Somewhere around the same time of the year in 2008, a couple of firsts happened in the world of sport. The Indian batting order badly collapsed in its first encounter with mysteryman Ajantha Mendis while Rafael Nadal showed how you don’t need to be God to beat the God to clinch his first Wimbledon. Travelling in Sampoorna Kranti Express from Patna to New Delhi, I missed them both. A couple of days later, on 9th July 2008, I along with 18 “budding (or rather budded)” engineers started my professional career in a two wheeler manufacturing company.
As I write this, there are 13 of us still left in the company, and while this was not something totally anticipated by many back in college, I have indeed managed to be a part of a professional organization for two full years, (even the “professional organization” has managed surviving in my company).
Here are a few excerpts from the first two years of my work life:
1. As per plans, I should have been unemployed by now, reading management at perhaps an IIM. Reading I still am, but the books are not management, they are my 'paths' to management.
2. GETs (Graduate Engineering Trainee) are a royal lot. You can get away with the worst of offences with a simple line- "I am a GET."
3. A fresh engineer (never mind the college) wouldn’t know half as much as a simple bike mechanic.
4. At times I wonder why a worker is paid lesser than me. And then I am told it's my engineering degree. But isn't it that I am just fortunate that my parents could sponsor my education in an engineering college, and the other chap's parents could not, I wonder.
5. At times I even wonder if being educated is a boon or a bane. The labourers at my workplace threaten to stop work in the event of finding conditions not conducive to their requirements. We come across similar situations on numerous occasions, but since we are "educated", we continue to 'manage' ourselves to adjust and work according to demanding circumstances. The rewards.... keep wondering.....
6. In an automobile company, there are many things to life beyond a four-stroke engine. Those things are Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint, and there is not much to life beyond these.
7. To excel at work, you need to excel at Excel first. There are times when you feel Bill Gates is the biggest villian of all times.
8. All you guys out there reading Overdrive and dreaming about automobile engineering, loving automobiles and slogging in an automobile factory are two different things.
9. Some habits remain intact throughout your life. In spite of waking up at 0630 hours everyday for the last two years, I am still not comfortable doing the same, or rather I am just not programmed to get up early in the morning.
10. Never approach a Japanese without data back up.
11. There's a very important two-second unspoken rule at work. When confronted with a problem, you need to come up with a reason within two seconds stating why the problem is not your problem. Fail to do so, and you're dead meat.
12. It's my fucking body and I am not paid for the stupid 5 min morning drill. I JUST DON'T WANNA DO IT.
13. I hate the fact that hungry or not hungry, I am forced to have lunch at the 1235 bell.
14. And finally, no company is bad company (pun intended). It's just that the company is not made for you, or vice-versa.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Raavan-neeti
Old stuff since I started writing this last month, but dint manage finishing it...
A couple of months back I was finding it difficult to decide which movie I was more excited about, Bihari Babu's Rajneeti or Anna's Raavan. I eventually realized it was the madness and eccentricity of Beera Munda, which was getting the better of Prakash Jha's political ploy. Mind you, all these anticipations were before I had watched either of the movies.
4th June, I caught the first day last show of Rajneeti and trust me, I was indeed overwhelmed. That very day I wanted to blog down the movie, but I decided to wait for Raavan before jotting my views down. 18th June, I once again caught the first day last show of Raavan, but before we talk about the Mani Ratnam flick, let's get back to Rajneeti.
Rajneeti was surely a masterpiece. Yes, all the talk about it being a mix of Mahabharata and The Godfather, arguably the best literary works ever produced. But then, it indeed takes skill to weave a common plot out of two such collosal pieces. There is a very thin line between inspiration and imitation, and Prakash Jha made sure that his foot was well inside the line while making Rajneeti. For a person well versed with Mahabharata and The Godfather, the movie was definitely a treat to watch. The subtle references to them both were brilliant indeed. My favourite being the scene where Bajpai offers party membership to Devgan, depicting a Duryodhana and Karna. Probably Ajay Devgan could have got some more footage, with Karna being THE most powerful character of Mahabharata. Manoj Bajpai was terrific, his speech in the 2nd half being literally mindblowing. The movie could have been better probably with the "jyeshta putra" scene being done away with. And personally, I would have loved to see Ajay Devgan's father kill Ranbir Kapoor in the end. But overall, a must watch, the movie being so gripping that you actually do not wish to watch Katrina, her sequences surely interrupting the flow of the movie.
And now Raavan. I am a pretty big Mani Ratnam fan, Nayakan, Roja, Bombay, Guru, I have loved them all. Add to it, Raavan's promos were indeed mind boggling. There was a certain air of madness which I felt in the trailers. Plus AR's music, Behene De and Beera. V. Manikandan and Santosh Sivan are the best cinematographers we have, and Raavan had them both. OOOOOOOOOOOOOH...I had every reason to be excited about Raavan. But the movie....what SHIT direction man. Was it actually Mani Ratnam ?? The first half seemed to be NGC/Discovery, with nothing but the beautiful forests to look at. The kidnapping of Aishwarya, supposedly the turning point of the story, happens in the first scene, without any proper build up. And the sequencing of the songs, Beera could have been so beautifully used, and Behene De... Aishwarya attempts suicide and Abhishek has Behene De playing inside his head. And what exactly was Beera Munda supposed to be, evil or eccentric ?? Yes, he could have been both, if acted and directed well, but he ended up being neither, rather just a complete disaster (does that rhyme ??). This I think was more Mani's fault rather than Abhishek's. But for me, the parts that stood out in being disastrous were the scenes were Abhishek expresses his love for Aish. What fucked up dialogues... Abhishek trying to produce a scary voice and saying, "agar dev se pehle mai tumhe mila hota to......". Reminded me of Ramu's Road, where Bajpai says that to Antara Mali,...hahahahahaha. And how does Aish manages to return and find the deadly Beera Munda's hideout towards the end, when the whole police force failed to do so. Beats me. I was so bloody disappointed with Raavan that I have even stopped listening to its music. I can actually go on and on criticizing this flick, but I would rather stop and pray that this is not the death of yet another director in Indian Cinema.
A couple of months back I was finding it difficult to decide which movie I was more excited about, Bihari Babu's Rajneeti or Anna's Raavan. I eventually realized it was the madness and eccentricity of Beera Munda, which was getting the better of Prakash Jha's political ploy. Mind you, all these anticipations were before I had watched either of the movies.
4th June, I caught the first day last show of Rajneeti and trust me, I was indeed overwhelmed. That very day I wanted to blog down the movie, but I decided to wait for Raavan before jotting my views down. 18th June, I once again caught the first day last show of Raavan, but before we talk about the Mani Ratnam flick, let's get back to Rajneeti.
Rajneeti was surely a masterpiece. Yes, all the talk about it being a mix of Mahabharata and The Godfather, arguably the best literary works ever produced. But then, it indeed takes skill to weave a common plot out of two such collosal pieces. There is a very thin line between inspiration and imitation, and Prakash Jha made sure that his foot was well inside the line while making Rajneeti. For a person well versed with Mahabharata and The Godfather, the movie was definitely a treat to watch. The subtle references to them both were brilliant indeed. My favourite being the scene where Bajpai offers party membership to Devgan, depicting a Duryodhana and Karna. Probably Ajay Devgan could have got some more footage, with Karna being THE most powerful character of Mahabharata. Manoj Bajpai was terrific, his speech in the 2nd half being literally mindblowing. The movie could have been better probably with the "jyeshta putra" scene being done away with. And personally, I would have loved to see Ajay Devgan's father kill Ranbir Kapoor in the end. But overall, a must watch, the movie being so gripping that you actually do not wish to watch Katrina, her sequences surely interrupting the flow of the movie.
And now Raavan. I am a pretty big Mani Ratnam fan, Nayakan, Roja, Bombay, Guru, I have loved them all. Add to it, Raavan's promos were indeed mind boggling. There was a certain air of madness which I felt in the trailers. Plus AR's music, Behene De and Beera. V. Manikandan and Santosh Sivan are the best cinematographers we have, and Raavan had them both. OOOOOOOOOOOOOH...I had every reason to be excited about Raavan. But the movie....what SHIT direction man. Was it actually Mani Ratnam ?? The first half seemed to be NGC/Discovery, with nothing but the beautiful forests to look at. The kidnapping of Aishwarya, supposedly the turning point of the story, happens in the first scene, without any proper build up. And the sequencing of the songs, Beera could have been so beautifully used, and Behene De... Aishwarya attempts suicide and Abhishek has Behene De playing inside his head. And what exactly was Beera Munda supposed to be, evil or eccentric ?? Yes, he could have been both, if acted and directed well, but he ended up being neither, rather just a complete disaster (does that rhyme ??). This I think was more Mani's fault rather than Abhishek's. But for me, the parts that stood out in being disastrous were the scenes were Abhishek expresses his love for Aish. What fucked up dialogues... Abhishek trying to produce a scary voice and saying, "agar dev se pehle mai tumhe mila hota to......". Reminded me of Ramu's Road, where Bajpai says that to Antara Mali,...hahahahahaha. And how does Aish manages to return and find the deadly Beera Munda's hideout towards the end, when the whole police force failed to do so. Beats me. I was so bloody disappointed with Raavan that I have even stopped listening to its music. I can actually go on and on criticizing this flick, but I would rather stop and pray that this is not the death of yet another director in Indian Cinema.
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