Hyper-connectivity. Amen.

Adjusting the on-the-go playlist on my ipod, checking email on the blackberry, finishing a presentation on my laptop and not to forget occasionally staring at the novel in my Damier check tote waiting to be "held". I found myself trapped in the car breathing "devices"; scared to the bone by my ability to coordinate using all of them at the same time without a glitch.

Instantly, my conscious came into play and I grasped "100 Dollar Start Ups" lying ignored in my bag. Almost immediately, I convinced myself that listening to some music couldn't do any harm and plugged in my pod. I barely finished couple pages when my hands started itching to touch the qwerty keypad of my Blackberry! I resisted the temptation; almost meditated (concentrated on my breathing and all that jazz). No luck! I held my phone and it felt like 'Pi' after being trapped 277 days reached ashore and touched the warm sand! An email about some deadline and there it was; back to my laptop.  Back to square one.

Blame hyper-connectivity! It is almost like the device doesn't require our touch to function but our touch requires the device to function! Why is that knowing everything has become so vital? I know there were times when an entire village knew what was going on in one tiny hut at the other end(especially if it was gossip). But that was the fun bit I suppose - the finding out and the manipulation of news as it traveled. Now what we have are: brief sentences, no punctuation and minimum emotion!

We, the baby manufacturing machines!

Running around in the unknown territory of a government hospital for someone I am not remotely related to has given me a sense of relief like no other.
I was out having high tea on a particularly idle Sunday when I decided to go back home early. My driver, V who has been working with us for over a year called in the most disturbed voice saying -  "hume nikaal diya" (They turned us out)! I didn't really understand why his wife who was in full-time labour be turned out of a private hospital at such a crucial time. I tried to ask him why, but fancy words dropped by the doctor about a certain complication were far from being comprehended by this man who drove a rickshaw since he was 15!

I asked him - "paisa ka problem hain kya?" (Did you not enough money?). He said he assured them that money wouldn't be a problem but still they asked him to take his wife to a government hospital.
He rushed her to a nearby government hospital and called me from there saying they were not accepting her admission too.

I was appalled! Do government hospitals not cater to complications or people like him don't have complications at all! That's when my aunt and I decided that sitting at home and trying to help him over the phone wouldn't help. We went to same hospital where he was being denied admission. It was a dead place with casualty cases all over the compound. Never in my life had I thought that I would have strength to walk through such a place. It also cleared a massive delusion in my head that one day I could be a doctor!

He was there outside the OPD trying to get his wife admitted for medical attention! They failed to make him understand that it was the emergency room he was looking for.  We guided him to the emergency room where they readily took her in and asked us to take her to the labour room.

This room was one floor up so for obvious reasons I requested for a wheel chair service for the girl in labour. That was considered an absolute impossibility as I got stares from people screaming - "don't you know women are baby manufacturing machines? She will be okay to walk". We had no time to argue and hence, slow and steady we got her to what they called the "labour room". It was more like a untidy dorm room where no one had a clue about what's going on.

The gynaecologist incharge was nowhere in the vicinity and this 10-12 bed place full of women absolutely ready to shoot out babies was being attended by tiny interns who were manually dividing the number of days by 8 to see how many weeks has it been for everyone.  When their multiple choice ticking ordeal to decide the number of weeks was over, we showed one of them her latest ultrasound report. The lady leisurely looked at it and started copying it word by word in what looked like her bible. It was getting too much to handle, so my aunt just followed her to the reporting doctor who of course was not slightly perturbed by the piling cases that needed her attention.

We had to drop a few names as my grandmother used to be a known gynaecologist in the area to get her to move her butt. First thing she looks at the patient and says - "kya problem hai? (What's the problem?). Seriously? If we/the girl knew what the problem was, why would we need her at all! My driver, V tried to come into the room several times but apparently men weren't allowed inside. Well, I thought to myself it is only in India that a man who is equally responsible for getting the girl into a situation like that is not expected to share the pain with her.

Finally, the doc ran a few regular checks and told us that it was a little late and she would have to operate on her and the chances of survival of the baby were slim. That's when I went out and stood with V. He was scared. The good part was he was less scared about the baby but more tensed about his wife in pain. I told him it wasn't going to be easy and he just kept trying to peep into the tiny opening to catch a glimpse of his wife.

I realised the feeling one gets being a parent has nothing to do with how rich or poor you are. At that moment, everything just becomes the same. The pain of watching someone close to you suffer dilutes all differences that we as humas have created.
Nevertheless, we left them there at midnight and couldn't sleep all night thinking about what the outcome of the operation would be. Finally, we gave up on waiting to hear from him and called him expecting bad news. To our surprise, we heard - "ladki hua, abhi hua" (It's a girl). I don't think I have felt that sense of relief ever before. And I kept repeating It in my head - "it's a girl! , it's a girl!". Phew.

Piece of cloth or a semi pressed animal?

Have you ever noticed while driving down on a fairly empty road, these rugged things or pieces of crap lying aimlessly. Black or brown due to the pollution and dirt brought by vehicles, to me these seemed like maybe injured animals from far off. Maybe highway road trips I took as I kid have instilled this thought - I used to without fail look back at every piece like that on the road and sometimes it was actually a semi-pressed cat or dog that probably tried to cross the road without caution. Fear or the sub-memory thought of those injured animals makes me leap every single time I notice such a disturbing thing lying on the road.

My utterly active mind especially when it comes to things that don't actually require so much over-thinking doesn't leave this instance to imagine the worse. I used to think to myself -  where did this piece come from? Has it traveled a lot? Maybe it was a part of someone's wardrobe. Maybe a dupatta? I don't know it used to leave me a bit intrigued about the history of those pieces and where they came from. A very similar thing happens to me  when I sit in an airplane. I used to look down during take off and wonder where the lights were coming from until there was complete darkness. Especially while traveling when you come across barren areas with just a light or two visible - I used to ponder about what those prime lights could be illuminating. Could the lights be coming from a house? Are people around that light able to this plane?

It might sound shocking to some but I have this incessant habit of keeping things that mean absolutely nothing apart from the fact that someday sometime I happened to find them somewhere and they looked fascinating. I know it can be formally referred to as hoarding by the way I explained but actually things that I am mentioning here are the most unimportant tiny ones that I link my memories to. Say a napkin I found with a note for someone in London, a bottle that looked stunning but was abandoned, pink paper clips stained due to paint, tickets to the show I never attended etc. I just think we come in touch with things or even people for a reason. The reason may not be entirely clear initially but as time passes I think one might find a connect. For example - the ticket of the show I missed reminds me every day that I still haven't seen it! Or the bottle - it instantly takes me back to the moment in London when I missed the 12am train and was stranded. Everything teaches me a lesson or brings a smile across my face. 

Madam "wok" (vogue) le lo

Everything becomes a business in seconds in this place and everything shuts shop in even milli seconds in Delhi!

So I live in Punjabi Bagh, a place primarily renowned for its filthy rich people with every car possible and the stamina to eat/pay for good food. There has been no such ice cream brand that has not targeted this region. So in a line of shops you'd find cocoberry, hoki poki, baskin robin, gianis, 24x7, nirula's and of course not to forget the existing hawkers of mother dairy, amul, etc. I mean yes the people like ice cream but how much can they eat! That's what I thought. But was surprised to find later that yes, they can eat A LOT and something new every night. Its crazy how none of these brands claim they've had a dry sales time ever in this place!

Target market/group analysis has such a widespread application in everything India does. Its almost like marketing skills have been drilled in all of us. Think about it - the vendors on the traffic lights know exactly who will buy flowers, magazines, car chargers, books etc. Now they did not study anything its just experience that talks loud.

At this red light recently, this tiny guy selling magazines comes to my window and suddenly changes the order of the magazines. Says - madam "wok" (vogue) le lo. I told him while pointing at a hindi publication and said - woh kyun nahi dikhaya? He started giggling and said "firangi type Indian  log toh "wok" hi kharidte hain". So this barely 8 year old guy knew the exact market for what he was carrying to sell! Similarly, this girl selling flowers at the signal tells Dev (a friend) - "phool le lo bhaiya, madam khush ho jayengi". Yet again they knew that a guy and a girl sitting together would be ideal for selling something like flowers.

There is this word called - "jugaad" that exists in a lot of our dictionaries, at least it does in mine! I absolutely love how people here have a gut feeling that if something is not possible, there has to be a sidelined way to get it done. We do not take NO as an answer very easily. If we go to a shop and do not find our size of say a pair of shoes, it would be 99percent that we would say - "please check in the stock." I mean why is it so hard to believe something when told once. Its probably because there is such a high probability of being cheated in every sphere! Even the sabzi wala will try and quote wrong prices so you can imagine how big decisions would be so tough to take. How do I know that if someone is telling me the right thing so I just haggle until I know that I've done my best. From the auto drivers to desi sharaab places - all cheat us and we still keep believing we made a good deal! That's the beauty of business here.

My nails will never be the same again

It is very weird when someone you see for 5 years, two times a month, one day is declared dead. Sometimes you can't imagine where death takes you and when you actually do its too late. Something similar happened to the man who always made sure my hands looked presentable.

It might be considered very trivial in a lot of people's lives but my manicurist was very dear to me.  Even during my years of being out of the city, he would skip any appointment if he knew I was coming back for a couple days.

Many are in this business because they couldn't do anything else in their lives, many are not even proud of the profession just attached to the money that comes with it and few are just happy having uninterrupted access to women and their lovely hands. In my experiences with salons in Delhi, I have never noticed a male manicurist who is so committed and  honest to what his work demands.

The last time I met Harish, I was going to get my nails done after ages and I was very well prepared to hear him rant about the state of my tanned hands. He was up and about as usual, complaining about his daughter creating tantrums at school and him having to go regularly to fetch her. He had been missing work quite a bit due to her.

He often joked about when I would get married and how old I had become to find a nice guy. I would laugh it off saying - just because you ruined your life early don't expect me to. He would laugh but always added - "if I wasn't in love, I wouldn't have".

Never in my imagination would I have thought, a hurried holiday to his home town would turn fateful for him. I entered the salon on a casual saturday not aware of what had happened and could literally feel the eerie atmosphere as everyone was uncomfortably quiet. Since, Harish used to often take holidays, it wasn't a surprise to me when another guy volunteered to do my manicure. In the process, he said -"whatever happened to Harish was not fair, I don't think it was an accident, it was definitely a murder". I was shocked! For a second I couldn't believe it. I asked him again -"what are you saying? What kind of a joke is this?" He apologized for breaking the news so abruptly and said - "ishita madam I thought you knew, otherwise no one in their right senses would do your manicure if Harish was here because we couldn't match his level of work."

I was very hurt. It was almost like losing a friend, a family member. I asked the guy what had happened and how his family was doing. Turned out his wife didn't know about it too until they rushed him to a local hospital where he was declared dead due to brain damage. The people from the salon had gone to visit his family in the hospital a day before his death. Harish's close associates at the Salon told me stuff that left so many questions in my head - it didn't seem like his parents were shocked, they claimed that he had a drinking problem so he lost his balance and fell from the first floor of his village house, his brothers were not there to assist the parents in the hospital, they did not admit him in a Government hospital which would be far more affordable as compared to the local private one, his wife was not given clear answers to what happened to her husband, the police was asked not to interfere in the case.

It all seemed like a cover up for something that went terribly wrong. The damage that his body took couldn't possibly occur even if he fell down from atleast 5-7 floors, in fact it was very possible that someone beat him up. The puzzle pieces fitted well - him rushing to his hometown without notice to the salon could have been due to a property matter, his brothers would have been unhappy with sharing the part with him so probably beat him up under the influence of alcohol, them not going to a Government hospital because the police would ask 'n' number of questions to raise the possibility of murder and finally, his parents not being shocked because they knew exactly what happened in the village.

He is no more but I can't possibly stop thinking about the state of his wife. A completely dependent woman lost the support of her husband and is stranded with two children (4 and 6 years old). I want to help her in some way but monetary help is not what I have in mind. What do you think one can do for her without making it look like charity? Knowing Harish, charity would disgust him and pity would make him sick. 

Poor boys - stuck in the battle for the title

I don't know why but when you start having conversations with people (not your family) who are married and living it up everyday, you gain so much real time perspective to what your life is going to be like. Many a times, I have noticed two statements being used for the boys - the wives will say "oh he's such a muma's boy" and the mother will say " he's governed by his wife". I mean its utter chaos for the man who is trying to handle two people (not to forget women) who he supposedly loves and cannot live without. But then again the guy species isn't at all about balance. It is rare that you find a masculine soul who knows it all and can handle it all! They always float amidst opinions until they finally don't give a damn and do what they feel like.

Women try very hard to strike a balance initially and eventually give up. Nevertheless women are so opinionated that they don't care about what others think of them in this threesome handling task. So what if the MIL (mother-in-law) thinks I govern him, it just means she's jealous! - would be the typical statement in a woman's mind after she has done her bit to please both sides and settled to please the hubby only.

Its very similar to buying a wedding dress for oneself. Initially one gives a crap about what everyone would think of it, say about it etc and eventually when one finds the right one that fits, boy one doesn't care! In fact it is when one starts imagining people talking crap about it just because they are jealous! 

Well In this episode of desperate housewives, Gaby (the snobby rich mexican's not so well off wife) goes to buy her wedding dress with her hubby and his mum. The mum-in-law is obviously bickering about how expensive the dress is and Gaby has crocodile tears while over-hearing their conversation. Poor husband can't see his wife in tears and cannot deny that the dress is actually very expensive! Finally he buys the dress for Gaby while consoling his mother that she's the one he loves and cannot see her unhappy at any cost ( not even quite a few thousand dollars!).

Both angles show love for the husband in their own form but the one who wins take the point! This points fight is what continues throughout life until one woman finally gives up! A compromise is generally very rare I guess. So if the wifey wins -you get a wife-governed man and if the MIL wins - you get a muma's boy! Simple as that. Wait, the man yet again has no say. He is just swayed along in the battle for the title!

The art of choosing - perfected by Indians

Yesterday at the metro station, this girl who got out with me from the train was standing next to a bhutta wala (corn cob vendor) and peeling every other bhutta on his little cart. He got agitated and said -" madamji kya kar rahe hain, saara maal khol diya". She didn't even acknowledge him talking and continued the peeling ritual in search of perfect tender bhutta. It was until there was a pile of people around him that she had to make a  decision (I could see she wasn't very satisfied). After it was grilled and ready - she said "bhaiya masala kam kyun lagaya hain!?" and then of course "itna mahenga laga rahe ho!" .

I was already agitated waiting in the heat for the car to arrive and at that moment I swear I just wanted to shake her and say - "it is just a bhutta not the man of your life; move on girl" but then a thought came to my mind - it is because we have been given the benefit of choice that Indians have become too picky and sometimes irrationally time consuming when it comes to the  smallest things. Forget small, our ruling class in history was even given a "swayambar" (bride/groom choosing ritual) to choose who they want to marry! And then they say today that Indians go for arranged marriages! Really? I don't think so. We were since ages choosing each and everything we'd want.

Even arranged marriages are very similar to the situation I mentioned at the corn vendor. I'm not generalising here but when they say arranged marriage, it doesn't exactly mean that the girl hasn't given herself a fair chance to look around.  I mean she has a gala time until pressure from the family(similar to people gathering around the cart) increases and then if she has the guts she brings in her love or says goodbye and marries her parents' choice. This is very similar to the girl who went through all the bhuttas and when she had to make a decision - she could either give the one she liked or trust the vendor blindly to make a better choice for her. Those who do the former end up in a love affair those who do the latter end up in an arranged love affair. One still complains, one still whines, one still hypes up stuff but at the end of the day - one does have the bhutta! Haha

This was obviously a very well versed example but even the street beggars nowadays have started pitching their wants according to their choice. Try giving a little boy on the signal something to eat out of sheer generosity and he'll say - "didi pepsi pila do" or even refuse to take it because he's not interested. Hello! I mean that's some CLASS. My some tiny single digit year old cousin once while having pasta tells the waiter - "can you please put "no broccoli" because its bad!". At her age, I'd be a. Lucky to be eating out, b. Fancy to be eating italian and c. Very choosy to be defining my order!

Nevertheless, it is definitely the lack of trust that people have become so knit-picky. I mean its tough to find a lady buying bread without asking - "bhaisahab fresh hai na?" Or if anything is available in cheap - "bhaiya purana hoga!". When I was in the UK, it was simple - if its cheap, its going bad soon and you'll see maximum Indians piling to buy from that section! So its only in our love India that people have high held heads because of the benefit of choice!

Boundaries, only important in cricket?

Creating boundaries becomes so important as we grow old, get into relationships, get jobs, have kids, play cricket huh?

While sometimes obsession becomes the key to driving us forward, people like me forget to draw visible lines and often expect so much that in the process we get hurt and withdraw until we find our next obsession. Well, then another,  and another ...

Once while having a heated conversation, I told this guy I knew - I did this, that, blah, blah blah for you and you didn't respect it at all. He replied saying - well I never asked you to do any of that stuff. That was it. He was right. He never did ask me to give it my 100percent. It was definitely my lack of ability to draw "the line" and his perfect ability to introduce me to reality.

Its not only personal, even when it came to university work, I would get so obsessed with the presentation factor of my project that sometimes I would drive myself crazy finishing it. And a professor would have the same view. - I never asked you to do that. This is a classic case of obsession with perfection.

I try, try so hard to drill it my head that even if I manage to get it 80percent correct, it should be fine but NO, when I actually start working the same 80percent seems so mediocre. Even on the professional front, I've followed the same motto - do it best or don't do it at all. When narrated to others, this habit might seem very good but it morally ruins a person. A glitch in my work can make me beat myself up for hours or even days.

I still remember and the fact that I do is testimony of the impact this incident has had on me.  Appearing for my school admission interview,  I was asked to write the spellings for tree and being brought up in an entirely different schooling system prior to that, we had just finished three letter words. I couldn't spell it correctly and the principal mentioned it to my mum later even though rest of my paper was crisp and correct. It meant cent percent was the standard set and in no way could I not achieve that!

I get thoughts and dreams of imperfect work, work not getting done in time, incomplete preparation of syllabus for an exam, font/size differences in an important email and so on. These are not even the representation of the slightest gravity of problems that would come in one's way as time goes by. What I'm trying to say is that how does one influence oneself to believe that one's doing a great job? Constant appreciation or someone's belief?  Moreover how does someone expect others to do a job just like they would do it? Phew its going to be a tough tough life ahead. Wait, there I go again...haha

Shoe fetish or an Engineering degree?

Shoe fetish or an Engineering degree? Must be wondering what's the connection, isn't it?
Well for starters - I have both.

Second, the symptoms and cycle life of both are kinda the same unless you're broke. Symptoms can range from mild to very severe and the cycle life is long, very long!

When I joined engineering, I was convinced that it'll be tough but not impossible.. Funny enough I thought the same when my mum mentioned my shoe fetish - tough to deal with but not impossible! In both cases, if I went broke at any point of time (more like if my dad went bankrupt) sustainability would be an issue. When I completed my degree and started working without much knowledge contribution from my course (nil actually), I thought of all my shoes that I bought with extreme levels of enthusiasm but never ended up wearing them more than a couple times.
Also the tasks involved in doing an engineering dissertation or buying even a carvela are very very similar. You start with intensive research, experiments (trying the shoes) and a theoretical report to the tutor (telling my mom - pros, cons ,the works in the case of shoes of course!). Finally depending upon how you do, the results are proportional.
Plagiarism issues are also quite relevant in both. You wouldn't want to buy your best friend's pair when unique is the way to go. You dare do the same in my department of study.
Also the security feeling is attached to both! Everytime I think of working in the future, I know I have a piece of fancy paper (called a degree) to go begging at the doors of the corporates to earn a living. Similarly my investment in shoes gives me the same exact feeling - maybe one day in the future I can sell all my shoes online and get some money!
Its funny how two completely different things/habits give me the exact same feeling and whats funnier is my brain perceives them to be of equal importance! haha 

Mirror mirror on the wall...

Mirror mirror on the wall, whose the fairest of them all? I wish there was a truthful mirror!

This has bothered me since A WHILE - been addicted to getting dressed in my own room, I'd be convinced that I look presentable to go out but then a glance into another mirror on the way, in the car, my compact etc would leave me wondering- well I did not look this way at home.

I know the blah scientific reasons behind it- the light merely falling at its own whims in a direction available to it makes me look however it wants! The question remains - which one to believe? Is my dressing room mirror saying the truth about my appearance or just mocking me saying - ahh you think you look good huh? Nevertheless it can also be the other way round (very rarely) that you go somewhere and the mirror there makes you look prettier than the one loyal to you.

It sort off makes me think of how acquaintances are. Acquaintances to be clear are those people in my life who I know as much as I would like to know them. Their behavior is very much like the deceiving mirror theory according to me. At a certain outing/party they might be right next to you gleaming pretending like they were born to be sitting on that table next to you but at another they might be ridiculing you while you're away! So ye, that is the reason I say - which face to believe?

I'm sure most of you reading this would relate to the mirror theory. The funny part was that one of my real close friends once getting ready with me for a party said - I know we look great but maybe only within the vicinity of this mirror! And I was so relieved that someone out there feels the same way as I do. Its very much like the time when in school our teacher's nails would accidentally scratch the blackboard and I would feel really icky but couldn't see others being bothered. Till fairly long I used to believe there is something very wrong in my system to be feeling that way.

So if anyone does have a solution, please share - which mirror to believe or which face to slap ;)

Reward for obedience

 What is the reward for obedience? To be honest - nothing.

Rebellion at least gets you attention, hate or even jealousy but obedience just makes you the foolish little person stuck in the middle.
Since childhood, I can proudly (or maybe not) say that I have been an epitome of abiding to whatsoever I've been told. In 3rd standard, my mum acquired measles during my final exams and she said I wouldn't be able to help you, I sighed and said okay.  I can imagine if a few rebellious friends/cousins reacting to the same situation in somewhat this way - WHAT, how am I going to pass? I think I shouldn't give the exam! Or even I need a tutor now now now. And guess they'd even get it because they're parents would be so scared to take the tantrums.

Honestly my parents never bothered with all the tantrums and hence, me having any was worthless. When mums were running around kids forcing them to eat, my mum said - if you're hungry, you eat. If you're not, you let everyone else eat. What would an ignored child in a situation like that do? Well, eat!

The case has been no different when I had to be taken for formal dinners, unknown shaadis or even children's Birthday parties. My brother would say - don't even think about asking me and I just nodded. Guess who was caught in between aunties and uncles- ME.

I wouldn't stand giving up on and didn't listen to anyone when it came to education and well, love. From forging my dad's signature for funding papers to not telling anybody that Manipal was a twinning program- I think I have left no 'kasar' (as they say in punjabi) in taking advantage of the fact that everybody assumes that I wouldn't go against them! So although you can bend the rules but incessant obedience will take you nowhere close to living your life to the fullest. 

Sulking often?

Do we ever really grow up? The answer according to me is No. We don't grow up, we just start sulking about the things that we didn't want to change over the course of time. 

My mum tells me when I was  about 4 and used to attend a play school close to my house, I would sneakily check what my mum had pulled out to wear for that day and if it was that particular yellow embroidered sweater, I would wake up in seconds and get ready. Else, I could take anything from a few candies to several excuses to head to school. Things don't seem to have changed much, still when I have to rush to work and my favorite top isn't back from dry cleaning, I would just sulk and get going. Of course the bribes have escalated and are offered to self rather than my mum! 

The tastes that I have developed have been due to the kind of childhood I had, the person I am is because of the kind of childhood I had, the colors I like, the fears that I have, the people I adore, the hate list I built - all have something to do with the period when I was a kid. And the things I particularly don't get according to what I have expected all this while, disappoint me. When we are young, we think - I'll be old, I'll be married (or not), I'll have flawless skin, I'll have everything figured out blah blah… Seeing many people close to me, taking a leap of faith with marriage I feel they are still the same! Then what qualifies us to be old, married or in love? Honestly NOTHING! 

I often ponder - when we're older or on our own the freedom is immense! Does that do us apart? Responsibility they say is the unfortunate belonging that is given to us over time. How many of us really embrace it? Not me. Not yet. 

some day some father thought

How far does hierarchy extend its wrath? Heavy yes, but I keep wondering what if hierarchy was a virtue in the non-living. Will they also breathe qualities of vanity and pride just like humans do?

Designations; mere words matter so much to so many. Funny enough; yesterday while I was traveling, I saw this lighting switches advert which read as follows - Lighting India (with Gateway of India being lit by their switches). I started thinking if positions mattered so much then would the switch lighting a monument/ valuable building have superiority over the switches in my house? Or or even the switch lighting the lamps of my house's exterior feel inferior to the ones lighting the master bedroom? After all rules are simple. Your job defines how you are perceived by the society and for some the way you are defined in the society defines how you feel about yourself.

According to me, hierarchy is just yet another attempt of man to bring order to chaos. Humans cannot stand something that is not controlled by them or defined by their rules. Organisation is still a very minute factor, it hasn't taken a lot of effort for man to immediately define constellations, seasons, time etc to curb them to his own advantage. Hierarchy is pretty much the same for my thought process, some day some father thought - if I die as the head of this kingdom, no one would remember me if I don't leave behind an heir and ofcourse the way I have spoiled him he wouldn't at all get a job! Simple and now people talk about their lineages!

You like my page, I love yours!

It has always indeed been about give and take and I have learned this much too soon in the work I have entered.

It is simple: You make your business fb page, invite tons of people to view it (because it is like your baby), some loyal will appreciate it, some snooty will watch the page get appreciation (while being very active on Facebook in other things like farmville blah blah)

I have never felt any sort of detachment from appreciating unless of course you send me something that is hideous/beyond my understanding. But while dealing with what they call social inbound marketing I have seen chameleon-like standards of a lot of people. The best part being, only a few realise that it is actually really obvious.

So being in the new age where start ups are THE thing for obvious reasons like "dude the job market sucks" or "I can't work for someone, DUH" or even " My dad wanted to invest somewhere so I started doing something" or even " the entrepreneur in me was shouting loud!". Whatever the reason might be, the start up scenario is doing so well for so many people and also for the social media which has a prime role in upfront marketing.

An engineer by profession , I had no clue about marketing; forget trying to work in this field for a start up! No brainer being: Start small, try to grow bigger if not come back to small! So started my self-induced tutorials on online social media marketing. Made me realise: OKAY so you have to please others for them to take interest in you. Really? Dubious natures revealed. You have no idea about what I am doing, no clue about the business, absolutely no clear interest in it but you follow my page because 26 days earlier I followed yours. Simple.

It led me to my unopened messages in the inbox. SO MY SO AND SO IS STARTING SO AND SO AND I WOULD LIKE YOU (my best-est of the best-est friends) TO LIKE SO AND SO. Tons of messages like that and to prove my aforesaid point you know what I did and you know what happened right after. Wow in my whole engineering lab work I had never seen results that soon and that too with such a simple procedure. I thought to myself, this was easy. And learned further this is how things are done in REAL life too. So man (more like Mark) created social media, we created businesses on social media, social media taught us how to market our business and all we did was please others. Convenient.

I have come to a little handbook marketing note of mine, if you can convince any random man that what you are selling is equivalent to gold even though you know it is rubber (with the potential of becoming gold of course) then you have won the race my friend. But if you did not work to make it gold, well then you are not my friend!

WikiHow

http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Scrapbooking-Club#Steps

New Year Hustle: Worth it? NOT

Yes, its 2012. To be honest, time flew by so fast; I was still getting used to writing 2011 in the date format. I don't know how others feel about our journey around the sun but I believe that its almost become a figure of speech to say that this year flew by so fast. This year, that year, that month, this week.

I keep wondering; why do we need to know that its 2012? To enter it as yet another era we ruined?
Whatever we say, I just think it gives us immense pleasure to find reasons to define everything. I remember the hustle about 11.11.11. My lord, I can't forget what my dad said. He's like why are you guys going crazy about this particular date? I said papa because it'll never come again. He said something that I initially revolted against and eventually thought of myself. He said you live through every date and it never ever comes again, even the most insignificant numbers won't come again. Then why don't we go crazy everyday!

I personally wish this whole time concept wasn't ever discovered. Why couldn't we just live one long journey? Why is that the day is split in two? Why can't we all define how ever long we want our day to be?
Actually at least our generation is working towards this thought of mine. Clear example being, while I am wide awake by 8am and call it morning; my friend wakes up at 3pm and his morning isn't any different (with a lot more taunts of course) .I can totally get it why he gets shocked when someone says: "beta itni late uth re ho?"

As far as he is as productive as any other person is in his own working hours, I find it uncalled for to say that he wakes up at the wrong time of the day! Why stick to conventions? After all the same 9 am task that seems early morning to me is late night for him!

I watched a documentary once that explained how the daily 24hours time period is getting shortened(by infinitely small amounts) day by day. I think if they would have read this piece earlier, they wouldn't have to invest billions of dollars in recording this difference in the length of the day when actually no one is sticking to it. Ofcourse with all due respect to them trying to figure out whatever they were trying to because although I watched the whole damn piece, I did not have a clear view of what they were attempting to prove. Clearly my iq levels were no where close to what they had in mind.

Also, I forgot the endless amount of scary videos/articles I have ventured into especially during exam time about 2012 being the end of the world. I still remember not being able to finish the syllabus for the next day's examination and consoling ourselves that how does it matter even if we score really well, we are all dying anyway! And then randomly a few days earlier, I see Washington post with the article: "Scientists say 2012 will not be the end of the world"

really? REALLY? You think we are so stupid to believe you all the time?

Considering they are called SCIENTISTS and we are called "facebook washington post application users", we are stupid! So stupid that we have spent hours making websites, blogs, even planning doom's day parties because these very SCIENTISTS said the world would end!