Living in a city with a population of close to 5 million is not easy, vast stretches of land with tons of teaming people, the hustle and bustle of a so called Metro city and now work being another variable put into an equation called life.
Fortunately for me, I live in an area called Kidderpore/Ekbalpore which I used to think was just a noisy little neighborhood with randomness and the typical days of life just passing by. Never did I think this one area would actually serve a much larger purpose in life.
For close to 5 years I commuted to an area called Salt Lake for education, my graduation and post graduation courses were done in this area. Roaming about was a necessity as with most college students because no one in their graduation does ever go to class , rather bunks class to roam about freely and explore said world.
Now coming from the "city" of Kidderpore where there were constant fights in school, mad people running about and throwing stones in front of shops, violence on the streets, having our own version of the "bull run" during Eid [yeah ZNMD has nothing on what I have seen] and other random acts of awesomeness, Salt Lake seemed to pale in comparison. It was a ghost town, no matter what time you roam about in that area, barring the office zones, the rest of the place is dead.
I mean I have roamed around at 7 AM, barely 10 people on the street and a long stretch of land that was too, 5 PM same case, not one person can be seen in the balcony of the many houses that litter the street, not many people can be seen on the road. Compare that to Kidderpore, be it 7 AM or 7 PM, or 10 AM or 10 PM there are at least 20-30 people doing nothing but roaming about and having a jolly good time with their friends and all. In fact when I stay awake after a Champs League match , roughly 3 AM there are people on the street just sitting about, probably got kicked out of the house by their wife or they must have been tired from the constant nagging but the point is the place does not feel dead , its bustling with energy, be it in the crazy winters we get here now or the scorching hot summers, Kidderpore/Ekbalpore is the place to be for random madness on the street, people should be charged for sitting and watching the world go by in this area because its just that brilliant.
Cases of awesomeness,
Random fights on the street thanks to the drones of STB students around , every single freaking day with the fight never really taking place [most of the time] this was just a way to make new friends and "bhais" actually.
Crazy lady out near the shops with bricks in her hands chasing random people while the police are busy extorting money from the big trucks.
The traffic jam post 10 PM because of the huge 16 wheelers [not 18] taking the one route through Kidderpore to reach the dock.
At least 20-30 random people on the street 24/7
The amazing celebrations and dance during the puja,christmas, new year, diwali, holi etc etc etc all dancing to the tune of "It's my life" and "Saath Samundar Paar"
The randomness and awesomeness of having a china town like market in your own backyard and being to search for amazing deals and cut prices [Fancy Market]
The running of the bulls [cows] during Eid.
The chasing and beating up of a local goon if he ever is caught , when he tries to steal shoes/slippers from outside the Mosque/Temple.
The brothel located right next to a bakery and tailor shop where the women are always on the lookout for men calling them obscene names and making said obscene gestures.
The hoard of hospitals/nursing homes/pharmacies for God knows what reason, I mean literally there must be like 10-12 nursing homes and 4 hospitals in a radius of 500 meters.
The hidden gem Momo stalls and awesome road side "Popular" biryani/haleem stalls.
The football matches/cricket matches and tournaments held during Independence day where everyone is Messi and all the players play for United or Chelsea or Barcelona when they register their teams name.
The random Kaku going berserk on the street because some "punk" kid is riding his bike at a crazy speed in a locality.
The random abuses thrown about in front of children not caring one bit about destroying the future because none of us ever had one.
Yes Kidderpore might not have the beauty of the city, nor will it have the "educated" culture that the city is known for, actually we do have a kick ass cultured educated side, Chintoo Lee and the others from STB [minority of toppers] would attest to that, this neighborhood still has an amazing charm and feel to it, would not swap it for anything.
Last but certainly not the least bit of Awesomeness comes from St Thomas Boys, KIDDERPORE.
The one and only.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
A twist of fate
Fate, that one word which most of us use for our shortcomings, problems, luck and all the other shitty things that happen to us throughout our life.
"Couldn't help it man, guess it was fate that did this"
"Fate brought this on me man, I am fucked, damn it"
Fate, cursed as life is, blaming fate for everything bad that happens seems to be a mindset showing the fragility that us humans have learned and now apply regularly. Fate is not the worst thing in the world, fate has a funny way of making things right over time, Karma of sorts you could say, this blog is particularly about Fate and how it works in mysterious ways.
As you all know by now I have been working now for a good 4 months, touch wood nothing serious has happened to far in terms of BIG screw ups, little screw ups are part and parcel of life and well we only learn from our mistakes.
This case comes to light now, since its been 4 months and I have seen the other side of the green grass as thme sn!frnm`ou~ eirdaaew,7ollege and I were selected for the posts at the company where we work now, Rohit and I were supposed to be brand trainees for the first year, well Rohit was not given that post because he has a slight color blindness problem and hence was given an "Activation" profile, which while we were new in the system thought that he would have to travel to malls and shops and see how products and shows are activated, while I got my brand profile as was promised to us.
4 months later, Rohit is literally doing the job of 5 men handling a ton of stocks, rfas and all going completely crazy with work load and putting in 12 hour shifts on a regular basis, I on the other hand work on just one single brand and well to be frank I do not have much to do now, since my markets and product are already well defined, yes both of us are working in teams which are helpful and friendly and well are pushing our branches of the organization for growth coz all it seems that people want to do is grow and grow with the team they are working with.
When I see Rohit work his ass off and I end up trolling people all the time and being the jackass I can be in office, making shit assed comments and jokes, I feel upset for the bugger since he has to do so much work and well he is taking it with a smile, while I become MR grumpy as soon as something wrong happens or something does not please me, while I was contemplating about why things go wrong and all, epiphany strikes me, it could have been much worse than what I have right now, people are struggling to get jobs, hell I got a fucking fantastic one, people would love to work in a huge company , I got that chance as well. People would love to work in their home city for said large huge company, check I got that too, plus I got awesome bosses and well most colleagues are again good as well, so I don't have much to complain and well learning from Rohit
"Do everything with a smile" , life just can't get better and we all should be happy with all that we have, hell if you are reading this blog, you probably have a smart mobile or a computer and internet, a ton of people don't have that, so we all should not complain.
Coming back to fate, seeing where both us are right now, me leaving office regularly at 7 or somedays even earlier than that and my friend not even thinking of leaving before 9, the funny bit is, that we had a word with the HR who recruited us a few days after joining to know what we would be doing and all, he says
"Actually you have got the Activation profile and Rohit had got the brand profile but in his medical his eye sight became an issue and since you have to deal with a lot of colors we gave him the Activation profile and you the Brand one. Its just a random selection that was done, nothing that big"
4 months down the line, I can see what I could have been doing and what I am doing, will never complain about anything anymore.
Fate, thou art a crazy retarded cruel cool dude.
"Couldn't help it man, guess it was fate that did this"
"Fate brought this on me man, I am fucked, damn it"
Fate, cursed as life is, blaming fate for everything bad that happens seems to be a mindset showing the fragility that us humans have learned and now apply regularly. Fate is not the worst thing in the world, fate has a funny way of making things right over time, Karma of sorts you could say, this blog is particularly about Fate and how it works in mysterious ways.
As you all know by now I have been working now for a good 4 months, touch wood nothing serious has happened to far in terms of BIG screw ups, little screw ups are part and parcel of life and well we only learn from our mistakes.
This case comes to light now, since its been 4 months and I have seen the other side of the green grass as thme sn!frnm`ou~ eirdaaew,
4 months later, Rohit is literally doing the job of 5 men handling a ton of stocks, rfas and all going completely crazy with work load and putting in 12 hour shifts on a regular basis, I on the other hand work on just one single brand and well to be frank I do not have much to do now, since my markets and product are already well defined, yes both of us are working in teams which are helpful and friendly and well are pushing our branches of the organization for growth coz all it seems that people want to do is grow and grow with the team they are working with.
When I see Rohit work his ass off and I end up trolling people all the time and being the jackass I can be in office, making shit assed comments and jokes, I feel upset for the bugger since he has to do so much work and well he is taking it with a smile, while I become MR grumpy as soon as something wrong happens or something does not please me, while I was contemplating about why things go wrong and all, epiphany strikes me, it could have been much worse than what I have right now, people are struggling to get jobs, hell I got a fucking fantastic one, people would love to work in a huge company , I got that chance as well. People would love to work in their home city for said large huge company, check I got that too, plus I got awesome bosses and well most colleagues are again good as well, so I don't have much to complain and well learning from Rohit
"Do everything with a smile" , life just can't get better and we all should be happy with all that we have, hell if you are reading this blog, you probably have a smart mobile or a computer and internet, a ton of people don't have that, so we all should not complain.
Coming back to fate, seeing where both us are right now, me leaving office regularly at 7 or somedays even earlier than that and my friend not even thinking of leaving before 9, the funny bit is, that we had a word with the HR who recruited us a few days after joining to know what we would be doing and all, he says
"Actually you have got the Activation profile and Rohit had got the brand profile but in his medical his eye sight became an issue and since you have to deal with a lot of colors we gave him the Activation profile and you the Brand one. Its just a random selection that was done, nothing that big"
4 months down the line, I can see what I could have been doing and what I am doing, will never complain about anything anymore.
Fate, thou art a crazy retarded cruel cool dude.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
A little big planet
You know people talk about that fact, six degrees of separation, like a chain of chains, you are technically 6 people away via contacts and friends to any person on earth, cool right?
Someone seems to have forgotten about this thing and have started a degree of separation to my likeness, cases come in everyday about how I look like someone a person knows and this has happened way too fucking often to call it a coincidence.
I mean once a while is alright but almost on a regular basis, almost every time I meet someone new after a couple of more meetings they come up with the great line
"You know, You look like xyz person"
Close to 7 billion people and I seem to be a look alike to so many people, its crazy, first time around was in class 4-5 when my Arabic teacher My Khaled, a freak who would scare the shit out of us , came up to me and said in his Egyptian accent
"Sayyed, you look like this student from ze class 8"
I replied,: "not possible sir, it cant be"
Sir: " Yez, he looks like you twin, I will call him here and show you and class"
He calls another kid and makes me stand next to him while I do have a glance at his face and he does at mine, we look nothing a like, firstly he has that afro american hair which is curly like crazy, he was thinner than me, did not wear glasses and well looked nothing like me, Sir failed, class agreed with me.
World : 0
Me : 1
The next time I came around this was when I met an uncle in Sharjah and he said I look like someone I know, hopefully this time around I would not have to stand shoulder to shoulder with another person trying to check who looks like what.
When I came back to Calcutta, thankfully this all stopped for quite a bit, basically because I took time to make a few friends and when I finally did, someone did pop up with that usual line. So this is a conversation with the ISC topper form my batch Achin Agarwal just before an assembly
Achin: "Adeem, do you have an older brother"
Me:"No man, I don't, why?"
Achin: "Coz I am sure someone came a few days back to my house and he looked exactly like you"
Me [Laughs] :" Nah man, not possible"
Achin:"You sure, coz the computer guy who came to fix my computer looked like you"
Now 2 things
I am not someone who has an older brother, well Achin would not know that but its not possible for me to have a sibling and live peacefully with that said person
Secondly, I cannot be some computer fixing guy since this is not my forte, I can rather surf porn and all I can't fix a computer for fucks sake.
So people talk about how its a small world, seeing a person after many years and by coincidence having some sort of connection with a random person makes em say that line "it's a small world", its not a small world, its a fucking huge world with a ton of people .
You just have the luck of meeting people stuck in one country and or one state, its not like we live in America and people just run off to another state or something, this is India where most of us dream of just moving from one part of the city to another and while the young kids have crap assed dreams of moving abroad and working hard as an exec or something, ending up typically being cab drivers or worse, the others are just trying to make ends meet, the world is huge, the world is large and there are 7 billion people just waiting out there to meet people up.
So get out there and stop giving me that dialogue "It's a small world"
Someone seems to have forgotten about this thing and have started a degree of separation to my likeness, cases come in everyday about how I look like someone a person knows and this has happened way too fucking often to call it a coincidence.
I mean once a while is alright but almost on a regular basis, almost every time I meet someone new after a couple of more meetings they come up with the great line
"You know, You look like xyz person"
Close to 7 billion people and I seem to be a look alike to so many people, its crazy, first time around was in class 4-5 when my Arabic teacher My Khaled, a freak who would scare the shit out of us , came up to me and said in his Egyptian accent
"Sayyed, you look like this student from ze class 8"
I replied,: "not possible sir, it cant be"
Sir: " Yez, he looks like you twin, I will call him here and show you and class"
He calls another kid and makes me stand next to him while I do have a glance at his face and he does at mine, we look nothing a like, firstly he has that afro american hair which is curly like crazy, he was thinner than me, did not wear glasses and well looked nothing like me, Sir failed, class agreed with me.
World : 0
Me : 1
The next time I came around this was when I met an uncle in Sharjah and he said I look like someone I know, hopefully this time around I would not have to stand shoulder to shoulder with another person trying to check who looks like what.
When I came back to Calcutta, thankfully this all stopped for quite a bit, basically because I took time to make a few friends and when I finally did, someone did pop up with that usual line. So this is a conversation with the ISC topper form my batch Achin Agarwal just before an assembly
Achin: "Adeem, do you have an older brother"
Me:"No man, I don't, why?"
Achin: "Coz I am sure someone came a few days back to my house and he looked exactly like you"
Me [Laughs] :" Nah man, not possible"
Achin:"You sure, coz the computer guy who came to fix my computer looked like you"
Now 2 things
I am not someone who has an older brother, well Achin would not know that but its not possible for me to have a sibling and live peacefully with that said person
Secondly, I cannot be some computer fixing guy since this is not my forte, I can rather surf porn and all I can't fix a computer for fucks sake.
So people talk about how its a small world, seeing a person after many years and by coincidence having some sort of connection with a random person makes em say that line "it's a small world", its not a small world, its a fucking huge world with a ton of people .
You just have the luck of meeting people stuck in one country and or one state, its not like we live in America and people just run off to another state or something, this is India where most of us dream of just moving from one part of the city to another and while the young kids have crap assed dreams of moving abroad and working hard as an exec or something, ending up typically being cab drivers or worse, the others are just trying to make ends meet, the world is huge, the world is large and there are 7 billion people just waiting out there to meet people up.
So get out there and stop giving me that dialogue "It's a small world"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)