Kidnap

Arun, born 13th October, 1981, in Gods own Country, could have never imagined what lay in store for him.

The place where I work at, Skyscape, brought an AMC from one of India's reputed organizations. Arun was chosen the resident engineer and was to be "on-site", in our company, maintaining our machines, so that we could continue to produce world-class software for the millions of medical professionals around the world who are also our loyal customers. Incidentally, Arun and me happened to stay in the same locality and soon were good friends. Or so he thought.

We would ride home each evening on my bike and sometimes hang out on weekends. On the 3rd of October, Friday, I was supposed to go shopping for my b'day gift. My b'day is on 6th Oct and if I was able to produce the bill of the purchase, my company would reimburse me.

No points for guessing that Arun accompanied me to the store. After a lot of window-shopping we decided to go for the real thing. Soon, it was closing time at the mall and a t-shirt with a hood (if that’s what it is called) was selected and we were on our way out. having nothing better to do after that Arun suggested that we watch the movie Kidnap, because althought the reviews were poor, the lead actress was supposed to be doing some hot numbers. I had a better idea.

I told him that we would play the age old game "kidnapper- kidnapee", just like "chor-police". "WHAT?" was his response. Anyways, I could not sell him the idea but still wanted to do something that I was planning for quite sometime now; Ride thro the Khandala-Lonavala ghat in the dead of the night. So I put on my jacket and helmet and off we were. The time was 10.30 pm.

The whole thing was pretty insane and frankly I was scared to do it alone. The "bakra" was sitting behind me. Now there’s a rule of my bike. The pillion rider has to keep singing. Its almost as if the bike accelerates because of the song rather than the fuel. We reached our destination at around 12.15, not because it was so far off, but because we went along at a slow and steady pace, enjoying the chilly night and wide open roads. We literally too a u-turn at the center of the town and headed back, stopping only for a small post midnight snack: 2 aanda bhurjis, one omelet, two cuttings and a cream cone. The small meal cost us Rs.80. On a normal day in Mumbai, all things considered, that would have cost me no more than Rs.40. But that is different story.

One the way down, I cheerfully asked Arun if he was enjoying the "midnight adventure". This was the chance he was looking for and screamed at the top of his voice "You're riding like a fool, have a helmet and a jacket and are comfortable protected against the cold, I have nothing and you ask me if I am enjoying the whole thing?”. Needless to say, I did not have any more questions for him, but I must admit that he had a point there.

I guess he was feeling "kidnapped" after all.

See you soon..

On Sunday, 21st September, I received a sms stating that my friend's, Ashutosh, also my colleague, mother had passed away. She had been battling a fatal disease for sometime now and this was the day when the fight was over.

I was unable to make it to his place on the same day, but was there following day with the rest of my colleagues. Upon entering his house we found his father sitting on a mat with several relatives. He invited us all in and exhibited no trace of sorrow or anguish. We were briefed on the happenings of the past few months up to the time of the tragedy. Ashutosh's father then showed us a family album. Amidst all this, Ashutosh, who had gone to select a frame for his mothers picture called me and instructed all of us to leave the house and wait for him near the entrance of the building. Reason? His father, a heart patient, was advised not to talk too much.

Two things struck me at once. First, Ashutosh, instead of being at home and mourning the loss, was up and performing his duties. And second, he was fully aware of his father’s condition and had the presence of mind to call and instruct us about what we should be doing.

Following his orders, we went out of the house, towards the gate and waited for him. Ashutosh arrived shortly and met us. Of all the things he said, that which I will never forget is -

"On Saturday, I had my mother. On Sunday all I have is a memory."

Makes me wonder about the things we really need to look forward to and cherish.

[This post is dedicated to Ashutosh and the courage he displayed in testing times.]

Mike is dead.

This is one of my favourite jokes - 

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Two guys meet up in a bar. The first one asks, "Did your hear the news - Mike is dead??!!!" 

"Woah, what the hell happened to him?" 

"Well he was on his way over to my house the other day and when he arrived outside the house he didn't brake properly and boom - He hit the curb, the car flipped over and he crashed through the sunroof - Went flying through the air and smashed through my upstairs bedroom window." 

"What a horrible way to die!" 

"No no, he survived that, that didn't kill him at all. So, he's landed in my upstairs bedroom and he's all covered in broken glass on the floor. Then, he spots the big old antique wardrobe we have in the room and reaches up for the handle to try to pull himself up. He's just dragging himself up when bang, this massive wardrobe comes crashing down on top of him, crushing him and breaking most of his bones." 

"What a way to go, that's terrible!" 

"No no, that didn't kill him he survived that. He managed to get the wardrobe off him and crawls out onto the landing, he tries to pull himself up on the banister but under his weight, the banister breaks and he goes falling down on to the first floor. In mid air, all the broken banister poles spin and fall on him, pinning him to the floor, sticking right through him." 

"Now that is the most unfortunate way to go!" 

"No no, that didn't kill him, he even survived that. So he's on the downstairs landing, just beside the kitchen. He crawls in to the kitchen, tries to pull himself up on the stove, but reached for a big pot of boiling hot water, whoosh, the whole thing came down on him and burned most of his skin off him." 

"Man, what a way to go!" 

"No no, he survived that, he survived that! He's lying on the ground, covered in boiling water and he spots the phone and tries to pull himself up, to call for help, but instead he grabs the light switch and pulls the whole thing off the wall and the water and electricity didn't mix and so he got electrocuted, wallop, 10,000 volts shot through him." 

"Now that is one awful way to go!" 

"No no, he survived that..." 

"Hold on now, just how the hell did he die?" 

"I shot him!" 

"You shot him? What the hell did you shoot him for?" 

"He was wrecking my house."

Spices (or why I sould carry loose change)

The last working Friday of every month is a, sort of a, holiday in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. 

All the shops and businesses are closed except for medical facilities and dairies. A very funny thing indeed. And irritating too for me, since I don't cook at home and depend on the hotels for my meals.

This time I decided to linger around in the office till dinnertime, dine at Vashi, and then go home. At around 7.00pm Xavier, my former team lead, came up to me and inquired why was I staying back late in the office? I told him and he laughed and invited me to Sonia, his regular mess.

Me and Xavier share a good relationship: as good as a team lead and a team member share. So, I made him wait for another hour and at around 8.00pm we headed for Sonia. I was looking forward to a lot of "purotha", "double anda-curry", "ommelette", "cabbage sabzi" and a sprite, all being my favourites. This mess is close to the place I had stayed earlier and is closer to a classy joint, Spices. I had lived for almost 2 years right opposite to Spices but had never been there. As we passed, I told this to Xavier. He was probably waiting for an opportunity not to go to Sonia and and immediately said that we should then go to Spices. I was a bit reluctant, since it was the end of the month and I was low on cash. (my month end status begins roughly on the 13th of every month). He sensed my plight and said that the dinner would be on him. I was thrilled since I had always wanted to check this place out. 

There's valet parking (even for motorbikes) at Spices and I was feeling pretty "elite" (I had only Rs.400 on me at that time, but who cares?). We requested for a table near the window and got one. The usual stuff followed: Vodka for Xavier and a Virgin Mango Bellini for me. Chilly paneer was our starter and when it came to the main course, I decided to take the best. I ordered a mushroom sizzler for me and a lamb-sizzler for Xavier. He deserved the best, since he was paying for the meal. The sizzlers arrived after 15 minutes and we were the center of attention for about 2 minutes until the sizzle died down. I was unable to finish my dish but did not ask for the leftovers to be packed. However, Xavier did justice to the lamb.

While Xavier asked for the bill, I looked outside and saw the valet re-parking my motorcycle. I thought I should tip him and decided that Rs.5 would be enough. I dug into my wallet and found that I did not have the exact change. I thought of asking Xavier but- here's the scene.
I make Xavier wait for an hour in the office until it’s "my" dinnertime.
I jump on the suggestion that we dine at a pricey place.
The dinner is on him.
I order overpriced dishes for us. (again, since he is paying!).
And now, I want him to tip the valet also, for my motorcycle!! (no one said there's a limit on being cheap!)

Well, I could have never lived with this and I tell him that the bill is going to be split. He is surprised and refuses at first, but I am adamant and he finally agrees. So we split the bill and then I ask him for the change to tip the valet.

I could not believe this happened.

Syncing with evolution

I had been working on project Phoenix since the days of its inception, which was more than a year ago.
It was indeed dear to me, so much, that I could not get myself to leaving it and join another organization, 5 months back.
The project has come a long way since then, and has 11 developers working on it, full time, including me.
Once the base that I was building was finished, the time came to get the others moving.
At this point I was offered role in a team that would comprise of team leads of various platforms and the manager. The aim of the team was to "design" the project from this point on.

I was a developer, not a lead, and it would have been an honor to be a part of this 'team-0-leads'.
Now, I must admit that I am blowing this whole thing out of proportion, since there is nothing so formal here. Everyone is involved at all points during a project.

After the prompt refusal to be in the team, I asked myself "Why did I not want to part of the design team?" Was it because I was afraid of becoming an outcast? No way.
Was it because I was not sure of being a contributing member of the team? No. I think I am smarter than most of them!! he he he!

Then what was it?

The refusal happened because I was not done doing something yet. Was not syncing with evolution.

It had been like this for me - I saw this girl, I was infatuated by her. That crazed feeling transformed into love. I was ready to start having a relationship. (Not to mention, all this happened in 2 days!!)
I wooed her. She took her time and finally gave in. We were in a relationship.
NO, the next step was not getting married. I was kicked on my butt!!.

Nevertheless, there was evolution here.

So basically I was thinking to myself, why did I refuse the to be part of the group. And the answer came one morning when I was downloading what I had uploaded the previous night.

It was because I wanted to continue coding and be closer to the machine rather than a notepad to take down the minutes of the meeting.

So there you have it, I was syncing with evolution.

A Pear and Two Plums.

My faith in God was not lost. I love Plums and Pears, and the fruit vendor opposite to my building had kept his promise and gotten a fresh stock. But I was not buying them because of the steep prices.

I located the "laundry-wala", exiting the "Q" wing of our society at 8.30am on a Monday.
It had been two weeks since the one opposite to our building premises had shut down and, for the first time in my life, I was ironing my clothes. Not that I could not do it, just that I always believed in offloading work if it meant financial benefit for the underprivileged.

After about a week of this daily routine I was getting bored. The building security was not doing a good job of sending some laundry-wala to my house. It was difficult to believe their story that they were unable to find one going in/out of the gate. My society is 12, 7 storied buildings. The security is undoubtedly the finest. [read "Catch Thief", one of my earlier blogs]
And I started to pray. I like to visualize everything that’s happening around/with me like a movie scene, and [Scene 1] I pictured myself standing on a barren, scorched piece of earth, looking at the heavens and praying for rain. In the background I could see my clothes that needed to be ironed.
That was not part of the script, but that’s what goofs are.

Next thing: the skies got all cloudy and there was thunder. Actually the doorbell rang.
I opened the door and there was the "most-wanted"(it would become clear later, why) laundry wala was there.
I hurriedly gave him all my tee's and was on my way to the office.

I was expecting him to come and deliver the clothes in about two days.
When he did not turn up on Wednesday, I started enquiring with the neighbors about him.
None of them had any idea. And it turned out that none of them had even given out their clothes on Monday. By Thursday,I was beginning to get worried and told the ever-vigilant security about it. They said that their logs did not indicate any entry from a laundry wala on Monday.
I immediately discounted that, since they had 3 tattered log books and I later also found out that the one they referred was last months!

So began the search for the unknown "laundry-wala". I did not have a name and a description like "about average height and thin with dark hair" was getting me nowhere. I first checked all the local road side stalls. None of them had my clothes. I was undeniably looked upon with suspicion and had to explain a lot before I got some answer. After I finished with them, it was time to move on to the laundry and dry cleaning shops. I went to about 8 of them in my neighborhood and was met with the same response - "No we don’t have your clothes, but you can look thro the pile if you want to".

It was quite an experience rummaging thro the ceiling high pile of clothes, wrapped in bed sheets with the name and number of the customer written on them. The scene in all the shops was the same - at least 4 shirtless guys ironing clothes, at least 2 kids, one playing one crying, and one "lady of the shop" busy preparing food for the family. They could never hear me properly because of some radio blaring in the background. I could never locate the source of the noise and am sure neither could they.

When I was in one of the shops, searching, an old Tamilian barged in and demanded, in Hindi, to see the owner. No one answered and all of them just watched. He was ranting about them being irregular in collecting, delivering the clothes, and so on and so forth. No one spoke. The old man finally gavethem an ultimatum - get the clothes now, or forget business with him. Everyone was speechless. One of the shirtless guys then said "Dineeeesh, jara dekh to sahab ko kya chaahiye". Turned out, none of them had understood his Tamil accented Hindi.

I, by now had a fair idea about the wardrobes of about 300 families but my tee's were still missing. As I was returning home on day 3 of my "search and rescue" mission, a fruit vendor, who sets up a stall opposite to my building tried to, once again, sell me the fruits. I was in no mood to buy and while I was thinking of some excuse not to buy the fruits, he told me not to worry. Worry about what? He said the clothes, don’t worry about the clothes.
I was completely bowled over and before I could recover, the cobbler pitched in and offered some reassurance. What was happening here?
The security aces were playing their part and spreading the word! Talk about teamwork.

Tirupati Balaji is one of the richest temples in the world. It’s hardly a surprise, when there are many devotees who vow to donate multiple kilos of gold, cash in millions and the like if their prayers are answered.
I silently vowed that I would not eat Plums and Pears until my shirts were found. Quite a sacrifice, considering I was already looking at some "Mega Discount - Buy 3 get 4 free" offers.

Sunday, I skipped my post breakfast nap and was off doing what I was getting really good at.
This time one of the guys in my building suggested that why don’t I check out the laundry wala that we have in house. He explained that since ours was such a big society, the members had decided to employ a guy full time within the premises. Yeah, I am getting to know this now!!
I was stumped. Apparently this guy had been right next to my building, and here I was searching for him all over the world. The security had not bothered to tell me this since the description I had provided was not in fitting the one in my building.

I rushed to him and it was the same scene again. But this time the guy I was looking for, was busy ironing clothes! What a relief. I could have never imagined that a sight of 8 ironed, white tee shirts would be a source of limitless ecstasy. Thankfully there were no tears of joy.
What happened was that he was not the regular collector and was doing the rounds on Monday because the regular guy was sick. And the regular had been bringing clothes to my flat every day after that, at 9.00 am, while I was at the office. It goes without saying that they were very much relieved to get rid of my clothes.

I thanked them and the security guards profusely and went and brought some fruits.

They say "There are two tragedies in life, one is not getting what you want, and the other is getting what you want".

They couldn't have been more correct.

Fwd: The Bike Story

This is the mail I sent to allmy colleagues at Skyscape after I purchased my bike.
The whole event was built up so much that some of my close friends were thinking that they are buying the bike!!

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Hi All,

Kindly enjoy the sweets that you'll be receiving shortly to celebrate the arrival of my "New" motorcycle.

As most of you have been aware, the plan to buy a motorcycle materialized about a month back,
when it was confirmed that I was moving to Kharghar. I did not want to spend so much time traveling (read: I wanted to compromise on work) and so the decision to acquire a bike was finalized.

Given below are the credits to all the people who have made this possible.

1.  Firstly I have to thank Bankim, for offering to let me repair and use his favourite scooter, when my account statement told me I did not have enough resources to buy a bike.

2.  Having realized that the scooter is not a feasible option, and not wanting to cycle from Kharghar, just so that "I commute to office in my own vehicle",all plans were dropped.
I would like to thank Manish here for offering me a lift till CBD (at a nominal cost, of course).

3.  Next was a plan to buy a second hand bike. Here I would like to thank Shailesh for testing the vehicle and giving it a thumbs down. Xavier, Ashutosh, Kartik need to be thanked for convincing me that the second hand option is not a good one.

4.  At this point it was decided that I would go in for a new vehicle. Thanks again to all above.
Now, this bike is special cause it reflects the financial independence I've achieved.
Many thanks to Skyscape. So what if 80% of the bike is funded by my parents? 20% is 20%.

5. There were a lot of issue of my address proof documents and so Ulhas offered to buy the bike on my behalf on a loan. Many thanks to Ulhas, for trusting that I would make the payments on time. Eventually this plan was also dropped.

6. Anand Sir needs to be thanked here for convincing me that the loan option is not the way to go. I was advised that I should save and then go for it. What's funny about the whole thing is, I dont have any savings and I dont spend lavishly too. So how would the money materialize later? Since I believe in miracles, I decided to take Anand Sir's advise. (Some of the local lottery-ticket walla's are my best friends now!!)

7. "Bike ghaychi tar Bullet ghyachi, ani mage porgi basvaaychi". these famous lines have been said by none other than Makarand sir. I'll leave it at that, cause I dont have a Bullet and Shahab has agreed to accompany me to Kharghar.

8. Finally, many thanks are due yet again to Shailesh and Kartik, for engaging in mindless conversations about bikes of various makes.

Regards,
Sachin K.

P.S - Free rides are available for a nominal cost of Rs.10 per ride.