Piccolo Posts

It would not be wrong to say that Work from home is the new buzzword in the town. Most of us in the IT sector are doing this and yes, it's quite comfortable. Especially for people who travel hours and hours in crowded public transport systems smelling fish and co-passengers' armpits. No, It's not hyperbole - its a fact. Ok! At least in Mumbai, IT IS A FACT. The local train travel in summer becomes pathetic. The workplace is all heavenly but the travel is hell. By the time you reach office, the shirt tucked in is out in the open. The nicely ironed trousers look no more like they used to, two hours ago. Nicely polished black leather shoes are full of dust. You look at them pathetically and rub behind your trousers. Messed up and not ready to work is the mental state when you swipe into the office. And all this trouble just to reach a place which you don't like. Haha! That's life buddy. But the same life fills your pockets on the last day of every month. Work...

Chapter 1: Hum Kis Galli Jaa Rahe Hain Find the grape! I boarded the 9.15 am LTT-Lucknow Pushpak Express from platform number 4 of Kalyan station on a cold Friday morning. My day ahead was highly unplanned. The only thing confirmed was my seat and that my train would reach Nashik 10 minutes before 12 pm. It didn't though- I alighted at 12.15 pm at the Nashik R oad railway station. I almost had an entire day before I could meet my friend who would be coming from Pune. After having a heavy but not exactly fantastic lunch nearby, I caught a local bus to Nashik CBS. I had decided to go to Sula vineyards first. The rest of the things will be planned later. I started hunting for cabs which could drop me to Sula but I only got some super high quotes in return. The Nashik district court is just adjacent to the CBS. A rally in progress was approaching towards the court. Policemen were clearing off the road for the rally to march ahead peacefully. I crossed on to...

It has been around eight months here back in Mumbai and Mumbai keeps you busy; so busy that I didn't even care to write more on the Kerala Diaries.  A few weeks back, I was going through the notes in my phone and I found a note named Moonu. This note contained pointers to all the things that I wanted to include in the concluding part of my diaries. So, that got me started. I can never get the picture of the Cochin International airport out of my mind – it’s vintage. I did not pay any attention to it at first. When I boarded my pre booked taxi to the hotel and the taxi was on its way out, I just happened to turn back and I saw this. Isn’t it retro? The Cochn International Airport The airport was way out of the main city. It took almost 90 -100 minutes to reach Ernakulam. On the way, there were Mammoottys, Mohanlals and Vijays on huge hoardings, advertising gold, exotic sarees, scooters and also their movies. Mohanlal’s movie Loham was due that week and at a theatre ne...

Mahabali at our Hotel Kerala celebrated its state festival Onam last week. It is celebrated over period of ten days. I was always indifferent abut this festival until I landed here during the festive season. It is believed that King Mahabali or Maveli as the malayalees say, visits them during Onam every year. Mahabali is an asura king who is good; the only bad thing in him marks Vishnu's fifth avatar - Vamana. The people under the good king's rule were happy and prosperous. The king soon developed an ego that he had everything he wished in the world.  The king had kept a yadnya where he promised that he would grant anyone with anything he asked for. Legend has it that Lord Vishnu in his Vamana avatar asked King Mahabali for three pieces of land equal to his feet. As soon as the king granted his wish, Vamana grew into the skies, kept one foot on the entire heaven; the other on the entire earth. When Vamana asked, where should he keep his foot for the third piece of land...

Two weeks after staying at a hotel with complimentary wifi and breakfast at M.G.Road in Kochi, I learned that every motorized vehicle here is a prospective killer. In these super small lanes, the vehicles go super fast. I have a new phobia now of crossing roads beacuse you never know which vehicle decides to surprise you. Even the government buses; they do not run, they fly. When I first saw a KSRTC bus, I noticed that there are only open windows; no glasses. Later when I boarded the bus to go to Allepey, I got to know that there are shutters inside the windows. There are no glass windows probably because of the heavy rains; the shutter type windows are easy to move up and down and need less maintenance. The big M.G.Road earlier known as the Seventy Feet road is reduced to half its size due to the Metro;  "work in progress". But the size of the roads do not matter here — everyone likes to go zooooom. KSRTC Buses:   Source Unlike Mumbai where people always run —afte...

A 110% true South Indian right from his name to his french beard and his heavy South-Indian accent. I do not know him personally or professionally but he is so loud and happening in his work-area that each and every person sitting within a circle of radius of about 10m with Mudaliar as the center (The Mudaliar circle), would be knowing him just a little less than personally. Wondering about that weird geometrical example reference that I used? Mudaliar has a knack using such weird references; “Jab gaadi waqt pe platform pe nai aati, tab tum kya karte ho? Rukte ho na? To fir ruko na. Gaadi ayega o horn bajayega. Mai bhi kaam hone ke bad tumhara phone bajayega.”, says Mudaliar when he has not completed his work in time and somebody has been repeatedly following up with him. Mudaiar probably in his forties sits some 2-3 bays apart from me and facing me. I always see him smiling. He will either be smiling at his own work on his laptop or listening to other guys in his team sco...

Almost three years into an IT Software development company, I have realized that an IT guy is very enthusiastic only on a few days in a year. These are the holidays, the typical ‘colour’ days and the traditional days.  On the other days he generally whines about his salary, his boss, his company and finally himself in that order; if not, he probably has ulcers in his mouth. :-D We had traditional day this Diwali at our office. Happiness and memories hit me and the nostalgia took me 15 years back when the celebrations were filled with more enthusiasm and the festive mood would set–in a week or two before the main festival. Chapter 1: The Holidays Our Diwali vacation would be of 21 long days! The Semester exams got over and there would be nothing to study; absolutely nothing. We stayed out most of the time. ‘Missed calls’ were still not invented; we used to shout out the names of our friends who stayed on the higher floors to tell them to join us play. Chapter...

Chapter 1: The driver that wasn’t The name implies that a driver must know how to drive but driving alone doesn’t help, if a driver doesn’t know how to drive to a given location. In our case, the location was Mulshi Dam-near Pune. Our trip to Pune via Mulshi Dam was spoiled when the driver started asking us the directions to Mulshi. Chapter 2: The Chevrolet Tavera that wasn’t Of all the Taveras present in this world, we were the chosen ones to have the black smoke coughing, powerless, pickup-less, Chevrolet Tavera. After somehow reaching Lonavala, when we headed towards Mulshi, we came across a steep hill. We all were excited, but our Tavera had different plans. It didn’t seem to like the steep hill so much, and it gave up. So our trip and the Tavera took a U-turn back to Lonavala. Interval: The License that wasn’t We experienced God in Lonavala. As though we didn’t know that our driver wasn’t driver enough, Almighty God himself sent us a cherub in khaki pants and...

The Mumbai Local           Lacs of Mumbaikars travel by the local train everyday. Mumbai local is called the Lifeline of the city. The over-crowded trains witness many stories, quarrels, debates, discussions, games, songs and  bhajans (a proper bhajan with dholak and cymbals!). They say, "Don't be a part of the crowd, lead the crowd." This does not apply in the Mumbai local. You have to be, infact you are a part of the crowd when you travel through the over-crowded trains. I got a chance to become a part of this crowd when I joined college. I found out some rules that came into being as the crowded trains went on becoming over-crowded. There are two three-seater benches facing each other between which generally three to four passengers stand. The first person from the window should be given the first priority to be seated if anyone gets up from those two benches. Fourth seat is allowed on the three-seater benches. Unless nobody is standi...

                  “You market yourself too much. You always speak only of your books” , questioned a 20 something girl to writer-banker Chetan Bhagat: A popular writer with two of his books already made into Bollywood movies and the remaining three to be made soon. Replying to the girl’s accusation the chubby writer said, “I have a booking of over Rupees Five Crore on Day 1. Why would I market my book so much?”                 The girl with curly hair and wearing glasses, apparently from an upper-middle class family with a book and a notepad in hand asked Chetan about the quality of English he uses in his books- “Why do you use so simple English? You can do much better”, she insists.  Chetan, just out of a session held at the Times Literary Carnival, 2011 in Mumbai was hauled by a handful of people while he was getting into his car. I got out of a works...

The Panchsheel Agreement was signed between India and China in 1954. This agreement stated the five prinaciples as: 1. Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, 2. Mutual non-aggression, 3. Mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs, 4. Equality and mutual benefit, and 5. Peaceful co-existence. It was around this time that the slogan “Hindi Chini Bhai-Bhai” came up to encourage peace amongst the two nations. Fifty seven years after the agreement, I got a chance to interact with the Chini Bhai’s. Here is the experience shared...  I was definitely nervous entering that room- setting the projector and making some other arrangements for a presentation that I was to conduct.  The nervousness was more because the audience was Chinese. I had never interacted with a foreigner before so closely. I was having a glass of water when a Chinese entered in- he was the Team Leader.  I smiled and greeted him. He rep...