Bakar Gang Blore Mysore Trip....

This trip happened in the first week of April 2009. I am sure the memory of fresh out of MBA time will not be very distant for all of us...

Bakar Gang has an internal record of stuff happening....The below mentioned piece was written by myself for limited circulation in the Bakar gang....

First time any mail/piece written by any BAKAR GANG member is being made public...Of course after a due caution period and after a limited consensus with some of the Gang Members.

For the uninitiated...BAKAR GANG consists of the below people....

The Bakar gang had a few members that were posted in Mumbai..The trip to B'lore was as much an excuse to go to Tirupati Balaji Darshan as it was a result of the reluctance to break the gang after the MBA...

Here goes the mail...

Here follows an account of the latest trip of the Bakar Gang...

After some exploits in Mumbai (Including a 90Rs. Mango Milk shake) and Pune (Diet coke for Rs60) the next leg of the journey was the trip to Bangalore...

In all pomp and glory a train that befits the gang was found. The name being Chalukya Express (Chalu kya ???).... In view of the current NINJA status A/C was given a miss and the great Indian Sleeper Class was chosen...

Yours truly joined in Pune armed with 8 paans , ½ kg of Bakarwadi and quarter kg of Aam Barfi...

The platform saw the emotional reunion of Swanand who had come to drop me and Truckinder aka Tarvinder the L’Oreal Challenge mates...

After the requisite amount of backslapping and Paan Eating...The rest of the night was spend in the memory of Naga and as an ode to him we all slept soundly till almost 930 next morning...

The following list of words would aptly describe the journey - Sleep, Heat, Bakar, Bhel, Water, Idli, Wada, Nariyal Paani, Chaas, Lassi, Kurkure, Hide and Seek (Biscuit wala), Pepsi, Mirinda, More water, Tatte Idli (Sound pretty indecent but was infact tasty) and the list goes on....

After landing up in Balgalore we had the privilege of Going to the beautiful house of Arun and see his fathers passion for music manifested in the form of a music room. It was the one of the most unparalleled displays of equipment I have ever seen in my life... Like pathetic people we converted the music room into our bedroom for the next 2 days :)

One of the defining factors of Bangalore just in the short journey from station to home was the number of Speedbreakers... an awesome sight of 5 speed breakers in a short lane of 25 meters left a lasting
impact on all of our Dubai roads cultured minds... Silver lining was that the driving was as bad as Dubai ..... Truckinder was the most verbal with his choice cuss words.....

Next mornings Mysore trip was characterized by delayed start... a proposal for 10AM departure generated almost 10 minutes worth of laughter and 12 in the afternoon was settled upon which translated into almost 1330 by the
time we got on the highway...

The drive was made memorable with imitations of F1 car sounds by Arun when overtaking and during some heart stopping chases...Some people also got some parts of their anatomy (heart excluded) in their mouths
during certain risqué manoeuvres....first stop Mysore Palace..

As part of trying to be Bakars we did 2 things in the palace grounds that would make all of us proud...

1. Arun Ameya and Myself at one point started to discuss how we are going to shoot some chase scenes for one of the forthcoming movies which generated significant interest and curious eavesdroppers in the form of a small crowd, Ameya pointed to an antique chair and said that this is the place where one of the Don (Shah Rukh Khan) Shoot happened and a couple of kids dragged their dads to show it...

2. An elaborate story was woven to get the ticket back from the ticket collector just for kicks. 5 jobless individuals came up with a story of a company refunding the ticket and hence we needed proof of visit...

Post Mysore I had to undergo the biggest farce ever seen in my life in the form a musical fountain show at the Famed Vrindavan Gardens...But this after the worst samosa chaat was consumed by us...10 minutes were enough to gobble up 180 worth of Wada, Dosa and Chaats at a dilapidated place...

A humble request to all...Do not go with any hopes for the show, it was an assortment of 1 Kannada Song (No Idea except that must have been popular), 1 Hindi song (Nimbooda Nimbooda) and Saare Jahaan Se Accha...

It was the most pathetic musical fountain show I ever saw in my life.... In a shocked state we went to eat the famed Gobi Manchurian and were punished with a gooey mess tossed in a tangy ketchup and lots of pepper that must have been crushed when the equally bad fountain was being constructed....

Tarvinder took the responsibility of getting us all out of the harm’s way as soon as possible and it was a sight worth watching..... The dexterity with which the steering was handled pointed towards an accomplished commercial vehicle driver....

The gastronomic misadventure of the day ceased with Bangalore Corner House ka “Death by Chocolate with extra chocolate sauce”.... A Paani Puri and Paan followed by lassi....

The next day was spent chilling out and meeting Maddy, Ban, Kukil and Prashant Azar in Cormangala Bangalore...

We had an average Biryani at Hyderabad House but spent an exceptionally good time with all....Sheeshas above Purple Haze and a long walk were the highlights....

A visit to Shiv Temple behind the erstwhile Kempfort Mall wasfollowed by a visit to the Leela Palace galleria to meet a couple of cousins of Gogo ...

The Barista in the Leela Palace should be termed as the most Mosquito Infested Barista in the World....

The Bakar spirit and mindless conversation was shared by the 2 cousins both pretty young and we went away with the satisfaction of spoiling 2 more young minds....

The highlight was that of the waiter getting a lit piece of mosquito coil and Amey asking for ODOMOS gel instead... The expression on the face of the waiter was priceless....

Unfortunately after this it was time for me and Amey to go to Tirupati and the Gang had a last huddle and an emotional farewell under a building that was named Swiss Complex in line with the great Indian tradition of optimistic naming.... I would bet that till date no Swiss Citizen must have entered the complex...

The mood was lightened with the arrival of Kukil who was going to Tirupati & by coincidence we had booked the same bus...

Thus the Bakars were split in two with me and Ameya going to Tirupati and Gogo and Terry making all of us proud by donating 2 liters of Black Dog whisky to Airport authorities by carring it in a Handbag (WTF) on their way to Delhi... SP Jain does turnout some really intelligent and selfless people....

Gogo and Terry reached safely and me and Ameya went to Tirupati with Kukil and a friend of his...

The temple was awesome and we had the Darshan really quickly...One thing about Tirupati though...

Me and Amey were roaming around the streets of Tirupati....You could not take 10 steps without seeing a movie poster which had a range of ladies with a varied amount of fat content on their bellies flaunting their belly buttons...It does seem to be a Uniquely Andhra Pradesh thing...

Kalyan we would require some background research to get to the roots of this state-wide obsession.... Kindly oblige...(Kalyan did oblige but the contents cannot be made public...Sorry)..

Subsequently me and Amey caught the train in the night and went into Naga mode for a solid 11 hours...By the time we woke up it was almost lunch time....

I got down at Pune at 1600hrs and Amey technically became the last Bakar to reach home...

Thus closed the GMBA phase of the Bakar Gang , but don’t worry we all would be back arranging Bakar sessions once a year...We do have high hopes of having the better half of Gogo join us somewhere around Diwali this year (Thoda delay but good forecasting skills huh???).... Latest news was that a couple of brides were lined up for consideration in Mujjafarpur... So the next time of meeting is about fixed (unfortunately some of us could not make it)...

So make a note and block the time and make sure that you will be there... (Full details of the Bihar Trip by Amey to follow on his blog soon)...

Visual updates by Arun to follow....

On behalf of Amey, Gogo, Tarvinder & Arun i would say that we did miss you all and the trip would have been more memorable if we all were there...

So till then BBye and good luck with the job hunt...

Paddy

An Ode to My Laptop....

Wow at last I resume to blog.......

This blog is dedicated to my dear laptop. I bought it as a necessity for my MBA program. Little did i know that it would become my constant companion for the next 18 months. It was a shiny DV2000 model from HP and a Limited Edition one :-)

But alas in my batch itself there were 6 people with the same laptop. So the "limited edition" turned out to be a marketing gimmick (I would learn about such things in detail over the
course of the year)...

It was my constant companion over the next year and saw along with me that tumultuous time that we now call the Financial Crisis.... It (my laptop) started off fast and quick and and navigated cooly and worked upon many things at once with good speed but post the stock market crash it started to crash as well ...

It went with me to Kuala Lumpur and Genting and many places in Singapore and had a blast in Langkawi...So a well holidayed laptop it was....Not too much stress...Good doses of chill time....

Like the stimulus packages and subsequent regulation post the Financial Crisis...I too took responsible measures against the laptop crashes...Dutifully I put in an original anti virus software bought in India when I went there in Diwali...So there was a money invested and systemic improvement done for the laptop...Ideally it should have stemmed the tide of the crash...BUT WELL....

Dubai turned out to be worse that before in part due to my super extensive usage with Counter Strike :-) Laptop did not crash but used to get heated up like there was no tomorrow....The fans used to mimic helicopter sounds and overall it was heavy duty usage time for the Graphics Card...

To cut a long painful journey that was the Dubai Leg of MBA really short...No Jobs...No Large Assets left :-)...No Income as well for the last year when we were studying.....We were typical NINJA candidates that burst the housing bubble...The newfangled MBAs wanted education loan waivers and looked upon the election as a carrot that may get the Fin Minister to waive loans and get the student population....But well we were not so populous it seems...

Bottom line......the laptop (despite high depreciation rate) suddenly became an asset....

Came back to India and started the Job Hunt...Guess what..The laptop was my window to the world of Job Portals...Searching for a job for the first time is pretty much a learning experience...Me and my laptop went through revisions and redrafting of CVs....Countless Job
Sites/Agent Sites and other such sites were visited....All in all it was a time of tough labor, dead ends and long days turning into months....

The laptop was good to me not crashing at all...I feel it must have understood the gravity of the situation.....So at least for me at that point of time it did not crash.....The laptop post the overhaul (cash injection+systemic) performed at a critical juncture.....

And then one fine day I get a Job :-) :-)

My laptop, my trusty laptop started to behave funny the next day itself....Suddenly the color started to go out of its screen and it became pale....The display started to shatter into 8 pieces and every one started to mirror state of the next one...

In panic and desperation....I went to Laptop Repair...After a full software change and new drivers installed and all it went fine...I could see my Visa on the screen and went to Dubai....It even was kind enough to stay with me for the next one month when home and hearth was not set and Laptop was essential...

But as soon as home was set..It started to do the same thing as before...This time a detailed analysis was done and I was told that the motherboard was shorted and nothing short of a full Motherboard Change would help the Laptop...A cost the revenue starved Dubai Guy told me would be equivalent to a new laptop....

And so it was that my trusted laptop met its end....I have not used it for the past 45 days...It stays there in its bag in an inert state waiting for the day when he would find a passage back home...My hopes for it are the same as its own aspirations like me, that the skilled healers back home and the wholesome air of motherland will inject some new life and maybe just maybe it will run again...And its display will again be colourful rather than pale and speckled and shattered as now...

Thus ended the story of my laptop...It stuck by me through Thick and Thin..through Dark and Light....and Through the crisis both Global and Personal....

If by chance it does a phoenix back in India.....Another Post ;-)

Merchant of Venice, Modern Banking & Letter and Spirit

People who have read the “Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare will agree with me that the story is a heady mix of banking of the times, religion and Letter and Spirit of both the contract and its interpretation. That the characters of the story and the entire plot could have undercurrents of modern banking system does not seem apparent. Allow me to elaborate....

A short summary of the story for the benefit of people who have not read the play is as follows...

We have Bassanio who wants to wed Portica. She is far away and his friend Antonio who has helped him before agrees to finance his trip. Antonio a merchant has goods at sea and hence liquidity is low. He goes for short term loan from Shylock a Jewish moneylender on the terms that it’s either repayment on due date or a pound of flesh. Well in a twist of fate news comes that Antonio’s goods are lost to sea. The due date passes by and Bassanio gets Portico who in disguise gets to preside over the case of Shylock the Jew vs Antonio the Christian. These two hate each other for religious reasons. By this time Antonio’s ships though some are lost, most return back and he becomes solvent again. He offers to pay double but Shylock refuses and insists on his pound of flesh. Portica interprets the contract in Letter and not in Spirit and says that he can have pound of flesh but no blood. In the end due to various religious and city laws Shylock is forced to convert to Christianity and forfeit the claim and also give up half of his estate to the city and the rest of it to Antonio and the merciful Antonio asks for the share of Income while giving the principle back to Shylock.

Now the Jewish religious texts say that you should not take interest from a fellow brother. The same approximate interpretation was encouraged by the church for Christians of the time. Now Christians were more than Jews in number. Now let’s see the effect on different people by these circumstances.

It’s a known fact that you need credit to run a business. Jewish interpretation of the Torah and the Talmund was that “brother” means a fellow Jew. With a majority of credit demand from Christians, Jews went into money lending to Christians and flourished while following the Letter of the Religion. Christians saw the growing financial clout of Jews and there was a general animosity between them. Shakespeare was a Christian and a bard and not a saint so we can forgive his use of a Jewish villain in the form of Shylock and his interpretation of the contract in Letter and not in Spirit. Also the portrait of evil, scheming, religiously biased reinforces the conventional view of the times. Also the subsequent events of the play have a distinct Pro Christian flavour.

Now we come to the Christian side of the affair. The Medici family is considered the first banking conglomerates. They were considered the wealthiest family in Europe and they produced 3 popes and a few rulers of France. Michelangelo and a great many renaissance painters owe their daily bread to the Medici family. So Giovanni de Medici the man who started it all and got the family the wealth is known for a few things. One thing very famous is that his bank embraced the double entry accounting system which is the foundation of all modern accounting. Another thing that is not generally known is that he may be attributed the creative accounting practice of recording interest as transaction fees. This creative step may have been the foundation of its early success as it allowed them to lend and borrow from public while following the “letter of the religion” of the time. They could penetrate the Christian market. Again the “spirit” was lost is incidental.

One of its biggest depositors and later creditor was the Catholic Church. Perhaps the three popes from the family were later kind enough to change the perception and allow interest to be charged. The Rothschild family may owe its later "bond" fortune to the developed banking system that the Medici family left behind.

So, back to Merchant of Venice and its symbolism...

Shylocks character a symbol of Jewish power of money and his intention to take his pound of flesh instead of 100% ROI another confirmation of their famed interpretation by letter and not by spirit.

Porticas interpretation can be seen as a symbolism of good over evil and using Shylock own tools to do the good.

Antonio’s magnanimous offer of 100% ROI and later when Shylock gets trapped, his offer to let Shylock keep Antonio’s half of Shylock estate in return of converting to Christianity another way for Shakespeare to show how sin can be vanquished.

The overriding theme of the interpretation of contract in Letter and not in Spirit may have its origins in the root of the Modern Banking. Follow the letter of religion if not its spirit.

There are three religions that owe their creation to Abraham the first prophet and the prime believer in Monotheism - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All three have had interpretations of not charging interest. Even Islamic banks of the day, to be competitive, have a profit or loss sharing principle or a return on deposit that is termed a “gift” and the reason for the gift is not given in public interest.

I came accross the Banking Connection when watching the programme Ascent of Money on Fox History and Entertainment..It seems that there is a book by the same name...Searching for it now :-)

Athiest...

I love Marathi...

Not because it is my Mother Tongue

Not because it has more true consonants and vowels than any other Indo Aryan Language

Not because it is the oldest of the Indo Aryan Languages

Not because it has some of the best literature

Not because it has the ability to produce a range of sounds

Not because Kentucky Fried Chicken can be spelt in Marathi however it may be so

Not because Pune has taken the language to a different level of sophistication

Not because it is one language where the choice of words can be a dead giveaway to your district

Not because it has incorporated the word “Machine” for your girlfriend in some places

Not because the public has supported its theatre till date

Not because it shares the Devnagri script along with Hindi

Not because it is the language which can spell my surname right and everybody reads it the same

Not because it has embraced English and morfed in "Marlish" (Marathi + English)

And certainly not because Mr. Raj Thakrey says so

But the language is current enough to give us poetry that can get everyone from kids to senior citizens and especially cynical people of our generation to flock the theatres to go for a programme that is essentially poetry reading. When I told a few non Marathi speaking friends of mine that I am going for a 6 hour poetry reading programme, the reactions were of incredeluity... But that’s where the poet that language and the public come together for an amazing fest of Marathi at its evolutionary best...

As the poet himself says, his age and his study does not qualify him to say anything about god and being atheist or a theist so my own credentials on the subject are not even worth mentioning. But the poem puts forward such a beautiful thought that I had to share it with non Marathi speaking people. Below is the translation as much as possible in letter and spirit...In Hindi

Author Name : Sandeep Khare

Title of Poem: Nastik

जब एक सच्चा नास्तिक मंदिर के बाहर रुकता है

तो मंदिर मे भगवान को ही अच्छा लगता है

की कोई भी क्यूँ ना हो

अपने आप के लिए ही सही

सच्चाई को पकड़े हुए रहने का

जब एक सक्चा नास्तिक मंदिर के बाहर रुकता है

तो होती है संभावन

की भगवान अपना आलस छोड मंदिर के बाहर आने की

एक सच्चा नास्तिक मंदिर के बाहर रुकता है

तो देखता है शून्या नज़रों से

आसपास की चेहेल पेहेल, भाविकों की भीड़

कोई तो अपना बोज़ आपने ही पैरों पे उठा रहा है

इसका समाधान मिलता है भगवान को

इसीलिए तो जब एक सच्चा नास्तिक मंदिर के बाहर रुकता है

तो भगवान को एक भक्त कम मिलता हो शायद

पर मिलता है समाधान एक सहकारी मिलने का

मंदिर बंद होने के बाद एक मस्त अंगड़ाई देके

भगवान बाहर खड़े नास्तिक से गप लडाने आते है

बोलते है “दर्शन देते रहना कभी कभी

पता है आपका विश्वास नही है हम पर,

पर हमारा तो है आप पे”.

मंदिर के बाहर रुका हुआ नास्तिक

परेशन भगवान को बड़े मिन्नतों के साथ मंदिर में भेजता है

तब जाके अनंत साल हम दर्शन ले सकते है

आस्तिकता की शाल में घुटे हुए भगवान की..