So I finally did go through November without venting out on the blog!

A lot has happened since my last post. But I'm not going in to all of it now 'cause it will just be useless rant which excites no one. That is if anyone is still stopping by here at all.

I have to admit, being on facebook has actually taken away the joy of writing here. I miss the bashing - oh wait, "flogging" I could deliver here. Not that I can't do the same on FB but when you have aunts, uncles their aunts and uncles all on your "friends" list you have to be that extra careful. I first thought it was a some sick joke that someone was playing on them by putting up profile of these really old people and then I realised it was them that were playing the sick joke on me! Anyway, I'm not about liking and commenting on everytime someone breaks wind and decides to put it up on FB. But yes, it has become a part of life where people can now successfully "Catch you bro" on FB. (Is my repetition of "FB" making me fit in yet?)

************

Well, it's almost the end of they year. My ambition was to get a certain digit salary annually by the end of this year - I did not get it. I guess when you're stuck doing something, you may as well hope you get paid well! The work has been extremely hectic this year, just like it was last year and the year before! But in the current setup of things, I'm not complaining (just in case the boss reads this post).

About the year now - I think it's been a good year on the whole. Nothing bad happened, so it's good!! I can't wait for the next year now, where I hope a lot of things will fall into place and I will turn 30! Don't go imagining things now.

************

Richard and Ruati finally got married! I say finally, 'cause only I can tell you the rollercoaster of a relationship it has been. Okay, actually even the two of them can tell you about it! Now that leaves me next. At the wedding, most people came up to me saying that my "path was cleared now" and "you're next" and blah! I had to constantly remind them of how we were celebrating the wedding and not the clearing of some "pathway"! For the older people who said "you're next", I can't wait to meet them at a funeral. Guess what I'm going to say to them! Anyway, It was a great celebration mostly because of all the alcohol involved! And yes "I'm next"!

************

What else do you want me write about? :p

I almost forgot my blog!!

Blame it on facebook, where I'm quite "active" as most people say, I have almost forgotten that I have a blog! Not that I have much to say here or on the FB page, but then my usual obsession of not wanting to go through a month without posting comes in to action ever so often! And shit, I'd almost missed the deadline!

Like I said, I don't have much to say, which also usual means that I either do not know where to start or I'm too lazy to say it. This time it may be the latter.

Things I could write about though are

1. Richard getting married (Yes! Really!!)
2. How my non-married status will be the single greatest crime in the history of mankind (in about 28 days)
3. My trip to Manila (and how I will be one more b'day celebration away from anyone that cares)
4. ... And my usual "until now" rant...

But I'll keep that for later.

P.S. Manila is the capital of Phillipines, Manali is the world capital of WEED! I'm going to the former for WORK! The next person that confuses the two (I can't even understand how if you're IQ is above 10 can you do that) will receive a post dedicated to their stupidity. And I promise hyperbole like you've never seen it before!!

My Life..

Working projects is a funny place to be in. Over the last 3 years I have made many acquaintances and even more "enemies". I have days where I'm so free, that I think I can happily get married and have children and even take lessons for them - like my mom did, and then there are days where I don't have time to take a leak 'cause I have 8 hours of conference calls one after another. I can understand all accents from the UK, US and India (except of course, The Geordie) and I sometimes find it difficult to follow what Herbert says!  I meet expectations on most days, that I know I will not meet when it matters! I know while I try so hard, just because of the nature of my work, someone will always be left disappointed. No matter how hard I try or how hard I work. To me this is the life I live and I have chosen. I can now either let my self preservation instincts take over and take it all with pinch of salt or I can let the world and his wife make me feel terrible about my existence and then have nervous breakdown or worse may be have a heart attack or something. The choice I make is very obvious.

Timelines are not the happiest success criteria to have. But for someone who in general has an OCD when it comes to time, I'm in quite a happy place. Sadly, I have work with people who do not feel the same way. Some of them don't even make it to time for the happy hours (That's where somebody invented "Time is money")!! Most people don't understand that I as a project manager am fighting every minute to now make it worth while! Well, I'm tired of doing this now. I may have become a bad friend, a bad son, a bad brother and most of all a bad boyfriend. But above everything, I have also become a bad worker, because no one is satisfied and I'm attempting to fit 48 hours in 24 hours!! But yes, I am hanging in there all by myself and wondering when will everyone understand? I hope they will. I hope they find the time to think about it - if I can use my driving time to make several phone calls, people can use their TV time to think.

I don't hate my role, I don't hate my life. I just don't like my position.

And finally there was a FB account

So I finally do have a facebook account. Most of you are already on my friends list in less than 24 hours, so you do know I'm not fooling around anymore. It's also very nice to know that 34 people have accepted my friend request and a another 14 want to be friends with me! On further investigation of "my profile" I found that my extremely shy girl friend has 225 friends on facebook!! That's 215 more than she has in real life!!! Not that I have a problem with it. Really baby! :)

So as one or two of you may have realised after looking at my extremely flattering pictures, that profile was created by Herbert and a lot of people have fallen for it, which means he will now be very happy with himself for the next 20 years! Herbert, by the way, maybe 21 years old, but let me tell you his shoe size is more than his IQ (shoe size - 10 1/2). And yet, he has managed to pull this off. Well, I have to say I'm quite flattered with all the "requests" I have been receiving, but I'm absolutely annoyed that the alerts are activated on my email and my freaking phone did not stop beeping for like 20 minutes (then it threw up blood and died!).

I did go into the account once to see what it is like to have a FB profile and really I could not be bothered that "Kenneth Dean is now friends with Suraj Kapoor" or that "Tushar M is having a long weekend" or all of that shit. The argument most people have had with me is that "you don't know what it's like". Okay, maybe not completely, maybe only 3%, maybe even lesser, but I'm just going to let Herbert talk to all the people in there for me! I will of course have seeded my spies in there to give me constant reports of what is going on. The first action from that is to get rid of those super awesome pictures of mine.

And yes.. happy "facebooking" with me! Vik, I don't know if you can, but maybe you should direct all those people on my friends list to this post! It'll be fun!!

P.S. That thing I wrote about Rami in the first para, I feel will get me into trouble, so the picture below should help. Yes, I know it's a good picture - that's why I put it up!

Not just good food..

I've had a major stomach upset for the last 2 days and have deprived my self of any solid food. So today when craving came knocking, I decided to order out from one of my favourite malvani cuisine restaurants (an important word to remember) and then I looked a little closer at the menu..

They could use the same menu if they decide to branch out as an escort service agency. Their "man" will be at your doorstep!!

P.S. "Mouth watering" - very tempting but I'll stick to the fish curry - thank you!

Stories from the last month..

So sit back.. get that beer.. 'cause this will be long (unless I get terribly bored halfway through, which is quite likely).

First, I completed a year in my company in May. It's hardly an achievement I know, but with the way I was feeling at one point, it is still something to be proud of. I have almost started believing in miracles!

I have been thinking about all the things I wanted to write and then I realised the effort it would require versus spending that time I could watch television or drink was just not worth writing an entire story. Sorry, I know I kind of built the "get your beer" scene in the beginning. But to be honest, the first two paras on this post were written about 3 days ago. So in a nutshell, I got bored and I don't really feel like saying so much any more.

Anyway, the trip to the UK (for work) was good. Interesting in a lot of ways - like traveling to 4 different places in 13 days, staying in London right next to St. Paul's Cathedral, where Charles and Diana got married, the queen celebrated her 80th B'day (yes, she really celebrated it) and most of all staying at the White Hart in Lincoln. If you really want to know why it was "most of all" click on the hyperlink. On the whole it was good.

I tried not to be "Indian" on my trip, but I was more than often hit by the Indian inside me. Example - I paid 167 pound to travel 2 hours (one way) by train to Stoke. That's how much it almost costs if i were to fly to Bangkok and back - TWICE!! Thankfully the company paid for it.

So here are some pictures.. taken from my Blackberry :)

St. Paul's from my hotel

The White Hart - Lincoln

The corridor and the door to my room at the White Hart

The Lincoln Cathedral  (where The Da Vinci Code was Shot) - This is the view from my room, notice the blind on top right.

And a tablet in the office I worked out of in London (I only noticed this on the last day)

And now the best part of being in London - two of my little nephews! I know how old I sound, but it's an awesome feeling when a little kid hugs you and says "I love you mamu"!!

That's Reeyan - the most handsome 4 year old I know, and he even has a great dressing sense (why else would he wear a Tee similar to mine)

And here's a little devil called Eric (almost Cartman). The 10 month old fought with me physically for my phone. He won when he stamped on my "you know what"! I will beat him next time!

P.S. I hope at some level I have made up for not writing for so long. If I haven't.. please go take a hike! :)

This is the best I could do right now.

Will be back soon!

Someone observed that I wrote more in March last year than I have this entire year (they even said, "let alone July last year"). Alright, so I have been very busy and lazy, which I have come to understand is a very deadly combination for your out-of-work life. But it's not like I have nothing to write about. In fact, I do have a whole load of stories to tell. But not now.. 'cause I'm in office and I do have a truck load of work to finish. But I promise it'll be sooner than later!

Just keep the faith.

A moment of brilliance & an apology

Sometimes solutions just hit you from nowhere. Or do they? I've spent several sleepless nights thinking of a way to work around something at work and then suddenly yesterday in the afternoon it just seemed to fall in my lap! Was it the work of those several days of thinking or was it just that one moment of brilliance? I'd like to think it was the latter. I want to believe that in my life there will be these 'out of the blue' moments, and not everything is a result of the careful planning that I have come to like so much.

Talking about careful planning - I want to publicly apologise for the Facebook trick I pulled off. It seems there were several more victims than I initially thought. So everyone, I am sorry that you're so gullible (or just plain... well.. whatever)! And a very special to my best friend Vikram, and my girlfriend Rami who were also victims. You see, it was an unbiased prank and so people can stop feeling bad about it. I have a feeling it's not going to be forgotten anytime soon though. You can use the comments space to call me names if that makes it better.

\m/

P.S. Manchester United Vs. Barcelona - Champions League Final, 28th May at Wembley. Go United. (and Vikram it is absolutely fine if you do not comment on this).

What living alone does

I'm becoming strangely comfortable living alone. So much that now it has begun to bother me (and not that there's any problem). A regular day in my life is wake up, bathe (etc.), drink my coffee/tea, go to office (I don't think it is important to include "get ready" as I expect people to assume that), come back in the evening, bathe, do dishes from last night, watch TV while drinking (or the other way around), eat dinner and sleep! This routine has not changed once in the last 6 months! Maybe it's my love for predictability that is now making me so comfortable. Nevertheless, it is a little disturbing now 'cause I almost never go out during the week in Bombay. All I want to do is go "home" and be all by myself!

It's not like I have become a loner, more like I once mentioned about being alone and not lonely. I absolutely love the "me" time and I hate the thought of giving it up for anything. The other day, I had to go out with people from office and I kept having this feeling inside my chest of something gone horribly wrong. Something like me not being able to just have the evening to myself. Some people have come to the conclusion that I have a problem and I should maybe get married - I'm not even going to tell you the things I say to those people in my head.

I love the thought of my house being mine alone! So much that I don't even answer the doorbell if it's rung before 10am! If there is anyone or anything important they will ring the bell again and I still won't answer if I don't feel like it!

Nevertheless - the thought of coming back to Pune EVERY weekend is really what keeps me going.

I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
 
- The solitude of Alexander Selkirk
 
P.S. I started writing this post on Wednesday in office and just then a colleague of mine asked me to go with him drinking. I did. It wasn't so bad!

The big FB April fool prank!

So as some of you may have figured, you never did find my FB profile! I want to put up some of the comments I received but then they're all right here! :)

What not can be achieved with a little planning and a blog! Heheheheheh...

For those who still don't get it. I DO NOT have a FB account. And D, "I’m not a social networking person and I probably will never be"!! Next year I think I'll try this again!

BTW Vik, you were the first person to look for me (at least the one that reached out after they couldn't find a profile)!!

\m/

P.S. Doesn't mean I will never have a FB profile. You never know what circumstances can bring a man to do! :)

It's here!

Add me on FB people! All you have to do is look for Martin Meganath... and let me know what you think of the profile pic!

Let's see who's my first FB friend! The race is on...

:)

Giving in!

I have finally decided to join FB. Yes I know, the greatest anti-FB crusader has given in. FB and it's users win. I've lost so many bets and even worse I will have my "wall" full with people making fun of me for a while. But I have come to understand it's benfits I guess!

FB here I come.

P.S. For some reason the browser isn't connecting to FB. Maybe it's a sign. Will dedicate a post to when I finally do manage to join.

One more reason..

Boy walks up to HR today and submits a doctors certificate 'cause he's been out of office ill for 3 days - Monday to Wednesday. HR graciously receives the letter and gives him some human resources speak on how he should take care of him self and how due to the weather change people tend to fall ill and how he needs to put on some weight.

In 15 minutes I knew the boy was staying alone, was from Nashik, had an elder sister who was getting married after a month, his father had retired from a bank and his mother was a teacher. The sympathy our HR gave him was outstanding. All of it was very touching.

5 minutes later

The HR lead for the boys department calls his boss and tells her he needs to see this chap again. The boy is there to see the HR, coughing and sniffing his nose - obviously due to the weather change.

Someone has sent HR a cropped picture of his Facebook profile which shows his status on the last 3 days and included some pictures from the 3 days just to add some insult to injury. Turns out our boy was in Goa, partying his arse off!!

Sweeeet!!

P.S. He has been fired.

The same old rut..

A friend made me realised how I have been complaining about people at work for many many years now. I look back and realise how correct she is.

I have been going on and on about how the people I've worked with were dumb. How they were always so caught up in making themselves look good and someone else look bad. The way they manipulated things and how I was always the oppressed one. Or how I love my role but I just don't feel I want to do my best in the current place or in current circumstances.

I realise I've been so negative about these people and how I don't think I will ever truly be satisfied unless I find people who can stand up for themselves and for you when needed. I know I always feel that in this dog eat dog corporate world I will never make it out stable because the attitudes are so fucked up. I know that someone who sucks up or is pretentious has a greater chance and I don't because I simply don't care. I know I will not build relationships here because if I can't stand them now, how will I stand them later. I feel people most of times have the authority or position to take credit for something that should have been yours and that while you did all the dirty work, someone else will snatch the honours.

I've believed that illogical people who follow rules are actually considered smart rather than a logical person that questions the very system. I've felt that if you question authority you will be labelled a trouble maker and it's easier for people with no sense of purpose to question your logic with absolute bullshit.

Something happened over the last 2 days.

It comforts me to know I was always right.

BBB3 and OGQ

After years and years and years of having the most uncool phones, I now have a Blackberry. Not just any Blackberry. The Bold 9780 A.K.A Bold 3. Which is probably one of the coolest phones to have (for people with a job that expects them to be reachable most of the times). Having the Blackberry (hereafter BB) also made me realise how many of my friends use the I-Phone. But I have to say, the coolest thing about my BB is the BB Messenger (BBM) and Texas Hold'Em King (a poker game I love). In fact I spend more time playing poker than doing anything else on the new phone.

So, how has my life changed. It has not. I could have done just as fine with out the BB. But yes having the BB does make me feel less embarrassed about removing my phone and saving someones number. Somebody actually once told me, "what is that"?. I do not need to start up my laptop each time I get home, mails will be accessed on the BB. It all feels awesome!

The other thing that my phone in particular has over the other BBs (except a certain "Torch") is icons through which I can connect directly to FB, Twitter and myspace. What a waste - I know!! There is also a very cool app which reads my emails and messages while I'm driving and the woman's voice I quite nice I must say.

As you can all see, I am pleased with my self. Maybe, just maybe, FB will be next!

The other day we had this presentation in our office by an ex-Indian hockey team captain called Viren Rasquinha. So, there's a body they run called the Olympic Gold Quest. Their idea is to collect 100 rupees from a million people to support upcoming sportsmen. I was quite impressed (I rarely am with presentations) with the presentation itself and also Viren's presentation skills. I later read he's an MBA from ISB Hyderbad, which explains a lot. There are some interesting stories of  Indian sportsmen, but the one that stands out is that of M C Mary Kom. An impressive 5 time world boxing champion. It's one of those stories that inspires.

Well anyway, since I've been somewhat of a sportsman myself in the day, I think I will support this cause especially since I'm convinced the money will not go some corrupt bureaucrat.

P.S. I realise this post is not my usual useless rant about random stuff. I promise one will be on it's way soon.
You cannot make fun of anything I said about my Blackberry - I understand a lot of the things I have spoken about were in existence since time began!

The photo of Viren is from the BB!! :)

NOOOO!!

I didn't want to go an entire month without writing. So here's an excerpt from my chat (fucking G-Talk) with quite a senior person in our finance team.

..all I wanted was the number of people in his department..

Me : Hey Vishal
Vishal : Hi Martin. Happy New Year
Me : Happy New Year sir! How was it?
Vishal : Nothing much, just spent time at home. So, tell me how can I help you
Me : Cool
Me : I'm working on this project and I NEED your HEAD CUNT!
(Like HEAD cunt! No one else will do. It has to be the top madame! And I absolutely NEED her!!)
Me : Shit! Sorry, I meant head COUNT!

I think my hatred towards technology (such as FB, G-Talk) is justified!

P.S. "G-Talk" could easily be a term for dirty conversations. Think about it.

Addendum on 18th Jan

This just in from my dear friend Goutham. Written by a Sr. VP in our company to a "Sameer"

"Sameer, please review Schedule 16 as per instructions below. The centre location is likely to be Areoli!!"

P.P.S "Airoli" is a place in Bombay.