Birthday bumps (or rather goosebumps)

I woke up today startled by the rather unpleasant ringtone of my mobile and barely managed to say hello when a  warm voice said "Happy b'day dude" and all the swearing that I did before picking up the phone was gone in no time.....and with a Colgate smile I said "Thank you so much"............Well we believe that the morning shows the day.....does it really?????? Bcoz the very next call would be my supervisor who demanded in a rather grumpy voice why the presentation had not been prepared yet. Whether it was my birthday(my only special day) or not
approximately 20 people in my department couldn't care less.
So, after a series of "Thank you"-s and  alternate apologies ( for the presentation) I got myself out of bed and stood in front of the mirror and said "Happy B'day mate.....today you will do just great" !!!!!!!!!!!!
Feeling good about myself I quickly got dressed and set out for my battlefield (read office).....and there too I would have to offer cakes and pastries to my fellow soldiers and commanders who do not leave a stone unturned to make my day just awesome (read awful).After slight distraction caused by the pastries and some light-hearted talk they all wished me in unison and for a fleeting moment I felt special and felt good about my colleagues.I then realised that these soldiers are human after all and probably were just like me when they had entered this battlefield but due to over-exposure to radioactive criticism and monumentous workload they had all become institutionalised. And I shuddered at the very thought that I could someday turn-out to be one of them and then a new guy in the block would have the same perception about me as I have about them.........I wouldn't be like this....I promised myself. Suddenly the words "I want the presentation ready by today" got me back from Neverland and I turned around to see that my supervisor meant business today and so I sunk into my chair and got back to my "battle"..........I guess that one fleeting momen of feeling special should see me through the day.
By the way en-route to office I had another realisation about birthdays.When we were younger, we probably awaited our birthdays with more anticipation than we do now.I vividly remember that during the first few years of school, I would celebrate my birthday at home with some of my close friends from school and neighbourhood. It used to be low-scale on sometimes or grand some other year. Sometime all my relatives would come down as well as we used to have a blast with all the cousins and friends.Also the gifts would be something that we all await on our birthdays. All nicely wrapped with shiny ribbons. It used to be a special feeling to unwrap the gifts, the anticipation with baited breath to know what lay inside, maybe a book, a nice pencil box, some automatic car or simply a large box of crayons. Especially the moment of blowing out the candle felt very good and the singing of "Happy birthday to you.....". It was so much different , so much better.At that time we hardly could afford expensive gifts or to go out to good resturants.....but irrespective of the monetary value of the gifts and the standard of the resturants it all felt so close to the heart, so special!!!!!!
Now, my birthday gifts are just cash,jeans or something like that ,which I receive a week or two before or after my birthday bcoz everyone (including me) is busy in their respective "Rat race" and silly birthdays don't count for much.....A hang-out  with friends or dinner with relatives at good resturants isn't much of a thing nowadays......
but what I miss the most is the warmth,the anticipation, the joy , the laughter and that fleeting moment of feeling Special !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the very thin line .....

There is a very thin line (well the thickness of the line actually depends on your vision) between well structured, sarcastic,elegant humour and random senseless gibber.

After my last post I have been reminded by one of my "well wishers" that I am right on the verge and my next choice of words would either catapult me to critical acclaim as a "sarcastic and elegantly funny" writer or just a "joker" whose paltry vocabulary, handicapped thought and ghastly presentation sends you scampering for "Dispirin" (for the terrible head-ache resulting from reading such a masterpiece).

I have also been warned not to underestimate myself and been advised not to use "Loser" to describe any person bcoz as Hrithik said in koi mil gaya "Sir, kisi ko bhi chota mat samhjiye...kyon ki har chota ek na ek din bara zaroor ban jata hain"...........so all are heroes in their own special way and in their own area of expertise as endorsed by Hero cycles.."har ghar me ek hero rehta hain"........No, matter how well we express our thoughts in english but sometimes a few bits and pieces of hindi just adds that elegant "Bhavnao ko samjho" touch to the entire discussion.

Today I would rather like to talk about a friend of mine nicknamed Tinks. We are born with special gifts (I like to believe that but seriously haven't the special gift alloted for me yet....may terms& conditions apply even in heaven). Tinks has a very special gift. He has a finger.......for all those whose thoughts are wavering towards risque & dangerous territory......please come back to your senses. Tinks does not have a bone in him that even thinks on those lines. So moving on this person has a special nose where he fits his special finger and digs deep to fetch "gold". Apparently we tried to mind-map his emotional state with his "treasure hunt" contest but gave after we realised that his F-16 fighter finger touched base too often for our comfort.

He is damn good at sudoku and would surpise with his "courtesy visits" to seniors at a time when the rest of us would actually curse them.

Whenever he returned back to the hostel after a vacation or short trip he would come back with huge re-inforcements of apple,sweets and cookies. But taking advantage of his polite nature and average physique we would all jump on him in the corridor itself and by the time he reached his room we not only have conquered enemy territory we would actually have the audacity to offer him his cookie from our stock and in rather cool mood we would ask "aarey tinks khayega.....arey sharmata kyon hain...apna hi samajh".......poor tinku. He would be speechless for sometime and try to absorb the shock while checking his scraps (hardly any new scraps would be on display so he would go through the earlier ones instead) and enter the Demon. This demon is nicknamed Orkut simply bcoz during the initial years he would only be seen glued to his homepage........anyways Orkut would enter and laugh at tinku's face in such a terrible way

that would even make non-tinkus too lose there mind........and after the fits of ominous laughter

he would politely put a hand behind tinku's back and ask "tinks biscuit khayega????.......mujhe sandip diya.....sunne mein aaya ki tujhe loot liya gaya hain....ye le main tere liye biscuit laya hoon" ...............

Tinks also has a rather amusing way of calling you up and instead of saying hello he would go "aur bata".......considering that he was the one to call up I would often retort "Tu bata"

......and then he would go on and how he hated his job and wanted desperately to come back home.......One fine day I was in a rather mischievious mood when he called and started whinning about his damn job and how he wanted a transfer......I told him about how vidaysagar had threatened to quit if not allowed a leave......and with few more quotes and few more anecdotes he was suddenly pumped up to have a showdown with the HR to either get him transferred or relieve him of his duties.....but I suddenly heard another voice from the other end and almost instantly Tinks said "Arey yaar abhi chalta hoon....boss bula raha hain"......when I retorted about the above mentioned showdown he blankly said "fir kabhi"........I guess some people are just not Vertebrates enough(you know with the backbone and stuff)

Enough of Tinker-Tanker story for now.....I shall update more on this phenomenon we love to call Tinks.

Disclaimer: Tinks, we all love you for who you are......irrespective of all these pranks and leg-pulling I am glad to have a friend like you. What the hell !!!!!! I have told you worse and that to in your face, so just deal with it :-) :-) :-)............for those of you who don't know tinks you can send in queries.....I would be more than happy to pass them on to the "Legend" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To get things rolling.......

I am penning this down at a time when I should actually be convincing clients to buy the over-priced products of the company I work for. I have gotten so good at it that maybe someday I could stand infront of the mirror and convince myself that I am SRK....apart from the thinning hair and bulging belly, medium height and outright laziness I am in perfectly good shape to even put Brad Pitt to shame :-) :-) ........

I decided to write this blog because all great people in the world after they have done all the great things usually tell their stories and we applaud out of sheer respect....but to be fair even the losers(or rather commoners who just couldn't garner critical acclaim for their deeds) like me should get a fair chance to tell their side of the story as well. Believe me when I say this that the stories that losers are blessed human beings with the capability to somehow manage to turn even the most organised and most fool-proof situations into nightmarish blunders........and if not for us who would appreciate the achievers.........we actually set the benchmark.........

I have a lot of un-expressed feelings and desperate frustration within me about my life in general which I shall let out through this blog so I advise you not to take this seriously or literally......try to look for the hidden meanings and feelings and if you do find something please let me know....I have been looking for it for quite sometime now.......some of us just can visualise properly I guess!!!!!!! For example the meaning to this entire paragraph can be summed up as "Bhavnao ko samjho!!!!!"........to the point and yet so vague!!!!!!!!!!! I guess too much of Out-of-the-box thinking went into this last para.

Well as of now I am planning to get my___ ... you know.....out of the chair and get ready to go to my battlefield( read office) as I just received an SOS...."Man Down...I repeat Man Down".....and with my "Roger That" acknowledgement of the crisis , I have to pretty much take charge now........ and by the way the man down was not due to any personal crisis of his but due to his busy schedule of planning for his Honeymoon!!!!!!!!! Every dog (cat,rat,bat or even men) has its day except for the polite natured losers who just cant say no.................See ya next time........

Till then keep rocking and keep losing......remember losing is just winning turned upside down and in the not the not so distant future maybe losers will be heroes and vice-versa and then we shall be called the founder-fathers who showed mankind that winning is actually about losing......."WHAT an insight"......For once I am proud to be an under-achiever...........