DCH

Hey all, I am back again with a new post. I think what I am going to write about is a very interesting & thought provoking idea. I am inspired to write about this from the movie Dil Chahta Hai. Anyway, I am not going to blab about the movie itself, but going to revolve around the most important aspect of the movie: Love & Friendship. Remember, I am not judging anything, just putting my point of view about it

I think the kind of closure which was shown among the three was quite amazing and pretty realistic. It didn't matter for them whether it was 2'o clock @ night or 6 in the morning, they were always there for each other. I guess this is what is what real friendship means. But, as the movie rambled on for another 1/2 an hour, the incident which happened really made me think whether it should've happened or not. Yes, I am talking about the time when Sid (Akshay Khanna), just fallen in love with Dimple Kapadia, slaps Akash (Amir Khan). Why & how could it happen? Should it have happened? Now, let's rewind back a little bit. The kind of character depicted by Amir Khan was very simple and understandable. He was a real prankster, he couldn't live without making a joke out of any situation (I can't believe but the character resembles me a lot). Unlike almost all of us, he was carefree & never took any situation seriously. It was very important to understand that at least consciously he never meant to hurt anyone. This is the kind of character which I think is very important and should be in every friend circle.

It was said in the movie that - "Every frienship has a boundary & it is not necessary that a person should tolerate his/her friends every action". Well, I believe in friendship more than I have believed in anything else (except believe in myself). We are talking about best buds, who are ready to go all out for each other. So, my question is that is there really any such boundary between best friends? All I can make out of this line id crap. I always thought that real frienship means no boundaries. I know that if you are reading this than suddenly a nasty idea has popped in your head that "badal is saying no boundaries, does he understand what he is saying? No boundaries mean that his friend can beat him to a pulp or drop a bomb at his home and he won't say anything." Well, if that is what you are thinking, than it is you who doesn't understand what I am saying & doesn't have a slightest clue what real friends mean. There is a very big difference in the words 'friends' and 'best friends'. We can be friends with anyone, but it takes years for us to become someone's best friend.

If you are best friends, than you are already far beyond the situation when you have to tolerate each other. Words like Irritate, tolerate & embarassing don't really exist in the dictionary of friendship. I mean definitely there are few things which they say or do which we don't like, but that doesn't mean we can go around slapping them. Everyone has 2 options to deal with it - first, we can either think, laugh about it and then move on, or else, we can tell them that we don't like it. If he/she really is your best friend, then I believe he/she will understand. I always believed in the 3rd option, i.e., I never mind it. I think, if my friends ever hurt my feelings intentionally, then it could be either they are really pissed off, or may be I am the one whose perception is wrong. If it is the former one, then we shouldn't mind it & give them some time to cool it off. Time heals everything. Once they have regained their composure, they will definitely apologize for the things they said which they didn't mean. And, if it is the latter one, then isn't it something to think about before going on an all out war and cutting them out of our lifes?

Well, in the movie, the reason given behind all the slapping was Love. The character Sid was in love & what ever Akash said hurt his feelings. Really? I never really understood the term Love. I am not talking about the love with your parents or friends or the things which you like to do, but love which happens between a boy and girl (In some cases boy-boy or girl-girl). But, I guess it exists because so many movies have been made about it & so many people are wasting their life in it. But, if love is anything like the way shown in the movie, then my perception differs from those who think they are in "love". The feelings we share with our parents, brothers & friends should be the real definition of love. If a feeling is making you obsessed, making you hit your friend who was by your side all the time, making you forget about your parents who taught you how to walk and held your fingers so that you don't fall, then I think that love is a disease or perhaps a virus, even dangerous than HIV. It's a state of madness, a psychotic disorder which distorts the perception of reality. It takes the concept of rationality and pragmatism out of your mind. How could it be called the best creation of all?

The character, falling in love with a 45 year old divorced woman-who has a child and got drinking problem, was out of my psychic range. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that this kind of person never really had any kind of experience with girls. He never really even spoke with one. That is why when he got in touch with that women, he suddenly felt attracted and confussed infatuation with love. And not to lose this feeling, he even defended himself by hitting his best friend. Suppose, I was really in love & my friend had said something like this, then at the max I would have picked BC/MC or would've stopped talking to him till he said sorry. But, slap? May be it is time for you to think about it.

In the end, all you can do is love yourself. Or may be try to introuduce art in your gloomy, hollow life. Listen Pink Floyd or else get laid ;)

Badal - All killer, No filler

India, Pakistan and the situation

Well, Hi guys, I am back again after a very very big break. I don't whether you will be interested in reading this post or not, but I will try to make it interesting. I've been reading quite a lot lately because of my preperation for CAT, and I was highly interested in the history of India and Pakistan. Don't worry, this isn't a chronicle of the events which occured since 1947, I was just tempted to share my thoughts about this.

India, definitely one of the biggest democractic success, has continually been traumatized by our neigbour Pakistan since 1947. Pakistan gives us the perfect definition of botched up democracy. Every since the partition, they had a feeling of discontent regarding the kashmir issue. They not only felt that India, in coalition with Britain played a foxy game by giving them Pakistan which was very small than their expectations. Even though a lie, Pakistan claimed that India usurped Kashmir (a disputed state), and has been trying to get it back and include it in Pakistani border. We have tried to forget the events which occured past partition to maintain a cordial relation with Pakistan, but they continued the rancour and bred a continous hatred against India. It isn't the younger Pakistani generation's fault, but their ancestors', who were so frustrated with their continual defeat against India, that instead of creating a stable and prosperous country they ended up bequeathing (may be unconsciously) all the ill-will. Education, as all we know, is the key to development, but in Pakistan it brought disaster. Psychologically speaking, every human being is a product of environment, society and education. Same is the case with Pakistan. Ever since a child is born in Pakistan, he/she is taught one compulsary subject - Pakistan History. Instead of creativity and morality, a child is taught nothing but how India was cruel to Pakistan, how India declared wars on Pakistan for Kashmir and what political games India played against Pakistan to create Bangladesh. No matter how smart a person is, the brainwashing done in childhood lingers on for life. Hence, almost all of Pakistan now hates India and is trying to bring us down.

Even though Pakistan has a poor and highly unstable economy, their government is busy in making mass destruction weapons. The GDP of pakistan is ranked 49/180, their HDI (Human development Index) is ranked 140th/177, their literacy rank is 160/177, their quality of life index rank is 93/111, but they are ranked 7th in Nuclear warhead ranking, and ranked 14th in army index. They have received close 10 billion US dollars (largest aid given by any country to any other country) just for economic development, but 70% of the money is spent in breeding terrorist organizations against India.

But, the important thing to notice would be that we can't throw all the dirt to pakistan for their actions. Newton's third law applies here very well: "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction", in here we have Islamic reaction. What we are facing now is a product of our own misdeeds. For example, 1992, the year of demolition of Babri mazjid. Pakistan just gave shoulder to the vengeful muslims to carry an all out war, which would've happened anyway. Confrontation with Pakistan is as inevitable as poverty.

We have now fallen in a grim situation. What have we been doing, what are we doing and what else can we do to reconcile? What can be the correct approach to make peace with our neighbour? Peace talks have been going on since our PM was Narshimha rao, but the situation has rather aggravated sinced then. It is pretty much clear that we can't win the war with power. The more we push them and try to intimidate them, the more we suffer later on. Pakistan is a country which has a good support of powerful nations like USA and China, while we, because of our NAT, have even lost our support from Russia, the only country which can stand up against the other two. Do we really stand a chance in defeating them one-on-one? May be we do, but I think that we won't be able to face the consequences. We are up against a nation which has nothing to lose, but we, on the other hand, have a lot.

What would've happened if in 09 election BJP instead of UPA had formed the government with LK Advani as our Prime Minister. Would it have been better if the power was handed to those who are sorely responsible for the religious mess, the perpetrators of heinuous crimes like Godhra Kand & Demolition of Babri Mazjid? And between all this, I think about Mahatama Gandhi, the father of our nation. I never really understood his ideologies and his deeds, but now I definitely understand what our nation would have been like if we had followed his ideologies. Just like we were united once, we can still be united. We just have to understand the fact that nation comes before our religion or our personal differences.

I believe the victory of UPA was better for our country. I can't even imagination how a BJP goverment would've handeled the situation after 26/11. Their extreme hinduism and RSS' hindutva ideology has done nothing but harm to our country. It is correctly said that the best offence is a good defense. It would be better for our country to strengthen up our defense rather than pushing others around. We could've avoided all the terrorist attacks if only we had been more vigilant.

It is an important thing to understand the nothing good comes out of war. Just to satisfy a personal grudge of few, millions of people have to pay with their lives. Hate is a baggage. Life is too short to be pissed off all the time. We ain't enemies or perhaps, we must not be enemies.

Fat boy slim

Hey guys, sorry that I kept you waiting for more of my stories. Some of you might be thinking that my blogging was just a one time mania, but let me assure you that it's not. I might not be very regular with the posts because you know, I've other things to do as well. Anyway, this post is a tribute to all those fat losers who are disgusted with their big corpulent bellies and humongous fat asses.

Some Fatass: "Who in the god's name are you to write about this?"
I: "Sorry to say, but I am one those who had been afflicted by this malicious and evil form of life. My innocence and obliviousness plumped me out. No more questions, only the story of my this part of life with continue."

Ok, this story starts from 2004, the point when I was about to enter college after 12th. Back then, I weighed around 67Kgs, rather underweight for my height. I was slim or maybe good looking (which I still am) & used to girls (none of them were pretty though) making passes at me. I was never worried & it didn't even come in the darkest of my dreams what was about to happen in the upcoming 4-5 months.

When I watched the movie Dhoom (Yeah, back then my movie taste sucked too), I was bedazzled by the attitude and style shown by actor John Abraham. I started daydreaming and pictured myself just like him. I mean, just face removed by mine and everything else the same. Well, don't judge me on this. None of us had a concept of actors/movies back then, and some of you still don't have it. We were in the state of oblivious where we would've appreaciated even Himesh Reshamiya. Anyway, after the movie, my frequency of going to the washroom increased tremendously (Don't get any wrong ideas, I am straight) because I couldn't live without watching myself in the mirror after every hour or so. I even bought a poster of John Abraham and stuck it up to the walls of my room. Three of my friends shared the same dreams, but unfortunately all of them looked like different arrangements of dried out bamboos in human's anatomical structure, but with a soul in it. It looked pretty easy for me to reach that goal. And so, I thought of building up some muscles by working out.

I had read somewhere that for building muslces up we have to eat a lot. Didn't read enough to find out what to eat. Mess @ IIT Bombay is good; you get to eat 4 times a day. My eating habit changed completely.

For breakfast: "Dude bread doesn't taste good, let's put some butter in it."
At Luncheon: "Dude, roti doesn't taste good, let's put some ghee in it".
At Snacks: "Dude, samosa doesn't taste good, let's put some butter on it."
At Dinner: "Dude, today's dinner sucks. I am going to canteen. Uncle, mera 2 cheese paratha."
At 12 a.m. "Dude, you feeling hungry? Let's go to canteen. Boss, mera 1 cheese maggi".
At 4 a.m. "Dude, up for maddu mess? Boss, mera 3 egg dosa."

And again breakfast @ 8:30. For the first 15 days I thought I was cruising.

One day, I tried to put on an old jeans, it was rather tight. Well, without much thought, I was happy: "I think doing the squats has paid out". That time I didn't really understand that It was I who was paying all out. After a month or so, I started too see that 2 of my friends were showing signs of workout, but the third one looked like more water has been sucked out of him. Anyway, I was happy with my performance too, since, my shirts and pants were getting tight day by day.
After 2 months, I started to feel that my clothes were getting so tight, that I even had problems in crouching down with my pants on. One day, one of my friends pointed out:

friend:"Oye Badal, you look big"
me: "Jeez, thanks dude"
friend: "No no, you really look big"
me: "Hmmm, gymming pays off"
friend: Thinking in his mind "?????????????????????"

After a few more days, I was getting ready for my morning class. I tried very hard to pull the pants on. Now the pants were so tight that they were kind of hurting my balls. I went into washroom to check out what was going on. I turned sideways to tuck my shirt in, and all of a sudden I caught a glimpse of my ass.

My first reaction: " What the f***? What the hell is going on".

I moved away a little bit to take a good look at it. My ass was protruding out like a whole sweater was stuffed between my pants and my ass. To be precise, it shaped like the curve a parabolic curve x=y² : y[-2,2]. I took my shirt off for more disappointment.

My second reaction: "Ye kya hai?"

Two tyre shaped bulges were coming out of both the sides of my waist. My mind went completely numb and body paralyzed for few minutes after seeing that horrible sight. I looked more like Himesh Reshamiya. I couldn't understand how and why it happened? The whole day I couldn't concentrate on anything. I spoke to my friend about this and he said "Well, I was trying to tell you about this that day, but you didn't understand what I actually meant". Suddenly everyone started noticing about my big ass. One of my friends (who looks mentally handicapped) even started calling me by the name Bedhole. I was so depressed with this that I stopped working out but didn't reduce my diet.

One day again, my friends and I went out for buying some new jeans' and stuff. When we entered a shop and were looking around, the shopkeeper came and said:

Shopkeeper: "Which waist size are you looking for sir?"
me: "2 months ago I checked it was 32"
Shopkeeper: "No problem, we will measure it again. It is 34 sir"
me (Little embarassed): "Ok show us some jeans"

Shopkeeper took out a jeans and gave it to me. I checked the waist size:

me: "Boss, ye to 36 hai"
Shopkeeper: "To kya hua sir? In two months you reached 34 from 32, within a month you will be there at 36. So why not invest in future?"
Friends: "hahahahaha"
me: "O bhen ki"

I was so heartbroken that I went to a weighing machine to check my weight. I came out to be 83Kgs. God damn it, in four months I had increased from 67 Kgsto 83Kgs. I was so embarassed that I took an oath that for the sem-break, I will go home and jog till I am back at 74Kgs. At home:

Me: "Mummaaa, kal hi to samose banaye the. Aaj kuch meetha, Moong ka halwa?"

A problem

This one is a rather short post. It is not a story, but a part of my personality. I would like to share how I percieve certain things.

I am single, have always been single, and the future doesn't look shiny at all. I don't know what approach people use & eventually get involved in a relation or something. No one taught me anything or maybe no one can. I follow a very weird and unusual approach when I like someone. It doesn't work if you aren't good looking :P. My approach is - Attitude. Girls like it when someone can't stop looking at them. Maybe it just makes them feel special. I just follow the exact opposite of this. No matter how good looking a girl is, I don't give a penny's attention. Infact I don't even look at them, even if she is sitting right next to me. I don't know why, but chicks dig it. It has always been them who have approached me. Infact I have been asked several times for my phone no. :D. But, the problem is, I just don't know when to stop. I take it upto the level when they start thinking that maybe I am not interested. Eventually, they move on. :( :( :( :(

If you guys think that there would be something which you can teach me about this problem, then you are cordially invited. But please don't come up with cliche's like "Badal, just be yourself" or "There is no approach, it comes narutally".

Regards,
Badal

Hey guys, this is for the first time I am writing a blog. Practically, I've no idea what blogging is all about, but I've heard its something about sharing your views with those who are interested. I am not a very persuasive writer, so don't expect too much out of this post. I had been thinking for a long time to share my first job interview experience with outer world, and so, here it is.

It all started in the month of Dec. 2007, as our placement season was on the brink of commencement. Me and most of my friends, in fact, all of the people appearing for placements had a dream (with all "confidence" of success) of getting placed with companies like Opera, BCG and top level investment banks. Yet, a dark feeling was staggering around somehwhere in the corner of our heads that we might end up being placed in companies like INFOSYS and TCS, or in a worst case scenario, kicked hard on the ass with a tag of 'no placement'. I was the special victim of this fear; want to know why?

In my 4 years @ IIT, all I did was sit, relax and live in the fear of getting the almighty FR (fail and repeat) grade. I was good at mathematics, but eversince they taught us epsilon-delta, I barely passed all my MA courses with a DD grade. The time when everyone was busy in building their CPI, I used to think of ways to reduce my small flourishing belly. Staying @ IIT in sem breaks was a sin for me. People used to stay and do something productive like project, training etc. for framing their resumes, and I used to relax and watch my ass go bigger everyday at my home. All I learnt in 4 years was equivalent to a lump of dogshit. All I had to write in my resume was my BTP and a fake, yet very challenging internship.

Now the day had come, my placement season kicked off with a series of tests for clearing the fungus who thinks that they will definitely crack this company. Above all, my pride, out of no where, was on its extreme and made me decide not to cheat in the tests. Who would've guessed that a bunch of 4 pointers with mutual support got shortlisted everytime and made us wait for longer period. All those people in whom I had full confidence that they will be placed after me, got placed on the very first day. A friend (Aman Pruthi) and I were so enjoying this scene that we often burnt the self-made effigies of those companies who didn't shortlist us (Believe me, 80% of the those companies are bankrupt now). Almost a week had passed and all of my friends had been interviewed by atleast 4-5 companies, on the other end, the count of my interview experience was still zero. The day Pruthi got placed was the biggest psychic trauma for me, as, I was the only person in our group remaining. Anyway, I was extremely patient about this or else it would've been disastrous for my "upcoming" interviews. Finally the day came. I wasn't really game for IT companies but the 'no-job' tag was haunting me, and so I sat for TIBCO's test. Even though my hands on experience in coding was zero, I had the 3rd highest marks in the test. Now don't start judging me, I didn't cheat and don't call it a fluke either because I put a lot of thoughts before marking the objective choices. For the first time I was shortlisted for an interview, and now was my chance to prove myself.

My TIBCO session started with a Group Discussion. I sucked at GD, but fortunately my group sucked more than me and add to that, the GD examiner was the biggest sucker of all. We all farted for a very long time on the very same point which was initiated by the examiner. I don't know why, but he was agreeeing and nodding with my farts like I am George Bush or something. The whole group was able to clear the GD. Now came the most interesting and thrilling part. my personal interview.

My first round of interview was with a very young man, who looked quite like a real interviewer, but he wasn't. With a scary face he asked me a puzzle. Though it was really a difficult one, I solved the 75% of the problem very fast without touching a pen or paper not only because I am intelligent, but I had solved a very similar problem recently. Being a good actor, I acted like I encountered the problem for the first time and almost reached the solution. Dude, I could say from the look at his face; He was impressed. Then he asked me a guesstimate about no. of Gas stations in U.S. What an easy question? Anyone who has done a guesstimate before would've been able to solve this one. He thought I am really good. Now he was more politer. Luckily, the legendary question which is feared the most in every interview was struck directly at my face; Why do you want to join our company?. To be frank, I didn't have the answer prepared for this, but I had a hunch that whatever phrase I am going to concoct, it would be more than better to please him. I said "Sir, whatever coding language I learnt in my 1st year is the only exposure I've got in terms of CS. Even though I was interested, I didn't get much chance to work on my C++ skills, since you know that Mechanical Engineering is not much relevant. But I would be more than happy to startoff with it again if you give me a chance". I even sounded credible to myself. He liked what I said and he tried to test whether I am lying or not. He asked me to write 3 codes in C++, and forunately enough I did them without any problem. Now came my resume part. I had prepared for my resume very strongly and I was very confident now. He asked my about my B. Tech. project (Nonlinear vibrations and chaos), which was obviously out of his imagination. I babbled out every single line which I had prepared and it proved quite a success. By the end of the interview he was sure that I am definitely going to make it.

Now came my second round. This guy was dark colored and it was clearly visible that he tried to color his hair all by himself. This guy was rather rough and a little bleak with no smile on his face. Half of the interview part went just like the previous one, but now he asked a tough C++ program. I was looking and thinking dumbly at the problem for 2 minutes. After a very long fight I solved it in 4 minutes. His facial expressions were saying that he wasn't pleased with the performance. Just when I was thinking that I am losing it, he slammed an another puzzle at my face. He said "you've a big round table and many small circular plates. If two people (1 & 2) are putting the plates on table one by one randomly till the table is full and maximum surface area is covered, and suppose person 1 started with first plate, who would be the last person to put the plate on the table, 1 or 2?" This was the hint when I thought I should run away because I didn't even understand the problem. Fortunately he went out of the room to eat his leftover pizza, I started thinking and drawing diagrams. Suddenly the solution struck up my head and I told him that I solved the problem. He was looking at me like I was bluffing. I said whoever started first would be the person to put the last table. He frowned for a while and then said "why?". Now I was back, I said "let me explain it to you with a simplified case. Suppose no. 1 starts with a plate in the center. To cover circumferencially the center plate they need 6 plates which is even number and obviously no. 2 would start this row and no. 1 would end with this row. Similarly, for this row they will need an even no. of plates to cover the 6 plates. And for the last circular row, since the no. of plates is even, no. 2 would start and no. 1 will end". Now he was deeply bedazzled by my elegant aura. I finally got that he himself didn't know that answer and was looking for one. Now all the black clouds circling around my luck were shining like they've just been polished with dabur laal dand manjan. Rest of the interview went smooth and he was convinced too.

Now comes the third round of interview. The old man was a real emotional cow. The old grandpa was so innocent that even if you slap him and insult him, he would undoubtedly hire you. He asked me a few questions about me and my family. My future plannings and all blatant questions. By the end of this interview I was sure that I am in. I asked him few simple questions about work culture and place of posting.

Now came my fourth interview. This guy had an amazingly fake british accent and on the top of that He looked like an ostrich talking in front of me. He asked me a few question on my resume which I again explained very beautifully. Then I added few comments by myself that "Sir, I've heard (didn't mention that heard it from the previous interviewer) about the culture @ TIBCO and it is exactly the same kind of working environment I want to work in". He was happy that I knew about their company and so he concluded that I must really be interested in joining them. He stood up and said I will discuss with my colleagues so please wait outside for a while. After a minute or two, I was called inside the interview room and offered a slice of chicken mexican red wave (cheese burst). They said "Congratulations, you are one of us now." I was so relieved that I shyly took one more slice and everyone started laughing and said "Don't be shy, you've earned it".