read the mails. In such cases, the words "I had kept you in cc" effect a magical response of getting the person in cc onto your side, perhaps, due to guilt of not reading your mail.

2) Alt+Tab, is the magical key combination for all employees doing what they are not paid to do. But its no use pressing alt+tab when you hear the boss' footsteps and (s)he is 2 feet from you. Depending on the angle of your monitor, your boss has probably seen what you were doing from about 10 feet away. So doing alt+tab at the last minute not only makes you a truant employee but a foolishly dishonest one.

3) Despite the fact that *every* one seems to be doing or has done or wants to do an MBA, its still hard to find a good boss.

4) People who work less but talk more than you will get a better appraisal [See Point 3]

5) Do not check work mail over the weekends or on vacation. Of course, some people think that if you check your mail and find that the mistake you made on Friday has disappeared without a trace you will have a worry-free weekend. But, chances are that you will have a host of angry emails and these emails are better read when one is fortified by a good weekend.

6) Remember those people in college who suck up to the teachers to get better marks during internal assessment. Those guys turn pro in Office [Coz not there's money involved!] They can hijack your work to take credit, snitch on you.. Oh, there's not much that's beneath them.

7) At work, friends must be made with as much care and caution as one who treads barefoot in a cage of scorpions. You might ask, why would one need to walk in a cage of scorpions? And I would retort, in all my wisdom, "Why does one need to make friends in office?" [See Point 6]


8) There will also be people who will help you if you ask. They will sit down with you for hours trying to solve your problem and not once look at their watch or mutter under their breath about having to do their own own work. They will help you without making you feel stupid and return your effusive thanks with a quiet smile and maybe a "Nothing at all". Its an honour to know these people.

9) Everything looks better or more official if it has bullet points and/or is in a Spreadsheet.

10) Expenditure on tissues goes down drastically when you work. I know of people who have a cold go to the washroom on Friday evening and suff their bag with a supply of tissue that will last them the weekend. Ok, ok I do that!

Just stuff.. you know

Ack! It’s been more than a month since I have written anything! Instead of studying or cleaning up the room, I’ve decided to write and maybe the cloud of DOOM hovering over my head will dissipate or at least move on to someone else.

Today is Friendship Day. It’s the time to buy and tie ribbons proclaiming promises of eternal friendship, send cheesy messages, send messages mocking cheesy messages or use “Every day is Friendship Day for me” as an excuse for not doing anything about the day. I really should write a post on my friends today and how much they mean to me but I’ll leave that to another day.

Anyway, I thought I’ll mess around with this template a bit and now I’ve lost my archiving and About me sections and its one messed up code. This is because
a) I didn’t use versioning i.e. I didn’t save the code before making drastic changes
b) I hardcoded stuff all the way

There are best practices for a reason. I have learnt my lesson. Honest. Come back, Archiving Section!

Bow down to me for I have ...

I always knew I love buying books. But it has been a bit of a jarring revelation that I love buying things. Anything. It was never like this when I wasn't earning. Back then wherever we'd go for lunch/dinner I'd have the cheapest thing on the menu. Mostly, it was idli sambhar. Somehow the cheapest things also seemed to be the healthiest and friends accused me of dieting. I did nothing to enlighten them. Anorexia evokes concern, empathy and silent confessions of "me too" but stingy is just cheap!
Anyway, now that I'm earning, I love buying things. During one of these expeditions, I found this book on craft projects.

Flipping through the pages, I decided my project would be a wooden photo frame.

We went to the shops and I confidently said I needed 8 X 6 X 1 wood [I didnt want to come across as the ignorant first-timer that I was] He asked how I plan to take it away. I pointed to my big schoolbag proudly. He was puzzled. Then he laughed and said "inches!" I looked down n mumbled a yes. He suggested buying plywood but I had seen the picture of the wooden frame in that book and I wanted mine just like that. He said wood that size would cost 300 bucks.

I decided my project would be a plywood photo frame.

We had an old, rusty saw at home but still wanted them to cut it into the 3 blocks instead of one big piece. My stint with Technical drawing and the subsequent low marks in the most scoring subject in the curriculum in school and college taught me one thing : I cannot draw straight line, let alone cut out an inch thick block of wood. There was a very real risk, I'd have to tuck a folded piece of paper at the bottom to balance and there was no way in hell I would have scribbled on paper paper peeping out of beatiful cherry polished frame!

I also bought glass cut to desired size and polished on the sides.The actual glass cost me 1/3rd the amount for finishing it. Finishing is where they smoothen the edges so that blood does not tarnish the glass if you hold it by the edges.

I also had to buy polish coz the raw plywood looked ugly. Turns out there is something called French polish which is a carpenter's favourite. At least, thats what dad said. I have not been able to confirm this since I have had no interaction with carpenters other than "baby, paani chahiye." Naturally, I looked up french polish in wikipedia. " French polishing is a wood finishing technique (and not a substance, as commonly assumed) that results in a very high gloss, deep colour and tough surface."
I dont know about that because I paid 85 rupees for a 'technique' in a 1 litre bottle. Now, french polish is not sold at any hardware store. It requires a license because it has enough of an alcoholic content to make people take a swig of it.

Maybe my dad was haunted by images of me with the plywood all laid out in front of me, opening the french polish bottle and inhaling the smell and being so overcome by temptation that I'd gulp it down as the plywood pieces remained unpolished. He kept bringing up the fact that carpenters had drunk french polish and died. Always with the special emphasis on the word died.
Yes, dad. Dont worry daddy. If I wanted to have alcohol, I can afford to buy the real stuff in big, pretty bottles.

Finally, I found a page that detailed how to french polish. I sand papered plywood pices but took off more than I should have in some places. But I always realized it only after it was too late and the light brown of the layer beneath would peep accusingly out of the soon-to-be-rich dark brown topmost layer of the plywood.
Then began the polishing. I used my mom's garden gloves and started. After about two rounds of applying polish. I removed it. My hands were becoming numb. I became scared. My elbow started to hurt and I felt my chest tighten. I wandered to the hall where my dad sat watching TV. After a few excrutiatingly long minutes where I regretted a 100 things and made a thousand promises, everything returned to normal. It was then that I realized that maybe the gloves had cut off the blood circulation. I complained to my dad that he never let me watch what I wanted and, with a huff and a bang of the door got back to my workshop i.e. my study table covered with newspapers appropriately adorned with patches of french polish, rags and a pair of nose pliars [to open the !@#!^% lid of the french polish]

The french polishing went on for quite a few days quite uneventfully and I was pretty happy with myself. But on a windy day, the curtain knocked down the french polish bottle. Contents worth Rs. 45 were lost as they seeped through marble worth "I slaved over a desk for three extra months to have gleaming white marble in every room in the house and not just the hall!" It had also seeped through about 5 editions of the India Express [which is of course of a pitiful thickness as compared the voluptuous Times Of India] and into my desk. I brushed it off as enhancing the polish of the desk and set to work on the marble cleaning before anyone found out. Finally, I resorted to that classic trick of moving the desk so that it covered the general area of the problem.

Then I did the following:

...Fixed two hinges and 12 additional screws into inch thick plywood without a drill[electric or otherwise]
How? Hammer and nail, baby.

At last, I inserted the glass pieces within the screws. It wasn't smooth, of course but a little force and cursing goes a long way and then I slipped little pieces of white paper to serve as background for the photographs. Combed through the family albums to select pictures. Assured my parents I would make copies of the photos and leave the originals in the album. [I still haven't done that!] I inserted the photographs and got the photo frame to stand on the desk.

I swear I could hear an orchestra playing as I looked at my plywood photo frame.

EDIT : adding the image. Hope it looks ok, mm. Either way it was a lot of fun to make. I apologise for the crude censoring photos. See, there's a reason why I'm not making it big in the visual effects industry.