I open one of the news website and the headlines – Suryanarayana has been killed by the Taliban.

My previous post was written this morning and I was hopeful that things would work out fine.

In the news link of ibnlive, following is mentioned:
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has condemned the inhuman killing of Suryanarayana and has asked Indians to fight a united war against terrorism.
Singh’s media adviser Sanjay Baru said, “The Government will do whatever is required to support the family. The Prime Minister has strongly condemned the heinous act by the Taliban.”

This is what gets me riled up. What exactly does the Prime Minister mean by asking Indians to fight a united war against terrorism? How the hell do we do that? And what the hell are we supposed to do? Pick up arms? And go where? Generally run amok in the hills with guns and scream anti-terror chants?
Why the hell can’t these guys get real? Especially when a country man has been killed.

The second statement of “The Prime Minister has strongly condemned the heinous act ” also makes no sense and is usually expected. I mean, I don’t think the PM would have appreciated this act. So why state the obvious?

The last para:
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for Suryanarayana’s family. Reddy also said Suryanarayana’s wife will be given a government job.
Suryanarayana’s employer al-Moayed has announced a compensation of Rs 20 lakh to his family and has undertook the responsibility of the education of his three children.

The wife of a well-earning middle class engineer will now be taking up a government job to support her family and her three children. Why? Just because some fanatics thought it would be fun to pick up some foreigner in their country and gain front page headline space. That one moment of fame which the fanatics sought has resulted in a life-long scar for a lady and her three children.

The world continues to rotate, ladies and gentlemen.

The last night extended well into this morning and I feel surprisingly refreshed now.
The airways are clean and there is nobody singing to me now. (“Internalised” from Bitter Sweet Symphony).

Having breakfast at the cafeteria and I take a look at today’s headlines – An Indian engineer abducted by the Taliban.

While I am looking at the headline and the sorrowful picture of the engineer’s family praying fervently, a gentleman comes up and says that India should not bend over for this. India should go ahead and let them kill the engineer. Only then the Taliban would stop doing all this.

Well, okay. Now, let me just put it this way Mr. Gentleman. What if you were abducted and I said the same thing about it? What about your family? Would you be so bold then? Would you sacrifice your life for the future benefit of India’s foreign policy? I would like to know.

The dilemma of relenting to criminal and terror demands has been a long standing one in India. If you are from Israel, you would have probably stopped reading all this, grabbed your ammo and blasted your neighbouring region away. Inspite of the tit-for-more-than-just-tat policy, Israel hasn’t found peace. So what makes people think that India will find peace if we stopped paying heed to terrorist demands? We cannot generalise and come up with one common rule to deal with such issues. Every event requires different types of dealings. In this particular one, I believe we can negotiate and get our people out.

I just hope the Indian government does everything in its capacity to rescue the engineer. As per the last update, the Taliban’s demand is that all Indians should leave Afghanistan. I think we should be grateful to the Taliban for this demand since it would give many Indians an excuse to get away from that country.

I just hope its a peaceful negotiation and everyone is evacuated safely.

Guys , take a break. Stop reading this blog for a while.
I am taking a break.

Life is about perspectives. All you need to do is change your perspective in order to change your state.

By the way, be wary of your bottle of Pepsi – you wouldn’t want some rubber floating in it.
Had my first exposure to the worlds of Accounting and Marketing. Both are interesting subjects but unfortunately both seem beyond my realm of understanding.

Er…well….I have nothing more to say.
Suddenly, I feel like I have been pushed onto the stage to say a few words and I realise that I have forgotten those few words.
So I am in front of the microphone and my knees are shaking, and the words don’t come out.
What happens next?

The curtains come down, ladies and gentlemen.
And I go for a much-needed sleep. The microphone shall screech tomorrow.

My companion for this afternoon was supposed to be Kotler’s Marketing Management.
Instead, I had Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon making me spellbound after an hour and a half of story telling and cinematography. Thanks to my room-mate for having got this DVD!

This was the first time I watched a Japanese movie and beyond doubt this one is a masterpiece.
The movie opens with an image of intense rain falling in the courtyard of an old dilapidated house named Rashomon.
Two people, one looked like a peasant and the other a priest, have taken shelter from the rain in this deserted and broken house. They are staring down at the floor in complete disappointment and dejection. This is a beautiful scene. Made heavy with the silence of the characters and with the loudness of the rain hitting the ground.

The story unfolds when a petty thief joins these two during that rain-filled evening. The splatter of rain drops in the background along with the gravity of the situation portrayed by the peasant and the priest cannot really be put in words (atleast by me).

You get to listen to four different versions of a man’s murder and his wife’s rape. Each version projects the inadequacies and the weakness of the human soul. You want to know more, you are pushed to ask why was the man murdered, what exactly transpired between the bandit who killed the man and the man’s wife who was raped by the bandit.

A 1950 classic, the black-and-white imagery of the Japanese court room and the narration of the different versions of the murder and rape are a sight to see.

In the end, I wasn’t concerned about the veracity of the various versions. For me, the movie was a tableaux of human emotions. Of dishonesty, guilt, weakness and ultimately redemption.

The moving moment was in the end when the priest hands the infant to the peasant and says that he was grateful to the peasant for having restored his faith back into mankind.
Watch it to know what I mean.

Kotler beckons. For some reason, it promises to be more incomprehensible than Japanese.

A positive article (from The Economist) that explains why the world is not about to run out of oil.

But is the world really starting to run out of oil? And would hitting a global peak of production necessarily spell economic ruin? Both questions are arguable. Despite today’s obsession with the idea of “peak oil”, what really matters to the world economy is not when conventional oil production peaks, but whether we have enough affordable and convenient fuel from any source to power our current fleet of cars, buses and aeroplanes. With that in mind, the global oil industry is on the verge of a dramatic transformation from a risky exploration business into a technology-intensive manufacturing business.

Interesting to know that there will be oil in this world as long as I am going to be alive and kicking.

This article (from timesonline.co.uk) proves that craziness is alive and kicking in this world.

THE producers of a pay-per-view television seance that will be broadcast in America tonight claim to have contacted John Lennon from beyond the grave.

Viewers are being asked to fork out $9.95 (£5.60) to hear him deliver a message to the world.

Imagine there’s no heaven. Its easy if you try. Easier if you listen to me.

My laptop makes loud whirring sounds every time I open the blogspot website. I guess its an indication of some sort.

Ladies and gentlemen, in case you planning to buy a laptop, do consult me. I won’t be able to guide you towards your perfect “laptop” (and I am referring to the computer machinery) but I will definitely be able to tell you what not to buy.

Played leather ball cricket after a long time.
This is for Chilli and the Devil – Guys, I played a beautiful cover drive for four. The offside was set on fire!! Exquisite timing, breath taking follow through and the ball just raced past the fielders (some of them could not resist and started clapping at my shot). And to top it, I did not get out at all!
Somewhere in some corner of Calcutta, a certain Mr. Ganguly must have been proud of me.

The laptop has started whirring even more loudly. I will have to shut it and take it to the IT helpdesk.
Ladies and gentlemen, please excuse.
Please.
Pleaseeeeeee.

Thanks.

During my sleeping stints I managed to catch the movie Philadelphia.
(I am not really an avid movie watcher hence its perfectly pardonable if I talk about old movies now)

Nice movie, Tom Hanks with yet another awe-inspiring performance. Denzel Washington too packs a punch in his role as the councillor who fights Tom’s case.
Between the two, as was pointed out by a roommate, Denzel’s acting usually looks a lot more practiced and rehearsed. However , Tom’s acting seems a lot more natural and has a flow to it. Both are great actors no doubt, but in my opinion Tom Hanks is a notch higher.

In one of the scenes Tom thanks his boss for having given him a promotion. Tom says, “Thank you for the faith you have shown in me”.
The boss responds – “Faith is something in which we believe but we haven’t seen it. In your case, that does not apply since we have seen your ability”.

The way Tom looks towards the end of the movie – all scraggy with droopy eyes and ready to fall off – that’s exactly how I have been looking today. Excess sleep and lack of sleep – both can make you look like a zombie.

Switching to the topic of sleep, for the first time I have begun to appreciate the presence of sleep in our lives. Its a wonderful and beautiful getaway of sorts. It lets you forget yourself, it lets you span time without having to suffer it, it lets you bridge gaps in your mind without having to understand them, it lets you wander to those places which are normally beyond your horizon.
Go to sleep and you have the potential to become one with the universe.

I managed to draw my curtains and let some sunshine in. It feels and looks good outside. I need to shave and go out for a walk. I need to breathe.

The whole MBA experience (I couldn’t get any other phrase) has been a sort of badly mixed cocktail. It has given a high, yes, but hasn’t left behind a decent lingering taste.
The cocktail wasn’t cold either.
Nevertheless, it is a drink and I am sipping on it with every waking moment. Every sleeping moment is what I cherish however. The moments when I return back to my shell and I start missing that part of me which I know I should not be missing. But I do it anyway.

*****Switch*****(I am going to refrain from blogging personal stuff as much as possible)

Today was a relaxed day. Went out to the city for the first time and felt connected back to life. There are intelligent people all around me. There are aggressive people all around me. There are people who believe the world rotates only for their sustenance. And then there are people whom I have started hanging out with. Essentially chilled out, practical and ever ready with the latest gossip on the girls in campus. I love these guys. Last night we were up till about 2 am going through the photo directory and sharing information on every girl we came across in the directory. This what B-School is all about.
And then there is the mental block in my head. So, while I can go ahead and play along and talk about all this in a joking manner, something somewhere inside me has got killed.
Something that will never be healed.

*****Switch******

I have begun to hate liquor and cigarettes.

*****Switch******
Important information – Finance and business related newspapers don’t have an inch of reading matter. They just look cool. So, subscribe to a financial newspaper, sit at a coffee table, open your laptop and open the Fortune website, and don’t forget to pretend to look into those orange coloured pages of the financial newspaper. You will look cool. Even girls who normally wouldn’t look at you will start furtively throwing glances at you. The only thing is that you won’t see those glances since you will be busy peering into that newspaper of yours.

End of post, ladies and gentlemen.

A urinal in one of the toilets at the main building. It had three naphthalene balls – one saffron in colour, one white and one green.
For some reason, I couldn’t get myself to use that particular urinal.

Not sure if I should have blogged this. But I did anyway. It was just stuck in my head.