(500) Days of Summer

Did somebody make a movie out of our lives?
There were so many times when I could just shout out, "Don't say that, you idiot! Don't do that!".
But then, the death-bells were ringing so inevitably loud and clear. I am sure he knew it too. But he did it anyway. You say things anyway.

It's easy to make a movie about heroism and valor. It's near impossible to make one about what we choose to experience as love. This movie does just that.

Brilliant, brilliant movie - and, quite frankly, the most honest thing I've seen put to screen.
(I can see screenplay Oscar nods - but that's besides the point - it is a treasure, without a doubt!)

Adios!

Three videos

Posted below are three versions of the song "Bulletproof" performed by La Roux. Bear with me - the first one is close to irritating but things get progressively better in each video - and by the time you finish the final one, you'll know why I love music so much! :)

Version 1 (the original one):


Version 2:


Version 3 (BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge - there is something magical about this show):


Adios!

The nice people...

Making a job application here is a drawn out process - understanding the company and, more importantly, understanding yourself.

And, of course, hanging onto the hope that you might actually get a job in this environment and keep trying to figure out options and backup plans and what not - you get insanely tired. So, it helps when you get your daily dose of hope and sunshine on campus. Here's how:

For lunch, I tend to go to the student restaurant at the fourth floor in the Old Building, pick up a tray and cutlery, put some depressing-looking food on it and queue up at the till to pay.

Now, there are two tills - one hosts a decidedly threatening middle-aged English lady with a sharp tongue - the kind that will ask all the students in the queue to tender exact change, keep the money ready when they come to the till and not fumble about with their wallets and count the pennies (which I invariably end up doing). And woe betide thee if you hand her a 10-pound note for a meal that costs 2.60!!

On the other till sits my angel in London - a blue-eyed, energetic Polish woman with golden hair. She is about the same age as me, ever-smiling and never fails to recognize the students and greet them as if they were her own family. And ahhh, that lovely Eastern-European accent! Always, "How are you?", "Did you watch any movie during the weekend?", "Are the classes heavy?", "Oh, you look so tired today...", "I am feeling so happy today, there is new stuff on the menu" (!) - never a hollow greeting - and she cares about the students' replies - at least, it seems that way to me.

She's bad at her job - poor at calculating change, always forgetting the prices on the menu (which makes me wonder why she gets happy when new items are added to the menu) and generally slower than her colleague at the other till. But her enthusiasm is exemplary - no matter how tired I am, seeing her bright-eyed smile makes my day! She loves her job - being surrounded by students who hardly pay any attention to her, busy talking about the Goldman Sachs-es and McKinsey's of the world and constantly pestering her about the wrong change! But she is always listening to everything and often asks things like - "Did you apply to this company called BCG? I heard they gave a really nice presentation today!"

And I begin to think, "Oh no, not you too! I am sick of that stuff!" - but then I see her with her shining face and honest curiosity and wonder - 'I have no right to act hopeless and tired!'.

For then, I realize that there are people like her in the world - who have the power to make others happy - the same "others" who don't give two hoots about the fact that someone is smiling at them and, for maybe about 20 seconds, is concerned a full hundred per cent about their well-being while they talk about their high-flying careers as she sits about at her till - counting money. I assure you - no celebrated corporate honcho can hold a candle to her million-watt smile.

As I said earlier, finding a career here is a lot about understanding yourself - your aims and your desires. And I found out that, if I were to do anything in life at all, it would be to make sure that the ones who make life meaningful for others get their due.

The nice people - they shall inherit all they deserve...

Adios!

Peaceful, indeed!

So, at a BofA-ML presentation, I bump into a senior from KGP who passed out in 2001, did her PhD in the US, got married, worked for a bit at London and is now pursuing another Masters at LSE. Aside from the fact that meeting her gave a twirp like me enormous tempo to keep doing weird things, it also affirmed something nice:

"So, have you started doing those numerical tests from DB, Credit Suisse etc?", she asks.
"Haan...have finished one or two of them...", I reply.
"Hmm...must have been easy for you - you haven't been out-of-touch for too long. Mere liye fight naa ho! Questions to peaceful hain naa?"
"Haan...quite peaceful!", I reply as my heart leaps with joy at hearing these words.

KGP changes you forever - and, for good, I hope! :)

Adios!

"Use Somebody"

I was wondering why I should put this on my blog...

"I can walk here!"

A friend from KGP was coming to London for the first time, joining as a student at the LSE - so I went to pick her up at the airport.

While traveling back to London on the Tube, she dropped a number of hints that she was quite apprehensive about studying in the UK for a while - the recession, the expensive City, the bad weather etc etc. The gloomy underground made her apprehension gloomier still.

Just as I was getting prepared to receive a more explicit dose of London-bashing, our station arrived and we got down right in the heart of the city.

Dragging her luggage on the streets of Central London as we got out of the station and tried to locate her accommodation, she began to look around, noticing things and talking about how different this was from the cities in the US - where she had been once before.

"I liked the US. When I first landed there, I felt straightaway I could stay there for good."
"Really? I haven't been there - but I've heard it's good", I reply.
"Yes - it's good. Before coming here, I was dreading the idea of living in England. It's always cold and raining here."
"Haan - but it's sunny once in a while, too. Then it's really nice!"
(I always end up defending the place I'm living in - I did it for KGP when people trashed it in my first year, I did it for Singapore - that was hard, believe me - and now, I was doing it for London).


Silence, as she takes the city in.

"Hmm...but in the US, no-one walks - everyone has a car and people look at you strangely if you go walking down the roads...but I can walk here!", she brightens up significantly and starts to walk faster.
"Yeah, people walk a lot here...", I reply - still not realizing what the big deal is.
"Yes, I can walk here", she looks around as if trying to confirm something,"People walk here - this is nice! I thought I would hate it...but, I think... I can live here!", she says chirpily and speeds up as I try to keep up while dragging the luggage and a truckload of surprised incomprehension at this sudden transformation.


The strangest of things make people happy. But it sure feels good to know that!

Adios!

PS: Three days on, she's still quite upbeat about the whole getting-to-walk bit. London is a fantastic city to walk about, though.

And, by the way...

...it's been tough - the last year or so - figuring out what to do and how to do it.
Now, we know!

Sybil Research should be a reality in the very near future.

Wish us luck!

Finding Neverland...

So DP pings me the other day saying something about Altaf Raja - and how we used to go insane just laughing at his weird lyrics. I drop everything, log onto Youtube and start off on an Altaf Raja song-spree.

After this sadistic exercise, I move onto other qawwals (of actual repute - not the Altaf Raja variety) which leads me to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and his classic "Dam Mast Qalandar". Youtube is generous enough to supply a list of related videos and I spot something rare, a gem amongst the thousands of "Dam Mast Qalandar" renditions crowding the web.

This rendition is actually a Coke ad - made for the 1996 World Cup and I had first seen it when my cricket career (yes, I will call it that, thank you very much) was at a peak. Seeing it again after so many years brought such an amazing feeling of content - just wanting to be a kid again, somehow get to the Yamuna beside the Taj and play cricket endlessly on its sunny, sandy banks - and desiring nothing else - absolutely nothing else!

Yeah, now I know what my paradise would look like. And I never knew I would find it through Altaf Raja - but in my heart, I always believed that guy had his merits! :)

Here's the video:

Adios!

PS: I also found out (something I had suspected for quite some time) that girls absolutely suck at appreciating visual content with a temporal component - ie cool videos! Apologies for making such a generalized statement... :P