The very next moment a dark, geeky looking man entered swiftly into the classroom. Barely two steps inside, he turned back and closed the door. He shouted from the inside - 'Those who were standing outside shall remain outside for the rest of my class'. I would have loved to see their expressions, but alas I was inside. My sense of pride reinvigorated me.

'I am Professor B.K. Mishra and I will teach you mathematics. Now if everybody can stand up and introduce themselves. I would like to know your name, the city you hail from, and your marks in mathematics in the board exam.'  You could see the curiosity in his eyes. He was eager to form a judgement. Eager to pick the eagles.

He pointed to the only girl he could find sitting in the classroom - ' We can start from you'. The girl, caught a little off guard, stood up - 'Yes sir. Okay sir. Tanvi. Delhi. 99.' The professor looked satisfied. She'd set the format for everybody. It was rather convenient blurting out three things in three words, that you wouldn't not know about yourself unless you were retarded. 

The class introduced themselves one after the other, till it finally came to me. Although it was just three words, I was a bit nervous. After all this was my first formal introduction in any place of significance. Opinions were being formed. May be I was just over thinking. I put myself together to stand up and introduce myself.

A body like mine made standing up look like a conspicuous piece of exercise. By the time I managed to transfer my weight from the chair to my feet, I had already won the pinching glare of the entire class. Of all the faces, there was one that unnerved me the most. She looked right at me, expressionless. May be she didn't recollect. Or may be she did.

My throat dried up. Infinite parallel thoughts started running inside my head. So consumed I was by my embarrassment that I almost forgot the reason for which I stood up in the first place. The professor looked at me with keen eyes.

'Sir, myself Amit. I am from DPS RK Puram. In my boards, I got 95 % in Mathematics and 93 % overall'

Her lips twitched a little. I realized immediately that I had, without meaning to, broken away from the conventional introduction ritual. She sniggered at the extra information I had volunteered. Why couldn't I have just said Amit, Delhi, 95%. Amit, Delhi, 95%, I repeated in my mind. I wondered if I should correct myself aloud. I looked at the professor to check if he felt similarly. The professor looked least bothered.

The guy infront of me stood up.

'Sir myself Ankit, I'm from Bal Bharti School, Delhi. 99% in Boards'

I felt a flush of relief as I sat down. He had chosen to follow me. I was the trendsetter here, the cool guy, the one who everyone emulates.

Almost involuntarily I looked at her reaffirmation. She was staring at Ankit from Bal Bharti expressionlessly. She must be embarrassed and trying to avoid looking at me, I concluded. I felt a little triumphant.   

 (If at all there is somebody who rememberes seeing this smwhere else, Yes the beginning is copied, the end is not :) )

Crime and Punishment (3)

Crime and Punishment is an unusual book. It is the narrative of a criminal, yet ‘criminal’ seems too vile a word for Raskolnikov. He has a twisted, almost maniacal thought process, and though never does he try justifying his actions, the reader just ends up convinced that it was justified. As a 'criminal' he has a pointed conscience, which keeps tormenting and failing him time and again.

One does start to question certain fundamental beliefs. Is murder justified in certain circumstances?  Should the real value of life be accounted for before murder? Should a certain section of society be exempt from any form of condemnation for murder? Should your motives determine the extent of your guilt? Can you be morally free after committing a murder? 

The great thing about this book, is that it is completely devoid of any stereotypes. There is no typical character, whose moves one can predict, each and everyone is a new and supremely interesting person. Porfiry is one such, posing a very interesting contrast to the protagonist, he is an insightful and manipulative investigator. The psychological duels between the two make for the most interesting part of the book. As a reader, you end up not rooting for either of them, you are just waiting with bated breath as to what follows next.

I do realize that nothing i say about the book will do justice to it. It is just so beautifully layered, so deep, so conflicting and so mind-fucking.  I never really understood when people who had read Dostoevsky told me that his writings are disturbing. Now I know.

The Alchemy of Desire (2)

The Alchemy of Desire can easily be listed in the erotic category. Never before have I read a book, with the kind of sexual overdose, as this book has...almost every facet of sex seems to have been touched upon, standing sex, sex on the table, wild sex, sex with ghosts,sex with dogs, homosexual men having sex with each other, homosexual men having sex with non-homosexual men, there is such a detailed account of it, that by the end of it you start wishing the leading characters weren’t quite so..’unsatiated’.  Couldnt help feeling a little corrupted by reading it all.

I think it is easy to judge from my tone, that I won’t be joining the long list of fans of this one. The book could easily done with 100 pages less. The main plot starts well after the 300^th page, and midway it seems Tarun Tejpal gets into his journalist shoes, and starts digressing about the state of India and comparisons between Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi.

However all said and done, he writes beautifully. His is a writing style which is highly descriptive, drawing on vivid imagery. The author explores the ‘alchemy of desire’, a desire which can be equally empowering and destructive.

‘Desire is a wonderfully promiscuous thing, but when it is trapped in monogamy it cannot survive without love.’

Sometimes the book does catch u off-guard with statements like these. Perhaps the book is written for a more mature audience.

Liar's Poker (1)

On the throes of an impending resignation, when I’d rather engross myself in a book than mull over the various potential directions of my life, Michael Lewis’ Liar’s Poker came at an opportune time in my life. Wasn’t expecting a memoir of a bond trader in the 1980’s to be my escape route though.

Liar’s Poker is the story of the unlikely transition of an art graduate from the Princeton, to the loud, ugly world of bond trading at Salomon Brothers. The moments of self-doubt, the author’s easy admission that he lacks pure talent or the trader’s instinct and has risen within the ranks to become a ‘big swinging dick’ piggybacking on others makes this a highly endearing account. Perhaps, this very humbleness from the very beginning is what had me rooting for the author from the start. However you realize quite early on, that the author is blessed with an astute sense of how the world works. As a trainee in Salomon Brothers, the various managers pick and choose the trainees they want in their departments, on the basis of their likeability and potential they see at the end of the training program. Mike, fearful of being unwanted and packed off in some obscure department, spreads a rumor about how X manager has been asking for him. The other bosses toe the line, not for any other reason, but simply because other bosses wanted him, and he gets the department of his choice.

Nevertheless, the author is in a constant state of learning from others, lacking any genuine insights on the market himself. His mentor in fact rightly describes him as ‘bearing the stamp of the last person he spoke to’. The author is soon made to break out of the naïve notion that his customers’ interests were aligned with the interests of the firm, and is forced to make unprofitable deals for his gullible customers for the greater good of Salomon Brothers.

There are some unforgettable characters in the book (made unforgettable by the author’s quirky character description) the Human Piranha (Piranha is an exceedingly nasty fish) who can’t speak without spewing profanities or as the book puts ‘His is a world filled with copulating inanimate objects’ or Alexander, Mike’s mentor who would advise him to take a long position on potatoes in US after Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion, and there is the Lewis Ranieri, the brain behind the creation of mortgage bonds.

As some one with little or no knowledge of finance, the author got me interested in a book of mortgage bonds and CMOs and junk bonds and leveraged buyouts and such, and for that I am thankful. Without quite meaning to, the book actually ended up teaching quite a lot! Though I was more interested in his ‘outsider’ perspective on the company and his personal story than the company’s history and progress, it is undobtedly an interesting read.

Impatiently waiting for Flipkart to deliver Moneyball now.

Baby Steps

This is most certainly not going to be a personal blog. By that I mean no more rantings, life is unfair cries and   such. Due to some unforeseen circumstances and some self-created mistakes, I am likely to have a lot of time on my hand in the near future.

Over the last few days, almost everyone who speaks to me has asked me one of the two things- ‘So koi result aaya?’ or ‘Koi Job interview ka call aaya’. Of course there are variations about waitlist movements and more. And mumbling a hesitant ‘Not Really’, makes people put their best sympathetic face forward. Or like S enquired yesterday, truly incredulous at my insufficiently depressed demeanor ‘Teri fatt nahi rahi?’

Well for some reason, nahi, m no longer wishing to die (Oh ok, I never wished that, I still have to visit Sydney, blow my parents’ money when I get married, force my child to learn taekwondo and certain more ambitious goals). After a lot of painful rationalization, I do think, this could be the best thing to happen to me. My completely unreasonable but insuppressible anger with life, parents, BF, friends and God has dissolved. Not being much of a religious person in any case, I do feel if there really is an entity like God, he/she would be quite amused by me. I think our one-sided relationship involved a lot of name calling, and that should end now. 

Well, suddenly there’s so much to do in life, and monotonously doing a job which I hate, isn’t going to help my cause. So here's me, having quit my job, I do realize the need to do a lot of introspection as to whether corporate life is really for me, whether I am aimlessly targeting goals without knowing why. Probably next year, I wouldn’t need to come up with creative fake answers, if at all I go down that road again.

So while I fluctuate between feeling excited and feeling depressed about the status quo, I do hope to use it wisely. This blog is just going to be a product of that effort.

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