The Sonance Behind My Silence

When you are a fresher working in a big multinational, it is very obvious to be under constant pressure, so much that you can’t think of anything except your to-do list for the next day even after you reach home, or seeing the products that you sell, or even your clients, in your dreams. But what gets the most to you is when you are entrusted with a responsibility. My time came in early August 2015. I was about 2 months old in the company, having already established my over-enthusiastic, efficient persona, sometimes even evoking mixed reactions like “he does not have enough work on his plate”, just because I did not waste any time at work and aligned my actions for the day efficiently. One Friday, when the entire office was in the mood for rejoicing, given that it was a second weekend of the month, meaning getting an off on Saturday, I had finished most of my work for the day and was already mentally planning for the things I was going to do over the next two days. Life was rosy,...

As life unfolds itself day after day, As new people and experiences pour in, Accompanied by struggle and pain, tension and stress, Difficulties show up, and it becomes harder to settle in. Just when we think it can't get any worse, Guess what, it does, oh I'm not kidding, It's as if bad times would never cease, Like the line of guests at every wedding. Seeing others your age happier gets to you, It's perceived happiness, but still quite painful, And as we feel, did they do anything differently? It's what they're wondering about us, how disdainful ! Do not lose hope, for Greater Is Coming, A dream job, so satiating and fun, A woman unseen, but whose scent travels from afar, And a life that we always wanted, with that special one. So if you don't know what you want to do, Worry not, for you're not alone in this lore, Ultimately all of us have to rally in life, Until we find what we're looking for.

For those who came in late: http://greenersideofgrass.blogspot.in/2015/05/khambatta-is-dangerous-man.html      Rajiv woke up with a start. It had been 20 years since their house had been attacked, since he lost his sister Poorva. But it all seemed so fresh, as if it were only yesterday that their house in Andheri was covered with shards of glass, bullet casings, violent fire, followed by the grief of losing his elder sister Poorva and her fiance - Agent Shiv, to the now most dangerous man in Mumbai - Victor Khambatta. The eerie silence had lasted in their house for 20 years, and now revenge had become a distant dream. Khambatta had grown exceedingly mighty, and getting one's hands on him had become more difficult than ever before, even for the ACS' top agents - Agent Rajiv and Agent Sujay. ________________________________________________________________________      The 2 brothers had followed their father's footsteps into the ACS, and General Joshi ...

     My sincere apologies to those who clicked on the link thinking it's a self-help guide to doing what the title says. It is not. But it is about YouTube, yes. Let me take you back to those days when you had to search for hours online for that movie clip or music video you suddenly thought about. By the time you got to it, either your desire to watch the video had vanished, or you found 12 seconds of that video in really bad print. Let me take you farther behind, remember when you had to buy VCDs and DVDs of movies that you would watch only in the first week after you'd bought them, or when someone came over, and soon it just sat in your drawer like a liability and a shameful reminder of how careless you had been?      Not farther enough, how about the time you had to record on your VCR (Millennial kids: "What?") an episode of your favourite show or a movie on TV you wanted to watch but did not have time to? Pretty often you had to write over...

     Don't get me wrong, I'm neither a fanatic, nor an atheist, and definitely not agnostic. I just have a very liberal view towards religion, at least I like to think that I do. Have I read The Shrimad Bhagavad Gita? In detail. The Holy Bible and The Holy Quran? A few excerpts, yes. What I have understood out of each of these holy books, is that they communicate the same things, probably in different ways. One of these things they all abide by is 'There is only one God of this Universe'. You may have heard this being true in the case of Christianity and Islam. But Hinduism? Don't we have a lot of deities? 33 to be precise?      Contrary to the '33 crore' misconception, in reality, the term ‘trayastrimsati koti’ as quoted in the Atharva Veda, Yajur Veda, and Satapatha-brahmana, is often misunderstood as 33 Crore. However, 'koti' in Sanskrit has two meanings - ‘supreme’ and 'crore'. Hence the basic fact that Hinduism has 33 Supreme Gods a...

     My Facebook timeline these days is currently full of these things: 1. Hilarious animal videos/memes of fake Godmen getting ripped apart 2. People my age getting engaged/married 3. ___ *aeroplane emoticon* is travelling to ____, United States from  Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Terminal T2 - Mumbai . - feeling excited *happy face emoticon*     The third type of posts is usually accompanied by pictures of their family and friends coming to see them off, as they go off across the oceans, to live the American Dream. But 4-5 months later these very people land up on my timeline frolicking at a local pub in Khar or Andheri. 4-5 months away from home? It does not seem too different from when I was studying engineering in Pune.       I'm not going to argue how bright Indian minds should stay in the country and utilise the opportunities here, or how the very 'dream countries' they are dying to go to wi...

     A professor once announced to his students that he was taking a surprise test.  As they waited for the test to begin, he handed out the question paper, with the side with text facing down as usual.  After handing them all out, he asked the students to turn the page and begin.  To everyone's surprise, there were no questions, just a black dot in the center of the page.  Noticing the surprise on everyone's face, the professor said, "I want you to write what you see there."      The perplexed students began working on the bizarre task. Once they were done, the professor took all the answer papers and began reading each one of them aloud to the whole class.  Every student described the black dot, trying to explain its position in the middle of the sheet, etc. After reading it all, the professor said to the quiet class: "I am not going to grade on you this, I just wanted to gi...

     Innovation, Technology, Making The World A Better Place. 'Google' stands for all of these. The word, which had no meaning whatsoever about 17 years ago save for its phonetic similarity to the word 'googol' (10 to the power 100) which it was originally going to be called, is now a near inseparable part of our lives. With its numerous products to assist our daily activities, this brainchild of  Larry Page and Sergey Brin has earned its place among the greatest organizations in the world.      In a recent turn of events, the company announced that it is no longer going to be called Google. WHAT?!      Please excuse the dramatics, what I meant was that it is now creating a new publicly traded parent company called Alphabet Inc. to house all of its disparate businesses. This conglomerate will have Google as its largest subsidiary, and here's where we Indians have a second of pride, the executive who will replace La...

1.        Abu Dhabi – Not Even a Glimpse! Rubbing the sleep from our weary eyes, We set out for the airport at half past twelve, An early morning flight it was, so taxing, To find our energy we had to deeply delve! It had been ages since we last went abroad, ‘Twas the first trip abroad for mom and me, But excitement had drowned away our stress, A memorable jaunt it was going to be! Within a few hours we were airborne, Relishing the pleasures of luxury travel, Sleep had been long forgotten, yes sir, As we waited for the adventure to unravel. The aircraft cut through milky skies, Crossing cities and countries as it flew, We could see the dunes below in sun-kissed sand, The sights of Abu Dhabi, as near it grew. The wait there was for merely 3 hours, Before we caught another plane to Paris, Time flew by through several security checks, It happened too fast to even steal a glance! We made a mental note for ...

     I have no idea which will be the last face I ever see and recognize, but I know for sure which was the first. It would be an understatement to say that I owe my life to her, when in fact I literally do. I wonder why it took me so long to write about her, whereas I have written before about my brother and father, albeit not being able to entirely cover what they truly mean to me. Probably that is why I haven't written about her yet, fearing that no words can possibly illustrate our relationship. But today, I am going to try. On her birthday, I'm going to tell her at what place she is in my life, and forever will be.      My earliest memory of her, which I can lucidly recollect...sorry for the interruption; coincidentally, she just called me. There's so much I want to tell her, but often I don't proceed beyond humming and asking general questions. Anyway, my earliest memory of her is from when we were at NOIDA near Delhi. Dad was transferred there for...

     Victor Khambatta is a dangerous man. More dangerous than his father, Feroze. At only 30 years of age, his demeanour is intimidating. His henchmen have instilled terror in the deepest locales of Mumbai, and extortion, kidnappings and murders run rampant in his name. Even his gangster father fears his audacious moves. But sadly, there is not one strong evidence to put him behind bars. As the city and its protectors grow more and more scared of his power, he grows mightier with every passing day. All hope seems lost, but there are still some of us who refuse to acknowledge his victory, and his clout does not faze our efforts to pin him to the ground and bring him to justice.      The year is 1995. The Anti-Crime Squad of Mumbai, even in times of corruption, and obscurity, is doing its best to ward off Khambatta's activities and foil his attempts to become the uncrowned King of organised crime in the city, which is a part of his grand plan,...

"Your son really needs to speak up!" "Why don't you join personality development classes?" "Marketing? For an introvert like you? You should take up finance." "You have a lot of great ideas, Tanuj. On paper they look superb. Just make sure you're vocal enough about them."      Didn't quite catch what I was getting at? Or may be you did. The above four verbatim comments are few of the many that have tried to deride my personality as an introvert, self-centered, a recluse, and even a laconic social outcast. Yes, that climax got a bit out of hand, but that just about covers everything that many "introverts" like me are subjected to at different points of life. This is no self-establishing, putting-my-foot-down article; just a fresh look at what the world of marketing needs in terms of personalities.      It isn't necessary that we fall into one particular personality category or type. We can be "d...