World's greatest business mind

While the accolades are pouring in from all parts of the world, I thought I'd just let my readers share my happiness on my blog site.

Yes, I have been awarded for the World's greatest business mind. Please visit the following link to read the full story.

http://www.themessagegroup.com.au/last-nights-news.php?title=20090109-Susant-Sabat_create.html

A childhood lost

A boy with a clean shaven head walks rather slowly and makes his way among the crowd. The house is full of people, mostly his relatives . He keeps constant vigil on the dining arrangements and inquires if all the food items have been cooked sufficiently for the guests. Seeing his immaculate arrangement, people gossip about his late father who himself was known for throwing lavish parties and feasts. They talk about how this quality had brushed onto his son. The 12 year old manages to smile at them and proceeds towards his 7 year old sister who looks like she hasn't slept for days. She is surrounded by a lot of older women trying to console her. The young girl, indifferent to the condolences, just keeps on staring at the wall. Looking at her predicament, the boy requests the surrounding women to leave him alone with his sister for a few minutes. They silently oblige as they know that the little girl had no one else closer than her elder brother. He sits beside her without uttering a word and hugs her while caressing her long black hair. The eyes of the little girl suddenly erupts with tears as she embraces her brother tightly. The sound of sobbing only grows louder as all the 50 - odd people attending the Sraddh of the kids' parents join in. While the women are more vocal, the males can be seen trying their best to hold their tears. Some people start lavishing praise on the boy for his strength and the way he has taken responsibility after the misfortune hit the family.

But he was not always that responsible.

Just 2 weeks back on a winter evening in the CST station, he was whining to his parents to buy him the book on astrology he had spotted in the store on the CST platform. He was stubborn on his demand and refused to get on the train until they oblige. While the negotiations between the parents and the boy were in progress, they missed the train and so decided to succumb to their son's demand and catch the next train. The boy was happy and started hopping to the store and his kid sister followed his rhythm. He knew how to manipulate his parents to get what he wants. Suddenly, a bang was heard just out of the station. It seemed like a wall had fell down. The crowd started running wild. Suddenly two heavily armed men appeared in front of their eyes and started firing indiscriminately at the unsuspecting crowd. The girl scared with the sudden noise pressed herself to her mother's legs while the father guarded the son in his arms. The parents showing immediate reflex forced their kids on to the floor and laid themselves over them fully covering the kids' bodies. The boy could only see in between the tiny opening of his father's bent arm and his head. He saw the armed men spraying bullets for some more minutes and then running away from the place. He was so shocked that he didn't realize the warm blood flowing on his face. The first realization occurred when his father didn't move even though other people lying beside them had already stood up. One of them helped the boy out of the heavy corpse lying above him. Looking at his father's white shirt reddened with blood, he realized that his fathers blood had trickled onto his face. He looked around and saw people with hurt limbs crawling on the blood splattered floor. The look of horror in his eyes only matched the eyes of his kid sister who was standing beside him. Her yellow frock which was gifted to her on her birthday by her mother was only a bloody mess. Before he could ask his sister if she was alright, he watched his mother's body lying in a puddle of blood. He ran towards her but it was already too late. The parents had succumbed to the bullets but had saved their kids. A sacrifice worth taking but for what reason?

The loss was huge and irreversible. Everything that gave the boy his identity till then had been snatched away from him in one fanatic act of terrorism. Something more had changed in a moment. He had turned the eldest in his surviving family of two and he had to take care of his sister. The boy had lived a decade in that single moment. A boy had been forced to become a man against his will. A childhood was lost. But for what reason?

P.S: Above is a fictional account of real people who died in the terrorist attacks that rocked Mumbai on 26th- 29th November. I am shocked, ashamed and highly enraged by the incident and my heart goes to all the men who lost their lives to this highly deplorable and despicable act. May God give the strength to their family members to tide through this incident.

HEAVEN AND HELL

The other day my client manager asked me if I believed in the concept of man going to Heaven or Hell after death. I could never convince myself that God would be that foolish to think that people will be inspired to do good things because of the gifts they will get or because of the fear that they would be punished after death. I told him I believe in the concept but I feel the place of these mythical places have been ordered inappropriately in the lifecycle or rather after-life cycle of Men.

I believe we come across Heaven and Hell in our own life time rather than after our life. We, sometimes face it as an effect for a cause, the Karma effect, and more often just to distinguish between the two diametrically opposite states of heightened human emotions, namely Happiness and Sadness. Now, as the definition of happiness and sadness can be different for different people, the meaning of Heaven and Hell can be different too. In fact I believe we have our own personal Heaven and personal Hell and one person's concept of Heaven could be another person's concept of Hell.

The following are some of the instances or periods in my lifetime where I felt or feel like being in my personal Heaven or personal Hell

• Listening to music with an uninterested and noisy crowd...HELL....listening to my favorite music alone..HEAVEN.
• Not being able to answer nature's call..HELL..answering it in the proper place and at the nick of time...HEAVEN
• Indian cricket team loses by a heavy margin..HELL...India beats Australia...HEAVEN...Sachin hits a century in the win...7th HEAVEN
• Traffic in Bangalore..HELL...solitude in Chandrabhaga(Konark) beach..HEAVEN
• The period of 4th semester in college..HELL, 3rd semester..HEAVEN...Vibranz 03..7th HEAVEN
• Times Square on 23rd May..HELL..Niagara Falls on 26th May..HEAVEN
• Shopping with women...HELL..the warmth in my beloved's arms...HEAVEN
• Frustration of failure or rejection..HELL...Succeeding after repeated failures..HEAVEN.
• Not being able to express what I feel..HELL..being able to speak my heart out and making the audience really feel what I say..HEAVEN

Before Sunset - A Review

Let me sing you a waltz.
Out of nowhere out of my thoughts.
Let me sing you a waltz .
About this one night stand.

These are the opening lines of the song that Celine sings for Jesse in the climax and could also possibly sum up the movie for you. Like the Waltz, it walks at a leisurely pace, never hurrying, involves you with it, makes you sway to its rhythm and ends in 3/4 time, a little before you expect it to end.

After watching Before Sunrise, I wondered why should anyone think of a sequel to this movie ?Why shouldn't we just be allowed to have our own versions of the climax? The romantic in me did hope that Jesse and Celine met after 6 months and that hope gave me a lot to cheer about. There is a certain romance in letting some questions unanswered. But Mr Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (they co-wrote the screenplay this time) had other ideas. This movie drags us from the comfort zone of escapist romanticism and pushes into the more real world with harsh realities.

Jesse is in Paris for a reading of his novel which is based on the magical one night stand in Vienna. Celine meanwhile has read the book and has come to meet him . No, they did not meet after 6 months and they are meeting after 9 long years. This movie is not about infidelity either. The story moves with them deciding to spend around one and half hours together before Jesse leaves Paris. Like its prequel, this movie derives its love for the sound of realistic conversations between the two protagonists. If the prequel was a 1 1/2 hour movie about the 14 hours that they spent together, this is a 1 hour and 15 mins movie about the 1 hour and 15 mins that they spend together. This is real-time movie making.

I just wanted another try.
I just wanted another night .
Even if it doesn't seem quite right .

Unlike Before Sunrise, the two characters are more matured now and so does their topics of conversation. They are two older intelligent persons - a novelist and an environment activist. They are both committed to other persons but they know those realtionships aren't close to the passionate and perfect one night stand they shared 9 years ago. They have both moved forward in life but always with a regret that it is not them who are together. The worst possible thing that happens to you at this juncture is that you always feel the other person is happy and enjoying his/her life without you. They do not start confessing it right away but you can always sense it is around the corner when they probe each other if they are happy with their lives. They talk about politics, the environment, their work and avoiding the questions they (as well as we ) really want to know. The confessions come slowly and in discrete before both breaking it out in the cab.

The biggest achievement that this Oscar nominated screenplay achieves is the expression of the hidden feelings between the two characters without being explicit. You can sense the tension between them even if they are not letting it out in the conversations. You can feel Celine's helplessness when she wants to touch Jesse and comfort him but has to pull away. You can almost feel their frustration of being pulled away by fate again. Their love for each other- a blessing and a curse both at the same time. A blessing because they can probably live their whole life idolizing that one magical one night stand and a curse because they wont be able to spend their life together.

I have no bitterness, my sweet .
I'll never forget this one night thing.
Even tomorrow, another arms
My heart will stay yours until I die

Ah ! the climax. The unconventional though perfect climax that haunted me for 4 consecutive nights and made me do something that I thought was unthinkable lately (Doll would agree). The movie starts with answering the questions that Before Sunrise posed and by the end, it again leaves you with a lot of new questions unanswered. The movie is like a drink that doubles your thirst the moment you stop drinking and so you want to keep on drinking. It is a lesson on love but not preachy. I'd strongly recommend this movie to anyone who has seen/felt the highs alnd lows of love . They will identify with the characters and the people who have been fortunate enough to find their love as their partner will feel lucky. Once again- Kudos to the director, the two lead actors and the team for giving us such a movie which lives with us even when we are not watching it. But this time, I'd like to give a special mention about Julie Delpy's performance in the movie and especially in the climax. Watch out for her Nina Simone impersonation.

Let me sing you a waltz.
Out of nowhere out of my thoughts.
Let me sing you a waltz .
About this one night stand.

Forgive me but I can't get rid of this song from my mind lately. Here is Julie Delpy's rendition of Let me sing you a waltz. She is a great singer too!

P.S: Thanks to all those who have watched Before Sunrise after reading my review and sorry for breaking the suspense about Jesse and Celine if you haven't watched Before Sunset yet. But let me tell you there is more to this movie. Go watch it and I am sure you'd like to add more to this review. Looking forward to your responses.

Random thoughts in a lonely night

1. Why do we have to say "fine" when someone asks us how we are doing without any intent to know how we are and when we are everything other than "fine"? Why cant we just be honest by saying "None of your business" OR '' "As you do, you a**hole" OR express it more smartly by exercising our middle finger?

2. Why do kids laugh when they are running? What has the hysterical sound and exposure of teeth to do with feeling funny?

3. Were the clothes invented to protect ourselves from weather or for fashion or just to cover our private parts? When did men realize that some selected organs need to be hidden and why?

4. How did people travel in US before Google introduced Google maps?

5. What is the name of the new President of India? Why cant I remember her name?

6. How would life be if we are accompanied with background score to suit our emotions as in movies? Probably every date of ours would have ended up with dancing around trees (as in Bollywood) or in bed (as in Hollywood).

7. Why is it that most relationships do not last long? Is it possible that relationships come with an expiry period and those who are continuing beyond it are just too lazy to switch over?

8. Why isnt moving forward in life as easy as turning a page of a book and forgetting someone as easy as erasing pencil marks?

9. Why isn't Doll calling me yet? Why am I waiting?

10. Why can't I stop having these random thoughts and just sleep?

Before Sunrise - A review

So, here goes my first movie review.

During a visit to one of my friend's house in Kolkata, I remember meeting his roomate (I forgot his name) who shared a common passion with me - Movies. We discussed, scrutinized and analyzed all kinds of movies-blockbusters, drama, crime stories, thrillers, independent cinema. There were two movies which he strongly recommended to me - Before Sunrise and its sequel Before Sunset. I had heard a little about it but never was able to find it in the stores at my place. Finally, thanks to Time Warner cable , Utorrent(read 'mu' torrent) and the seeds who shared the movie for me to download, I was able to watch this gem of creativity.

Before Sunrise is a tale of two strangers meeting on a train and deciding to spend a night in Vienna before they go their separate ways. The plot is very thin but the movie is all about a series of conversations they have in the next 14 hours that they spend with each other. The intelligence of the screenplay is in the fact that the conversations have been made so real and honest that you would feel you are the invisible 3rd person with them who isn't speaking but participating in their conversations. They talk about documentaries, childhood memories, reincarnation, role of parents, past relationships etc. You would generally get bored when you are subjected to such long discussions in movies but the boldness of the script is in it that it dares you to get bored.

To make the conversations look really authentic and give the lazy feel, most of the movie has really long shots and credit has to be given to the young lead pair (then)- Ethane Hawke and Julie Delpy who carry it with ease even when the camera is so still and scrutinizes their mannerism to the minutest detail. I bet any other director would have tried to show the exotic locations of Vienna when you have such a beautiful city to shoot. But here the director uses it like a beautiful woman sans the make-up. As you normally find, it is still beautiful without it.

I love each scene of the movie but if a gun is put on my head and I know that it is loaded, I would pick the following scenes from the movie as 'special'
1. The scene where Jesse convinces Celine to go out with him to Vienna and spend the night. You would really feel and wished you could have done the same.
2. The scene in the listening room. No words spoken. But look at the faces.
3. The coneversation on 'feminism'.
4. The scene where they act like talking to their friends on phone.
5. The scene where they define their relationship.
6. The talk about sex in the lawn.
7. The climax scene at the station.
8. The scene at the end where there are images of those empty places where they had been the previous night.

It is an intelligent 'feel good' movie. A movie that serves us hope but does not serve a fantasy to say that love still exists. A must watch and strongly recommended.

I have also seen the sequel to the movie Before Sunset but its review on my next post.

Will start blogging again!

0k..I know it has been long since I blogged. I had stopped blogging because I felt I did not have much to write (thanks mainly to my 9Am-4Am job) but now after all the pangas in workplace, a failed relationship and my arrival to a new place(USA) life has suddenly got spiced up. I promise I will return soon. Till then..Wait.

THE FORECAST

The forecast in Times of India read, “Change is on the horizon and you can see it coming. Embrace it and see what happens. You do your best to make things clear but others seem determined not to listen”

I have a habit of checking the forecasts for my zodiac sign regularly (FYI, I am a Capricorn) and never has it seemed more accurate. This is the first time I have decided for a change in around 3 years and I have started sensing the tension build around me. My mother has started hinting at how my father does not like my decision. My father, while not completely denying what my mother said, attempts to re-phrase it to me in more diplomatic words. I know the words will slowly transform into more meaningful, emotional and personal terms (read blackmails) in the coming months. So, as far as the weather forecast goes, my life at home will be full of clouds and rains in the coming months. Probably my parents are fighting their own battle where they has to choose between staying close to their loved one and the good of their loved one. I know they will choose the latter finally but not before using all the tricks in the book for the former. The tension is less at office as they are unaware of the plans. Currently, the weather is quite gloomy at office and it is at a standstill. Call it the silence before the storm as torrential downpours can be expected with frequent thunder and lightning in the coming weeks when they know about my plans to leave the company. YES, I have decided to call it QUITS.

Though my decision is planned and well thought out, I am also fighting my own battle to break away from the shackles of the comfort zone that I have become so habituated to. Staying with your family, drawing a reasonably good salary and working in a reputed firm is almost all that a society feels a person needs for stability. I have all of that and being single and uncommitted also rules out the possibilities of girl-friend-induced or wife-induced instabilities. But have I achieved everything that I wanted or am I achieving all that I aspired for in this state of stability? The answer is NO. I have always believed that Stability Is a Curse (inspired from Nagesh Kukonoor’s film production company, SIC) and it is a big roadblock in the path of achieving greater success. Despite my strong views on the same, I have to agree that some part of me wants to cling on to this comfort zone of stability. Probably there is some force working in the Universe, which is trying to bring every unstable object to the final state of stability. But once it attains stability, it has nothing else to do. In other words, attaining this finally state of stability can be equated to DEATH. I believe it is this journey from instability to stability, which is called LIFE and we have to attain everything we want within that journey. My current state can be called stable but I feel that I have not achieved enough to attain this final state and for heaven’s sake, I am too young to die.

The change I have decided on is to re-attain the state of instability that will initiate something I have been missing since long… the journey of life. I don’t know if the decision I have taken is the best one for me but I know everyone has the right to make a decision for his own and to suffer/enjoy its consequences and I am ready for it. I am ready for a new life.

And of course, I will be paid much better in return. (no puns unintended)☺☺☺

SHANTARAM…

I just completed reading the book, “SHANTARAM” written by Gregory David Roberts.
It was awesome, mind blowing and according to me, a literary masterpiece.
Here is a prologue to the book. I hope you enjoy it as I did.

“It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortures. I realized, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn’t sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it’s all you got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.

In my case, it’s a long story, and a crowded one. I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum security prison. When I escaped from that prison, over the front wall, between two gun towers, I became my country’s most wanted man. Luck ran with me and flew with me across the world to India, where I joined the Bombay mafia. I worked as a gunrunner, a smuggler and counterfeiter. I was chained on three continents, beaten, stabbed, and starved. I went to war. I ran into the enemy guns. And I survived, while other men around me died. They were better men than I am, most of them: better man whose lives were crunched up in mistakes, and thrown away by the wrong second of someone else’s hate, or love, or indifference. And I buried them, too many of those men, and grieved their stories and their lives into my own.

But my story doesn’t begin with them, or with the mafia: it goes back to that first day in Bombay. Fate put me in the game there. Luck dealt the cards that led me to Karla Saaranen. And I started to play it out, that hand, from the first moment I looked into her green eyes. So it begins, this story, like everything else- with a woman, and a city, and a little bit of luck.”

I’ M FREE…

I’ m free…I’ m on BENCH.

Since the last 6 months, I have not been getting much work in the project. Today, I m relieved from the pain and burden of having a project code against my name.
Yesterday, on hearing this, one of my friends asked,
“I don’t understand. You didn’t have to work earlier and you don’t have to work now. What the difference does it make?”
I hope this blog can explain the difference.

My association with the project was much like an affair with a young, gorgeous lady.
(I call it ‘young’ because it was a single resource project and ‘gorgeous’ because I got to work on niche technologies).It gave me high visibility (due to client appreciations and good appraisals) in the circle (my project in particular and unit as a whole) and also envious on-lookers (due to my late-to-office-early-to-go routine). The only and the biggest problem with the project was that I didn’t have “enough” work.

The case was like -You can sleep with this young, gorgeous lady but you can’t make love to her. Now, this is an insult to the manhood of any person. You just cannot expect any MAN to do that. Of course, ‘Making love to her’ is the single-most important thing in the world for a man in that position. I am sure, ‘just sleeping with her’ does not even feature in his ‘Top 10^n, n-> Infinity, actions I would like to do in my life-time’ list.
Similarly, for a Software engineer, it is an insult to be in a project where there is not enough work. I would like to have all the good appraisals, appreciations and envy from my project mates, but for my work/quality of work rather than for the lack of it.
A release from the project gives me two immediate benefits:
Reduces frustration
Makes me available for service to other projects. (It is very much possible that I don’t just have to sleep with the lady this time)

So, this is for the other gorgeous ladies (projects)…

I’ m free…I’ m on BENCH.
Only Term and Condition: You know what ;-)

What is more painful in love?

• Her coldness towards you, or her indifference.
• The ‘Fear’ in her eyes on your presence, or the look of ‘Sympathy’ towards you.
• An outright rejection of your proposal, or her aloofness after saying “We can be friends”
• Not receiving any calls from her, or not being able to call her up
• Her absence when you needed her or your absence when she needed you.
• Staying away from her at a distant location, or trying to stay away from her intentionally.
• Not having any news about her, or hearing only the bad news and rumors.
• Loving someone you cannot forget, or loving someone you cannot forgive.

MOMENTS...

A Software engineer's life is too planned for comfort. It is difficult for him to do anything without adequate planning and he takes a lot of pride in that. His work, meetings, deadlines, the parties, even the coffee and toilet breaks are all planned. The unfortunate part of this very precise planning is that the focus of attention is more on the time on the watch rather than enjoying the moment.

It either took a momentary collective craziness or a lot of frustration on our part to decide on a long drive to Konark and that too late in the evening while we were sipping some hot coffee in Cafe Coffee Day. The decision may also have been triggered by the deafening mindless noise in the cafe but none of us could deny the fact that it had more to do with the internal turmoil that our monotonous life is facing each day, each moment. Leave aside the work on the weekdays, even the way of spending the weekends has become monotonous. It is usually spent watching movies or hanging out on one of the few cafes in the city or getting our mind & soul drunk in some dim lit bar.

Being a domestic guy, I was a bit hesitant for the trip at first but the urge to do something different was too strong to resist.It finally took a long drive, a crescent moon on the sky and a mildly violent sea to relax our senses and create a moment that could actually be treasured. We spent some time on the sea-shore and most of that time, we were silent. There was no time to discuss our projects, girlfriends (or the lack of it) or personal problems. The sight of the moaning sea, trying to sweep away our feet, was just too beautiful to be missed. All the complaints and problems of our life seemed so trivial and small. I had finally found a MOMENT that I could hold on to and that too after so long.

It's an irony that it takes long intervals of time in our long life for an unforgettable moment to happen. Recollect the first day in your college, the moment when you first saw your childhood crush, the first time your beloved touched you, the day when your best friend said how much he valued you as a friend, the date and time when you got your first job, the day when your father bragged about your success to his friends. The moments that force us to believe on the concept of the TIME MACHINE that would enable us to go back to our past and relive those moments again. The moments that are poor in time period units but very rich in life.

There is one thing in common in all those moments... they came unplanned.They cannot be planned. Like Doll was saying the other day,
"All our unforgettable moments come unplanned and when we are least expecting it."
"The moments may come too far in between but they are worth waiting for."