The Benefits of Throwing Stone in the Dark

   A very simple incident made me acknowledge the benefits of what we call "just trying ". A couple of days back I wanted desperately to smoke after a hard exam. I had cigarette but alas no match box in my room. It is one of the sick feelings- Its like you are with a sexy woman but you don't have a condom ( Of course for those who want "safe"). It doesn't hurt to carry one extra. Anyway, my other smoker friends were unavailable and I was getting even desperate. That is when I jokingly asked one of the very clean guys (read Saint) of my floor. I was very sure of the reply. However, to my pleasant surprise his reply made my cigarette carved body jump for joy.

  This is when I learned that throwing stone in the dark helps sometime. It is in fact important to keep throwing stones in the night. Look at the benefits:It does not take much efforts; It certainly does not hurt if you do it: If it works out, you are in for a surprise. Win- win in all situations :)

  If we extend the learning to serious things, we have serious aversion to doing things where we see very less probability of success. But think about it, If you are not loosing anything by trying - why not do it. I'm certainly not advising to put your foot in everything and loose everywhere. But certainly there are more situations where  you don't need  much efforts to try.  I could give few example of girls too. You seriously never who responds who don't (You know what I mean)

So Guys, Keep trying. You'll never where it'll land ;)

Eleven minutes: Criticism

Think twice about being Honest and Courageous

     " Courage is the discovery that You may not win and trying when you know you can lose"

     This blog is about the recent learning of my life. I did some thing-something very good in fact- for the first time. And, I got punished.

  Very briefly explaining, I tried to get into an elite ( some say corrupt- most of them are those who could not get into it :P) committee who controls the most important thing in a B-school. Yess, you guessed it right!! It is the mighty placement committee. Anyway, I am not saying that I wanted to serve the college, blah, blah. blah. I had my reasons for becoming ready to sacrifice sleep,grades and some other finer things. But those are definitely much more genuine and reasonable than many other fellow contestants. Coming back, it goes like this- A 5 day pre-process followed by elections followed by an even rigorous 4-5 days post-process is the selection process. It becomes quite obvious that this entire process was designed very carefully to select only those people that the SPC (the core group of placecom) want and It even occurs to me now that these core groups over the years must be maintaining that control over all these years.

I am getting deviated by the emotions :| . Coming back, I cleared the pre-process and then elections too. Now comes the post process and the much talked about interview where the candidate is interviewed  by a gruelling a panel of 7-8 placecom members where they have the right to put you under enormous stress, can ask you any disturbing questions and sometimes even use swear words. Any way, I saw this one guy ( A hefty, giant, ugly bastard!!) who is getting his tasks done by his friend(Some old lady :P). Frankly I did not like this guy. More so because he sent the facebook friendship requests to entire college just before we were to go for elections even though we are here for more than 6 months. And I really held placom in high regards and felt that this guy should be punished. I did think few times about taking a chance. there is always a chance that my name could come out and that I will have to face some consequences. After all i decided to send a mail- perfect evidence. And if this guy gets into and I dont( He has some connections ;)), I stand a serious chance of getting screwed in placments and mind you placemements are the most important thing(to many, including me).

Anyway, I decided to go against my fears and to be the responsible guy. I may have little personal things but honestly, I thought that that guy is undeserving. If he is doing these things even before getting into placom, think about what he'll do after getting in. And these impossible tasks they give were supposed to test the candidate for his perseverance. And to me he failed in it and I felt that strong desire to inform to the SPC about what I know. I knew that I could not provide them any evidence. But I did not want to be someone who is coward. For once, I was my dream- rebellious. Hail Che guevara :)  I was happy for doing what I should have done!

It was 2am in the night. I was just about to enter the interview room. I was walking anxiously outside the room rehearsing the opening lines, dialogues and thinking about the possible questions and my responses. I was called inside. It started with "most usual question" 'tell me about your self:P'. I gave some brief. And that Fucking Thakur lady, started right with my heroic thing( Btw, she is the lady whom I believed and to whom I sent that email requesting confidentiality!!). Not only did she break my confidence, she based the interview for the good part on this. She called me back stabber. I accept that I did some stupid things and gave some silly responses. But their intention was clear. They wanted me out. I was screwed. And what hurt me most was that 'THAT FUCKING BASTARD WAS SELECTED'.

This brings us to this rhetorical question- should you complain and take the risk of facing consequences or should you go along the flow and leave it! I dont have regrets for what I did. But the more I think, the more I understand about their plans. They dont want to outsource it to HR consultancy.They want to retain the control. They want to tweak the things. They want to spread their network. But, what is commendable is that they are doing all these things in the disguise that they are helping, that they are loosing their sleep for us and that they are working their asses off for our lives-- just for our lives!

 I am not discouraging you to be courageous but I am saying think through. You have taken the right decision to raise you voice.(Remember, Faint heart never won fair lady!).But,think a lot before doing these controversial things. Think of all the possible responses. Be prepared. Had I expected this question from the panel, I would 've been prepared about glamorizing the reasons and could have convinced them.But its OK. But how else would you learn :)

As always, I am happy( at least trying to ) with the way things turned out! I feel that this is meant for bigger things than  networks and politics. I think this rejection is giving time for self improvement and some quality time with what I like. Now, it all boils down to how I am going to make use of this time!. I know i am not ending this blog properly. But my request to you is be courageous but be prepared!


( I am not a fan of regionalism. but frankly they found only 1 guy "suitable" from entire south contestants- about 8.And frankly, there were atleast 3-4 guys who were very goiod indeed!(I am not one of them).)

The Dirty Picture

     I saw this movie yesterday. Its been a very long time since I've watched a movie in the theatre and this movie featured Vidyabalan, Nazirudhin shah,so naturally I went with lot of expectations. Though I was not completely disappointed, it was apparent that the movie lacked the intensity.

It had all the ingredients that any movie could hope for. Critically acclaimed actors,proven director and most important of all, the most controversial and juicy story of Silk smitha- the sultry south indian actress on whom the movie is based. It was very successful in attracting the publicity with Vidyabalan's generous show of her cleavage. But I guess it did not do justice to Silk smitha.

I expected a very intense story with compelling reasons that justify why Silk smitha committed suicide. But instead, the movie fell completely off the track in the second track. Through out first half she was shown as a very strong woman, a go-getter and as some was one who is madly in love with Surya kanth(allegedly Ragnikanth!!). She knows his status as a married man and still chooses to sleep with him. But suddenly she was shown to have realization that he was using her ( In fact,he told her quite clearly that he slept with 500 woman and that she'd be 501). I don't know why it took her half the movie to realize that!

And a sudden-and unjustified- change in the second half. She sees the true colors of Surya kanth and then decides to seduce his brother,Rama kanth. I thought she was seducing him just to take revenge- but I was wrong again. She fell in love with him. She goes crazy. As a result, she looses him too.She produces a movie which flops utterly and she goes bankrupt making her a hopeless drunkard.

All along the movie,this so-called intelligent movie director,Emran hashmi, hates her for her skin show. But  miraculously, he falls to these erotic movies and strangely drawn towards Silk when she was at her worst-both financially and looks wise. I could not understand this at all- but i do agree that people do crazy things when they are in love.Anyway, she was bankrupt but she had Emran hashmi who is rich and successful. She could easily change and could have lived happily But I could not understand at all why she committed suicide and that too in a dramatic manner.

  Overall, Vidya balan showed tooo much cleavage even for Silk smitha's character. Looking at her fat belly and excessive- but unattractive- exposing was very uncomfortable. But she looked quite aseducing and damn sexy in a couple of scenes- Truly erotic. Other than that , the movie had few killer dialogues.Some crazy,yet interesting performance by Vidya balan. To me, none of Emran hasmi, Nazeerudhin shah and of course Tushhar kapoor  failed to make any impact. Their roles lacked that punch. I guess it was some 2.5-3 on 5.

Criticism

   After reading few books on positive thinking and after trying to put those things into practise, I have started noticing the presence of criticism everywhere. We excessively criticize - everything about those people we hate, and also to prove ourselves right. I was also one of them. But i realized that it really doesnt give you anything good.

   I have plenty of examples. I study in a very reputed college. But there are few(very few) other colleges which are better than my college. But people here compare with those best colleges and criticize our own college not realizing that there are lacks of people who wants to come to the college and that we are very lucky to be here and that the situtation in rest of the colleges is hopeless. I am not saying I am a saint. I do get thoughts wishing if were there. But very quickly I try telling myself that it doesnt really matter(It of course does!!). And thus avoiding feeling gloomy about something I cant help.

 A gentleman from our college wrote a book on the flaws of our education system. In that book, he criticized unlimitidely. He said our education does no good; that it doesnt teach a thing;that it is completely useless and utter waste of time. Really? I've got a question for you Sir. Why do you study in this worthless education system? Why have you worked so hard to get into this college( I'll take pride and say that only top 1% students get admission into our college) . When you say you really dont give a damn about grades,percentiles,exams-why is it that I see you strolling in tension when exams are nearing?? In all honesty, although our system is not perfect, I think that it does pretty good. Why else our educated sons are doing great in every field in every country. We defintely owe some thing to our education system. But I really respect him for onething- For getting his book published. I know how difficult it is. He is probably the first person who got the opportunity to practise all the things we learned in our course;Yet, ironically he is the one cpomplaining about it!

   The other side. Recently few of our friends had read his book. The reviews I got from them are very discouraging. . They criticized him left and right-He doesnt have a writing style,too many grammar mistakes,boring plot,nothing funny,he thinks himself a superman,and too many. Although I do agree that a good part of what they said is true,It will be exaggeration to say that it is complete zero.They compare him with the the world famous authors. Its injustifiable. We definitely gotta give him some credit for writing a story fo 250 pages; for thinking a plot; for having the courage to get it published;for having a dream; and,most important of all, having the courage to follow it. It defintely not would have been easy. Comon guys, it is just his first novel and he is barely 22 years old. A whole life is ahead of him. I guess they are probably intimidated by the publicity he got.

   We all criticize our country,out families,our government,over villages,our films,our music. It is everywhere. I dont exactly know the reason behind it. But I believe that grass is always greener on the otherside. We always think others are having fun- other countries have everything-sex,money,lifestyle,drugs. We think that they are the happiest people. But the reality is on the contrary. I dont have any position to preach anyone,nevertheless I advice that it would do a great deal to us if we reduce that. I guess I have done enough criticsm ;)