Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Dec 26th - Kozhikodan Alliyanz


The 3 months old planning came to fall in place last Wednesday and I was enrooted to Calicut for my friends A’s brother in law. The whole Football group who plays fantasy food ball was invited and our common friend Thimmz was also there. More than the reunion, lot of drinking and memory sharing was in cards. So after a long break, to be precise, 6 years break, it was a 6 hour train journey for me – alone! The journey when taking around your family and travelling alone are at two different levels. One will start enjoying the loneliness when the burden of taking care of family through out the journey is not there ( it is enjoyed when done in short spells) rather than long journeys.  The train journey ended without much of a surprise and Calicut had two hotels with the same name Emperor. As it is very famous, the cordial Auto rickshaw driver took me to the second hotel with in a blink of an eye and alaz – I am at my destiny. The next 6 hours was more of booze and lot of talks including 25 years old stories of making and breaking of love life,, what was planned and how it panned out, how people we know from last 10 years have grown to things we could never imagine, a few who met our expectation as per our teenage mind projected etc. One thing I really enjoyed in this discussion was no one was so sad with what was happening today and all of us were so happy about the days passed and how we had lived those. So no regrets and such get together really bring back the gest of life and living them with the company of people who we enjoy the most !

ohh i am forgetting myself


The social conditioning has almost left one to place were they trying to re discover by looking back on one’s life. It’s strange to see that many things which I enjoyed a lot are forgotten and now I need to read it myself to realize that I enjoyed  song or doing some specific thing on day! Sadly that’s what life does to you and when I say life, it’s the expectation, people and things around you make you do. It’s a little harsh on others when you put it like that but things change as the time passes away. Every item on you list if linked to happiness of some one or something around you and yourself is lost in the midst. When everything on the list is done and dusted and that small corner of hour if left with you, most of the time one will find happiness in a bit of sleep or a short bit of silence among the chaos – not the bit for entertain / enjoying myself 

As the time progresses and our life gets evolved into something like a strings of a woolen sheet were we lose track on what’s mine and what’s not and it leaves you at a place where you hardly care. This is time when one starts living life over days and hours just passing through the daily chores and not into anything specific. It more of like status updates on done done done! and pending and WIP. The list often reflects in smiling and frowning faces. When it becomes the order of the day, it cease to spring the smile back on you as it just build expectation and as always Expectation reduces joy !!!


The guy who is always on the conf call .....


As usual, I am listening to a product demo and over view presentation. I was reading through some film reviews and preparing some queries on the back ground to check if I get some good talking points when I try to sell the same. I just got a call from my better half with cold sharp queries like

S: you know, Junior is having temp
Me : ya, Mom told but was on back to back calls
S : so ?
Me : how is he now ?
S : passed tools 5 times and have temp
Me : checked with thermometer or feel factor ?
S : huh ? I just came home, need to check
Me : ok, check and see that he drinks lot of water
S : when will you come ?
Me : post 8 , why ?
S : nothing, will come in time or as usual …
Me : yes, bye – need to join the call, bye
S: Bye

Believe me, listening to sales pitch and typing the things that come in my mind is not as easy as it used to be.

Now I see that the bunch of fresher’s who joined our floor went past us. I see that the short guy in the group making some hand gestures meaning – this guy ( me) is always on phone. Does he work anytime ?
I had a smile coming up on my lips but somehow I kept it straight and played the ‘senior’ face. I wanted to stand up and say, buddy – listening to such calls and finding out talking points which makes sense is much tougher than you think. This is the place where we find out selling points for our solution. Also get answers for the tough questions we have in all customer calls.

Now I see two ladies coming to floor looking for someone. I think they found who they were looking for over the corner of the floor. They also exchanged the same kind of look – why this guy is always on the phone ?
I need to get to talk in the call and will not be able to concentrate on this anymore, more to add on….


Sudden Death


Old clean up and appearing fresh and new here ! 
Don’t get surprised by the title of this blog. It has nothing to do with content. As its football feature right around, thought of using a word from football world ! From a work perspective, I was on bench for last two to three months. Family kept me quiet busy with arrival of our new member, followed by an infection to my mom and then it continued with dad. So more of the days part was buying tender coconut and getting it back to the rite room in the hospital, night outs and not the least – waiting in queue. The monsoon season is yet to hit the country cost but the fever season has. As I see it, the current fever leaves people like squeezed molasses. I remember by fevers in childhood as three days of complete rest, no fan and only jeera water with pain staking calpol syrup or a tablet. Just the memory of it brings the bitter memories. Ohh just coming back to the point of starting. As I was too busy with family, had kept low life in work meaning on bench and not hunting for a project. It has been hardly one week into work and I can see hard stuff coming along from nowhere. I left office almost at 10 yesterday – still not into a project but just doing client presentation and capability decks!

It is a little mysterious that – anything you like will not last too long to get to boredom. I was kind of enjoying my daily routine with 4 to 5 hours of perennial work, then the routine tea / coffee breaks and lots of time on talks and healthy stuff. Forgot to add, as my wife and kid are at their home enjoying the “ after birth treatment”, I am back on the health regime with 30 minutes swimming and 5 minutes stretch every day. It again proves that a little bit of physical exercise can do wonders to both mind and body. My list of “ to-Do’s” has come down to almost under 10 with no urgent item pending – including house hold chores “ which with my track record is an amazing achievement. OK, as usual I have a presentation catch up and I have my creative tooth pushing me to write down the above crap at this umpteen moment. Let me get back to stuff that matters now – calling sudden death  ( disaster control after client presentation J)



XIXIX bank and credit cards


Today morning, I get a call from a 1409XXXXXXX number, looks like a marketing call. As I was bored waiting for a deck review / change request, I picked up the call to talk through the marketing details of the product.

Girl voice at other side : Hi sir, Good Morning, this is Rupali from XIXIX Bank

Me         : GM Rupali
R             : As you are an esteem customer of XIXIX bank, we would like to offer you a Platinum credit card
Me         : OK, good, so ?
R             : This card is really beneficiary and first year comes with no annual fee or Joint fee
Me         : So what is the fee for second year ?
R             : It is 99 Rs but will be waived off if 50K Rs purchase is done annually.  This card offers a 2.5% pay back on fuel ser charges and for shopping at malls it offer pay back points. So you stay in Trivandrum rite sir ?
Me         : Yes Rupali, you had called me three days back, we went through this ordeal and I confirmed that I will have the card. You told me that you will check and call back
R             : As you are staying in Trivandrum I cannot offer you this card as this city is not serviceable for platinum card
Me         : Ohh is it ? should I change my residence location for the card ?
R             : No sir, sorry sir, thank you sir, have a great day ahead sir