The importance of five minutes

Sometimes, life is such a bitch! I hope this doesn’t happen to even the worst of my enemies. Of late, it has become a challenge for me to find companions for chai at my workplace. If the fear of uncles and aunts is not yet discovered, I’ll take the credit of inventing it and name it after my company. BTW, if you’ve never faced a situation where you were forced to sip a cup of coffee or tea alone in your office canteen, don’t ever risk it. It’ll shatter you; rip you to an extent greater than when Kapil Sibal learnt that Aakash tablet didn’t sell 100 units. A cup of tea without any companion can be most awful five minutes of your life.

Talking about five minutes, Isn’t it really weird how much of variation can a mere five minutes bring in different situations of life? Just contemplate on the below circumstantial evidences, you might realize that, 5 minutes, just 300 seconds, sometimes can be too much of a time and sometimes absolutely nothing at all.

Five minutes of surplus sleep in the morning is the best part of the whole sleep. My mom is the sweetest alarm in the world. When she wakes me up, I know it’s getting late but still I say “pleaaaase Maa.. Just 5 min” and pull my blanket over. How I wish those 5 minutes to be as stretched as possible. Oh, you should be so lucky to get this extra 5 minutes every day.

Imagine there’s no one at home and you’ve invited your girlfriend just to show her your house (I’m sure you’re capable of doing much more!). And your uncle’s third sister’s brother’s father in law with irritable bowel syndrome comes home just to use the toilet. You ask your girlfriend to hide somewhere inside. You look at your watch every thirty seconds and pray to god like never before  that he’ll not stay for more than 5 minutes. We all want those 5 minutes to get over as swiftly as possible. Isn’t it? Sometimes in life, some people cause happiness wherever they go; and some, whenever they go!

Once I had been to a movie called Neal and Nikki (I’ve seen “Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage” and “Agneepath” also in theatre). That’s when I started getting smiling Baboons in my dream; singing “I’m the neal, I’m the man, rock star, superstar” with guitar in hands. I badly wanted a navigation slider on screen so that I could forward and end the movie in just five minutes. Statutory warning: Even 5 minutes of Uday Chopra is injurious to health.

I’m sure even the f***ing geniuses have experienced the importance of last 5 minutes in examination. I had to write 10 more lines to get a stamp of 35. And there’s 5 more minutes left. The room invigilator strictly said last five minutes is to tag your answer scripts. I started scribing so fast as if this is the last five minutes of my life. I wanted these five minutes to be as lengthy as it could get.

The five minutes is same in every situation. But it is the circumstance that makes it different. So learn to make the most of your time. Learn to respect time. No matter if it is yours’ or others’.  A great man has said “It is always better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.”

 Just as I finished penning my above thoughts, My enlightenment for the importance of five minutes flashed in my cell phone with below sms from Sandy:

What is the similarity between over cooked food and pregnant girlfriend?

Thinking that “had I removed 5 minutes earlier, life would have been better”

Co incidence? You decide!

Image courtesy: effective-time-management-strategies.com and trsh.org

Hobby and Mental illness

Episode 1: This might have happened to you: You are already frustrated spending 2 hrs on a 3 hr long meeting. You are in the middle of an important conversation. Suddenly the other person flashes something in capital letters. YGM. You have no crazy idea what it means and you can’t even ask about it because it is a prestige issue. You see only blues for the rest of the conversation thinking what YGM is and miss some important points in the meeting. After the chat, you google it out and realize that meaning of YGM is a simple “You’ve Got a Mail”.  Then you feel you should have replied WTHFIWWY (What the Holy Fuck Is Wrong With You). 

Some of the things I understood at my new work place:

• TY – Thank you
• HMPH – An expression of disagreement (FUCK! sounds better to me)
• TTYL – Talk To You Later
• HC – Holy Cow (coined by me after realizing the above)

Episode 2: You might have come across people who talk with such idioms, figure of speeches and phrases that you’ve to really keep a Roget’s thesaurus in hand to follow them. For e.g. they say “Cleanliness is Godliness” as “Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude”. I dunno why. But I easily, so damn easily get irritated with such people. Actually I’m revealing my weakness here. Man, when my 12^th Maths tutor said “Eccentricity of HyperBola is greater than 1”, I didn’t get a thing. Where will I understand your English. You are a total turn off.

Even if you tell such people that it’s not the right way, there will be no signs of change. They will just come back and repeat it. Psychologists say not their problem. They would have started things (like abbreviations and love for English) out of pure interest, a sort of hobby. Without their own conscience, without realizing what others think of it, they become so obsessed that they will start using it everywhere. When it reaches its peak, it becomes a rational infirmity.

                                   A Classic example of a pastime turning into mental sickness

The take away is simple: There is a thin line between “hobby” and “mental illness". Make sure that thin line is always visible to you. Nurture your interest with a relaxing time and don’t develop obsession for any of your hobbies. Let it remain hobby. Don’t develop a mental illness due to your pastime and land up in unwanted problems. If the pastime becomes mental illness, what is the fun? Go. Get a life..!!

If you are saying “Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minim” for “Twinkle, Twinkle Little star” or using WTFs and LOLs very often, this is the time..!!! Wake up before your friends ROFL and LMAO at you.

In this context, Always keep this thing in mind: Exclusive dedication to necessitous chores without interludes of hedonistic diversion renders Jack a hebetudinous associate.

Oops! I just wanted to say: All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

Image courtesy: http://vi.sualize.us

The 7 Habits of a highly effective girlfriend

From the past 6 or 7 years or from the day I came to know there’s a valentine’s day or whichever is earlier, the age of loneliness starts to bother me only during the last week of Jan and first couple of weeks in Feb. Of course you know the reason. But I’ve been told that this symptom is quite common in all the average looking guys with acne problem and who are not into any relationships currently. I was almost close to coming out of it. But damn, I broke up with her on Sankranti. In spite of Karnataka having a very good sex ratio (965 girls per 1000 boys), and now that I can afford a girlfriend, it’s a little depressing to be single, that too in a city like Bangalore. 

Now that all my friends are getting close to nuptials, we started discussing what are the things that a guy should probably be looking for in a girl. Since getting into a relationship is not a corporate preaching, Steven Covey could not help us with this. So we had to collect the details from all buddy pals and formulate these seven habits of highly effective girlfriend, all by ourselves. Special thanks to Bali, Sri, Sumant, Hari, Mahi, Maddy, Smita, Sandy and Anil and our coorg trip.

Warning: All the matters discussed below are from a bunch of guys with arranged marriage mindset. Any resemblance to any behavior by a lover boy is truly co incidental.

The beauty and the beast: A big debate happened as to how much weight age is to be given to beauty and demeanor (The latter is hard to find in girls these days) and the answers were quite startling. A whopping 50-50. Yes..!!! Guys are guys, you see! So if you think you are a mirror cracking material, better reserve a place in art of living. Ravishankar might reveal his secret to you on how to fake a smile always and look good.

Empathy, sympathy and telepathy: This is the next big thing. Listening. Oh gal, we are ready to listen patiently to whatever you say, even for hours and days together. Even I’ve read in many books that a woman likes to be empathized. We’ll do it. We surely show sympathy, not a big deal. But if you don’t say anything and expect us to do things (which you do it often), how do we understand what you want. Through Telepathy? We’d rather stay away from you.

Shopping: Until we are in the “I can survive, take it to the Limit” mode, we are fine. But please understand that reading shopaholic and being shopaholic are two different things. Shopping above the basic needs of life is also fine. But we do watch out for great girls, who do shopping to just to kill boredom.

Bizzare Policies: We know health care policies and life insurance policies better than you. So we know what to spend and invest on. Trying to incept bizarre policies like “Show me the money”, “Q3 balance sheet” and other stuff are a strict WTF for us.

P.S: This will be nullified if the girl in the Finance domain.

Give me some sunshine, Give me some space: I know that you love your guy a lot. But overreacting for everything and requesting every minute detail on everything we do is a total turn off. Don’t sandwich your guy in between your love and care. Give him some space to breathe so that he can be himself.

Be a wingman: My dear girl, I’m a guy and I don’t understand the latest fashion statements and often forget to show that magnetism I really have inside. You’re more than welcome to help me out because I feel you are my best ever wingman (Taken from the Bro code by Barney Stinson).

Justice and benevolence: Seen only with some ultra modern girls who ask the guys to move into a separate house and part from their parents. I do not understand why girls don’t get the advantage of being with in laws. The growing intolerance between the saas and bahu is something that we never want to see. Please have little compassion and show same benevolence to our parents as your parents.

Well, no life is perfectly blissful. But some adaptations and adoptions can make life happening. Well, what you want your love of life to sing – Kumar Sanu’s duet or Himesh’s scream, it’s in your hand (Please refrain from reading this phrase in the toilet). If you don’t want to risk your life with arranged marriages and are still single, this might be your last chance. Valentine’s day is just around the corner. Happy trying..!!!

Image courtesy: kenneyjacob.com and kuchbatao.com

Why twitter is better than facebook

Until recently, I was under the impression that twitter is boring. I always thought twitter is for the celebs and it is not aam aadmi stuff. It took me to follow a trend (#beingkannadiga) to understand the working and real power of twitter. The simplicity and efficacy of twitter is simply great. And of course this is with comparison with facebook. (Without comparison, even Himesh Reshammiya is a hero) Here is how.

I can be myself: You have absolute freedom to say anything because most of your facebook friends will be inactive here with ‘a tweet a year’ policy. I can say what I want, I need not be afraid of what my uncles, relatives and of course, girl next door will think of me. For e.g. if I tweet “Hey Sandy, stop following Chandrika, she’s a bitch, it would still remain a tweet and not become a post of national importance. More importantly, Chandrika can never reply “Tej, you bastard” because my profile name on twitter can be @assholeforlife or @devatamanushya

No wall: Oh come on. Not Rahul Dravid. I’m talking about your facebook wall. Not having a wall is advantageous a way beyond your imagination. Your friend’s friend’s friend’s 17^th common gay friend, who molested you 17 years back, cannot write on your wall, “Hey dude... Remember How I removed your pants... Nostalgic” and even worse, the whole world will not know about it. So you won’t be embarrassed for whatsoever reasons.

Profiles picture is not “THE THING” on twitter. So guys need not secretly monitor a profile with a sexy babe’s picture until her best friend, out of pure jealousy tags her real pic with carbon deposits on her face. People who hate Rahul Gandhi, people who share rape videos to post mortem pics, love failures, checking into their toilets, 35360 thought for the days by a broken hearted guy in just 17 days, culinary delight pics of newlywed (husbands forced to comment on it)  and many other crap won’t trouble you at all on twitter. And there’s no chatting. Just say what you want to and keep going with your work.

It’s all about tweet and re tweet: Ýou tweet something. They like it. They re tweet or reply to your tweet. You like their tweets often. You follow them. That’s all about twitter. Simple and straight. Not a gay like facebook. 

No wall, friends list with 500 friends of which 475 don’t even say Hi. No hungry monsters waiting to chat, tag, like, post, ping and poke.

I’m just passing on the gyan to you. Keep it with you and share it if you want. But, Wait. What are you doing.? Heyyy wait..!!! Please no. Don’t get all active on twitter and curb my freedom. Let me be real me.

Yours humorously

@teajstej

image courtesy: seoinc.com

The happy times junkie

It’s just the 6^th day of New Year, and boredom is creeping in like never before. If you can imagine what it takes: to be with people who always talk about Shopping, Sophie Kinsella, work marriage and earrings (or in Malayalam) then probably you might be able to fathom the avalanche of my boredom at workplace. It’s not something I can ignore because I spend most of my day in office.

I know that eternal happiness is just an illusion. I’m not even thinking about it. But isn’t there even a single person who has got a similar or a near similar mindset like me? Come on. Our office has a whopping 3000 people. The absence of this one thing has become a serious liability for me to lose interest in everything. 

 

On the other hand, at my previous workplace, it was exactly opposite to this. Outings, movies, gossiping, rumors, scandals, pulling legs and lot of coding and testing.  Even lunch and tea breaks used to be so fun filled. Such a great team, with full of happening and people with cracking sense of humors, great enthu, totally fun loving and yet there was a discipline and perseverance. I can never forget my days there. I just recall my good old days and Damn…!! It makes me feel even worse.

I carried out a retrospective of why this kolaveri to me and the answers were right in front of me. (Thank you Natasha, for making me realize it). The truth is that I’m a deprived, depressed fool and when in you are in this state of trance, you can be easily tricked by emotions. 

Long back, I used to be 24/7 cheerful person. A happy go lucky guy. But it changed. Things screwed up at home, couldn’t get into engineering, I changed my favorite workplace, started shouldering responsibilities, lost the track of love, increased travel time, traffic vows, penny in pocket, dreams worth million, unsupportive colleagues and the list goes on and on and on. But it was high time I had to learn the lessons without which I wouldn’t be what I am today. Yes.!!! Today, when I look back, I realize the fact that I came in terms with life in the gloomiest days of my life. 

That’s the silver lining I was looking for. Unlike depression, happiness is not a state of mind. It’s a decision, a choice of how you want to look at things. It is not an easy task. But not impossible. Circumstances may haunt us and problems may follow us. But as long as we embrace simple things and learn to cherish small moments in life, we’ll stay happy.

As Natasha says, Gloom is just a faded old blanket. Just pull it over and cuddle yourself in it, and you'll be a "Happy times Junkie"