The Marimallappa - files (Prologue)
For people who never went to school, people who are oblivious, newbies, new born or still born, or not in the Know of what a Marimallapa is, then well ..er...I am one. To be real honest, I never really was one. To me, the pre-jurassic building was more of a "kudre laaya" than a 'world famous in mysore' school. The apparent contribution of the school seemed more towards poultry farming than education itself. . Poultry farming, putball and 44.7% of the world's production of pigeon poo apart, our school did leave an indelible mark in history (apart from the pigeon poo marks, that is). Our school revolutionised SSLC rank production. 20 to 30 ranks a year was no sweat for our head master (He seemed to be given (all) credit for it more than poor sods like Bharath who actually busted their ass over it ). This was, as you can see, a mind boggling phenomenon......not our minds of course.
My first day in this school was somewhat a revelation. You see, I had come from a school where the "ideologies" or the lack of it was quite different (Suda, back me up here). In Marimallapa's though, there was no space for ideologies. In fact, there was no space.Period. The benches were simply amazing I never could deduce how 6 of us could sit together. But this didnt go unnoticed by the ever alert teachers (Sleeping beauty, anyone ?). Pointless punishments were given out regularly where students had to sit on the floor, get out of the class etc. This, I admit, considerably eased the bum-space conundrum. I spent the first few days muttering "You can't be serious". and the rest of the year was spent muttering "What the f**k!??". Of course the f-word was not known yet, but I am sure I would have invented it sitting there anyway. When it comes to the teachers though, I have mixed opinions. One man inspired, some taught and the rest farted. For that one man I am very thankful and glad that I was where I was.......and no it was'nt MNK.
This school had a knack for cracking me up. On the first day, we were given an (dis)orientation speech about how excellent the school was and how they'll help us achieve greatness by getting swashbuckling results in 10th (Nobody seemed to bother that we were 8th grade kids, some of us just out of kindergarten). How I have restrained myself from bursting into small bits with laughter. No I was not being high brow nor was I being "smart" nor did I have a blooming superiority complex (Far from it I think). In the process, I did make a fool of myself. I always woke up either standing outside the class or on the bench. I never seemed to understand the complexities of education; what exactly were you teaching me by asking me to answer a million question papers. Clerical acumen !!?? Now this was painful. Each day in the class was getting as miserable as having a Titan V rocket up my 8th standard arse.
You see, there was a problem. I was a teenager. Teenagers dont need problems, teenage itself is a problem. My teenage years already had me dazed, confused, angered and I had no clue what's goin' on. I didnt need a carbon dated school teaching me half assed tricks. When I looked around, I found myself isolated. For me it looked like I was the only person who did not understand the rituals. Everybody else seemed to nod like it was all known when they were born. I must've been the dumbest lame ass. To add to this chaos, we were the "elite". One logic which I never could believe nor understand nor forgive was the existence of the mighty "B" section. Why should there be a "more equal" class !? How dare they segregate us students like swines !? " This here is our export quality pork, this here is the slightly lower quality and these are the rejects". There has been no body-count on the number of young minds humiliated and crushed.
To make matters no better, this nonsense had spilled even out of the school. You always had guests at home asking " Yenappa ? Yaav schoolu ?". Me: Marimallappa. Guest: Howdaa. yaav sectionnu !? Me : Nimmajji.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Thursday, October 06, 2005
(X+Y)2
(X+Y)2
Circa January 2005.
Hrishi exploded into my room and said "Do you fancy Coldplay .......LIVE !??
Me: Do I what... !!??
The Coldplay Twisted Logic Tour had been announced and the tickets were on sale from the next day. It was Jan and the gig was in June. Now that was as long as after-life.
Hrishi: Make up your mind quick ! Coldplay's returning to UK after 2 years. I doubt we are the only ones who want to be there.
And there I was shelling out 40 quid for a concert ticket. The logic used to convince ourselves was, If we can spend 10 quid on some dumass band in the LCR, 40 quid for Coldplay was certainly worth it (whatever !) . Tickets were bought , pockets were emptied.....and after the initial ballyhoo the concert tickets were duly forgotten.
Circa June 2005.
Hrishi promptly reminded me of our 'investments'. The concert was on a monday. There it was, all lab work taken care of, all set to go. All the while I had completely no clue where Crystal Palace was. London. ( Avi: LONDON !!!??? .....yes, London, u know , fish n chips, cup o' tea, bad food, worse weather, mary ****ing poppins London !)
Yikes ! I had a secret dislike for that place. We needed to plan this trip out... and there it was, a no plan trip.
We hit the rail station at around 6 45 am and our train was at around 7 20. Hrishi had conned his friend to part with her 7mp digital camera (heh, heh , heh Sucker ). We courteously posed for photographs and were finally on our way. This being my first train ride in England I was excited for the first 5 minutes until.....a herd of Miss Mallus (techies working in London , i think) got in at Ipswich. Drats, these 'gerls' crapped on our brains. Ofcourse you see everybody else either are reading the "Sun" or have dozed off. Finally after a tormentous hour we reached Liverpool Street station, half expecting to see Ernakulam. Liverpool Street is well organised chaos. There are people stepping on your toes and walking all over your face just like u might have been in Majestic or Mysore bus stand. Hrishi and me expectedly found ourselves going in no particular direction. My laziness being of the aristocratic type, I gave Hrishi a " Alright ! Which way, driver ?" look. Before my facial muscles got a chance, Hrishi asked " Kuch idea hai kya ? Crystal Palace ke liye kaunsa line pakadna hai..." . "Oh for ****'s sake you are the expert you tell me". 5 minutes later we were in a Blue Line tube (i think) bound to the far end of the Earth via Crystal Palace. Thats all we gave a sod about. According to the expert it would take about 40 minutes to Crystal Palace. Bloody hell, i thought, thats half our journey from Norwich. Eh ! Its Hrishi's job to find out (just like buying the tickets, booking the train tickets, checking the dates, waking me up etc etc). And like good boys, we sank into our peaches, pears and Apple juice (Made from 5% concentrate, ofcourse). My schoolboy excitement was barely concealed in my 16:9 wide screen grin. At every station I jumped like a puppy dog to see which station it was. About 15minutes later, Hrishi, seeing that my 'situation' has'nt improved, decided to take matter into his own hands. At the next station before I could do my jump, he said " Relax yaar, Crystal palace abbhi bahut door hai. Tab tak tu pear kha". Righto, maybe I should stop acting like a chump. Maybe, I should eat the pear and drink Apple juice. The train pulled out of the station slowly and we suddenly realized we had'nt read the board on this one. And holy mother of god.....yes, it read Crystal Palace station. Now we had done it. It was already 10 am in the morning. we knew the crowd would be filling up at the venue and here we were, gaining speed moving OUT of Crystal palace. Drats !. I looked at Hrishi and he says "..er..looks like I should have let you be a puppy dog". Ofcourse we being the mature type, decided not to panic. We chalked out a counter move. We get down at the next station and take the next train going in the opposite direction. Yes, our genius lies in the simplicity. We waited for half an hour for the next train and promptly hopped in. The train started moving towards Crystal Palace......for 5 minutes and changed direction at a Y-intersection. Doggone it ! Now we didnt even know where we were headed, forget Crystal Palace. Ofcourse our genius prevented us from asking other londoners. We got down at the next station and this time excelled ourselves by actually reading the Train table and the route map. No goofs this time, we finally had reached crystal Palace. As we had guessed there was'nt much crowd outside the gates. Luckily for us, we were one of the first group of people to arrive. By this time we were hungry and wanted to eat. We knew that once the crowd builds up there was no way we could leave the place. As we walked out of the venue, we saw a shop with a board outside declaring fresh sandwiches and juices. Ah! just what we needed. Our relief was short lived as soon as we entered the shop. We asked the Mallu shopkeeper for sandwiches. "No , we dond zell zandwijh". ****ing idiot, then why do you have a board outside ? No no we dond zell. Now we could'nt exactly take him hostage, could we ?
A few paces down the street brought us to a cafe run by an eastern european couple. Latvia, Romania or one of those places nobody ever goes to. We gorged ourselves stupid and drank what was one of the best milk shakes I had ever tasted. Now all we had to do was wait till 4 pm to be let in the stadium.
This was also a theological turning point in our lives. London, u see, has the most sodding weather in the entire solar system. There are fools, then there are optimists, then there are the insane and then there are the people who say the weather in London will improve. No matter what, its always gloomy and rains. But heck no, GOD intervened in the daily proceedings and made it so bloody hot that I had sun burns waiting outside the gates. It was undoubtedly one of the hottest days ever. GOD exists alright. We had him poking our butts the whole day. Finally, after what appeared as our combined life times, it was 4 'o clock. The funny thing about the crowds in the UK is, they don't ever push nor is there a stampede. They seem to be completely oblivious of the joys of pushing and shoving. I'm talking of a massive gathering of 50,000 people. When we entered the stadium we could'nt believe our eyes. There it was, the stage set up with most brilliant looking lights and equipment, and NO ONE in front of us ! We were in the darned second row. We were completely thrilled to bits. As we waited the crowd started filling the entire complex and in half hour it was packed. And we were thirsty. We kind of knew that there was no way we could move and look for a drink. Then we suddenly saw this chap holding a crate of Carling. Ha, the saviour angel. Hrishi waded his way through the crowd and got us 2 pint-sized paper cups of cold Carling. Boy , nothing could have been better. There we were waiting for Coldplay to begin, holding cold Carling in our hands. All was well until.........Hrishi's bladder made its presence felt. We looked around and all we could see were 49,998 people and no way to go. Hrishi determined to let nothing wee on his parade, set in search of the loo, the brave Viking chief, but with no luck he was back. Damn Carling, Damn bladder, Damn wee.
Watching the technicians and road crews set the stage was magic. The amount of computer controlled almost robot-looking equipment was like nothing we had ever seen. By 6pm, the opening act Morning Runner came on stage. Never heard them before, but pretty good stuff considering its a new band in the UK scene. The next act was Supergrass. Now here was a band I always wanted to see live. These guys are brilliant on stage. Of course the usual hits like "Pumpin' on the stereo" were played and by 8.15 it was time for COLDPLAY. Though I didnt really get comfortable with their latest album "X&Y" , Hrishi had assured me that the songs will 'grow' on me. Well, admittedly the 'growth' has been pretty slow. But I am an absolute fan of their first two albums and were the reasons for me being here. Though they didnt play my all time favourite "Trouble", they did play "Yellow", "Clocks" and "Scientist". The Clocks performance was undoubtedly one of the best moments of sound and laser. The live performances were harder than the orginal studio versions which gave an adrenalin surge punching right through our skulls. I had scant regard for the drummer until now. Will Champion is an awesome talent, with maddest drumming I had ever seen. Respect. Chris Martin and Will Champion clearly stole the show. Chris Martin is sonorous with an amazingly high pitch. Everything was swashbuckling until Coldplay pulled a dull trick on us. U know, the retarded rock n' roll stage trick. "Good Bye Crystal Palace , Thank you ever so much , you have been great tonight". All the lights are turned off, technicians pretend they are dismantling equipment.......and.....suddenly ...Coldplay reappear and play their last set. They did lose a few points in my eyes, for this "comeback" trick. But they could be easily forgiven 'cos what a comeback set it was. Ending with an awesome performance of "Fix you". Apparently, this performance was taped and is part of one of their new videos. We did grin the widest hoping to catch some of the cameras. Hrishi went easy on the antics, what with his bladder still making splashing noises inside.
Getting out of the stadium took over an hour. We bought some greasy stir-fry and made our way out. There was no way we could take the train at Crystal Palace station. There was nearly a kilometer long queue of people waiting to get out. And to make matters worse the tube shuts down at 12. We finally guided our confused souls and tired legs to Liverpool Street station by 2 am. Ah the final test for our well planned trip. When we got to Liverpool Street Stn, we were told that the station is closed and will open at 5 am and we cannot sit inside the station. Damn! It was already very cold. There we were, prowling the streets of London at 2 am in the morning, looking like dorks. We somehow killed time till 5 am when the station was opened. By this time our silly asses were frozen and mind completely numb with sleep. We went to our platform and ofcourse the train was'nt there yet. We found a warm cozy place in the tickets section and slept like dogs. At around six we crawled to the train and I dont remember anything else. After a short gap in memory I was back in Norwich, with the memories and of course 256 MB of blurry photographs.
Circa January 2005.
Hrishi exploded into my room and said "Do you fancy Coldplay .......LIVE !??
Me: Do I what... !!??
The Coldplay Twisted Logic Tour had been announced and the tickets were on sale from the next day. It was Jan and the gig was in June. Now that was as long as after-life.
Hrishi: Make up your mind quick ! Coldplay's returning to UK after 2 years. I doubt we are the only ones who want to be there.
And there I was shelling out 40 quid for a concert ticket. The logic used to convince ourselves was, If we can spend 10 quid on some dumass band in the LCR, 40 quid for Coldplay was certainly worth it (whatever !) . Tickets were bought , pockets were emptied.....and after the initial ballyhoo the concert tickets were duly forgotten.
Circa June 2005.
Hrishi promptly reminded me of our 'investments'. The concert was on a monday. There it was, all lab work taken care of, all set to go. All the while I had completely no clue where Crystal Palace was. London. ( Avi: LONDON !!!??? .....yes, London, u know , fish n chips, cup o' tea, bad food, worse weather, mary ****ing poppins London !)
Yikes ! I had a secret dislike for that place. We needed to plan this trip out... and there it was, a no plan trip.
We hit the rail station at around 6 45 am and our train was at around 7 20. Hrishi had conned his friend to part with her 7mp digital camera (heh, heh , heh Sucker ). We courteously posed for photographs and were finally on our way. This being my first train ride in England I was excited for the first 5 minutes until.....a herd of Miss Mallus (techies working in London , i think) got in at Ipswich. Drats, these 'gerls' crapped on our brains. Ofcourse you see everybody else either are reading the "Sun" or have dozed off. Finally after a tormentous hour we reached Liverpool Street station, half expecting to see Ernakulam. Liverpool Street is well organised chaos. There are people stepping on your toes and walking all over your face just like u might have been in Majestic or Mysore bus stand. Hrishi and me expectedly found ourselves going in no particular direction. My laziness being of the aristocratic type, I gave Hrishi a " Alright ! Which way, driver ?" look. Before my facial muscles got a chance, Hrishi asked " Kuch idea hai kya ? Crystal Palace ke liye kaunsa line pakadna hai..." . "Oh for ****'s sake you are the expert you tell me". 5 minutes later we were in a Blue Line tube (i think) bound to the far end of the Earth via Crystal Palace. Thats all we gave a sod about. According to the expert it would take about 40 minutes to Crystal Palace. Bloody hell, i thought, thats half our journey from Norwich. Eh ! Its Hrishi's job to find out (just like buying the tickets, booking the train tickets, checking the dates, waking me up etc etc). And like good boys, we sank into our peaches, pears and Apple juice (Made from 5% concentrate, ofcourse). My schoolboy excitement was barely concealed in my 16:9 wide screen grin. At every station I jumped like a puppy dog to see which station it was. About 15minutes later, Hrishi, seeing that my 'situation' has'nt improved, decided to take matter into his own hands. At the next station before I could do my jump, he said " Relax yaar, Crystal palace abbhi bahut door hai. Tab tak tu pear kha". Righto, maybe I should stop acting like a chump. Maybe, I should eat the pear and drink Apple juice. The train pulled out of the station slowly and we suddenly realized we had'nt read the board on this one. And holy mother of god.....yes, it read Crystal Palace station. Now we had done it. It was already 10 am in the morning. we knew the crowd would be filling up at the venue and here we were, gaining speed moving OUT of Crystal palace. Drats !. I looked at Hrishi and he says "..er..looks like I should have let you be a puppy dog". Ofcourse we being the mature type, decided not to panic. We chalked out a counter move. We get down at the next station and take the next train going in the opposite direction. Yes, our genius lies in the simplicity. We waited for half an hour for the next train and promptly hopped in. The train started moving towards Crystal Palace......for 5 minutes and changed direction at a Y-intersection. Doggone it ! Now we didnt even know where we were headed, forget Crystal Palace. Ofcourse our genius prevented us from asking other londoners. We got down at the next station and this time excelled ourselves by actually reading the Train table and the route map. No goofs this time, we finally had reached crystal Palace. As we had guessed there was'nt much crowd outside the gates. Luckily for us, we were one of the first group of people to arrive. By this time we were hungry and wanted to eat. We knew that once the crowd builds up there was no way we could leave the place. As we walked out of the venue, we saw a shop with a board outside declaring fresh sandwiches and juices. Ah! just what we needed. Our relief was short lived as soon as we entered the shop. We asked the Mallu shopkeeper for sandwiches. "No , we dond zell zandwijh". ****ing idiot, then why do you have a board outside ? No no we dond zell. Now we could'nt exactly take him hostage, could we ?
A few paces down the street brought us to a cafe run by an eastern european couple. Latvia, Romania or one of those places nobody ever goes to. We gorged ourselves stupid and drank what was one of the best milk shakes I had ever tasted. Now all we had to do was wait till 4 pm to be let in the stadium.
This was also a theological turning point in our lives. London, u see, has the most sodding weather in the entire solar system. There are fools, then there are optimists, then there are the insane and then there are the people who say the weather in London will improve. No matter what, its always gloomy and rains. But heck no, GOD intervened in the daily proceedings and made it so bloody hot that I had sun burns waiting outside the gates. It was undoubtedly one of the hottest days ever. GOD exists alright. We had him poking our butts the whole day. Finally, after what appeared as our combined life times, it was 4 'o clock. The funny thing about the crowds in the UK is, they don't ever push nor is there a stampede. They seem to be completely oblivious of the joys of pushing and shoving. I'm talking of a massive gathering of 50,000 people. When we entered the stadium we could'nt believe our eyes. There it was, the stage set up with most brilliant looking lights and equipment, and NO ONE in front of us ! We were in the darned second row. We were completely thrilled to bits. As we waited the crowd started filling the entire complex and in half hour it was packed. And we were thirsty. We kind of knew that there was no way we could move and look for a drink. Then we suddenly saw this chap holding a crate of Carling. Ha, the saviour angel. Hrishi waded his way through the crowd and got us 2 pint-sized paper cups of cold Carling. Boy , nothing could have been better. There we were waiting for Coldplay to begin, holding cold Carling in our hands. All was well until.........Hrishi's bladder made its presence felt. We looked around and all we could see were 49,998 people and no way to go. Hrishi determined to let nothing wee on his parade, set in search of the loo, the brave Viking chief, but with no luck he was back. Damn Carling, Damn bladder, Damn wee.
Watching the technicians and road crews set the stage was magic. The amount of computer controlled almost robot-looking equipment was like nothing we had ever seen. By 6pm, the opening act Morning Runner came on stage. Never heard them before, but pretty good stuff considering its a new band in the UK scene. The next act was Supergrass. Now here was a band I always wanted to see live. These guys are brilliant on stage. Of course the usual hits like "Pumpin' on the stereo" were played and by 8.15 it was time for COLDPLAY. Though I didnt really get comfortable with their latest album "X&Y" , Hrishi had assured me that the songs will 'grow' on me. Well, admittedly the 'growth' has been pretty slow. But I am an absolute fan of their first two albums and were the reasons for me being here. Though they didnt play my all time favourite "Trouble", they did play "Yellow", "Clocks" and "Scientist". The Clocks performance was undoubtedly one of the best moments of sound and laser. The live performances were harder than the orginal studio versions which gave an adrenalin surge punching right through our skulls. I had scant regard for the drummer until now. Will Champion is an awesome talent, with maddest drumming I had ever seen. Respect. Chris Martin and Will Champion clearly stole the show. Chris Martin is sonorous with an amazingly high pitch. Everything was swashbuckling until Coldplay pulled a dull trick on us. U know, the retarded rock n' roll stage trick. "Good Bye Crystal Palace , Thank you ever so much , you have been great tonight". All the lights are turned off, technicians pretend they are dismantling equipment.......and.....suddenly ...Coldplay reappear and play their last set. They did lose a few points in my eyes, for this "comeback" trick. But they could be easily forgiven 'cos what a comeback set it was. Ending with an awesome performance of "Fix you". Apparently, this performance was taped and is part of one of their new videos. We did grin the widest hoping to catch some of the cameras. Hrishi went easy on the antics, what with his bladder still making splashing noises inside.
Getting out of the stadium took over an hour. We bought some greasy stir-fry and made our way out. There was no way we could take the train at Crystal Palace station. There was nearly a kilometer long queue of people waiting to get out. And to make matters worse the tube shuts down at 12. We finally guided our confused souls and tired legs to Liverpool Street station by 2 am. Ah the final test for our well planned trip. When we got to Liverpool Street Stn, we were told that the station is closed and will open at 5 am and we cannot sit inside the station. Damn! It was already very cold. There we were, prowling the streets of London at 2 am in the morning, looking like dorks. We somehow killed time till 5 am when the station was opened. By this time our silly asses were frozen and mind completely numb with sleep. We went to our platform and ofcourse the train was'nt there yet. We found a warm cozy place in the tickets section and slept like dogs. At around six we crawled to the train and I dont remember anything else. After a short gap in memory I was back in Norwich, with the memories and of course 256 MB of blurry photographs.
Monday, October 03, 2005
It was the Forward's fault....
that and all
"Matthe......Yaavag Foreign Ge !? "
The familiar sentence is arguably one of the most frequently asked
questions, losing only slightly to the even more grave one "...yavaag
maduve?" to someone who unluckily happens to be in the IT Industry and in
Bangalore. There was never a better conversation topic for the older
generation to suck every drop of blood the poor bloke manages to save
despite working as a techie.
It's a wave that everyone wants to be part of, and everyone wants to show
they know. The word computer is now a house-hold name. A good relief for
many topic starved aunties and uncles, but our poor techie gets stuck like
a nail that's half into the wood when its head decides to painfully break
lose.
The popular following that IT has gotten in recent years has been more due
to the lucrative travel, than what the techie believes is due to his work.
This time it is the uncles who have the upper hand in making a
conversation, owing to some 'extra' knowledge, thanks to 'external'
contacts. Aunties resign to just asking "...yenappa computer aa?"
(literally means "are u a computer?", but it is supposed to be "Are you
working in the IT field?" One must be ready to field a volley of smirks and
barrage of questions, if the victim answers a "no", though it would be the
right answer for such a question. For if you are not part of the bandwagon,
and then you'd rather term yourself a foolish old crackpot and be happy
with that, than get a loathsome look from the omnipresent aunty.
IT has such a popular following here, most do not know what they are
following, but just drift along to be 'seen'. Our aunty gets into her form,
and asks our techie, "you computer, my son also computer" ...our techie,
just out of a ctrl-alt-tab-enter, has no idea how to respond to this
inhuman portrayal, by the aunty, of her son. He just smiles and says
"wonderful aunty, which company?" and is hardly interested in what he
hears. The aunty carries on. " nun maga sapoo"...the indianised MNC
becomes "sapoo" from SAP, while our techie replies back, "I work for
GE".aunty is a bit concerned on hearing that, and blurts out "is it a good
company ? didn't u get in infosys ?"...techie is at his wits end to
explain; aunty is in no mood to understand. aunt's techie son is blushing
ear to ear.
while the general social understanding of an IT company hovers between
Infosys and Wipro, some good souls give respect to "Vorakal" too. So
aunties are generally happy if one is from any of these companies. The
other companies will only mean a detailed interrogation about the techie's
academic credentials, past criminal record, if any, and a sure minus point
as a prospective groom.
It is the conversation between aunties that is the funniest and amazingly
astonishing. Recently one of my cousins went onsite, and I being the scape
goat, who still 'had' to be in India, was the butt of all discussions.
aunty1: "foreign ge yaavaga ivnu hogodu?" (when is he going onsite?)
aunty2: "gothilla, innenu swalpa divsdalley hogthaaneno" (He might go in
some days!)
aunty1: "hmmm...they say only brilliants (sic) are sent onsite"
aunty2: "that's true!"
I was being murdered inch by inch, neat and clean. My reputation in
tatters.
This is even bearable, but get this, if a techie manages to stumble on an
onsite travel but is cancelled on that last millisecond, and then his
future is doomed, for aunties will have a field day dissecting him and
nailing him for not working well at the office. I have been most
unfortunate in this case, so much so that if I had got a call to abort the
travel 2 seconds later than what I got, I might have had to jump off the
plane mid-air.
aunties started flowing in from early evening that day, some trying to stay
oblivious of the situation, some trying hard to keep a straight face, and a
few more giving their own versions of my story, which by the way I never
told anyone!...well one aunty even had the nerve to ask me "did you have a
fight with your manager?". well I was kind enough to say "no aunty, project
got scrapped ", only to realize that the aunty had no idea what a project
meant, and instead pressed me to agree that I had indeed done some
mistake...finally she let me go when I blurted out "my manager had a fight
with the airlines"....well that was enough for me to roll over on the floor
and laugh at her, despite the 'humiliation' of not going onsite.
uncles are not far off, and are ever more eager to learn 'computers'. One
uncle was particularly curious to know as to why we guys were paid for
playing computer games !...apparently he was of this view after he had seen
his 9 year old son only playing games on his newly bought comp. I knew
better than to explain, so I told him that it was because if we won, the
company would get money. uncle's spirits rose, and in all probability he
would have gone home and pestered his innocent 9 year old son to teach him
to play games in the hopes of joining a IT company in future !
uncles are a little more "knowledgeable" though. One uncle came to me one
day, when I made the suicidal mistake of attending a social gathering full
of aunties and uncles, and asked me as to which company I worked for, and I
answered him hoping he would stop there. however , uncle had no such
intention and carried on " yaav language ?"...though stunned, i replied
back "c sharp uncle" ...uncle's face glowed and then he said " nun maga
Java , c# bidhoithanthey!" (My son works on JAVA, C sharp has long fallen
from grace) ..In most uncles view, languages are like company shares, the
value of which keeps fluctuating on an hourly basis.
Though salary is something of a sensitive issue, uncles don't give
didly-squat about that and continue questioning the techie on the same. I
was ripped apart when i told my uncle that my gross was 25k, to which my
uncle in suspended euphoria exclaimed that his son earned 2.5 lakh per
month at onsite. Having no room to argue, i kept mum, when my uncle went
off again "why don't u ask your manager for a raise".... I told him i would
consider his advice and ask, though my manager was bit of a dragon, unlike
my uncle's son's manger, who was a saint just short of a halo!
Even weirder is the funny way in which people take those mails managers
send to techies and their team, as to the good work being done. one of my
cousins who recently joined my company got such a mail from his manager,
and he thought it was a good idea to take a print out and show it to his
father, a folly he still regrets to this day. My uncle not only read the
copy, but made a hundred photocopies and distributed it as pamphlets to his
near and dear ones. My dad got one too, and i had to field some intense
questioning at home, since i had not managed to get one such letter even
once ! i had even gone to the extent of thinking about printing one on my
own just to escape the 'humiliation'.
while it's often funny to listen to the weird misconceptions people have
about IT, it gets irritating if it goes too far. It would be a boring place
without the aunties and the uncles, but it would be a wonderful place, if
they knew better than to draw conclusions about one's work, of which they
know so less about !
"Matthe......Yaavag Foreign Ge !? "
The familiar sentence is arguably one of the most frequently asked
questions, losing only slightly to the even more grave one "...yavaag
maduve?" to someone who unluckily happens to be in the IT Industry and in
Bangalore. There was never a better conversation topic for the older
generation to suck every drop of blood the poor bloke manages to save
despite working as a techie.
It's a wave that everyone wants to be part of, and everyone wants to show
they know. The word computer is now a house-hold name. A good relief for
many topic starved aunties and uncles, but our poor techie gets stuck like
a nail that's half into the wood when its head decides to painfully break
lose.
The popular following that IT has gotten in recent years has been more due
to the lucrative travel, than what the techie believes is due to his work.
This time it is the uncles who have the upper hand in making a
conversation, owing to some 'extra' knowledge, thanks to 'external'
contacts. Aunties resign to just asking "...yenappa computer aa?"
(literally means "are u a computer?", but it is supposed to be "Are you
working in the IT field?" One must be ready to field a volley of smirks and
barrage of questions, if the victim answers a "no", though it would be the
right answer for such a question. For if you are not part of the bandwagon,
and then you'd rather term yourself a foolish old crackpot and be happy
with that, than get a loathsome look from the omnipresent aunty.
IT has such a popular following here, most do not know what they are
following, but just drift along to be 'seen'. Our aunty gets into her form,
and asks our techie, "you computer, my son also computer" ...our techie,
just out of a ctrl-alt-tab-enter, has no idea how to respond to this
inhuman portrayal, by the aunty, of her son. He just smiles and says
"wonderful aunty, which company?" and is hardly interested in what he
hears. The aunty carries on. " nun maga sapoo"...the indianised MNC
becomes "sapoo" from SAP, while our techie replies back, "I work for
GE".aunty is a bit concerned on hearing that, and blurts out "is it a good
company ? didn't u get in infosys ?"...techie is at his wits end to
explain; aunty is in no mood to understand. aunt's techie son is blushing
ear to ear.
while the general social understanding of an IT company hovers between
Infosys and Wipro, some good souls give respect to "Vorakal" too. So
aunties are generally happy if one is from any of these companies. The
other companies will only mean a detailed interrogation about the techie's
academic credentials, past criminal record, if any, and a sure minus point
as a prospective groom.
It is the conversation between aunties that is the funniest and amazingly
astonishing. Recently one of my cousins went onsite, and I being the scape
goat, who still 'had' to be in India, was the butt of all discussions.
aunty1: "foreign ge yaavaga ivnu hogodu?" (when is he going onsite?)
aunty2: "gothilla, innenu swalpa divsdalley hogthaaneno" (He might go in
some days!)
aunty1: "hmmm...they say only brilliants (sic) are sent onsite"
aunty2: "that's true!"
I was being murdered inch by inch, neat and clean. My reputation in
tatters.
This is even bearable, but get this, if a techie manages to stumble on an
onsite travel but is cancelled on that last millisecond, and then his
future is doomed, for aunties will have a field day dissecting him and
nailing him for not working well at the office. I have been most
unfortunate in this case, so much so that if I had got a call to abort the
travel 2 seconds later than what I got, I might have had to jump off the
plane mid-air.
aunties started flowing in from early evening that day, some trying to stay
oblivious of the situation, some trying hard to keep a straight face, and a
few more giving their own versions of my story, which by the way I never
told anyone!...well one aunty even had the nerve to ask me "did you have a
fight with your manager?". well I was kind enough to say "no aunty, project
got scrapped ", only to realize that the aunty had no idea what a project
meant, and instead pressed me to agree that I had indeed done some
mistake...finally she let me go when I blurted out "my manager had a fight
with the airlines"....well that was enough for me to roll over on the floor
and laugh at her, despite the 'humiliation' of not going onsite.
uncles are not far off, and are ever more eager to learn 'computers'. One
uncle was particularly curious to know as to why we guys were paid for
playing computer games !...apparently he was of this view after he had seen
his 9 year old son only playing games on his newly bought comp. I knew
better than to explain, so I told him that it was because if we won, the
company would get money. uncle's spirits rose, and in all probability he
would have gone home and pestered his innocent 9 year old son to teach him
to play games in the hopes of joining a IT company in future !
uncles are a little more "knowledgeable" though. One uncle came to me one
day, when I made the suicidal mistake of attending a social gathering full
of aunties and uncles, and asked me as to which company I worked for, and I
answered him hoping he would stop there. however , uncle had no such
intention and carried on " yaav language ?"...though stunned, i replied
back "c sharp uncle" ...uncle's face glowed and then he said " nun maga
Java , c# bidhoithanthey!" (My son works on JAVA, C sharp has long fallen
from grace) ..In most uncles view, languages are like company shares, the
value of which keeps fluctuating on an hourly basis.
Though salary is something of a sensitive issue, uncles don't give
didly-squat about that and continue questioning the techie on the same. I
was ripped apart when i told my uncle that my gross was 25k, to which my
uncle in suspended euphoria exclaimed that his son earned 2.5 lakh per
month at onsite. Having no room to argue, i kept mum, when my uncle went
off again "why don't u ask your manager for a raise".... I told him i would
consider his advice and ask, though my manager was bit of a dragon, unlike
my uncle's son's manger, who was a saint just short of a halo!
Even weirder is the funny way in which people take those mails managers
send to techies and their team, as to the good work being done. one of my
cousins who recently joined my company got such a mail from his manager,
and he thought it was a good idea to take a print out and show it to his
father, a folly he still regrets to this day. My uncle not only read the
copy, but made a hundred photocopies and distributed it as pamphlets to his
near and dear ones. My dad got one too, and i had to field some intense
questioning at home, since i had not managed to get one such letter even
once ! i had even gone to the extent of thinking about printing one on my
own just to escape the 'humiliation'.
while it's often funny to listen to the weird misconceptions people have
about IT, it gets irritating if it goes too far. It would be a boring place
without the aunties and the uncles, but it would be a wonderful place, if
they knew better than to draw conclusions about one's work, of which they
know so less about !
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Wilkommen ! This is that and all
Well ! Bharath , like I had promised , we now have a blog spot to etch our musings . This blog is for us Mysoreans - batchmates - schoolmates - and er... whine mates.
Post your whinings musings or your dyslexic abilities. This is the place.
Post your whinings musings or your dyslexic abilities. This is the place.
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