How Rude!

I don't claim to be exceptionally well-mannered. I don't hold my pinky finger out when I take a sip from my teacup. But that doesn't mean I'm going to lap my tea from the saucer.

I may not be extremely kind or polite, but aside from PMS days, bad hair days, and quality-review days and my reviewer's just told me that I've made one or several errors, I think I'm a pretty laid-back person. But there are some things which people do that bug the life out of me, makes the veins on my neck stand out and my eyeballs bulge out of their sockets and bring out the Miss Hyde in me.

1. I hate people who stare. Hate them with a passion. I've been moaning all my life about how much I hate these people. I wonder if there's anyone alive who hate these people as vehemently as I do.

People who stare. Not like they admire your hair/shirt/bag/shoes/you OR do-I-know-her-stare. But like they want to put you on a petri dish and push you under the microscope.

'Where did this strange-looking creature come from?' they seem to think as they rudely stare full into your face. 'Maybe if I stare hard enough, I'll unravel her DNA.'

'Check out strange-looking creature's strange-looking hair!' One ugly mug whispered to an even uglier mug, and they both stare and then giggle. And I stare back in all my wrath - making three ugly mugs staring the lives out of each other. And I'd so badly want to bash their heads together and spill whatever matter they have for brains on the pavement and let the crows eat it up. (I know, I may be officially homicidal).

Then there are the painfully self-righteous mothers with oily scalps and yellow fingernails who look you up and down like it would be a sin for them not to give mean stares to mean girls, ..ahem, women with torn jeans or clad in any other piece of fabric that isn't at least several yards long.

'I'm glad you're not my son's girlfriend. I'm glad you're not my daughter-in-law.' She'd evilly think.

'I'm sure glad my boyfriend doesn't have a mom like you. I feel sorry for your daughter-in-law.' I'd think back with an even more evil toss of my hair.

Really. It's just the most annoying thing anyone can do. There are always going to be reasons to stare. I'm going to look at you and want to look closer for some reason or the other sometimes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to. That cluster of zit on your forehead might be a subject that cries out for closer inspection, but I will not because you're human too and staring makes people uncomfortable and it's rude to stare and it's just plain not right to stare at people and..oh you know what I'm trying to say.

In an unfortunate case of a staring-attack, the best thing to do is retaliate. This is not something silently seething about can help. Stare back. With all the intrigue and appalling wonder you can muster - 'Look Ma! A starer!! Wait until I get home and tell my friends I saw a starer. Wow! A living, breathing starer!'

*warning* Starers are not often easily-subdued. In the same way that they seem to think staring at people is okay, they also seem to not mind people staring at them. So be ready to be 'up-stared,' 'out-stared,' or even, 'down-stared.'

And the worst thing is that they're everywhere! Out on the streets, parks, buses, at the movie halls where they'll make you think that the movie is being shown on the outside of your frontal lobe.

If things don't get better, as much as I admire the man, I may have to go against Gandhi's passive resistance policy and start arming myself with wooden prongs and table forks. To poke the offenders in their transgressing eyes with.

Or maybe just learn some Shaolin-style, eye-gouging hand moves.

'Stare at me and you lose an eye.'

Or even better -

'An eye for a stare, buster!'

That kind of retaliation. Not just peacefully staring back.

2. There's a girl I know who thinks she's royalty, I'm tempted to think, because of the way she never acknowledges me when I hold the door open for her. I hate people who never say "Thank you" when you hold the door open for them. No matter how 'door-mansy' I may look, I still am not the doorman.

And if I hold the door open out of courtesy, it would be nice if you don't act like it's because I think I'm your subordinate and that you're so superiorly rich or superiorly beautiful or superiorly intelligent or superiorly talented or superiorly classy or generally superior that I'm doing it. I hold it open because that's what I've always done. (I've been known to hold it open for dogs and rats too. I hold it open for a rotten rat almost every day).

In fact, I don't think I even do it out of being good-mannered, but because it's become a reflex to me now. I walk in, see someone behind me..'Oh no, it's her! Don't hold it open, she's going to ignore you and just walk in and away like you were paid to hold the door open for her' - small voice in my head screams. But I still hold it open. I hold it before I even realise I'm holding it. Kick myself kick myself kick myself. Darn. She did it again.

What makes her think she can just royally glide in and disappear. Because next time instead of just 'holding' the door, I'm going to smash it into that royal head.

***sigh*** Feels so good letting off steam. Now wouldn't it be lovely if my starers and royal door gliders could read this and see the light? And wouldn't it be nice if I could really go and smash that door into her precious crown...

Great Places to Work 2006

Meant to do this earlier but it's never too late.

Am very excited to see Google top the charts on Business World's great places to work. Will mention the top 10 on the list here:

1. RMSI, Noida (1992)

2. Classic Stripes, Mumbai (1987)

3. Google India (2004) YAYY!!!!!!

4. Federal Express, Mumbai (1997)

5. Marriott International (1999) (Am actually surprised to see a hotel industry up here..)

6. Mindtree Consulting, Bangalore (1999)

7. NTPC, New Delhi (2002)

8. SAP Labs India, Bangalore (1998)

9. American Express India, New Delhi (2002)

10. Freescale Semiconductors India, Noida (2004)

More.

From My Archives

I love old pictures, but there's never enough of them. Had to crop these up and stuff so that they'd be view-able.

That's my bow-legged cousin Madinga and Me. Check out my knee-low drawers :)

And that is Unreal and her mom...And that's me and my mother. I still remember this dress, cousin Unreal swears she remembers it too. She says she 'thinks' I used to wear it all the time...

That's my Sister Esther. I don't understand how she was the one with curly hair when we were kids and I had very good, very straight hair and now she's the one with the straight hair and I'm stuck with the curls!?!

And Unreal again with cousin M.Ch-a.

My mom and Esther again. She was also the one with the stomach! :P

This is Esther now. She hasn't changed except for the hair that's longer now :D

Jig's up

Was a late April Fool's Day prank :-)

I have to come clean sooner than I wanted to because I started to worry that my 'husband's' girlfriend might chance upon this page and I might end up jeopardizing his love life :P

Guess who went and did what???

Yep that's right! :P

Life's Wisdom

Since I am officially over and above 25 years of age, I guess that automatically qualifies me as 'old,' licensed to dispense so-called advices and call them life's 'wisdoms' - tested accurate and true by my own life experiences (at least) over the years.

Here's one I still cherish to this day -

Some years ago, way back in our good and busy capital city, when I was still naive and dumb enough to believe anything anyone a day older than I was tells me, I got a call from a pretty good job consultancy firm. They wanted me to go to XYZ for an interview for this cool new post because they 'believed' I qualified. 'You only work for x hours each day, only y days a week, start with a salary of z (Rs 16000/month to be precise - which was highly impressive when you were a new graduate - fresh out of college and practically broke almost all the time)' they told me.

Now XYZ, they're a biggie. I wasn't keen, because I did NOT believe I possessed the skills required, all of which I knew was 'some basic computer skills.' And that's something I don't have. I have extremely pitiful computer skills, not some basic. :P

However, like all consultancy firms, they were extremely persistent, and kept calling me everyday. One day, they offered to send me a car to take me to Noida for the interview, my personal driver for the day would wait for me and take me back. I had nothing to do that day and I was tempted by the offer of my own 'personal car and driver' even just for a day so I finally relented and said yes.

{Me - donkey, car and driver - carrot! :-)}

True to his word, guy sent a car into which I happily hopped and enjoyed the view of the streets of Delhi all the way to Noida, shaking my head in sympathy at all the unlucky people stashed to suffocating degrees in public buses and autorickshaws.

We reached the big, imposing XYZ building and still in a good mood, I confidently walked in, stylishly signed papers, adorably mingled with the other wannabes, chatted amiably...

...but the more I chatted, I noted that every one of the other candidate, close to 30 of them, all had extremely advanced computer studies degrees/skills! Starting to feel extremely conscious of my Zoology degree in comparison to their Master of Computer Application et al degrees, I started sweating a little, desperately started thinking of ways to make whatever knowledge of computers I have to sound as impressive as possible, which was difficult when your skills spanned from chatting on mIRC and Y! messenger and sending and receiving emails to deleting them.

I, however, bravely walked into the room where we were supposed to have our first round - a written test. Here, I will push aside all false modesty and say I breezed through that test while my high-degreed counterparts were all given the boot. Some told me they didn't get through, some I just never saw again. By the time I was told I was through and to walk into the next room for the second round of written test, even though there were many desks and papers, I was the only one who walked into that room.

Feeling pretty smug, I walked into the next torture chamber and picked up my test paper lying face down on the desk. Preened my feathers, sharpened my pencil, licked the granite tip, and turned the bashful paper over....

And imagine what I saw... hieroglyphics, Sanskrit, or Martian, I could make neither head nor tail of. They looked alien. I tried to read, make sense of whatever was on there, I wondered what machine they used to print those characters down on paper.

'It's just like those aptitude tests - B is to P as Apple is to Pear..that kind of crap. It's no big deal' I kept repeating to myself, hoping to dupe myself into believing that I could really tackle, and eventually even vanquish them.

However, no amount of coaxing would let my brain decipher the code lying all jumbled up in front of me. And no amount of coaxing would let the paper give up its secrets. I begged, I goaded, I pleaded. 'Please Paper, if you let me in and I get the job, I will offer Rs 500/- for the glorification of paper every month, break a coconut and pray every week for the preservation of Paper and all its kith and kin.' But silent as a tomb, concealed forever in the abyss of paper universe, my Rs 1,6000/- a month slipping away, the Paper decided to hold on to its treasure. So I gave up. I know not quitting is wise, but knowing when to quit is a tad wiser.

All these took place within a few macroseconds.

It took me another macrosecond to make up my mind as to what to do. Sit and attempt and make complete fool of self OR walk up and make the best of whatever's left of the day. I opted for the latter. I got up, grabbed the paper, walked up to the 'Examiner,' who was evidently stunned, seeing me - the lone survivor from the 1st round, who'd just barely walked in, already trying to walk out.

I brightly gave him a very, very, very genuine smile and handed him my very neat, very blank paper. 'I'm sorry but I've changed my mind, I don't think I'll be taking the test now' I told him.

Now it was time for him to coax and plead. But I'd already learned from the paper. Be firm. Staunch in your decision. Withhold or yield. And I had decided to withhold. No matter how much he tried to make me sit down again, he could not make me hold that evil paper in my hands again. Of course, XYZ is filled with brilliant people with brilliant degrees. It housed The Bold and The Beautiful. He probably thought I was the biggest airhead to ever step foot inside that sacred building and that my diffident personality was sacrilegious to the the holy and almighty XYZ building.

But I didn't care. I walked out and saw the sun shine and the green grass and heard the birds chirping. And I was happy. I was in a prison of sorts, but I was finally free. Oh the joy! the bliss of walking out of an interview and not giving a damn!

Morals:

1. When going for an interview, make sure it's going to be in a language you speak, write, and understand. Make sure you know what job you're applying for. Make sure they're gonna love you. Make sure you kick ass. Make sure they BEG to hire you.

2. Disregard and trash #1. Only pains-in-the-ass do that. It's okay to mess up once in a while. In fact, I suggest doing the wrong thing once in a while just for the chance to feel that good feeling that can only come from knowing you've finally redeemed yourself. I suggest getting into bad situations once in a while just for the exhilaration of getting yourself out of it.

I'd probably go do something like this again if walking out of a building's ever going to feel as good as the way it felt that day. And laughing so hard my sides hurt - alone, with just my perplexed driver all the way home to our Lajpat Nagar flat.

{No matter how unlikely, most of the time, (MOST of the time, not always, mind you!), things work out in the end. Trusting in God and working hard helps. Now in this building where I work now, not in capital city anymore, XYZ occupies the floor below, I don't even give them a second glance. I'm just so happy to be sitting here, several floors above them, working here and not there. So in a nut shell, if you give me a difficult test and I don't pass it, or even dare to attempt it, you lose me. }