Of Dating, Booze and More!

The first post of the new year. So let me handle two topics which lot of people ask me: i) Boozing, and ii) Dating/Relationships

i) Why am I a teetotaller? That too, being a Sardar.

First of all, there are quite a few other Sardars/Sikhs who do not drink as well. Generalization and stereotyping does not help. Many people ask me why I do not drink. Or party. One guy even asked me this: ‘You do not smoke. You do not drink. How do you enjoy life then?’

To all of them, and anyone who is interested to know: I do not have a logical answer to this. I don’t drink simply because I don’t want to. Disappointed with the answer? Live with it. But, yes there may be a psychological reason, with me considering myself superior or a ‘good’ guy just cause I do not booze. And yes, I do feel uncomfortable when people drink around me. Can’t help it. And watching people knock themselves out/puking, fully drunk, actually makes me feel disgusted to the core.

And I do not party, because I don’t like crowds. Plus I do not drink or dance. No point just standing and staring at the people, is there?

ii) Why do I not have a girlfriend? Why don’t I date anyone?


Again, I do not know. I do NOT have any principle of not dating a girl. I am totally fine with dating or having relationships. It’s just that it hasn’t happened so far. End of story. Yes, maybe I didn’t put in any effort to woo a girl. Maybe girls don’t like to be around me. And of course, going to a bar or pub and trying to buy a girl a drink doesn’t count, when you don’t visit bars. Being from a ‘Boys Only’ school, an Engineer and an MBA from a top bschool does not help when it comes to making female friends, or girlfriends. And being someone who doesn’t like to socialize much will also provide limited opportunities for hanging out with the fairer sex.

Do I care? Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on luck. Konnichiwa 2014.

2013 in Flashback

This may be my last post for the year. So how was 2013 in review, in retrospect? Was it better than 2012 or worse? Oh, well, like most other management grads, let me also put some bullet points:

Yin:
• Finally began my first job, at BASF. Been a good journey so far
• Made new friends, though all within BASF
• Met some old friends, had some good times
• Shifted to Mumbai for the time being, liking it better than Delhi
• Got a PS3, and some cool games to go along with it(including GTA-V)
• Mastered Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 3
• Got some decent books as well
• Saw the first play of my life (The Vagina Monologues)
• Visited the Times Literary Carnival 2013 (with Amitabha and Girish), a great experience
• Completed my MBA (Don’t feel like mentioning that, but its kinda important nevertheless)-and passed all subjects
• Got my heart broken(by one of my past crushes)
• Started Breaking Bad
• Finished a few anime- Samurai Champloo, When they Cry Season 1, Mirrai Nikki, etc
• Tried out a few new restaurants, notably Delhi Durbar
• Had my first Starbucks Coffee (with Girish)
• Had a rural stint, in work
• Managed to get back in touch with a good friend
• Visited an Oktoberfest(German beer festival) and had just plain water
• Visited Elephanta Caves once more(had been there in 2012)
• Saw Gravity at Imax Wadala
• Went for shopping with female colleagues (re-learned the art of patience)
• Went for an Outbound training session at Kolad
• Saw how board meetings are like
• Stayed alone at hotels in rural areas
• Danced and performed in front of a crowd
• Travelled to Pune, and Met Amitabha

Yang:
• Gained Weight
• Had occasional bouts of depression
• Did few things which I should not have, and ended up hurting others in the process
• Felt the loss of my grandfather, who passed away this year
• Felt aimless and goalless at times
• Procrastinated
• Wasted 2 months at home, doing virtually nothing but facebook and whatsapp whole day
• Had tons of health problems, felt miserable
• Felt pessimistic

So in all, I guess 2013 was probably a better year than 2012 was. I wont say that I am at the best of my moods right now, but am definitely better off than I was in Delhi.

Lets see what 2014 has in store for me.

Special thanks to everyone who made this year special for me.

And a special mention to the Grow Batch(Trainees in BASF) 2013: Nikhil, Jerry, Swati, Anupama, Shapnaa, Prakash, Waseem, Ravi and Subodh. It was real fun hanging out with you guys.

Live Life Aeyo Style

This is to imply that I am indeed alive, and trying to change the way I live life.

Enough said!!

Mini Reviews

Mini Reviews:

i)Game:

The Last of Us:

This is a PS-3 exclusive game, with a zombie revolving story. But hang on, there is a reason why this game is considered to be one of the best titles ever to come out for the PS-3. It has some incredible graphics, including mind blowing visuals and attention to detail, from a moving leaf, to a falling rain-drop. The gameplay is pretty good, with the classic Naughty Dog engine(remember Uncharted?). Although the puzzles are not too complicated, it still takes some time to figure out the best way forward. But unlike some other games, it does not drag. Plus you can opt for hints in case you get stuck. Weapons and bullets are in short supply, so you must learn to conserve them. Action, adventure, suspense, thrill, horror, humor, you get to experience everything in this game. The story, though basic will keep you occupied. Somewhere down the line, you start feeling as if you are part of the game. This is definitely a must have.

Rating: 9.5/10

ii) Book:

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman:

This book is another masterpiece, a life changing novel for me. It portrays the importance of EQ over IQ, something which was largely ignored both in personal and professional life. The book covers the basics of biology, and gives a good insight into the nature and behaviour of people. It will help you understand the basics of emotions, and will give you tips on handling several problems, as well as dealing with others. For a psychology lover like me, this book was a pure delight. Although it does get slightly technical at times, I would recommend this book to anyone who has passed high school. The author is an expert on the topic, and his writing style is pretty decent.

Rating: 9/10

iii) Movie:

Gravity, by Alfonso Cuaron

Unlike 99% of the crowd who reviewed Gravity, I didn’t like the movie that much. I believe its largely over-hyped, including statements by James Cameron such as, it’s the best sci-fi movie ever made, etc. I may be no expert, but this movie is definitely not the best by a long shot. It is very much an average(or below average) movie. The plus point of course, is the special effects, when you consider it in 3-D. But there is hardly anything else in the movie to note about. The story is very banal, and the movie is way too short to make an impact(I had just started munching on my popcorn when the interval arrived). Sandra Bullock is ageing and it shows. The movie could have been made in a much better way. I regret to say that I wasted 430 bucks on this movie (Imax)

Rating: 5/10

iv) Anime:

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni:

This anime was recommended to me by Nikhil. There are two seasons, and I am still watching the first one. So far, I would say that I am impressed. This is a very unique anime(based on a game+manga), in the sense that it involves looping(one story is of 4-5 episodes, it ends and then a different but related story begins and so on). For example, a particular character may die in the first chapter, but then be alive for the next chapter and so on. These chapters are linked, but in a subtle way. The series is definitely not meant for children. There is blood, murder and gore. But the suspense is just incredible(Not the same level as Mirrai Nikki though). And the character design is excellent. But it does have its occasional dull moments.

Rating: 8/10.

Crushed

The following may or may not be a work of fiction. Reader discretion is advised.

My first crush was a girl in my class, during my 11th standard. I had just changed my school from a boys-only to co-ed. There were a mere 10 girls out of a class of around 60 students. No wonder the skewed sex ratio acts as a deterrent for female education. I felt as if I was in love. I guess it was nothing more than initial attraction.

My way of trying to please her, was to solve some computer programmes and give her print-outs of the same. Yeah, pretty lame when you look back at it. Initially it was going fine, but then I stupidly took a picture of her during a tuition class. It was the era of the early camera mobile phones. Of course the news spread that I was ‘Line-marooing’ the girl, and she stopped talking to me hence. Post which I discovered a new emotion-Jealousy. Particularly when she spoke to other guys, and ignored me. It felt like hell at that time. Little did I know that this problem would strike at me again and again and again, to this day.

Entire class 12 was worse than hell. Not to add to the fact that I screwed up all my competitive exams. Enough said.
There was another girl I liked at school, though she was not in my section. We shared a common tuition too, and I become online friends with her. Even spoke to her on the phone, but never face to face. I still remember she had written a testimonial for me on Orkut (Yes, those were the days). I am still in touch with her, and she knows that I had a crush (albeit minor one) on her.

Coming back to Orkut, that was where I met my first online crush(Yes, I have had a few online crushes too), sometime around 2006-2007. She was an anime fan like I am. I was really charmed by her(even though I never met her). She was from a wealthy family, and she was also a gamer(I have known very few female gamers in my life). Plus she had roamed across all the major countries. Right now she is working with some Airlines company in the middle east. And she has a boyfriend. The last I interacted with her, was in 2012, via email. No word from her since.

My second major crush was during my first year of engineering. I was just beginning to settle into the realms of mediocrity, when I met this Bong girl from Kolkata. Apparently, she had interest in books and arts as well(I remember her saying that History was her favourite subject in school). And she was pretty decent in English(One thing which was seriously lacking in our college). So we kind of got well along together. She was also the first girl who used to respond to every single SMS of mine. That was the time when I got hooked on to smsing. I wasted a hell lot of time on it. There was another girl who I was close to(though she wasn’t my crush).Things were good for the first 8 months or so, after which I screwed up real bad and that was the end of our friendship. She too started ignoring me. Soon after, the other girl followed suit. That was a very tough phase for me. But I also realized that it was my fault in the first place. I made lot of wrong decisions, for which I am regretful. But then, you cant change the past. Whats done is done. You simply need to move on. And yeah, its much easier said than done. I learned that the hard way.

Then there was a girl in my college, who I thought I liked initially, but after hearing she was committed, I backed off. I never really liked her attitude, to be frank. But that was only for a short while. Then there were a few more online crushes which I would rather not talk about. Is it even possible to fall for a person without even meeting him or her?

Okay, the rest of my engineering life passed by pretty much crushless(apart from another failed situation in which I actually purchased a teddy bear for a girl, and later got to know she has a boyfriend). Even my interaction with the fairer sex dropped drastically. It was almost like back to the school days.
Fast forward to MBA. There was a girl who I had interacted with on facebook on gtalk after converting FMS. I started developing (online?) feelings for her. I wasn’t sure if she was committed or not(at least it wasn’t reflected on her facebook profile) and she was the one who had initiated conversation with me.
I met her soon enough, when I started my MBA. The initial period was a pretty busy one, and I was kind of disappointed that we were never together in any group task. I didn’t get much chance to speak to her either. And considering the fact that I am an introvert, it made my task all the more difficult. But was I even looking for a relationship? Or was it just time pass? Many a time I have felt that I was very serious about the commitment. Later on, I felt it was a mere infatuation in a passing by phase of life.

One day, I remember I got a chance to sit next to her. She opened her laptop, logged into facebook, and showed me a picture of her sitting with a guy in some café. Which was her boyfriend. Excellent. Are all the good girls already booked? Nevertheless, my crush lasted for a while. She was a fresher, around my age, and she had lot of enthusiasm and energy. Plus she was intelligent and eager to learn. An ideal MBA student I suppose. However, with time, the crush fizzled out, and I moved on. Later on, I even told her that I liked her. She took it in a very sporty way, I must add. Some other girl may have been seriously pissed off. Although of course there have been instances when she became angry with me, even towards the end of MBA(but that’s beyond the scope of this post). As of now, we are seldom in touch(I last spoke to her in April, 2013).

My second crush in MBA. For some reason, I would not like to talk about it here. But I am still in touch with her. And she does not know that I ever had a crush on her.

Onwards to my third crush. She was from another bschool, a co-intern in my office during my internship in Mumbai. She was a very sweet and good looking girl. Later on I came to know that she had done modelling in the past as well. I have never seen her being angry even once, in the course of two months. I remember having given her quite a few movies from my collection. Plus we performed together as the lead actors in a flash mob. She had this sweet, charming smile, and she would smile even if she was not in a good mood. We discussed lot of things together. Towards the end of our internship, both of us went for a lunch at a nearby café. That was one of the best lunches of my life. I met her once more, later, during my PPI. She has left the country to work, and I am not sure if I will ever meet her again. But am in touch with her over whatsapp. And she knows that I had a crush on her, and is pretty cool about it.

Now for my fourth and final crush of MBA(and life, so far). She is a punjabi and a proper Delhite. She is the only girl, I actually thought I could propose for marriage. Though of course I dropped the idea later on. I was very serious about this girl. We actually spent a lot of time together as well. And we spoke on the phone quite a bit too. I was hoping she would develop some feelings for me too. But that was not to be. She was more close with another guy, and would spend most of her time with him. I guess she loves him. I am not sure. I even bought a bracelet for her, and gave her few of my drawings for her birthday. We had a few arguments too. She was a very open minded girl, and one of the few I knew who would use slangs freely, even in front of boys. But she was also a teetotaller. I have spent the maximum amount of time chatting and on whatsapp with her. In fact sometimes she would be peeved about the fact that I would chat more and actually talk less.

I told her that I loved her, but I guess she never took it seriously and laughed it out. We spent lot of time together in CCD and Dominos. I considered her as a very close and sincere friend. But somehow I got the feeling that she was more interested in getting my assignments and my books/other academic stuff than in me. Maybe it was me, who was just acting stupid and naïve the whole time. I was in touch with her till a few days ago, when she actually told me to f**k off. Point taken.

I have never been in a relationship, but have experienced lot of crushes. For good or bad, they have certainly made me more mature over the years.

Done and Dusted With

I will try to make this my final post about my MBA life. The reason for that is that I want to get it done and dusted with. There were lots of ups and downs and lot of things which I would prefer to forget, and move on. In this post, I will try to give a brief summary of what I feel my MBA life was like.

To be frank, on hindsight, I feel that there were several things which I could have done, but did not. For example, being more pro-active in competitions. Not for the prize money, but for the experience. I did participate in quite a few, but I admit I never gave it my all. I never stayed awake till the wee hours of the night trying to solve a business case. Maybe out of laziness, or maybe because I just didn’t want to. And to give a brief comparison, I know quite a few of my batchmates who stayed awake nights to work on their presentations/excel sheets.

My other regret is that I didn’t network much. With corporates or people in other bschools. I haven’t even been to any IIM so far[Not even C, which is close to my hometown]. Again, maybe it was my lack of interest, or my lethargy.

My third major regret is that I didn’t involve myself into academics either. I didn’t do a single live project (almost every single batchmate of mine has done at least one), didn’t try to publish any paper, didn’t do any research, checked the central database only twice or so, didn’t read any good book [HR/Marketing], didn’t solve any business case, nor did I try to update myself with the latest business trends. Not to mention, my total apathy at studying for the semester exams[which I started just one week before the actual dates]. Not surprisingly, I ended up amongst the bottom 20 of the batch[amongst a batch size of 220 students].

I even flunked in a few Finance papers. This was one area where I could not force myself to study, even to pass. I disliked most of the theory classes, and did not take any initiatives to do something which could add value to my curriculum vitae. I even took my final project lightly.

But the worst part is that I failed to make friends[barring a handful]. Its not that I did not get along well with others. Its just that I never felt like trying to extend a hand of friendship or support. I never belonged to any group in college. Most of the time I was alone. I hated it, but made no attempts to change it.

Extra-curriculars went for a toss. I would just spend my free time watching anime/movies or lazing around at coffee shops. I don’t remember having done a single meaningful conversation with anyone on the topic of MBA/business.

Was everything so bad and negative about my MBA life? Of course not. There were some good moments too. But those were far and few in between. You may say that I am being pessimistic but I really do not have any ‘Ahaa’ moments to share from my MBA life. I did have a few crushes, but then again I failed to take any step in that regard. I honestly do not know what value add an MBA degree has done to me. How different am I now from the person I was before stepping into a bschool?

There were so many moments when I promised to myself that I would do meaningful things- Master MS Excel/Powerpoint, Learn Japanese, Buy a telescope, join an Astronomy club, go for sight-seeing in different cities in the north[I couldn’t even visit Agra, forget other cities], make friends and go out to have fun, network with other DU students, participate in various events, and I could go on and on. The list of things I planned to do, and failed to execute. And failed to learn from my mistakes. After that I just lost my inspiration to do anything.

Of course, I would prefer to leave the negativity behind me, now that I have entered corporate. I wish I could find myself a permanent source of inspiration. But right now, am in a much better state of mind than I was during MBA. I can actually afford to relax after a hard days work. And that constant nagging at the back of my mind is gone. But somewhere, something is still missing. And I still keep procrastinating on certain issues. I have to learn to back my plans with proper actions, else they will be redundant. And I have to learn to step out of my comfort zone, another thing I am not really good at.

Lets have hope. It’s a good thing to have really. That, and some decent PS-3 games. I have purchased GTA-5, and Batman Arkham Origins releases soon. So much for distractions.

The New Dimension of Gaming

Finally, I purchased a PS3. With my own salary. It feels good. This was an item on the charts for a long time. As my friends know, I am a big gaming enthusiast. And I have played most of the best-selling games.

However, as a gamer, I prefer Action and Role-Playing Games. I have experimented with Strategy as well, and a prefer a mix of Strategy cum Action games. The two categories which I definitely avoid are Racing and Sports[though I have played NFS, Fifa, etc]. But there were quite a few games which were really good but exclusive to the PS3. And I could only read about their reviews or watch their trailers. Which was not sufficient for a gamer like me.

So finally I decided to purchase a PS3. I already own a PS2, which is gathering dust at my home. And Sony plans to come out with the PS4 soon, which is expected to be in the 30k+ price segment. I have been a Sony loyalist, having purchased a Sony Ericsson phone in the past, the PS2, and my personal laptop is Sony Vaio. My father has also purchased a Sony digi cam. This is one company which I have continued to trust and rely upon [I would recommend Made in Japan to anyone who reads books, it’s a marvellous read].

Let us come back to the topic of gaming. Some of my favourite games/game series of the past include the Final Fantasy series, The Metal Gear Solid series (my all time favourite, and the main reason for me deciding to purchase the PS3), Golden Sun, Max Payne, Hitman, Elders Scroll, GTA, Call of Duty, Devil May Cry, Batman Arkham Series, Street Fighter and many more. The maximum time I have invested on a single game is for Final Fantasy XII for the PS2, closely followed by Elders Scroll: Oblivion. Most of the games I have played on the PC, for the obvious reason that Console gaming never really caught up in India [it still remains elusive to most gamers].

Specifically for the PS3, I wanted to try out the following games:
• Metal Gear Solid 4 [Purchased]
• The Last of Us [Purchased]
• Red Dead Redemption [Purchased]
• Uncharted 2 [Purchased]
• Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 [Out of Stock]
• Metal Gear Rising [In Queue]
• GTA 5 [To be released]
• God of War 3 [Purchased]
• And Others

As you can see, the primary game I had in mind was Metal Gear Solid 4. This was because I have played the previous 3 MGS games, and I must say, its one of the best game series ever. No matter who you are, if you call yourself a serious gamer, you have to play these games. The best part about it, is the completely original and mind-blowing storyline, with an awesome gameplay and brilliantly designed characters. Hideo Kojima, the creater has done a fantastic job, to say the least. The game focusses more on stealth than full-frontal assault, but there are a vast number of weapons and items at your disposal. Plus it gives you a cinematic experience, and the cut-scenes are brilliant too. Right now, am playing MGS-4 and loving every minute of it.

Lot of people may say that gaming is mere entertainment or a waste of time, but for me, it means a lot. I am looking forward to playing Batman Arkham Origin, and I wish that someone could create a good Superman game as well. There hasn’t been one out so far.Moreover, most Superhero games are not really good and made with a narrow scope(the Batman Arkham series is a big exception). I personally favour games which involve swordfighting and magic. I remember that Ryu Hayabusa (From the Ninja Gaiden series) was once my favourite gaming character. Of course, at present it is non other than Solid Snake.

Lets see what more does gaming have in store. The next stop will be Virtual Reality, and gaming in which we will be completely involved in the gameplay.