Jobs and Layoffs

Layoffs are happening everywhere these days. There was a time when getting an IT job was so easy that you could quit your job, purely on impulse, on any day and find another, that paid at least 30% more, the very next day. It was fun! People were always looking for newer jobs in IT. Companies paid exorbitant salaries to people of no worth, just coz they were the best they could find in spite of having all the dollars from the clueless clients in the US.

And now, you never know when you'd be asked to leave. Losing a job is painful, and then, if you have a family to support, you are in a big mess. I am lucky to be spending two years of the recession doing my MBA! It's almost certain that the job opportunities a year from now, when I'd finish my MBA, would not be any good either - that being either the recovery phase or one of deeper recession. But I am not really bothered. I don't like jobs anyway. Whenever I do something for which I get money or grades or rewards in return, I don't feel interested in it. I would otherwise have done a similar activity just out of interest, fought hard to complete it to perfection and enjoyed each moment of being a part of it. So for me, no job is good job. But I have to make money to survive. And support a family too which will come out of nowhere a couple of years from now.

I need a perennial, hassle-free, huge and reliable source of money to support me forever and then, I will go on and do whatever interests me at any point in time. I guess everyone wants this, but...

21-04-2009 04-21-2009

 

Had an amazing day today. Highlights - my manager finalized the project that I'll work on during the summer internship, I watched a 4-D movie, had a ride on a Ricksha, came back a bit early from office and took a nap and have now found time & interest to write something for my hungry blog! The only thing which I am still missing is pani-puri, called as gol-gappe in Delhi. I did try for it twice, but on one occasion, I did not have change, and on another, I couldn't find a pani-puri-wala despite walking a kilometer. It gets so damn frustrating at times, when you don't get pani-puri when you want it.

Won't talk about my project coz a Non-Disclosure Agreement, which I am yet to sign, will soon bind me from talking anything about it. It does seem interesting. Particularly the part which has been newly assigned to me.

The 4D movie was great. If you are wondering what 4D is, it's 3D movie plus an added dimension of physical experience created by stuff happening in the movie hall - like your chairs shaking, moving up and down, air blowing from somewhere, water sprinkled on you as an elephant points its trunk on your face, things tickling you here and there... all based on what's going on in the movie, such that you become a part of it, experiencing what's happening in there. It's interesting. It's fun. It was a short 20 minute animated movie about a guy who discovered Tokla Temple built in ancient times. The guy had to fight the Aborigines. The Tokla Temple was inside a cave which collapsed soon after it was discovered. The hero somehow manages to escape. The name of the movie was The Lost Island. A must see!

We watched the movie at Spice Mall near office. The Ricksha ride to Spice mall from the office and back was joyful and short. The Rickshas in Delhi are relatively new, light-weight and more efficient than the ones in the rest of India.

While coming back, we had all had Cornettos. Amit Vatsa's b'day treat! All of us had the same flavour - Black Forrest Flirt!

Delhi-1

Coming to Delhi is a dream come true to me. It took too long, but finally I am in Delhi, and I feel great. I am here for an 8-weeks Summer Internship program with the Times Group. Like it usually happens, you experience a place more (by visiting popular spots and seeing people) when you go there for a short visit like for a few weeks, than when you go for a longer period, say a few years. This may not be totally correct, coz one who stays longer relegates places of tourist importance to a low priority and focusses more on issues which matter for a comfortable living, which is not an unimportant thing and can give deep insights into the cultural and social aspects of any place. But nothing happens to everyone in the same way, and perceptions differ, and so do our understandings.

I saw the Lal Quila (Red Fort) yesterday. It was beautiful. Something reminded me, as I was walking between its walls, that I am a Civil Engineer, by education. I don't remember much of what I must know because of having a Civil Engineering degree, but I do get drawn to my past for a few nostalgic moments whenever I see any architectural masterpiece. And Lal Quila is one of them.

Since it was the World Heritage Day yesterday, entrance to the fort was free. We were not allowed to carry our bag, which we had to keep in a nice locker-room adjacent to the ticket counter for Rs.5/-. We entered the fort through the Lahore Gate. I was surprised to find shops inside, selling jewelry, art works, handicrafts, perfumes, etc. There is also a small cafeteria inside. We went around, saw Diwan-e-aam, Diwan-e-khaas, overheard a tourist guide explaining their significance to his bakraas (giving analogies like high court and supreme court), then we rolled on grass in the huge lawns, took pictures, I thought about life and its problems for a few minutes, tried to convince myself that worrying is of no use, took more pictures and came out feeling proud of India, especially Dilli.

Then we went to Parathe wali gali in Chandni Chowk and enjoyed delicious aloo parathas with the best lassi I ever had. We walked some distance through the gali and were overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle. The shops were all brightly lit and were full of energy and business activity. I turned my eyes up and saw electric cables running here, there, everywhere. It's so intricate, I was surprised it worked at all. There certainly must be problems, but since it works, there clearly are ways to fix them efficiently.

We were so full after having the parathas and the lassi that there was no way we could eat the famous Chandni-Chowk-ki-Chaat. I found that very frustrating. Being a big lover of chaat items, this was too damn frustrating. I somehow managed to have a plate of gol-gappe so as to get the taste of it. They were different from any pani-puri I had ever eaten. Though good, they were not among the best. But it's chaat in that place that's famous. I will go there again to have chaat, before my internship gets over.

And ya, this was Dilli-6 - the area in and around Chandni Chowk. I found many Indian tourits singing songs from the movie as they were seeing the Lal Quila. Particularly - ye dilli hai mere yaar, bas ishq mohabbat pyar. The song was running through my mind too. It was spontaneous.

From there, we went to the India Gate. Didn't spend much time there, as it was getting late. It was pretty dark by that time. The structure looked exquisite in lights. There was virtually no security there. People were entering the area from all sides. There were no metal detectors, no frisking. We could not go beyond the chains a few meters from the gate, both in the front and the back. I touched the gate at the left side of it (just a moment before my friend showed me a board saying the gate should not be touched). Realized that the surface of the India Gate was just cement plaster. Got confused whether this was fine or I should re-evaluate my opinion about the greatness of the structure. I kept asking myself - what's wrong with cement? - but followed by  - cement??? That was weird. I sometimes find it so difficult to be sure of what I feel about something. Is it so with everybody?

I had a great day. I didn't mention earlier about how I spent the afternoon at Connaught Place known as CP by most Delhiites. Besides learning a lot about Delhi, its people and its cultural aspects, I did the usual roaming around in the Malls and sitting and chatting in CCD and Barista over coffee. I think it's too early to comment on the people and the culture of this city. I think I am liking the city. Will explore more and write more. Keep reading.

Guncha...

Turn your speakers on... and relaaaaaax!!!

Satyam

I was an employee for 6 months in Satyam Computers. I even saw Ramalinga Raju once. Everyone at Satyam said he was a nice man, humble and all that... but I never trusted the guy. He speaks like a dhongi baba... totally fake. 


How I landed up at Satyam is not a very long story. It was an accident, just like my coming to IIML, my joining GSSL, my shifting to Hyderabad from Pune, to Pune from Chennai, and most of my other significant achievements in life, including my life itself. People who say we choose our destinies, either don't understand anything about life, or have not lived enough to perceive how funny (some would say cruel, and are justified in doing that) life is at playing with our choices, and leaving us gaping at ourselves to understand how much we chose and how much was an outcome of a game of dice between confused gods, goddesses and all the genders that apply to gods, if at all they do.

Everyone starts finding faults with a company when it's not doing well. And Satyam, quite a few times now, has put all four of its tiger-feet in its mouth. So I also would like to take the pleasure of some bitching just to get some kaleje-ki-thhandak, though most of what I'd grumble about is true for almost all big IT companies in India.

I was recruited very easily by Satyam... without many questions. I had been jobless for a month at that time, and the job meant a lot to me. Not because I was dying to work or because it hurts when life doesn't have challenges. I don't think I want work or challenges of the kind these jobs offer. Wonder how they really motivate people. They make me sad, turn me off, to be honest (though I always did well in my jobs and was skillful at the work). Money was the only reason I wanted the job. Otherwise I was quite happy taking naps in the afternoons on grass at Vengala Rao Park after movie at PVR and lunch at Ohri's... I miss those days of joblessness. My lifestyle cost a lot of money though, which I was required to earn and keep on earning. 


I was sent back when I first went to join Satyam at its Masha-allah office adjacent to Paradise hotel in Secunderabad. I had not completed one of the before-you-turn-up-for-joining formalities. I was supposed to fill up all my details into a website, which I didn't coz I hadn't received the password. I went again 2 days later after finishing the stuff that I'd missed, and the joining process was smooth and quick thereafter. 

At that time (Nov 2007), they were recruiting like crazy. There were hundreds joining the company every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And everyone who joined was put on bench. Satyam is the only company in the world which has an office dedicated to people on bench. In Hyderabad, it was the office in Karkhana area. All benchers reported to the same guy and fell under a vertical called SSU Business Wait. (Don't know what SSU meant). There were structural changes in the company during the 6 months of my timepass there, and by the time I left, there was no 'Business Wait', but many Horizontal Competency Units, one for each technology, like Java, Mainframes, etc. etc. I could never understand those Horizontals and Verticals ka funda. Satyam was obsessed with them.

In many ways Satyam is unique in its sadism, that is somewhat different from those of other IT companies (I've worked in 3, and know people in 100). For example, I've met and spoken to people who had been on bench for more than a year (also came across quite a few cases of close to 2 years on bench). This happened mainly with freshers who were recruited straight out of college and were taken under a bond. (Funny that TCS likes to call it a Service Agreement, saying bond is for bonded laborers. They made me pay a hefty sum for quitting in 6 months. I screwed up, actually. Couldn't abscond like most of my friends did. That story, some other time...). And the nature of the bond was such that they couldn't abscond without paying the bond money, coz they had to pay the money in advance when joining the company and it was returned to them only after serving for 2 years. And of course, if you leave before 2 years of service, your money is gone. So most of those youngsters stayed, in spite of being totally work-less, for 2 years. It's not all that bad though. I must confess that out of my 44 months of work-ex - that I proudly flaunt in my CV with bullet points saying I did work worthy of 100 nobels and claim an edge over the fresh-out-of-college guys here at IIM - about a year of that was spent being on bench. And I think there is nothing better that can happen to you in an IT company, than being on bench. I had wonderful times on bench, had great experiences, met the best people and made the best friends. 

But, I think, how much you enjoy being on bench also depends on which stage of career you are in. It is wonderful if you are in the initial stages, when you are single, ready to mingle, and don't have the conservative gulti instincts of saving and worrying about the doomsday, when it's least necessary. It is wonderful also because in the initial stages of your career, you tend to take things lightly for some time since you are just freshly out of college. You are not so bothered about career progression and stuff like that for quite a while if you get a good break (like Satyam) soon after college. So you want to enjoy for some time and bench offers everything to do that well - time, money and people. Bench is also a good way for people with no techy bent of mind, to sail through those initial years of coding, and get to the next levels like TL, PL, PM etc. which are even more timepass jobs, pay much better and give you power to screw people's lives - which is a great motivator to people who have plenty of food and sex, if Maslow is to be believed. (I have another theory, which contradicts Maslow's. Will write about it some other time). 

I was amazed by Satyam's propensity to amass enormous amounts of resources without having any use for them. For example, Satyam has tens of huge buildings in Hyderabad ranging from dilapidated structures to modern glass towers whose floors and walls are rubbed 24 hours to perfect sheen by smartly dressed workers. I, along with a few hundred guys on bench, was moved into one such building in Hitech City. It was very visibly a desperate attempt by the company to have some human activity in the newly constructed building. The building had many halls, each with 100-200 new and fast computers, arranged in rows and lying idle. I don't know if I should admire the company for building such excellent facilities or criticize it for wasting capital. It would have done much better if it had paid good salaries and also found work for its employees whose careers were ruthlessly screwed by the company's project allocation policies. I say this because out of all those who joined the company with me in November 2007, hardly anyone has been assigned any work; and a good percentage have been laid off after being kept idle for a year or so. This mess, certainly, cannot be attributed solely to the sub-prime crisis.
However, for me, those 6 months were great. My room-mate used to be jealous coz he had to work whole day, while I barely went to office for 2-3 hours. Satyam paid me well, misled like everyone by my IIT degree. And thanks to Maher, my room-mate, and Habib, my landlord, that I lived in a decent house in the very posh Banjara Hills, not very far from Ramalinga Raju's house, and I was told, not very far from Sania Mirza's house too.
There was once an attempt by the Satyam HR to move me to Bangalore saying there was nothing for me in Hyderabad. I resisted for some time, coz I didn't want the great times in Hyderabad to end. When I finally did agree to consider it, the Team Leader of that Project rejected me, without telling me any reason. I was ready to work in any damn project in any of the offices in Hyderabad, but those guys who called themselves CoRCC (they searched projects for idlers) never found a match between my profile and the available requirements. They used some crap profile-matching software that never found me good for any work.


There were some very smart people around me at Satyam. Some of them were capable of doing the best and the most complex of jobs. There were quite a few highly self-motivated individuals who constantly strived to upgrade their knowledge. And most of them were very frustrated at not getting any work to do. And that frustration often creeped into me too. It is hard to be principle centered when your principles are driven by instincts and thought rather than socially accepted norms. My principles have gained some resilience over time, but they are still looking for a clarity that can fix them firmly into my character.

Some other benefits I drew from Satyam included a lot of internet time to read news and articles that helped me in my preparation for IIML GD and Interview, great email-spamming with my Pune Siddharth Nagar friends, extra allowance of Rs.2400 for 8 night-shifts (300 a night), thousands of jokes and laughing moments with Rajneesh and Sidhu, 20 cups of ginger-tea every day, and an apparently stable job after the failed stint at an NGO.


Quitting Satyam was not a good experience. The HR Managers were all rude, the process was bureaucratic, and nobody asked me why I was leaving, nor did anyone try to stop me. Plus, there was one bad-termpered Manager who did not allow me to serve a 1-month notice and buy out the remaining 1 month (2 months notice was the company policy, and I did not have enough time to serve that long a notice). Interestingly, I told one HR Manager, who was handling my exit, about the other Manager who was asking me to leave immediately despite the fact that I could, would have liked to and had a right to stay for a month. And the HR guy even said 'uske baap ki company thodi hai! Mai idhar policies aur forms leke kya jhhak maar raha hoon?' But finally he had to give in to the kameena Manager who was both senior and powerful, and the rules and policies were compromised. I had to pay the money and leave immediately.

But on the whole, in spite of all the stupidity that I was a part of, it was a good experience being in Satyam. I got lots of time to pursue my personal interests, which also include just sitting and staring into thin air, sometimes thinking stuff that can make sense only to Einstein, and often not even to myself. It's sad that the company is in such a miserable state now, and thousands of its honest and hard-working employees are suffering for no fault of theirs. I wish them all the very best. To a great extent, life is as sad and disappointing as we want it to be. And my dear Satyamites have faith in the ability of the arbitgiri of this world to lead to outcomes which are best for us... be happy, keep working hard... life is a gift, it is great and will continue to be great!

Ghajini

Never before did I see a movie named after its villain. Yes, Ghajini is the name of the villain. Whatever the word means, I don't think there can be an acceptable excuse for naming a movie after its villain. So it's not Amir Khan in and as Ghajini, nor is it Asin. Ever since I heard about Ghajini, I had been thinking it must be the heroine's name. But when I saw the movie today, I found it weird that it wasn't so, in spite of the word sounding so feminine.

Well, there was a lot more that was weird in the movie. I'd call it funny, rather than weird, coz weird is a very respectful word and the movie does not deserve so much respect.

The movie starts with a wonderful video showing the insides of the brain - the neurons in beautiful patterns, connected to each other through their dendrites (if my long-term memory is working fine, that's what they are called. But it fails me most of the time, so am not sure). I know from reading a few books on brain that those junctions at which the neurons are connected with each other are seats of our memory (besides something called hippocampus). Thus our memory consists of lots of information in bits and pieces scattered all over our brains. It is believed that the brain classifies all that information through associations and relationships. How we save and retrieve data is not known with any certainty, but ya, as per the movie, if you are hit by an iron rod twice on your head, one of the things that can happen is that you might lose your long-term memory and an ability to convert your short-term memories into long-term ones. That's what happened with Amir Khan, named Sanjay Singhania in the movie.

Though it was too big a leap for the Indian Cinema to talk about brains, memories and stuff, the makers of Ghajini did screw up in neat, clean and simple manner in a lot of places; such that any person with reasonable common sense and short-term memory could notice and appreciate that bollywood lived up to its tradition. Plus, Amir did a great job of playing Rajni Kant and Sunny Paa Ji at various points in the movie. I would have liked to see the Shahrukh inside him too, but I guess the 8-packs had killed his softer side. He was more fond of howling like Tarzan than talking anything romantic with the girl, who, by the way, was very cute. I have fallen in love with her; somebody go and tell her please.

So Mr. Sanjay Singhania's problem was that he had lost his long-term memory, and at the same time, his brain could not convert its short-term memory to a long-term one. His short-term memory had a time span of 15 minutes. But there was a funny catch here. The short-term memory problem did not mean that at any point of time Amir remembered whatever happened over the past 15 minutes from that very moment. His memory, in fact, flushed itself every 15 minutes, and once it did that, fresh memory got stored for the next 15 minutes and so on. It's amazing the brain could work in periods of 15 minutes each. (Can this be called quantization of memory?). I am wondering when the first period started. It could be the moment the head was hit. Or it could be some time after that. Or it could be the moment Amir got up every morning from sleep. But then, here's the funnier part. Amir kept a clock with him all the time, that rang an alarm every 15 minutes to indicate to Amir that his memory had been flushed. (How can it be so perfectly timed, I don't understand). This brings back to me memories from the days when I used to be a Software Engineer by designation and claim to be a Java Programmer. I remember from timepass at Geometric Software Solutions Co. Ltd. that Java has something called a Garbage Collector - a program built into the Java Virtual Machine (it's a bigger program that executes the Java bite-code created after compiling any Java program). The Garbage Collector is a process that runs periodically. It does the job of cleaning up, deleting unwanted objects (data) and clearing the memory for reuse. It seems the Garbage Collector for Amir ran after every 15 minutes and somehow, by mistake, it classified every piece of information as unwanted and deleted it.

The movie starts with Jiah Khan, a medical student, wanting to take up Amir Khan's case for a course project. She seems like one of those good students, whose asses itch all the time to do challenging stuff, original work, not copy, not globe, learn and come first. Such people don't share their notes, don't tell what they study and where they study that from, and are teachers' pets. I used to be like that in school, but then I deteriorated (or improved?) continuously thereafter. Coming back, Jiah's prof says no to her request to study Amir, coz Amir has police case running on him, which makes him a risky thing to study. Jiah insists (the itch again), but finally gives in.

How does Amir do his basic stuff in spite of all the problems with his head? How does he survive? Thrive? Jiah asks the prof. The prof says, a lot of stuff Amir does by instinct and by stuff in his subconscious mind. And for his day-to-day activities, Amir manages by writing notes, lots of them.

Hmmmm, so after a scene where Amir beats up a guy, kills him, takes his pic with a Polaroid camera, gets Ghajini's number from his cellphone and some more info about Mr. Ghajini Dharmatma, we move to Amir's house.

It's a flat in Hiranandani, at a walking distance from IIT Bombay (Powai, Mumbai - 400076). I used to go there with a few other frustu guys on weekends to see girls and have aalu ka paratha in Galleria. 2 Parathas for 25 bucks. And very tasty too.

Don't know what Amir had for food, he was never shown eating. His flat was in a very posh locality. (He stayed there coz it reminded him of Asin, at a subconscious level I suppose). Inside, his house was a scary place. Every nook and corner was labelled. Amir enters, keeps his pistol, wallet, camera, pics, etc. in their designated places and goes to sleep.

As he gets up, he gives the wondering idiot look - mai kahaan hoon - and then goes to the bathroom, which has stuff written all over. Somewhere on its mirrors, it is written take off your shirt, and that's where Amir gets a chance to flaunt his 8-Packs. But then, you see things written all over his body which served as reminders. He had written things like Revenge, Ghajini, Kill Him, people's mobile numbers, etc. etc. all over his body. So when Amir sees all this in the mirror, he goes nuts, does a Tarzan + Sunny Deol for some time, runs around like crazy, does push ups, gymnastics, runs on a treadmill and then calms down and quietly takes care of his morning ablutions.

Some of his reminders were written very intelligently and strategically. Like when he wears his socks, he finds a note etched on his feet that asks him to take care of something. I am sure he had stuff to look at when he peed. That must be the most important stuff, the heroine's name or something, stuff that he shouldn't miss by any chance. But alas, the movie skipped that detail. But one thing is for sure - a mental case like Amir can't do all this alone, without anyone's help. But then, if we think so much, just like dogs, even we can't enjoy motion picture.

To help him recall stuff, Amir keeps a polaroid camera, probably with perpetually running batteries. He takes pics of anything important and writes a note below it, so as to make sense of it later. Amir's doc is the same guy as Jiah's prof. So when Amir goes to meet his doc, he stumbles upon Jiah, who had seen Amir's pic on her prof's computer. As soon as she sees Amir, her itch comes back with all its intensity. She makes him sit with her and asks him questions about how he manages and stuff. Amir tells her about his camera, his alarm clock etc. She asks him to take her pic twice, one copy for Amir, one for her. Amir obeys, writes "My Friend" below both copies, gives one to Jiah and keeps one in his pocket.

Meanwhile, a police officer tracks down Amir through a bus ticket he left at the house of the guy he killed a little while ago for Ghajini's info. The cop goes to Amir's house, fights with him, hits him on his head and then ties him down. And then he starts searching Amir's house frantically, and gets hold of Amir's diary. And then... the flashback...

Asin does modelling for an ad-making company. She is this nice, cute, playful, talkative and simple girl (à la Basanti), who loves street kids and helps blind people cross the road. And to the latter, she offers additional services like a running commentary of what's happening around the place. And Amir is a Harvard graduate, who has come back in India to run the company his dad had established and dreamt of making big. It's a mobile service provider and has biiiiig targets in terms of cell-phone subscription levels and global expansion.

I think I am getting into a lot of detail. I suggest you do go and watch the movie yourself coz, anyway, you need to see the movie first and not like it much so as to appreciate my post. I'm going to be brief from here on.

Amir's men come to meet Asin (Kalpana Shetty) at her workplace because they need her permission to put a hoarding, showing their company's ad, on top of her house. And from bits of their conversation with Asin that her boss overhears, he misunderstands that Amir has sent his men to ask Asin out. Asin refuses to allow for the hoarding. Her boss thinks she refused to go out with Amir (typical bollywood-kollywood-tollywood funda - didn't hear the most important words and got the wrong message and that made all the difference). Her entire office now feels she has an affair with Amir - the great business tycoon - and Asin enjoys this little moment of fame and never tells them it's not true.

A lot of bla happens around this, like Asin unknowingly gives an interview to Mayapuri magazine about her affair with Amir. Amir gets all heated up when he sees that article, goes to check her out and set things straight, but when he sees her he is all impressed with her qualities that I mentioned above. He can't talk to her properly, gets shy and nervous, like me. He does not tell her he is the Sanjay Singhania she's been saying she's having an affair with. He pretends to be someone else, looking for work. Asin promises to help, very soon gets him a chaddi ad to shoot for. They go out often, get close, Amir proposes, she accepts, Amir still hides he is Sanjay Singhania to make sure Asin does not love him coz of his money.

Some more bla - Asin has to get Sanjay Singhania as the chief guest to a party her boss organizes. And since no one has seen the new-in-India Sanjay, she tries to train Shahrukh's look-alike she knows to act as Sanjay in the party. But then Amir makes fun of his style during the rehearsals, then impresses Asin with some celebrity tricks and gets to play himself as chief guest for the party. Huh! And then, he turns up for the party in style, everyone thinks he is Sanjay, Asin thinks she knows he is not Sanjay, Amir - who is actually Sanjay as we know - even writes a cheque of 5 lacs for charity, etc. etc. My friend Hitesh says all this was meant to make fun of Shahrukh Khan, but I think it did not come out so clearly and so well.

A little more bla - when Amir proposes to Asin, she accepts after a night's thinking, but then she has taken a vow... that she won't marry until she buys 3 Ambassador cars, coz her dad owned 3 of those in the 1990's and had to part with them coz her uncle cheated her dad, who died soon thereafter... So Asin buys one Ambassador car the very next day so that she can marry Amir sooner, takes some street kids and Amir for a drive, Amir drives... Phew!!!... And then, a little later, Amir has to go to London for a 10-day business trip, but he tells Asin that he's going to his village coz his mom is sick, and that he is planning to sell his ancestral land to arrange money for her treatment. And hearing this, Asin sells her newly bought Ambassador car and gives the money to Amir, says don't sell the land, it's ancestral and stuff, take this 1.35 lacs, go to your mom and come back soon! Wow, it can't get any better than this! It's driving me crazy!!!

As you can see, it's getting more and more uninteresting. But interestingly, this was the part I enjoyed the most. That's what love does to you! (i.e., mine with Asin). I'd recommend the movie only due to the parts in which Asin was there. Amir is not worth anything. I don't like his acting, his style, or anything he is admired for. Asin rocks in the movie. When she was there, everything illogical seemed logical, everything stupid seemed cute...

I am not going to tell the remaining story. In short, the flash-back is shown in 3 pieces - the first 2 are in 2 different diaries of Amir read by the Police Inspector and Jiah respectively, and the last was narrated by a lady to Jiah. Jiah, I felt, was the most irritating character in the movie. God cure her itches. Amen. In the end of all flashbacks, Asin is killed by Ghajini, in front of Amir. Amir is hit by a rod a couple of times and phurrrrr goes his memory, short-term, long-term whatever. And for no reason at all, Amir keeps his head shaven thereafter, with a little bit of hair. I say this because in the end, when every score is settled, Amir is shown with fully grown hair. So I don't understand why a newly short-term memory guy would want to shave his head once in 10 days (I can estimate the duration from my experience). Also in the bald look, there is a line of stitch on his head towards its right, which makes the thhobda look sexy (from a girl's point of view). Reminds me of Mridul, my school friend, who used to stick a band-aid tape on one side of his forehead without any injury coz it looked sexy (from a girl's point of view).

In a scene inserted in a very vague fashion (Amir was in the hospital, then suddenly shown at home, and then again in the hospital), Ghajini tries to erase all his traces from Amir's memory-recall mechanism by striking off all that Amir had written over his body and cleaning up all the stuff that Amir had written all over his house. He doesn't pull down Amir's shorts though. I am sure he missed erasing quite a few vital clues which later helped Amir get aroused (and kill Ghajini). He also destroys all of Amir's pics and his camera. I think this was one of the most stupid things shown in the movie - erasing and destroying stuff that helped Amir recall Ghajini - coz there were many people who knew Amir and could tell him about Ghajini (that's how Jiah came to know the facts). Otherwise how did Amir know who killed whom and whom to kill and for what? Some of it was through a faint recall of Asin saying Ghajini's name when she was dying. But beyond that, it's globe. The movie shows Jiah helping Amir recall everything that Ghajini did and bringing out the Tarzan in him.

Interestingly Jiah was the one who earlier went and warned Ghajini that he must beware Amir, who wanted to kill him at any cost. She even got Amir caught by the police by trapping him in the lift of her girls' hostel. (Thank God, girls' hostels at IIML don't have lifts). The police injected Amir with whatever they use to make mad people unconscious, and then stripped him of all clothes except pants, and called up every guy whose number was etched on his body. Only Ghajini's number worked. Ghajini turned up, identified Amir as Sanjay Singhania and said Amir was his friend. Soon Amir's doc and managers turned up from nowhere and bailed him telling the police that he's a psycho case. At this point I got irritated by the tam-gult-ness of the movie.

Finally, Amir's love story and the truth of Ghajini, which Jiah figured out by asking a random woman (not really random coz she was a witness to Asin's murder in a way... wonder how in movies people always find the right person to ask the right question and get the answers too, all that in a flash), made Jiah take Amir's side and so she helped Amir kill Ghajini in the end.

The movie ended with Amir happily settled, spending his time with kids at an orphanage, hair fully grown now. Jiah visits often. Itch never dies.

One question - Can a person with short-term memory (of say 15 minutes) and no way of transferring stuff to long-term storage, be aware, rather 'know' in any way that he has this memory problem? I guess he can, if he writes on his body - "I have a short-term memory, can't remember beyond 15 minutes into past."... similar to what Amir did haan?

some eco-talk

Another set of exams finished a couple of days back. Then we had the gruelling Summer Placements where I made it to TBSL. I have got into this habit of posting once after every mid-term and end-term exam, which I desperately want to change. I wish I could post once every day. Won't make a resolution this time, but ya, am going to be more frequent now on in updating my blog. Promise!

The current financial crisis has left many thinking about how good we are at managing the resources of this world. Economics, which such an endeavor is called, has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. But is still imperfect and confusing. God, which may be another name for chance (depending on what you choose to assume), created this world within a framework governed by a set of rules. Man created two things to make his life easy - (i) money, and (ii) machine. Machine is our way of emulating God - the Creator. We have been o.k. at it, making inventions fitting into our ever increasing range of discoveries, to make our lives easier and convenient, to give a majority of us more time for higher intellectual pursuits and to some, who have the extra brains, to go for more research on complex phenomena and make more discoveries and inventions, so that the show never stops. We've probably only scratched the surface of what is there and can be done.

Money, for one, is the most interesting invention of man till date. It is the key driver of Economics. It is perhaps the only invention of man which he himself doesn't understand properly in spite of having worked with it for centuries in one form or another, upgrading it to forms thought to be simpler to comprehend and manage, but never too sure whether it works the way it has to. Of course not everyone needs to understand how it works to be able to use it. For example, we use the television without the slightest idea about how it works. But at the same time, there is someone in this world (in fact there is a good number), who understands everything about how the television does whatever it does to give me what I need. Ditto with other machines, and in fact, every other creation of man, besides money.

I wanted to write more on this topic, but am ending it here... am tired of seeing this incomplete article lying on my desktop for more than a week now... and of my inability to put more head into it at this stage... am also tired of seeing my blog craving for a post... so, there you go...