Career plan

Year: 2007
Time: Appraisal time
Manager: So Raja, you are a bright and intelligent kid. Obviously you would like to move up the corporate ladder. And me being your line manager, I have an obligation to help you chart a career path. To help me do that, could you tell me what you would like to do in 5 year's time?
raja: I don't know. I have not thought about it.

Year: 2008
Time: Appraisal time
Manager: So have you had a chance to think about your career aspirations in the last one year?
raja: I did think about it and I could not arrive at anything.

Year: 2009
Time: Appraisal time
Manager: Now you have come to a point where you will have to say something about what you want to do with your career
raja: Give me 6 months. I will come up with something

And so now, I have the arduous task of finding out what I would like to do with my career. If I could not have found an answer in 3 years, I do not think I will be able to bring forth something in 6 months. Nevertheless, I will list out the options I have and try to arrive at what is best for me.

My manager can not blame me for not proactively thinking about my career. I infact thought about it quite early in my life. When I was small I wanted to be a farmer. Not just that. I wanted to be the best farmer in the world. So I bought a potted plant and tried to grow it as best as I could. I learnt from my biology classes that plants work in the morning and sleep in the night. But I wanted my plant to work 24 hours. So I bought a carton of RedBull and made it drink every drop of it. The result...

My experimental plant on steroids

I concluded that plant nutrition probably was not my forte. So I turned onto nutrition for human beings. I worked to prepare my own magic portion that will provide me infinite strength and put Obelix to shame. I noticed that whenever I refused to eat or drink something, my parents told me the goodness of that particular food or drink. Some made you grow taller, some made you stronger, some gave you x-ray vision, and the list went on and on. So one afternoon, when my parents were away, I managed to gather all those foods and drinks, mix them in a pot and boil them to a paste. I made small tablets out of them. I had a friend who was anxious to become superman before I did; so he had a go at the tablets before I did. I think it is unnecessary to explain that it didn't go very well.

Superman teeth

One Thursday afternoon, I was watching Forrest Gump when it struck that I could grow shrimps like Forrest. But noone eats shrimps in India. All people eat is rice, chicken and fish fry from road side stalls. That was my big idea. I could grow fish and become a millionaire. My first attempt at fish culture failed as all my fish grew legs and turned to tadpoles and jumped out of my Nutramul pond. If only people ate tadpoles...

A few years later, I realised that my dad worked 5 days a week all round the year. He never had quarterly, half yearly or annual holidays to go fishing or to climb trees or to play hide and seek. I did not want to grow up and work 5 days a week all round the year. So I sat up thinking about jobs that will provide me with quarterly, half yearly and annual holidays. Teacher! I was going to be a teacher. And like usual, the difficulties seeped into my head later. What if the students asked me questions? Could I say ' I will leave that in choice' There was also this moral obligation for the future. If an interviewer asked me what electromagnetic theory is, I would very fluently answer that it is a theory that combines electric theory and magnetic theory in an effort to save writing time in exams. But if I taught that, our future generations will not be able to steal jobs from America.

The answering questions problem arises only if I thought students subjects that had difficult questions. What if I thought easy subjects with easy answers, such as drawing? But showing my drawing exam papers from school is never going to get me a drawing teacher job especially when I have managed to pass only half my drawing tests, and that too just barely.

You are asked questions only if you teach. But if you did something, you can always pretend that you are busy doing stuff and get away with it. Carpentry can be one where I can do stuff such as unnecessarily shaving wood and pretend to be busy! But my carpentry experiences from college are not very encouraging. I once dropped a vernier caliper into a lathe machine and proved that vernier calipers could be sheared up to 0.1 millimeters. I also managed to nail the wooden tray I was making into the working table. If I could nail the tray, I could very well nail my hands and that will not be a pretty sight.

I can't be a computer engineer as I have proved enough number of times that I do not have the IQ to do programming. Nor do I want to be a market researcher. There is no challenge in the job when you have already researched the entire ether-world. I could be an actor if not for the girls that will throng me. I also hate to dance shirt-less on snow capped mountains.

In the last 6 months, I have become a wonderful cook. More and more people have been showering accolades on my cooking skills and less and less people have been running to the bathroom. But cooking is a dangerous sport. I have to live every day of my life with fire, smoke and knives and I end up in tears half the days. So me being a peace-loving person, I think I will have to pass that on.

My cooking has become so awesome that one of my guests didn't even spare the spoon

Moving on to less dangerous sports, I could be a marathoner. It is easier to take this up as I already have a plan to take on the marathon. But I am not going to be the best in the sport. I will blame it on my being a pure bred Dravidian. If I were an Aryan (pure-bred or mixed) I would have been larger than what I am now and larger men have longer legs. So if I took 4 steps to cover 10 feet now, I would do that in 2 steps with my Aryan legs. So all Aryan runners will easily surpass me and I won't be the best in business. There is no point in doing something if you are not the best at it.

Which brings me to where I was 3 years ago. My appraisal is in a year from now. So I can think of it then. I think I could be a procrastinator.

Red-dy Gar-u

When I was 6, I wanted to be an automobile engineer. I imagined that when I grew up I would build cars and jeeps and the entire nation would run on my 'V' badged super cars. As preparation to my future, I made my parents buy as many miniature cars as the number of outings we took - even if the outing was to the next street grocery shop.

At 16, when hormones worked overtime, my preferences changed and I decided to be a taxi. Like when I was 6, I wanted to prepare for it. So when my parents bought their first 800 like many other Indians, I sneaked the car out as often as I can. After a few initial bumps and scraps I learnt to drive in quick time. I had a good father who rivaled and sometimes surpassed me dumping the car that we cancelled each others' damages. Mum did not know our deal.

Soon I realised that being a taxi driver is not such a good job. Thanks to television, I was enlightened that the job of taxi drivers also had other duties such as buying vegetables, picking up the ironed clothes from the iron-man and washing dishes. The first two were acceptable; but washing dishes? You know how I cringe to touch water. So to soak my hands entirely in a pool of water was not something I could do for the driving job.

My car building plan was still at the back of my head. But I dropped it when I was in my second year of college. I had solid reasons. I had to complete a course called Mechanics of Solids which is fundamental for mechanical engineers. And usually mechanical engineers specialised to become automobile engineers who made cars. But midway through the course I realised that all I was making in the course was zeros. By the looks of it, I could only make circular tyres from the zeros. An engine-less car is no good. So I dropped the plan as I was intelligent enough to know when to give up.

Now, at 26, the mad rush for cars resurfaced again a few weeks ago - but this time to own a car. So I bought one with Jinku's money. I was happy that I could make atleast one part of my car dreams come true, but there were some practical niggles.

First, the UK rules are not as good as Indian rules. In the UK, I am not allowed to park anywhere I want to. Not just that, I have to pay money to park MY car! And; I have to remove the car in less than 2 hours in most places. What a scam. Even when I pay money, I don't get value for the money. I can not park the car the way I want to. I will have to reverse park and parallel park in many places. Why are the British so keen on inserting their cars between other cars? Don't they know it is vulgar to do so in public in many cultures and Britain being a multicultural country must spare a thought for foreigners from other cultures? But the best of all British queerness is that they have speed cameras to spot you if you drove fast. The primary use of a car is to travel from point A to point B as quickly as possible. So what sense does it make to limit your speed?

It is not just the road rules. Buying a car is not just buying a car. One has to get a car insurance which is half the price of the car and no sane man will find logic in it. Even if I crashed my car once every 3 years, instead of just the repairs that the insurance company pays for, will I be not able to buy a new car if I saved up the money I used to insure the car? There is more madness. But I have to stop right here as my tom-tom is alerting me of a security camera watching me rubbishing British rules. But before runaway, come to think of it, what use are the speed cameras when tom-toms know where exactly the cameras are located and warn you a mile before the cameras spot you!

After-dark

Nitin: Why do parents insist that small children sleep early?
Kiran: So they can watch after-dark movies without interruptions

Independence Day

My rice-eating, coffee-drinking, sleep-at-9-wake-up-at-6 mum, who until a point in her life thought Madurai was the farthest point on earth that human beings could travel to, visited me earlier this month. Given the short notice of her trip, she did not have enough time to see enough star movies to perk up her English. So she paid for my sister's expenses and brought her along.

'Mum, you could have brought dad along'
'I could have. But what will I do if someone talks to me in the washroom. Though your dad would have loved to take a peek into the ladies room, I am not sure I will approve of it. And so I chose your sister. We have paid so much of money to get her to college and we should be able to extract at least something out of her, shouldn't we?'
'But, is it fair to dad?'
'I was fair. I extended him an invitation as long as he was ready to manage his own expenses.'

And so my mum and sis came to the UK.

Ever since there has been some sun here, there has been a flurry of Indian mums visiting sons in the UK. And mums always looked the same. They went around draped in their sarees and their best necklaces, packed lunches wherever they went, never spoke to anyone non-Indian, became experts in multiplication table 8 as they converted every pound they spent to rupees and mentally made notes to get their sons married as quickly as possible to avoid the risk of short skirted English women preying on their sons. I expected my mum to do the same. No offense, it is just natural isn't it. So as a precaution, I warned friends coming home for free food not to bring free drinks. But; I was in for a big surprise.

In just about a week, while I cooked for them at home, they painted the town red in the trendiest of skirts, drank £5 coffees at breakfast, 10, lunch, 4 and dinner, ate with knifes and forks, sipped coke after meals and managed intriguing conversations with complete strangers. They impressed upon so much that shop keepers gave them gifts for free, guides took extra time to explain the merciless and brutal annals of English history, waiters helped pick from the choice of menus and passer-bys guided them to places to where they knew the route already.

There is only one person I have ever known who could manage to do all that and still walk around nonchalantly - My grandma. I wonder if my mum took quick lessons from her mother-in-law just before she left.

My grandmother can hardly read or write. But take her to an expensive hotel, she will seat herself in the lounge, pick up an English (only English) newspaper and skim through for 15 minutes and tell you all the 'stories' of the day for the next 30 minutes. She has this innate ability of transforming pictures to stories, which is well complemented by her expansive knowledge of all Indian and American politicians and their life histories. While most of her friends inked their thumbs for signatures, she trained herself to hold a ball-point pen. She taught herself just what was necessary. You talk to her in English, she will juggle around with the 13 English words that she knows and trick you into believing she has a masters in the language. My uncle took her on a plane for the first time recently and unlike many people who have nervous jitters she carried herself very well that all she could come up with was ask the air-hostess if she could have the window seat. Give her a chop-stick, she will look at you eat and learn to do just the same before you realise she is using you as her teacher. She tips workers, gifts grand-kids, still goes out with her friends, demands her allowance and above all that carries herself like no one I have ever seen.

I was happy for my mum to have inherited a lot from her mother-in-law. I had my own fringe benefits. But everything comes at a cost. And entertaining two women is not very cheap. I spent my month's wages in the two weeks they stayed with me. But I still enjoyed their company. So please believe me when I say it was only coincidence and that I did not have any ulterior motives when I waved them good bye at the airport on the Independence day.

Unrelated post-airport Independence day event: On seeing the number of Independence day related scribblings on facebook, I decided to do my bit on that day. So I went up to the national flag that hangs in my room, saluted at it and tried to sing the national anthem. Miserably for me, I had to hum a couple of lines in between. That is what happens when you are not the tallest in your 5th standard class but still stand at the back for the school assembly and hum at long-legged 8th standard beauties while the national anthem is on.

Shark smooching & the subsequent serendipity

When I was a little boy I wanted to build a zoo in my house so I could open it for visitors for a fee. My grandiose plans also had an aquarium. So I brought home a dozen baby fish from a neighbouring river. But, in a week or two, the fish grew legs, turned into frogs, jumped out of the Nutramul bottle pond and ran into all corners of the house. My mum was okay only until the fish remained in water and was not particularly happy for them to leap around the dining table. So I had to dismantle my zoo. I could not find any logic in dismantling the entire zoo, but I understood only much later in life that women's minds work in un-understandable ways.

It also meant that I did not visit an aquarium. So I was happy when I knew I was going to be traveling in a train that would go underwater. I have always wanted to see sharks smiling meekly for pictures through glass windows in aquariums. But what a disappointment again - The Eurostar train connecting London and Paris had glass windows, but the tunnel through which the train passed through didn't. So I didn't know if I passed through the sea or the train just went round and round London and told me it was Paris at the end of the journey. My doubts doubled when I didn't understand a word of what they spoke. It was nothing like the French I was taught at school.

My doubts subsided when everyone around me started taking pictures of me. I have read somewhere, probably in wikipedia, that the French are great admirers of fashion and beauty and once they took pictures of me I could confirm that I was atleast in some part of France.

I took pictures of them while they took pictures of me

But what is the point in being in the limelight when the one most important thing that you based your trip on isn't to be seen? But just as Johny Bravo said to me, you lose some to gain some, so I did find something worthwhile in France.

All his life, a friend of mine has been searching for an ultimate truth - the truth that will culminate all knowledge and quest. He did not know what that ultimate truth was, or where he could find it or why he was looking for one. But he was looking for it and he knew the moment he saw it, he will know it was what he was looking for. He also told me that if I saw it before him, I will recognise too. And I think I did just that and am sure all shameless but honest blokes will agree with my discovery.