Random Ramblings, Random Reflections!!

1. When Tiger calls a party, never miss the chance 2. Drink till u drop… into the pool and then drink again 3. Never play games while partying – its takes time away from the drinking session 4. Wine and women make a heady concoction. 5. Get drunk to make an ass of yourself (I still would drink!) 6. Irrespective of size, men and women can dance in a drunken trance 7. Involve yourself with someone who is pissed drunk- and be blamed for whatever happened! 8. Forced into the water, everyone learns to swim. 9. Get too close for comfort and men will be men! 10. Get too drunk and women will transform into men (idiots) 11. Standing Instruction at Confident Cascade: “if resort booked by Tiger & Co., Call Mallya, the lord himself!!” 13. THE KING OF GOOD TIMES? - Mr. TIGER himself (and not Mallya) Disclaimer : The Learnings mentioned above are not the personal views of the author and the author takes no responsibility for the published matter. No offence is meant to anyone and no offence is t...

Who wants to be covered in moss? Who wants to carry around baggage? Who wants to become a piece of office furniture? Gone are the days when people believed in the dictum “rolling stone gathers no moss”. The new age mantra is if you don’t roll, you are nobody- and the end, u literally end up as office furniture. In the current age, two years in an office seems to be the maximum a sales guy will work. Do people leave because they are bored of the same routine? Do they leave because they didn’t get the required rewards? Or is it due to the “grass is greener than on the other side” logic? The Grass is always greener on the other side: There is no denying this one. The Green aspect is something we cannot deny- the Greenbacks flying around is simply to huge to not notice- for starters, salaries are 4 times higher across the fence!!! If that does makes u say “So What!”, you are definitely Budha reincarnated! The Office Furniture: I read this story of a guy who used to work 24/7 for years on e...

Just a simple statement "Even the best goal keepers in the world wear gloves" Cover your heads, protect yourself!

“An affliction which makes you say the wrong thing at the right time” Very few people are endowed with the ability of saying the wrong thing at the right time. Here are a sample few from real life: “I have in the last 2 months found out how much politics is prevalent in our office” (rightly said, but in a common platform and with the boss also around!) “Wow! U had a fracture!” “Oh s***, you don’t need to use the crutches again?” This is classic Poladic stuff- most of the time you cannot make such statements and get away with it. But there are some remarkable people who can make such statements and carry on as if nothing has happened. You need to be absolutely innocent to continually be afflicted with Poladiasis. Or at the bare minimum, you need to project the image to the world that you are completely innocent! I have, thanks to the lady, enriched the English language with a new word. Lets all together have more definitions added for the word to keep it alive!!! PS: I’ve found another ...

How often have we looked at a disabled person and not felt anything? At the most we feel is “Ah! Poor Fellow!” and we get on. It takes us a fall and temporary disablement to actually understand, feel and empathise with the permanently handicapped how difficult even small things in life can be. It sure took me a very small accident (I slipped, fell and strained an ankle ligament) to do a bit of introspection on how we take things for granted- how we take our life for granted. Being invalided means being dependant on a lot many things and lot many people for basic necessities. A plaster cast on my leg meant that I had to use a pair of crutches to move around. Its only then that u actually understand the value of your limbs- here is a collection of a few daily chores which we don’t event think of while doing it. A small walk from the bed to the bathroom and back will leave u tired and gasping for breath Brushing your teeth and having a shave with your full weight on the crutches The effor...

Very soon, stiff necks would be a thing of the past- thanks to the indomitable Indian Army. An organisation which I have always aspired to be in. an organisation, which like none other, looks after you till your heart says “Over & Out”! The army has now got another feather in the cap- this time around someone who has been giving me stiff necks for the last 6 months! But this was one of the rare ‘pleasurable stiff necks’! Would miss the stiff neck as well as the soon to be Officer! Adios and keep the flag flying high for the country! PS: Please make sure that the Officers/JCOs and ORs do not get stiff necks- would not do much to strengthen the Indian Army PPS: Those who have read my earlier post "you can fell me with a feather if you can find me a woman like that” will understand and appreciate this one:)

Rethinking on the concept of living for the next generation, let me take think in another angle- Why do we give our kids everything in life? Why do we protect them till they are own their own? Doesn’t this have a I, ME, MINE thinking to it? My kid, My family- Being possessive about owning things? We all derive personal pleasure from this. Parents tell the world “ My son is so and so”, a direct emphasis on MY SON – Parents derive a lot of pleasure when their kids grow up an become successful- Even a small award the kid gets becomes a talking point for him/her for sometime. Why? As a parent, im telling the world that my son is successful because I have molded him well- he has won this award because he is my son! An indirect but not so subtle reference to the fact that its all my doing- and as a parent I derive pleasure out of it. Ultimately at the end of the day I become happy when my family thinks that I have taken good care of them! So when we think of it, we do not actually live for...

They call life a journey. An endless journey till the moment you are given back to nature. How you traverse this world is nobody’s concern, but everybody’s consideration. You are at the end judged for how you have traversed this journey. Any form of judgment is ‘judgmental’, which tends to be very subjective. You get judged for what you were in life- what position where you when you retired from professional life, how well off are your kids and so forth-but never on how well you enjoyed your life, your career and your family life. Embarking on this journey of life, we all fall into a mundane and routine life. Work, take home salary, feed your family, satisfy your kid’s requirement and save enough money for the kids and wife when you are not there anymore. It’s about one generation living for the next- day in day out, generation after generation. And if you decide to live otherwise, you are called selfish and as someone who never cared for the family. So where are you heading? A colleag...

Days have passed without me having putting my fingers on the keypad with the express purpose of blogging. Well, I have been too preoccupied to put down my random thoughts. Actually, I have been contemplating- on my writings and on my views. Have I been writing for the sake of writing or did I suddenly get upbeat about my ability to write? Was it a bit too much to have thought that I could actually put these thoughts together and publish a book? Well, of these are to an extent right. One comment from someone who knows what he is talking about made a lot of sense to me. A comment that I have heard once before on my style of writing. The comment is “this is more like a diary” and “most of the time you are talking to yourself and not addressing the reader”. A very valid comment when you read the next line – “Diary based books have always sold, but most of these are period/event based and with a touch of history to it” and “if your diary based book has to sell it needs to have a lot of ins...

Hi Folks, this is a blind post- i cant see my blog- thanks to The Govt. of India- While politicians can do what they want at will, be it demolishing temples, mosques, churches, create riots etc etc- innocent guys like us blogging becomes an issue? i simply dont understand the logic! the world has so much hatred that someone blogging somewhere makes no difference- neither does it increase hatred nor does it reduce!! Well, hoping to see the blog back online!

“Sureshaa – onthu HRD quarteru, onthu pint UB, onthu pepsi, half kabab, pori & congressu”!! And you thought this happens in our branch office? And you thought all “Kudukaas” go there to drink? You cant be more wrong ladies and gentlemen! “Temptations” (bless the good old soul who suggested the name!) is nothing about drinking. It is all about helping one poor entrepreneur to succeed in his venture. It is all about helping our very own “Sureshaa” to make a living. Drinking thus is incidental! For the uninitiated, the place we are referring to is 2 minutes away from the office on Church Street Road, Opposite Hotel Empire and it’s a wine shop. And for those of you, perched on high trees, not wanting to get your feet wet, you are missing something! The ambience, the networking- words fail to express our emotions. Now let me put a question to you all. How come none of the media companies advertise in Ascent or in DH Avenues? Well, you are thinking on the right track- Temptations (and a ...

well, not the best of blogs, this one!- anyways, read on! I very often jump into things which are not my necessarily of my concern. Why does this happen? I got into a thinking mode the last few days- and I think I have an answer. I get too concerned by people and I get concerned about what is happening around me. I get too involved and try to help people make things better for their teams. Concerned? Inquisitive? Interfering? Words that I thought are part and parcel of the package. I’m confused. But my experiences last week proved that concern soon turns to inquisitiveness and then to pure interference. Concern reaches a level where your opinions are no longer treated as unbiased. Everything you say gets constructed as being biased and from one person’s point of view. It is true that for argument sake, we very often take sides. And it is also true that most of the time this is done to instigate someone to make comments which will help me get the view from the other side. Concern for an...

Theme continued from the last post on appraisals For most sales guys, a pat on the back, a small note saying you’ve done a great job takes him to heights and makes him so wanted in the organisation. Pats and commendations apart, the time comes when appraisals are done and increments are doled out. To be told that you are good is fine, but at the end of the day, how does it reflect in the appraisal form? Does it say that you have met my expectations? Or does it say that you have exceeded expectations of you? The issue is how do you rate the real performers- There might be hundreds of yardsticks that are printed in the HR manual- But how do you, as manager, recognize effort and the work put in of your subordinates? A very difficult question because I haven’t done it till now. But then I have my views- views which as like everybody have formed working under great managers and under the most difficult ones. Many managers tend to be swayed by how a subordinate reports to him, how he interac...

What makes some managers great? What makes some a pain in the wrong place? Questions which I feel every executive asks himself- questions which the same guy tends to conveniently forget when he is made a manager. To me, at this point in my career, I feel what makes great managers is the ability to build trust among the people who report to him. This ability to trust, the feeling that if something goes wrong, ill be backed to the hilt makes a manager a great guy to work with. Its so much a pleasure working with a manager like that. Well, why suddenly the thought on bosses? Well, appraisal time is on and it’s the time of the year when you love or hate your boss the most, depending upon how well he has rated you. Big Bosses? huh, forgot about them- they get all the money and the brick bats if we dont bat well enough!! Which reminds me of a net joke- "Executives play football and big bosses play golf- moral? the higher up you go the ladder, the smaller are the balls!! Well, guys and g...

For the last couple of months I have just seen Mondays turn into Fridays. A blink- that’s all it takes for the week to get over. There have been many a week where I have turned up to office on Fridays formally dressed- Fridays are our dress down days! In contrast to this, this week has been going at a dead pace- the grey matter has not for more than a week churned anything impressive- actually nothing at all, which is the reason why the week has being going slow- Its Wednesday and im desperately hoping the week goes at a faster pace. Lack of ideation- something on the same lines as writers hitting the writer’s block? Maybe. Or rather I don’t want to think that I’ve hit the ideator’s block! A very frustrating feeling arising from the losing confidence, losing the urge to call people and fix meetings-a complete lethargy! Maybe writing/blogging would help get me out of the depths. Reading the last blog and this one, I can feel the ‘blocked’ me writing- not the natural me- not the natural ...

It is not always bowels that have this syndrome. Many a times, the brain also catches the same disease. While an irritable bowel flushes out anything and everything it can, an irritable brain refuses to flush out ideas- it just becomes irritated and refuses to think! Today was one of those days- one of those days where the brain and mind got irritated and refused to think. An uncalled for day long lightning strike. I for sure don’t know why it happened. Maybe lot of factors, a lot of pent up frustrations; a lot of pressure led the brain to shut down completely. It would have been quite normal if it was just a shut down. This was something more than that. This was a brain and a mind that became so irritated with things around it. This was a mind that was looking to pick on everything that came its way. A man with lots of patience, today was a day when I snapped- snapped at everything – including clients, including the waiter and including colleagues. I don’t know why, but I still am set...

The world of nostalgia seems to have engulfed me. A world that was sweet and sour- a world where even one way puppy loves looked so sweet- a world where reality had no place. Welcome back to time. Welcome back to the years 1991-94. Welcome to one of the best years in life. The years witnessed some remarkable events- events which of course didn’t affect the world. But years that had a great impact on simple, sweet, nice and very studious guy. Welcome to the college days of Rajiv Narayan. I joined college (graduation) with a lot of apprehension. A small diversion here -R.K Narayan and me studied in namesake colleges- was it coincidence or it part of a bigger plan that the creator had for me? And isn’t it too much of a coincidence that we also share the same surnames? Hmm, I hope you get the hint of what I am pointing at! Well, for those who have not been using the “upper storey” more often, I was hinting at how great R.K Narayan was and how great I am, or rather the greatness that I can ...

I am having a persistent stiff neck for the last few weeks. A stiff neck caused not due to sleeping on side or due to any activity- a stiff neck caused by ogling at women- a woman to be precise. Happily married for the last 4 years, I still haven’t been able to get that one habit out of my system – Beautiful women are someone I cant take my eyes off! Be it alone, with friends or with my wife. And that’s one thing that my wife has also learnt to live with. Well, she also knows that my fascination for other women ends there. Coming back to the story, this woman, though sitting in the next room, is conveniently placed for me to catch a glimpse once in a while- Well, the once in a while often becomes too often- hence the stiff neck! Unfortunately I still don’t know her name – well, does it matter?- not exactly. Women have always fascinated me- by this statement i also reinforce the fact that I am a Man- men have always been fascinated and mystified by women- even after being married for 4 ...

“Life is forever an struggle- an eternal struggle that makes mankind survive- an eternal struggle that helps mankind to take life forward- the eternal optimism that I shall live to see another day- the eternal optimism that keeps the spirits and body alive.” Rajiv Narayan, 2110 hrs, 22nd May 2006 :) Welcome to Random Ramblings & Random Reflections. I hope you would got the taste of what lies in store for the unlucky surfers who pass by this site. Not that I expect many to pass by!! These typos are just a vent for me- more often, its easier to give vent to your pent up pressures/anger/discontent blah blah blah in the form of letters, words- these words, unlike mankind, does not shout back at me. But at the same time they make me think- what have I written? Why did I write so? What made me write something like that at a particular moment? Random Ramblings, leading to Random Reflections!!!! Ramblings- Random as ever!!! Most of the time, we stand in awe looking at a masterpiece of art-...