First Day in Pune (Summer of 2004)

During the summers of 2004, I was in Pune for my summer internship in Forbes Marshall, Kasarwadi. I was new in Pune and was staying at Kothrud with some of my seniors from IIT. I checked with one of my seniors, whom we used to call uncle, the way to reach Kasarwadi. Uncle told me that I would get a bus from the nearest bus stop to Corporation and from Corporation I can get bus to any place. 

Next day morning I was at the nearest bus stop waiting for the bus that would take me to the corporation. There were some people waiting at bus stop so I decided to ask them if there were any direct bus to my destination Kasarwadi. I asked one bystander, which bus would take me to Kasarwadi. He responded, "Nigadi jayegi". I did not understand what he meant. I thought Nigadi must be some word in marathi. I checked with some other people and they all gave me same response. So I decided to walk to next bus stop. People at the next bus stop also told me the same. I thus walked to the 5th bus stop from Kothrud and checked with people standing there. This person again told me, "Nigadi jayegi." I couldn't stop but ask him, "yahan bus ke number nahi hote kya?" This guy somehow understood my problem and told me that he is going to the same direction and I can accompany him. So I decided to follow him.

The person from the bus stop climed the next bus and I followed. He asked for the ticket to Manapa and I did the same. The bus finally stopped at Manapa and the person got off the bus and I climbed down with him. The guy asked me to get a ticket for Kasarwadi from the ticket counter. After getting the ticket I got in the bus and I noticed that Nigadi is a place and not a Marathi word and all those people were at those bus stops were trying to tell me that the buses going to Nigadi will pass through Kasarwadi. On my way to Kasarwadi I was looking out of the bus and I noticed at one particular place on a wall just above a window Khadaki was written and I told myself, "kitne pagal log hain, khidaki ko khadaki likh rakha hai." 

Finally I noticed Forbes Marshall office and got off the bus. In the evening I had to come back to Kothrud and the helping stranger from morning was obviously not there. So I decided to follow the same path back. I waited for a bus and got on the first bus I got. In the bus I asked the conductor to give me a ticket to Manapa. I gave him the money and he gave me the ticket. Then another person who climbed the bus with me asked for a ticket to Corporation. That reminded me what uncle said previous morning. So I asked the conductor to give me a ticket to Corporation instead of Manapa. The conductor looked at me and told me, "same hi hai." I thought may be the cost of ticket to Manapa and Corporation is same. In the bus I noticed some people buying tickets for Khadaki also. Finally the bus stopped at Manapa and everyone got out. I realised that this is the last stop and this will probably not go to Corporation, so I got down. The moment I got off the bus I looked up and noticed a big bright red sign board Pune Municipal CORPORATION, MAha NAgar PAlika.

That day I learned three things Nigadi is name of a place, Corporation and Manapa are same and Khadaki is not a spelling mistake.

Corporate Jadugar: Time Manipulation

We are always told so many things about time being constant, you have to follow time, it doesn't follow you and so on. Now such fundamentals are for us mere mortals. For our magicians they do not apply because they have mastered the art of manipulating time in their favour.



Following example will illustrate the way these masters of the corporate world play with time.



In case you write a mail to Mr X and he does not reply to you in lets days 2 days, you will escalate the case to his boss. Now X is smart. He does something which in the face of it will look very normal and logical thing to do, but in doing so he is actually creating time for himself that nobody takes note of.



X forwards your mail to one of his subordinates Mr. Y, marking all the concerned parties and asks him to action on that particular actionable. Now if Y does not revert in next 2 days, what will you do? Well, you will write a follow up mail to Y, because you have never written to him before. If Y doesn't revert even then, you will write back to X after 2 days asking for his intervention. Subsequently after 2 more days if X does not revert you will escalate to his boss.



If you analyze the above event closely, you would see the escalation that would have happened 2 days from the day you wrote to X will now happen after 6 days, so he actually created 4 more days for himself by doing something very simple seemingly harmless thing which did not require any significant effort on his part.



While everyone was too busy looking at the end point X quietly shifted the starting line behind. :D

Corporate Jadugar: Illusion of Approval

It's been almost 6 years since I have first ventured into corporate world. Although all these years I have worked in only one company, my job role allowed me to interact with a lot of people from different parts of business within and outside our organization. These people have different ways of approaching any situation depending on the position and business vertical they are in. Some of these people have been really special in their ways of dealing with their responsibilities. I have recently started calling such people Corporate Jadugar. In due course you will understand the reason I have chosen this term.



In my attempt to put forward some of the common illusions these magicians pull off during their today life, I am starting this series. Here is my first post among a series of posts I intend to write in future.



Illusion of Approval

One of the very first thing I learned after entering to corporate world, was that you require approvals to perform any significantly important tasks. Sometimes you may even require approvals for not so important tasks as well. Dictionary meaning of the word says "The action of officially agreeing to something or accepting something as satisfactory." So the person who is approving anything takes over the responsibility of anything that particular action will result into. If the result is desirable, nobody has any problem but in case of undesirable and harmful outcome the approver might get into trouble.



To save themselves from such troubles in case of an undesired outcome our Corporate Jadugar have come up with this magic trick called "illusion of approval". In this case you will get the approval from the CJ but in case of any mishap the approval will suddenly disappear.



Here I describe the curious case of disappearing approval. It is very simple but effective trick.



Lets assume I need an approval from a Function Head for some action I am going to perform, which I believe is going to benefit the organization. In such a scenario I write to the person at my level in the respective function. The communication would be something like this:



"Dear X, I intend to do this action which will result into certain benefits for the organization without adding to any risk."



Mr X here is very smart and is trainee Jadugar. He will send following communication to his Unit Head.



"Dear UH, Gaurav says this particular action is beneficial for the organization and also does not involve any additional risk, hence based on Gaurav's recommendation please recommend this."



Now point to be noted here is that Mr X himself has not made any recommendation. He is asking is boss to act on my recommendation. Now Unit Head, who is a Jadugar himself will write the following mail to his Function Head.



"Dear FH, Mr X says this is good, hence request your approval for this based on X's recommendation."



To this our senior Jadugar will revert.



"Dear UH, based on your recommendation I am approving the following."



At this point you will believe that you have received the Function Head approval and proceed. Now in case of any mishap you will be asked to reproduce the approval. When you reproduce this conversation, you yourself will realize that the approval has suddenly disappeared. When you read the entire conversation again you will know that the approval you received was based on X's recommendation you actually did not make any recommendation in the first place. So if anyone is to be blamed for the mishap is you.



This reminded me of an old joke I heard very long ago. The joke goes something like this:

One guy walks in to a sweets shop and asks, "aadha kilo jalebi dena."

When shopkeeper starts packing the jalebi's the guy says, "ek kaam karo, jalebi rahne do. uske badle mein aadha kilo rasgulle de do."

When shopkeeper starts packing rasgulla's the guy changes his mind again and says, "accha rasgulle bhi rahne hi do. uske badle mein aadha kilo gulab jamun de do."

Shopkeeper packs the gulab jamun and hands over to the guy. When shopkeeper asks for the money the guy says, "kis baat ke paise?"

Shopkeeper replies, "gulab jamun ke"

The guy responds, "lekin wo to rasgulle ke badle mein liye."

Shopkeeper, "to theek hai rasgulle ke hi paise de do."

The guy, "lekin wo to jalebi ke badle liye the."

Shopkeeper, "haan to jalebi ke hi de do."

The guy, "lekin jalebi to maine li hi nahi to uske paise kyon dun."

Messenger from God

Today morning while driving to work, it was wonderful weather and I had my windows rolled down. While most of the distance I covered without any special event when I was about to reach office, would be almost one Km away I realized something came inside the car through the open window. My first reaction was, it would be some leaf. I decided to check what was it and looked down. As I look down I see an ugly, grey about 3 inches big lizard sitting at the edge of the driving seat. I was driving at around 60 KMPH then. Whatever I am going to tell you happened really fast within a minute.



My first reaction after looking at the lizard was; well, I don't know what the first reaction was. Fraction of a second after discovering the presence of an alive lizard on my seat, only half inches away from my knee, I was thinking, if this lizard is little patient and can stay in this position for a little while I will get rid of it after I reach office and park my car there. With my seat belts tied and no scope of movement, that was the best I could come up with. But that lizard was an impatient one, without loosing any time it jumped on my knee. I felt a weird sensation flow across my entire body. I now had to get rid of her and could not wait for reaching office because now I was thinking if it falls off my leg in the car somewhere, it would be a really difficult task to get rid of it. I was hoping it stays on my leg for a moment while I get my card on the side and manage to get it off.



I managed to slow down the car and bring it at the side of the road, yet I could not just open the door because of moving traffic. I could also not let my eyes off the lizard because I had to know about its movements to get rid of it. It was moving downward on my leg while I was waiting for the signal behind to stop the flow of traffic. I was hoping to get an opportunity asap to open the door and get the lizard out because had it managed to reach my foot, the possibilities I did not want to even imagine.



At the first opportunity of opening the door I took my leg out and stamped my foot on the ground till that ugly creature got off my leg. I looked at it lying on the road, very much alive for a moment, closed the door shaken my entire body and slowly drove off.



Later when I posted this incident on my FB wall, following conversation followed:

what would you do when you are driving at 60 Kmph in traffic and an ugly lizard falls on your lap through the open window?

Akash Dongre: Thats a sign of good luck!
Gaurav Tiwari: It must be better than good since the messenger from god took the trouble of jumping inside a moving vehicle through a vertical window.
Akash Dongre: ‎:)
Amit Baranwal: curious... what did you do?
Gaurav Tiwari: I had shown tremendous courage and calmness. Slowed down the car and stopped at a corner. Let the traffic pass and wait for the signal. Let the lizard move to a position my leg so as it is easy to let it fall with little force. Opened the door, took my leg out stamped it on the ground till that lizard fell off. And then drove to office to tell the tale.
Anshu Bhatia: lizard n apka pichle janam ka koi nata hai :P
Gaurav Tripathi: so now lizards r in love with you :P
Gaurav Tiwari: ‎@GT yeah so much so that they jumping in the moving car through window.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 7: Recovery

"Recovery: the regaining of something lost or taken away."



I was smoking again. I was buying cigarette and smoking every time I went out for tea. I was no longer thinking or feeling guilty before lighting a cigarette. I in fact bought a packet again. When I took the first cigarette of the first packet I bought in months, it got me thinking again.



I thought, who was I fooling. Was it wise to let go of something, that I have achieved with so much effort. Something which is so difficult to achieve that I have seen many attempting but only few succeeding. I could not deprive myself of this achievement because of someone else. I respected myself a lot, a lot more than I cared for anybody else, for that to happen.



It was my respect for myself, which did not allow me to insult the effort put in by me in achieving the non-smoker status. How can I expect someone else to respect me when don't respect myself. Lakh take ki baat hai, gaanth baandh lo.



After the above thought I did not light anymore cigarettes from that packet I bought and so far that is the last packet of cigarette I have bought.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 6: Relapse

"Relapse: To fall or slide back into a former state."



Remember what triggered my decision to quit smoking? Well let me save the effort of going back and reading the part 1, it was because I did not want someone to hate me. Almost 5 months as a non-smoker, I realized that whatever I did could not prevent that person from hating me. Suddenly the reason for quitting smoking was no more. I was wandering alone in the streets of a town unknown to me, thinking about everything. Playing back every concerned event in my head. Every shop selling cigarettes again started to tempt me. Every time I passed a tea shop, I wanted to have tea and smoke as I used to do.



After struggling for few hours after the revelation, I gave up. I stopped at the next shop and bought two Classic Milds. I did not like the taste of it when I smoked the first one. It felt like I was smoking wood. It did not stop me from lighting the second one. I smoked the next one with much more ease and did not dislike the taste of it.



Next day morning I woke up and smoked my first cigarette of the day with morning tea and then every tea I had that day was accompanied by a cigarette, like it used to be. I was returning back to my old smoking ways.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 5: Testing

"Testing: Take measures to check the quality, performance, or reliability."


Once I successfully managed to spend few days without smoke, it was time to test myself. Test whether I can resist it in most tempting situations. That very day I said no to my boss when he asked me to accompany him for smoke . Coincidently that evening Ajay was drinking. I don't know what he was celebrating; but he offered me a drink. I poured some whiskey for myself and started drinking. My target was to last that drinking session without smoking. It was made even more tempting and hence more difficult by Ajay's constant smoking right in front of me. No matter how much I was expecting it; to my surprise I passed the test. I did not smoke.

Next day was Saturday and I decided to test myself further. I don't know about others, but in my case cigarettes used to be a must while drinking beer. So Sat night, I was treating myself with beer and giving me company was my good old tv with some South Indian Super Star, who I am not able to recollect right now. I was determined to not smoke but somewhere down the line my mind tricked me. My mind decided that I needed a cigarette. I used the option I had kept for myself; the packet of classic milds. I lit one cigarette from it and was really surprised to notice that I did not like the taste of it. It was then I realised that I have quit smoking.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 4: Struggle

"Struggle: A forceful effort to get free of restraint."



First day after the decision. I woke up looked at the packet, for a moment held it, then realized that I don't smoke. Waking up in the morning and not lighting the cigarette was very strange. So I decided to use the flexibility I had factored. "I will for some days smoke only one cigarette in a day" I told myself. This decision helped me not light the cigarette then. The two options I gave myself were, light it now and don't smoke all day or delay it for later. I chose the second. Since I am the first one to wake up in the house, I was not subjected to the torture of watching Piyush and Ajay smoke.



Fortunately my boss was not in office that day. That meant one less temptation. I kept the packet I was carrying in my drawer and got to work. At 11 a colleague called me for tea. I went out for tea with him, did not light the cigarette. At least five people asked me why I was not smoking. "sala koi accha kaam karna bhi chahe to ye jamana nahi karne deta with all their questions." I told them that I am trying to cut down on smoking, since I had been smoking a lot lately. One irritant was not satisfied with this answer. "Why? Kisne bola?" he asked. "accha kaam karne ke liye bhi reason chahiye hota hai kya?" I answered.



After lunch, which supposedly is the most tempting part of the day for a smoker, I decided not to accompany my regular gang down and I directly headed back to my desk. I realized one good thing about smoking, if you delay the urge for couple of minutes, it doesn't kick in for few hours. I was planning to use this to my advantage. :)



I kept on delaying the urge and did manage to delay it till dinner. After dinner, I desperately needed a cigarette. I decided to compensate that urge by having some tea. What I did not factor was the fact that Piyush will also have tea with me and he will light his cigarette then. So as promised to myself in the morning, I did light and smoke one and only cigarette of the day.



Then I made another promise to myself. To put a deadline to this one cigarette a day arrangement. The deadline I decided was one week.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 3: Flexibility

"Flexibility: the capability to adapt to new, different and changing environment."



Just to paint a picture in front of you. At home I have Piyush smoking in front of me with cigarette, lighter and ash tray at arm's length where I spend most of my time at home i.e. in front of my TV. If I go to the other room I enter in a cloud of smoke created by Ajay's non-stop smoking. At work I have my boss asking at least thrice a day, "coming for a smoke?" Then there are so many at work and friends circle offering me a cigarette or wanting to borrow one. To top it all my grocery shop owner adding to whatever I order, "aur ek packet Classic Milds." Whoever has ever had the habit of smoking would understand what a task quitting it would be with everything around you prompting for it.



To begin with, I decide to carry a pack of cigarette with me even though I had no intentions of smoking from it. The idea of carrying the pack was, to not look at Piyush when he is lighting a cigarette from his pack, to be able to offer it to the friends and colleagues whenever they asked for, to tell my grocery guy that I already have a pack with me so I don't need and to top it all to convince myself that I can always light one whenever I feel like smoking but I am just delaying it. The longer the delay the urge to smoke will die down. That's what I thought. The most interesting part is, whenever anyone asked me, "have you quit smoking?" I answered, "I haven't quit. I just don't smoke anymore."



We humans are sucker for flexibility. This is how I fooled myself, the flexibility to fall back to the packet I was carrying in case I didn't like the idea of being a non-smoker.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 2: The Mind Games

"Mind Game: An act or series of acts of calculated psychological manipulation, especially in order to confuse or intimidate."



Once the decision was made the biggest task at hand was to convince my mind that I do not need cigarette. This was a tough task considering the number of smokers around me, who have been my partners in crime for past more than 8 years. There is this thing about partners in crime. It is not easy to let go of your partner. I could think of two reasons; one, aadat and two, it is difficult to find a new partner. Another problem with being surrounded by smokers is, you see cigarettes around you all the time and it becomes even more difficult to resist. It is too tempting. Like they say in movies, "is duniya me kadam rakhna jitna aasan hai, isse bahar nikalna utna hi mushkil."



Well; I was determined to do the mushkil part. Aasan kaam kiya to kya kiya. Besides, ek baar commitment kar di to fir main apne aap ki bhi nahi sunta, specially when the commitment is to self.



I had to play mind games with my own mind. Sounds weird? Weird it is. May be this weirdness made me succeed where many failed.

SmokerJoe Doesn't Smoke. Part 1: The Trigger

"The Tipping Point: The critical point in an evolving situation that leads to a new and irreversible development."

So many people in last six months have asked me, "what made me quit smoking and how I did it?" Here it is for the benefit of others.

26/09/2010 at around 1:40 AM, I was chatting with someone and the following conversation followed:

me: you hate cigarette or smokers?

her: both

me: hmmm.. ok

her: :)

me: :)

good

any reason you hate them?

her: bas i dont

u knw dere are smthngs dat u jst feel from within

its one of dose things

me: ok..



It was then, I decided to quit smoking. I did not want her to hate me. :D

This was the tipping point in this case. This event which triggered a new and irreversible development in an already evolving situation .

Way to Jim Corbett

We were back after watching super boring "Tanu weds Manu" on Siso's recommendation. Back home while having dinner over few drinks Siso mentioned about planning a trip to Vaishno Devi in coming weekend. We got to know that next day was holiday for Siso and I was already on vacation. So we discussed and decided to go to Jim Corbett Tiger Reserve. We left for Jim Corbett at 11:30 pm with Siso's GPS enabled phone as our guide. Few kilometers away from home we realized technology is not always helpful when the aunty from the GPS system made us make 2 full circles to bring us at the same spot. That is when we decided to not follow aunty's instructions.

We hit NH 24 and by around 2 am, just before Moradabad we met a long queue of trucks, with no way to pass them. Finally we managed to cross the long queue and got confused by the policemen, who had blocked the entry of heavy vehicles on the flyover. So, instead of taking the flyover, we took the by lane. When we reached the turn that connected to the the road we missed, we were met by few policemen blocking the entry. Following conversation followed:
Me: Hume Nainital jana hai. Ye rasta kyon band hai?
Policeman: Lekin ye rasta to band hai.
Me: Lekin upar se to chalu hai. Gadiyan ja rahi hain.
Policemen: To tum yahan kaise aa gaye?
Siso: Wo trucks ko nahi jaane de rahe. Hum galti se trucks ko follow karte hue idhar aa gaye.
Policeman 2: Theek hai idhar se nikal jao.

And we managed to come back on NH24 again.

Few kilometers ahead, we stopped at Choudhary Highway Tourist Dhaba and there we had awesome tandoori parathey and tea. We spotted a unique college behind the dhaba. Well, that was the name of the college and also Ahsan Para Medical College. Not sure students yahan padh ke teachers pe ahsan karte hain ya fir it's other way round.

At this moment Siso decided to consult his GPS system and aunty told us Nainital is 387 Kms ahead. At this point Siso said, "aunty pagal ho gayi hai." Next mile stone told us that Lucknow was 321 Kms from there. Aunty ne pata nahi kahan ki distance calculate kar li thi.

Finally when we took the turn to Jim Corbett, it was around 4 AM and we were almost 60 KMs away. We thought we can make it there by 5:30 AM and go for 6 AM safari. Lekin khuda ko kuchh aur hi manjoor tha. We again met long queue of trucks and this time there was no way we could cross them. On inquiry we were told that the jam will be cleared by 2 in the afternoon. At this point following conversation followed betweem me and Siso,
Siso: "main wapas jaa raha hun."
Me: "abbey pareshan mat ho, koi dusra rasta bhi hoga."
Siso: "arrey dusra rasta nahi hota. ek hi chadhai hoti hai."
Me: "aise kaise. delhi to kitni saari directions se enter kar sakta hai."
Siso: "nahi. hill stations me aisa hi hota hai. ek hi rasta develop karte hain. Mount Abu me aisa hi hai."
Me: "abbey mount abu me hota hai to iska matlab duniya ke sare hill stations me same hoga kya."

We found out that there was an alternate way via Rampur. That somehow got Siso excited.

Siso: "arrey Rampuri to chaaku hoti hai naa."
Me: "haan, filmon me to yahi dikhaya hai."
Siso: "abbey sahi hai. ab agar hum jim corbett nahi pahuche to wapas jaake kahani suna denge ki hume rampur me dakuon ne rampuri chaku dikha ke loot liya."

At this point we realized, we were driving on such a bad road and I pointed out that we are in UP and all the budget to develop the road has been consumed by more important Mayawati's statues. I told Siso, "priority samajhte ho?" Siso was cursing the road and UP government so much, I am sure next day Mayawati would have woken up with swollen face and viral fever.

From Rampur, we had taken left turn to NH 87, which was leading towards Haldwani. On the way we did not find any mile stones about Jim Corbett, however all the mile stones informed about the distance and direction towards Nainital. That got Siso worried. May be his Mount Abu formula was not valid for Nainital and may be this way was leading to Jim Corbett via Nainital. So we decided to ask the way to Jim Corbett at Bilaspur. People there were clueless when we asked about Jim Corbett. I think aisa angreji type naam un logon ne pahli baar suna tha. (we were only 60 KMs away from Jim Corbett). Finally one intelligent person suggested, "Newspaper wale se puchho, use pata hoga." To this I told Siso, "chal yahan se. jis gaon me sabse samajhdaar aadmi akhbaar wala hai wohan hume kuchh nahi milne wala." We drove on.

Finally we stopped at Haldwani for tea and there we asked the way to Jim Corbett. We were told that we will have to go to Ramnagar for that. Ramnagar-Rampur got us little confused but we managed to reach Ramnagar. Since we had no idea about what, how, where; we drove on NH 121 and finally stopped at one of the gates of Jim Corbett. It was 9:10 AM. At the inquiry counter there, we were told that next safari will be at 2 PM and we will have to go back to Ramnagar for that. The guy at the inquiry counter gave me contact number of Chandan, who will do that arrangements for us.

We reached Ramnagar, met Chandan and gave him our name and ID details. It was 10 AM and we were to meet Chandan again at 1:30 PM. We decided to eat something. We went to a place which claimed to serve food. The menu at that place even claimed to serve chatpata indian. I couldn't take any risks and asked for maggie. Siso settled for cheese sandwich. The guy who was taking our orders made me repeat the order 5 times. Looks like nobody before us ordered cheese sandwich there. We ate whatever they served. We then got a room for 3 hours to rest. Siso went to sleep. I kept awake playing solitaire.

At 12:30, we left the room and went out to eat lunch. The menu there inspired by IPL categorized foods under Delhi Deardevils (not Daredevils), Mumbai Indians and Chennai SuperKings. We ordered food, it was unexpectedly decent. Then we left to meet Chandan at our agreed spot at 1:20 PM.

For the pics refer SmokerJoe's facebook page.

I feel weak

I have been taking all my decisions since I was 9. There have been many decisions I have taken in the past, big or small, which were not liked by many people. Some people even suspected those to be wrong decisions, but time and again I have made things work and proved the sceptics wrong. That made me feel so strong. I started believing that I can do no wrong.

Some of the decisions taken in the past, I thought were the biggest decisions of my life, but I was wrong. I have many more big decisions to take and the one I have to take right now seems to be the biggest so far. This time, for the first time, I am not able to decide. Which is making me feel weak. Weakest ever. Never before in my memory, I have felt so weak.

There have never ever been so many variables to consider while taking a decision and never before there have been variables which are controlled by someone else, but they affect me so directly. I am loosing control and that is what is making me feel weak. The worst part is, even when I decide, the decision needs someone else's approval, which is something I have never experienced before.

The problem is, I don't want to feel weak. Nobody does. I have two options, take a decision and wait for the consequences, but consequences in this case can be so strong that they might haunt me all my life, if my decision proved to be a wrong one, or don't take a decision and let things go as it is and forget that this kind of situation ever arose in my life, which certainly is not going to be an easy task either.

Quiting Smoking

My friends say that smoking is the only bad habit I have and I should quit. I say if this is the only bad habit I have, then why should I quit, after all no human is perfect and they should not be. If humans are perfect then who will worship God.
I smoke cause, when I face God (Whenever that moment comes), I don't look him in the eye. Yaar agar koi buri aadat nahi hai, to main bhagwan nahi ban jaunga, so let there be something to keep me a human being. I don't want to be God.
So that's may excuse, what's yours?

Finally It's Over and I am Happy

Remember A? The girl I was trying to be friend with. Well I tried having a conversation with her, but she did not respond to most of my messages. I tried writing mails to her but again, no reply.

Being the impatient person I am, I can not take it further. I am not dying for friends, I have a lot many of them. And will keep on making new friends till I am alive. But what is the point having a friend who does not care about my feelings.

BTW being the optimistic person I am, I always see the bright side to things and the bright side in this case is: I wont have to wait for her to come online till 4 am. I will not have to think abt her anymore, will use my thinking in my office, which my boss have been complaining about since I saw this girl. I can use my time and energy to some place else, where I can see some hope.

Will You Be My Girlfriend!

There is this girl, who is smart and beautiful. Lets name her A for the time being. I don't really know A, I came across her profile through a networking site. There is no other way for me to talk to her, except that networking site. So far there have been exchanges of statements a couple of times. I never had a real conversation with her so far. I really admire A, because she is doing something really unconventional and she seems to be confident. I want to reach out to her, but I don't know how.

I have been thinking about various ways to get to know her better and develop feelings about me in her heart, but haven't yet found a good one. I can e-mail her, but I don't know what to write, may be I am not confident as I have never before had such feelings for anyone, and don't know how to take things forward.

I haven't yet told A about my feelings, because I am afraid of her reaction. If she does not feel the same way for me as I do for her, which is most likely the case here, she might stop responding to me and I might loose the only chance I have to reach out to her.

From last few days net in my house was down, so I used to go to my friend's place to be online, just because I could get a chance to talk to her.

I am trying my best but I think my best is not good enough.