Work in Progress

I made a promise on 43things about stuff I would like to do in life. Well, two of those are done now, completing a half marathon, and a trip to Goa. More about that in another post. One thing I did note down however, and did nothing about, was to Sketch Regularly. Doodling I did frequently (after all, I do have to sit through lengthy meetings), but all my sketching pencils were gathering dust in the drawer. That’s when I saw this photo of a friend which looked very pretty, and that helped me to at least start on my promise about sketching..

This is what it looks like right now:




















I am using a heavy, large grain paper borrowed from my room-mate; lots more suited to water color than sketching – it has a very rough texture, and would not allow much blending. More important to me was to get the shape right; there were not too many tonal values in the master copy, anyway. However, the alignment of the left eye has gone all awry, will try to set it right at my next sitting. The hair warranted a much darker black, but my 5b Faber Castell is not giving me the desired results on this paper either. Hope to post updates on the work pretty soon, till then any suggestions would be very welcome!

Boss for a Day

Sat, 24th Sep

Today, AJ, my team lead had taken a day off. Being the only other person in the team who was not a new joinee, I took over as the acting team lead for the day.

Being the boss has its advantages. You get to decide who does what. In effect, you decide to do nothing, and offload all your pending work to your underlings. I had been pretending to work on an assignment of documentation the whole week that AJ was there. Painting screenshots on user manuals isn’t what one would say “interesting work”, but having that on my worklist meant that it prevented AJ from handing me over any other “issues” that came up regularly. Hmm.., I thought, this work should get completed today !

Called over PM and asked him how he was loaded today. He was working on the specifications for a development that was high priority. What exactly is “high priority” ? Part of the fun in playing the boss is that you get to decide the priorities of everything. “Have you explained this report to the development team ? No ? Do that. Let them start working while you work on the written specs, no need build in linear dependencies. Documenting the specifications you can do later. That’s low priority. Now there’s this list of user manuals that need to be delivered positively by 4 p.m. today. You need to describe the processes in this list with appropriate screenshots. Start on this, and complete this by 3:00 so that I can review these before submitting..”

……..

Being the boss also has its drawbacks. All issues are routed to you. However, Saturday is normally a light day in office. Only one issue sprung up the whole day.

A mail routed through finance arrived after a number of forwards, saying some user in Baroda wanted :a new cenvatable condition type in import PO's to handle the new Govt levy - Additional Countervailing Duty". Whew . What a mouthful. I sometimes are amazed what sentences people can think up, given some leisure time.
Anyway, couldn't make head or tail out of that line. So, I sent back a mail to one of the guys in finance:
"Please provide the following details:
a) The rate of the duty
b) The cases/conditions where this applicable
c) What is the price basis of this duty
d) Will this be applicable in conjuction with Countervailing duty. (well, I had no idea about that, either, but I guess since he wanted "additional" duty there was some original duty in the first place ;) )
e) Whether the condition was to be made available in OBYC, if yes in what form; if no then what is the alternative to be followed. ( This was a technical term and absolutely irrelevant, but I knew that this would flummox the user and it would be quite some time before he would think up of an answer to that one :D )

We will look into this matter and make the suitable software modifications once this information is made available to us. "

The original mail was sent three days back before it reached me. I guess they would take a similar amount of time in getting back with the answer. By that time AJ would be back, he would know how to handle it ...

Ah, well ! getting to be a temporary boss is fun !

Guns and Roses

Intro

I have to tell you, there is nothing better than a life with a 9 to 5 job and a loving wife. You open your eyes in the morning see her cuddled up besides you and you can never resist the temptation to kiss her. And once you kiss her of course, you just have to move your hands around her. And once your morning activities are over you go to office and all and then work like a hog. Joke around with your colleagues. Call your boss names. And then return back home. Back into your wife's arms. I love it.

The dream i mean. Because I am neither married nor do I enjoy a 9 to 5 job. I work in a bank like many of my batch-mates. I work in the IT field like most others of my generation. And I work from 9 to 9. Sometime even later. Of course there are those beautiful girls in the office that i can look at when I am in the office. But the bitches, all have got themselves a husband or a boy friend. They never cared to wait for me. Not that I care too much either. But still it would be nice and all to have a girl friend. Or maybe a couple of girl fiends.

You might think I am a pervert who has nothing but sex on his mind. True. Only I don’t feel like a pervert. There's this girl who keeps giving me the looks like if I just go ahead and talk she will marry me right there. I am scared. As any other of my age, scared of commitments. Today I have got this proposal to make. Not to any girls silly. Agh!! No not even to boys. I am making a proposal for a change in the software system. Yaah so my life is boring. What can I do? Have started the work. But only just started.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Intro

My bike is usually parked in the basement of my office building. I was thinking something and unlocking my helmet from the bike when I saw this gleaming object lying on the floor. A gun!! Whew!! I had never before seen a gun in my life. I mean in real life. I was thinking whether to pick it up or not. There was no one in sight. It was well past 8:30 and most of the people in my building are the 9 to 5 job type. So there was this urge in me to pick it up and I went right ahead and picked it up. It was quite heavy. As heavy as those plastic steam irons that we get nowadays. You can pick it up with one hand and aim and all. I picked it up and put it right inside my bag. Before anyone else could see. I was not thinking anything. I was just mesmerised by the thought of having a gun.

Ever since childhood I have practised shooting. With my index finger pointing straight ahead and thumb upwards. I have had my chances at holding guns too. You know, the Diwali ones. Every child as soon as he is able to walk and run wants a gun. And people say violence is bad. If violence were bad then why would we have the urge to have guns at all? We are all descendants from animals after all. The other day I was watching discovery channel and they showed these two huge horned deers or something playing. And how do they play? By locking horns and hitting each other. Same with lion cubs. And ditto for monkeys too. How can we be different? I think with civilisation and all we have actually become a bit too peaceful. Maybe thats why our population is increasing so fast. But, I am deviating from the subject.

So I had the gun inside my bag. The feeling was undescribable. A part of my nervous system was making me twitch, another was making me feel cold behind my spine. The
frontal lobe on the other hand was thinking whether the relative merits of owning a gun would surpass the danger from police. But then I am a banker, okay still too young to be called a banker, but nevertheless I am one of those breeds. I dont think police will have anything to do with me. Why would they check me at all? Unless... Unless they have put surveillance cameras around here and are watching me right now.

I looked all around me. No one was there. I looked at the ceilings, only cobwebs there. Could the camera be in some vehicle like they do in the TV channels nowadays. You know making bakra and all. There's this other one by a sardar which is also time pass. But bakra is the best. Anyways, I looked around, squinted a lot but couldn't make out if there was any buffoon watching me. Then I saw this huge fly or butterfly or whatever. It was just going round and round. Could it be some CIA sponsered espionage trick? God knows. I tried to look closer at the thing and found to my relief that it was only a big smelly fly. By that time I had one or two drop of sweat hanging by the twitching nerves on my head.

I once again looked around and then made up my mind to give the gun to the police and let all my apprehensions go. There's a police station right infront of my office building. So i sat on my bike and started it and came out of the parking area. To go to the police station I have to go right around my office building because the parking outlet is on the other side. I had to take a left turn and keep turning left until i reached the police station. But usually I turn right at the gate. Habit takes precedence. I turned right instead of left and then realized my mistake. But I am also pretty lazy so I talked myself into keeping the gun till tomorrow. I decided first thing in the morning I will give it to the police.

So I was on my way back home. The road is full of auto rickshaws as the place harbors almost all the head offices you can think of. One of those bastards took a sudden right turn and I had to put my brakes hard on. My back tire skidded a bit and I was temporarily shocked. The shock gave way to anger and I just thought I would kill the bastard with my newfound gun tonight. I accosted him and started yelling at him in perfect mumbaiya and he like a cow said sorry and turned around. All my hopes of killing a man went bust with him saying sorry as my heat came down suddenly.

I went on, and while going realized what a big mistake it would have been if I had even taken the gun out of my bag. There were so many people all around. I would have been lynched before I could even figure out how to unlock the thing and fire. And even if I did get to fire the damn thing then what? Whew!! That was a close escape.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Chapter1

I reached home. I live in a small studio apartment. One room with my bed, cupboard, TV and most of the luggage packed in there respective corners. There is a kitchen which I occassionally use to make maggi. I dont like eating maggi a lot. But I dont know anything else. And I hate cooking. My mom cooks well. But all that is unnecessary blabber. There is a full length mirror attached to the cupboard. I love looking at myself in it. Surely Narcissus will pale in front of me.
Now that I was back again in my one room suite, I took out my Gun and stood in front of the mirror. First, James Bond style. Then mumbHai style. I checked if there were any bullets inside. It was the new kind of gun, not the old revolver; you know where the bullet compartment revolves to get the new bullet ready. This had a magazine inserted in the handle. I have seen in movies, people pressing the gun and the magazine comes out. I tried that in several ways, but it won’t come out. There had to be something. I couldn't find it anywhere. A surefire way to know whether bullets were there or not was to fire. But if I fire then people will hear and they may call the police.

But wont I love to fire it once. Just to hear how it sounds and to see the sparks fly. Maybe if I went to a deserted place and fired no one will hear. I aimed my gun towards the sky through the window and ting tong. An electric shock went through my body starting from the legs through the trunk to my head and the arms and the gun fell from my hand. There was someone at the door. What to do? I slid the gun under the bed and ran to open the door. By this time I was breathing heavily, not so much from the running as from the shock. There's not much room to run anyways.

I opened the door to reveal the secretary of the society where I stay. He is a middle-aged man, most probably in his early 40s. Big thick mustache on a big round face. Most of the things about him were round. He had a well-rounded belly. Round shoulders and round eyes. Really I had never seen anyone with that kind of eyes before I met him. It was as if he was permanently staring with either a mix of surprise and terror or surprise and anger at you. Maybe the poor fellow never had any eyelids.

He seemed more of angry right now than terrorized. But one could never discern. He opened his mouth to say something, and suddenly stopped. Then he looked behind me into the room. He put his neck in through the door and surveyed the whole place as if I was hiding something. Could it be possible that he knew about the gun? No he was inside his flat when I came up. He couldn't have seen me. It must be something else.Finally he uttered something. Said, "We live in a society. Family. You bachelors! What do you think you are doing? Coming whenever you like and going whenever you like. Bringing girl friends. You also bring drinks. Don’t you?"

Let me clarify here that I have never brought any girl friends here. But I believe the previous occupant had brought some lady of dubious origins and had been thrown out for the same reason. And ever since I have been getting the punishment he deserved. But the fatass was right about the drinks. I do get my friends to come over to my place for drinks. We have quite a gala time. Come weekend and we plan it out. A full bottle of whiskey, 2 liters of coke, lots of snacks, lots of chicken and lots of food. The laptop is connected to the big speakers and the party starts. Its great fun to be bachelors. I don’t know why people want to get married.

I am sure it was this that had put a nail in the oldies head. We had a party on Saturday night, Sunday I was away with my friends and the fool got hold of me now on Monday evening. I couldn't think of what to say, while he started again, "You young people are the future of our country. Hah! Our country will go to the gallows. This breed is all alike. They have no responsibilities and all they do is drink and dance and make noise." At this point he had started shouting and my two neighbors had opened their doors to see what was going on. Now he hollered, "If you do not stop this, I will throw you out. I will call the police. What kind of parents has reared children like you". The bastard was testing my patience now. I swear I would have hit him hard on the nose or poked his round eyes out if it had not been for those ladies watching.

I said, "Listen Mr. Satyanath, everyone here knows how great a person you yourself are. You don’t have to shout at me. Shout as much as you want to your wife. We all know how much you beat her". This last sentence was said almost in a whisper, because it was such a sensitive issue. This ignited the old bastard, and he flew at me. But I was ready for any such assault and jabbed my right fist right in his belly. That dazed him for a moment. And then he kept swearing at me. But I closed the door and came back. I swear to God, if I were a gangster I would have killed him. If someday I do turn a gangster, he will be the first one I will kill. Gangster! Gun! I had a gun. The bastard beats his wife. Even if I kill him it wont be considered a sin. At least not up there. As for down here, I could always take him in some dark alley.

Oh no! What am I thinking? This gun it seems will make me murder someone someday. Why am I thinking of killing people? This is horrible. I must throw the damn thing. Yes I will give it to the police first thing tomorrow morning. Surely. I switched on the TV thinking thus. I like watching songs. Music channels are my second most favorites. The favorites being the movie channels. Discovery comes a close third. Although in academic circles I would like to put forth myself as an ardent admirer of discovery.

Chapter3