What Is Your DISC Profile?

Disclaimer: As far as I'm aware information relating to the DISC profile is available in the public domain. In case this post violates any copyright laws, please let me know and I'll be happy to take it off the blog.

I recently underwent a people management training at work where we learnt a number of managerial skills such as how to motivate your team members, conflict management, the right way of giving feedback (there is a right and a wrong way believe it or not. 'Hey, great job!' just doesn't cut it anymore) etc.. But the part I found the most fascinating - and useful - was the DISC profile.

DISC is the way of classifying people into 4 broad groups based on their style of working and the way they behave at the work place. So you have people who are high on 'Dominance', which contrary to perception is a positive quality to possess at work since people in this group are focussed on results. They are confident, fast-paced, decisive, action oriented and constantly challenge themselves as well as others. They don't like to get involved in the details and processes, and are always looking for the bigger picture. They have little patience for routine, mundane tasks and are champions at the art of delegating.

Then there are people who belong to the 'Influence' category. These people are highly sociable, gregarious and complete people's people. They are also the most persuasive of the lot and use their persuasion skills as the key tool for succeeding in their careers. They are motivated by social recognition and fear disapproval and the loss of influence and attention.

Then there are the 'Steady' ones. These people are strong team players whose style of working revolves around cooperation and collaboration. They tend to be good listeners and think of the greater good of the team before an individual. The downside of belonging to this group is that you may be mistaken for someone who lacks the confidence to act on your own and is slow to make decisions.

And finally there is the 'Conscientious' group. People belonging to this category are extremely methodical and detail-oriented. They are perfectionists who need to have every minute detail in place before they take a decision. They are motivated by quality and accuracy and are afraid of being wrong or taking wrong decisions because they missed out on details.

The D's and I's typically tend to be extroverts where as the S' and C's are mostly introverts. There are exceptions to this of course.

According to the DISC profile, most people tend to fall into two categories with one being the dominant trait and the other secondary. For instance, a person can be a Di which means they are predominantly a D but also possess many traits of an I.

At the same time, we can all stretch into the remaining two categories depending on the situation we are in or the people we are interacting with. For instance, there is a girl in my office who is an Sc at work - calm, quiet and diligent. But when she's playing a competitive sport she is a total D, leading her team, yelling out instructions and screaming at people when they mess up!

The way we arrived at our DISC profiles was very interesting too. Before the training we were asked to take an online test where we were presented with various work-related scenarios and had to choose the response that came closest to the way we would react/handle that situation.
On the day of the training we played a card game where we were each given 6 cards with words written on them - attributes/personality traits belonging to each of the D, I, S and C categories. We first had to discard 2 cards that contained words that least described us, and then we had to move around the room exchanging cards with other people in the group until we arrived at the 4 cards that described us the best.

Most people ended up with cards of 2 of the 4 DISC categories, which became our dominant and secondary styles (depending on the number of cards of each category we ended up with). We were then given the results of the online test we had taken and 90% of us had the same DISC profile that we arrived at ourselves!

Now, I generally don't like to categorize people as I don't believe slotting people into boxes works - human behaviour is way more complicated than that. But of all the other personality/work personality tests I've taken or read about, DISC seems to be the most accurate because it has 4 very clearly defined but broad groups that each allow a variety of behaviours, but also allow people of one style to exhibit certain traits of all the other styles all the time or depending on the situation.

As a manager, I found the DISC profile very useful. I've been working for almost 8 years now and in this time I have had to deal with all sorts of team members and bosses. I've had team members who have driven me up the wall by their slow pace of working, their refusal to take instructions from me, their manager, by always getting so caught up in details so that they completely miss the bigger picture etc.

At the same time I've had bosses who were extremely cautious about what they said, forever questioning & critiquing and very demanding. DISC has helped me realize why they were the way they were and how I could have improved my working relationship with them and handled them/the situation better.

Even now I have a very diverse group of people working with me and I know how to interact with them so we don't drive each other batty and get the optimum productivity. I also know which way I tend to sway (in terms of my style of working) and when I need to act in another way.

I've rambled on and on about this and I'm way past my target bed time for today :-)
Why don't you tell me what you think your DISC profile would be? You could choose one for the sake of simplicity, or choose a dominant and a secondary style. Game on!

Saying 'No' to Jeans

Sometimes you read/watch/hear people spouting such crap that you really wonder what the fuck is wrong with them!

First there was Aishwarya Rai on the season's opening episode of Koffee With Karan. Apart from giggling away to glory and talking in an accent she seems to have acquired on a trip to Mars, she was desperately trying to sound cool by trying to talk about her sex life - or the lack thereof - on TV.

I say 'lack thereof' b/c if she's anything in the bedroom like she is in front of the camera - read cold and plastic - there's not much sex that would be happening inside the bedroom.

Why would someone who comes across as icy in all her interviews and rebuffs all attempts by journalists to pry into her personal life, suddenly ask Karan Johar if she should disclose how she & her husband make out, in print? And then, when K Jo asks her which men, apart from her husband, she finds attractive, she looks horrified and wonders how she could even be asked something like that, as if answering the question would've resulted in her dying on the spot and burning in hell. Because, you know, she's a Bhartiya nari who cannot dream of any man save her husband in her wildest, wettest dreams!

For God's sake she wasn't asked to name the men, apart from her husband, that she'd jump or even consider sleeping with. She was only asked who she found attractive, and if she truly isn't attracted to any other man, she surely is frigid.

Then there was Deepika Padukone on the same show, tearing her ex-boyfriend apart b/c he cheated on her repeatedly. She went to the extent of saying that he should endorse condoms b/c he loves to use them. While her intention quite clearly was to hang him to dry in the media, what she overlooked was the possibility that by discussing his sexual escapades in public she was also shedding enough light on her sexual life, and also on the fact that she's a slow learner if not a complete dimwit.

Any woman with half a brain would know that if a man cheats on her once, he'll do so again. You forgive him once, you forgive him a second time, but if you keep taking him back again & again, it's not he who's the one with issues here - it's quite clearly you. Because you haven't learnt your lesson.

Then there's the granddaddy of all 'what the fucks' - Mr Subhash Ghai. He thinks that youngsters should not wear jeans anymore b/c jeans corrupt them.

You read it right.

Jeans. Corrupt. Youngsters.

This is the same Subhash Ghai who showed Sridevi in a swim suit in 'Karma' and Madhuri Dixit heaving her generous bosom in a barely-there choli in 'Khalnayak'. The same Subhash Ghai who raised the most profound question ever asked of Indians - choli ke peeche kya hai (what's under the blouse?).

I'm sure according to him the answer was Indian family values.

I can understand why Subhash Ghai has lost it though. If you made movies like 'Good Boy, Bad Boy', 'Apna Sapna Money Money' and 'Yuvraj' that tanked faster than the Titanic, you'd be losing it too. And thinking that a nation's character gets eroded by the kind of pants that its citizens choose to wear.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these people?

Or maybe they're tripping on some really good stuff!!

A Venting Post

This is a venting post about people and their stupid and/or irresponsible behavior. About some people that I know and some that I'd like to know so I can shake the daylights out of them!

There are times when people completely befuddle me. I was reading an interview of Amrita Puri this morning. For those who don't know who she is, she plays the character of Shefali in Aisha. She also happens to be the daughter of Aditya Puri, the Managing Director of HDFC Bank, one of the largest private banks in India. She's grown up in Mumbai, I believe, and worked as a freelance journalist & copywriter at an advertizing agency in India before joining films.

There are two things about her interview that bugged me. First, she very proudly declared that she couldn't speak Hindi properly before she started working in the movie. This from a girl who belongs to a North Indian family and has grown up in Mumbai.

This is something that, as an Indian, I have a major issue with. I just don't understand how someone whose mother tongue is Hindi cannot speak the language properly. I hear it all the time from people who've grown up in North India, or any other part of India where Hindi is the most widely spoken language and the language spoken the most at homes.

It's such a shame! You'll never hear a European deride his/her national language. They take pride in speaking it. Why then do we look down on our national language? I can understand if you choose to speak in English but to not be able to speak your mother tongue is a matter of great shame. It makes you a sad wannabe and nothing more.

What's your perspective on this?

The other thing about her interview that bothered me was how she went to great lengths to emphasize that unlike her character in Aisha, she's not a behenji, i.e. the "salwar kameez wearing types".

Now, to start with, I don't like the word 'behenji'. It's a word used to slot women, almost always in a derogatory manner, going solely by the type of clothes they wear. We are so quick to typecast women who prefer Indian clothes to Western wear as behenji, which also connotes things such as "small town", "uncool" and unfit to socialize with the denim wearing types who are supposedly more modern, hip and cool. For all you know, the so called behenji could be cooler, smarter and a more interesting person than a hundred jeans/shorts wearing women put together!

I see it around me all the time. Just yesterday I went to a new coffee shop that's opened in town, with a bunch of colleagues. Coincidentally, all of us were dressed in Indian attire. The owner of the cafe - a guy in his early 20s who looked like he was desperate to be picked up by a modeling agency - was going around the cafe taking feedback from people at different tables. He went to all the tables except ours. I was trying to figure out the reason he didn't come to us - there were quite a handful of us, we were ordering generously, so why was he not interested in our opinion? And then it hit me!

Everyone else at the coffee shop was dressed in Western wear! We were the only ones in salwar kameez. He would have easily classified us as 'behenjis', people who've strayed into his store and are not his target consumers anyway. Therefore, our opinion didn't mean much to him. If that was indeed the case, he didn't realize that he was actually alienating a section of his customers. A couple of people I went with decided not to go back to the cafe because they felt unwelcomed. And these people are coffee shop regulars. Lost business right there for our wannabe model friend.

Another thing that confounds me is how, in case of a problem/disagreement between a man & a woman, people (other women included) are quick to blame the woman, without even bothering to understand how much of the problem is caused by the man.

A relative of mine is in the process of getting a divorce, and all the women in my family, my dearest mother included, are busy pinning the blame on the poor girl. She never tried to adjust to her husband's family, she was too demanding of him in terms of helping out with the household chores, she was always very weird & uncooperative....on goes the list. Most of these people hardly even know the girl, yet they're quick to blame her for the disintegration of her marriage. It doesn't matter in the least that some of the issues they broke up over had been created by the guy, or that he was unwilling to compromise on certain things that were really important to the girl, or that his parents had unrealistic expectations from their daughter-in-law and were always interfering in the couple's lives and the way they managed their household.

Now, the in-laws - even though they are related to me I have no qualms admitting it - are very old-fashioned people. They don't expect her to be a slave to their son (thankfully!) but they cannot accept her as an equal partner in the marriage either. According to them, she should still be the one doing the cooking & other household chores, never mind the fact that she has an equally demanding career as her husband. She should not have an opinion on things, and even if she does, she should finally give in to her husband's choices & decisions.

These people (the in-laws), they haven't moved on with the times. They make no effort to understand that there are many more demands on people now than there were a couple of decades ago - both personally and professionally - and that people need to adjust their expectations from each other accordingly.

They still expect their daughter-in-law to take time off work and baby sit them when they're visiting, which is for two weeks at a time at least. They expect her to cook 3 meals a day for them everyday. If she suggests hiring a cook or going out for dinner/ordering in, she just doesn't care about them. If her husband helps her out with household chores - which is how it should be if both partners are working - she's making their darling son do all the housework. If they've moved to a bigger house or a better neighborhood, it's because she likes to waste money. Never mind that it was a mutual decision or that they're both splitting the rent.

Which brings me to the point - why do people behave so irresponsibly? Why bitch about someone you don't even know? You don't know anything about the relationship between the two people involved or the issues they're facing in their marriage, except the version you've heard from the boy's mother, which knowing her is positively biased, why blame the girl for everything?

Yes, sometimes people do need the daylights shaken out of them.

Note to Supermarket Shoppers

Ssupermarkets aren’t the place to bring your half a dozen kids for a picnic or a family outing. Take them to a park. And for Christ’s sake, have you heard of family planning?

If you insist on bringing your half a dozen kids to the supermarket and let them loose to run riot, expect them to get hit by a cart or shopping baskets laden with groceries. And you dare not glare at the poor shopper pushing the overflowing cart/basket that hit your kid. You should be thankful he/she didn’t trample your kid.

Let me check with the supermarket staff if it's legal to slap screaming, tanrtumy kids on their premises.

Are supermarkets really your idea of entertainment? Really?

The aisles are meant for free passage of shoppers pushing trolleys, not for you to have a bitch session with your long lost BFF about another woman in your friend circle, with both your trolleys blocking the passage.

When I say “Excuse me” it means “Move your ass. Now” Don’t pretend you didn’t hear it. Get your ass off the floor where you’re comparing prices of Vim Bar & Pril on the bottom shelf, get your mewling kids out of the way, pull your cart as close to you as you can, and stop giving me dirty looks because if someone deserves dirty looks, it’s you.

That silk sari with zardozi that you’re wearing & the 10 kg of gold on you belong at a wedding, not at a place you come to buy dal, chawal, atta, toothpaste, ketchup, detergent & toilet cleaning liquid. Unless you plan to pay for them with gold instead of cash.

Don’t look at my basket containing my monthly groceries with jealousy. I didn’t ask you to produce half a dozen kids.

Fat hippopotamus aunty, for the last time - will you stop pushing me into the shelves whenever you pass by or knocking my knees with your basket? If you can’t fit into the goddamn aisle, send your scrawny husband to shop. Because if you push me one more time, I’m going to elbow you right in your stomach.

Store attendants – Don’t hover when I don’t need you. How come you’re never around when I do? And for God’s sake, know which products & brands your store stocks! Because if I ask you whether you have a particular product/brand and you say no, and I find it on the very next shelf, I’m going to open a pack of that product and smash your face right into it. My aggression levels are very high when I’m grocery shopping, courtesy fat aunties & uncles who block the way and refuse to move, and their bratty kids who think throwing roll-on-the-floor tantrums are cute.

No, you are not more important than me. Neither am I in less of a rush than you are. Wait your turn at the cashier’s. Don’t jump the queue, unless you want your foot to be stomped on. Remember that thing I said about my aggression levels while grocery shopping?

The little plastic bags provided in the produce section is for you to wrap your fruits & vegetables in. Don’t simply load fruits & veggies into your cart by the handful and expect the cashier to get someone to run all the way to the produce section to wrap them up for you. The people waiting behind you in line will not give you friendly, endearing smiles. You deserve the dirty looks they give you and they’re most likely also cussing you out in their heads for holding the line.

If you are finicky about the way your items are packaged, let the cashier know in advance. Don’t let him/her pack the contents while you’re busy make eyes at your husband/boyfriend or bitching some more about your neighbor to another neighbor, and make the cashier unpack all your bags & repack them as per your whims.

There are enough shopping baskets & carts to go around. You will not have to lug your monthly groceries in one arm while balancing your howling infant in another. So stop pushing & shoving me to grab a basket/cart.

Shop with a list. It’s not funny or amusing when the person in front of me in the check out queue sends her co-shopper to grab a dozen things he/she forgot, while he/she is being billed. Holding the line because of your own stupidity is not going to earn you any admirers.

If you change your mind about an item you’ve already put in your cart, put it back in its right place or hand it over to store attendant so they can. Don’t just randomly discard it anywhere in the store. Someone else might be looking for that item & there might be just that one piece left in the supermarket.

If you haven’t bothered to pay your credit card bill and your card has been blocked, have another card or enough cash handy to pay for your groceries. Don’t make the poor, hassled cashier swipe your card again & again, and act as if you didn’t know your card was blocked. It’s not his job to pay your credit card bills on time.

DO NOT STEP ON MY TOE. Particularly if you weigh 120 kgs. I will compensate for the difference in our weights with the spikes on my heel.

Loyalty Test

People are so warped. And stupid. Take Dimpy Ganguly-Mahajan for example.

Dimpy-Ganguly Who, you ask?

Well, this is the woman who risked getting humiliated to her bone on national prime-time television by appearing on a contest to marry the drug addict, alleged (ex) wife-beater Rahul Mahajan. If that wasn’t proof enough of her warped-ness, here’s more…she subjected her husband, who she married at the expense of earning various colorful epithets from co-contestants, to a loyalty test via ‘Emotional Atyachar’.

For those who don’t know, ‘Emotional Atyachar’ is a “reality” show that subjects one half of a couple to a loyalty test by planting a bait of the opposite sex. If you agree to ride the bait (pun intended, of course), you are finito. In Rahul Mahajan’s case the bait was Nikunj Malik, one of the women who he had short-listed to marry him on his retarded marriage show.

Dimpy, who must be exceptionally intelligent thanks to all the feesh she must have eaten while growing up in Kolkata, came up with a very innovative reason for putting her husband through the test. According to her, she was sick of being asked about Rahul Mahajan’s loyalty towards her by the media. So she decided to put all questions…and rumors of his infidelity…to rest by nominating him for this show. “Unknown to him”, of course. And he was "surprised but very understanding" when he found out that the entire thing was a set-up. Of course.

And of course, we also understand that there was no planning, no collusion between Dimpy & Rahul Mahajan on this. That Rahul Mahajan was not aware that he was participating in a reality show. That this wasn't a way for the couple to make some quick money while Rahul Mahajan grovels at the feet of senior BJP leaders to let him contest the next elections.

The things people do on getting famous! I wonder what Dimpy would've done had Rahul Mahajan taken the bait? Would she have divorced him? Howled & wailed like a true Bhartiya nari who worships her husband? Or pounced on Nikunj Malik live on TV for a full fledged tear-each-other's-clothes-out cat fight?

Now that would've made millions of men happy. Beer, the TV remote and two women getting on with it in front of them...what more do men want?

PS: If what Dimpy claims is true, and Rahul Mahajan really didn't know he was being set up, I must hand it to the girl. She really is intelligent. She's gotten back at her husband for the potential humiliation he put her through on his marriage show, on the same platform. Moral of the story? Eat more fish!

Will They, Won't They?

Sania - Shoaib. The media is ODing on them. Their marriage is front page and “breaking” news every single day, as if there’s nothing report-worthy happening in the entire world. Bookies have ditched the IPL and are placing bets on their wedding - Rs 1.25 for every rupee if they get married, Rs 3.50 if they don’t.

The controversy has gone way beyond being absurd. It's hilarious now. I mean, who the hell ever gets married to a person he/she has never met and that too over the telephone??!! Are we living in pre-historic times? And how does marrying over the telephone work, exactly?

Then I read an article where Shoaib admitted that he went to Ayesha’s house a few times to meet her before their wedding but she was never there! Her family would make excuses for her - she had to go out of the country for some urgent work, she was having an emergency surgery yadi yada.

And he bought their stupid excuses!! Ha ha ha!!

You travel all the way to another country to meet your bride-to-be and she’s never there. Wouldn’t you be a tad bit suspicious? Just a tiny little bit, Mr Malik, not much? Didn’t a warning bell ring in your mind? Such a thing can happen once, not repeatedly. Even a dimwit will be able to see the warning signals.

Which brings me to my conclusion - Shoaib Malik is either seriously dumb or he was desperate to get married! Or both.

I think it is both. He has got to be really thick AND desperate to not have smelt something fishy in this bizarre case.

‘A’ put it beautifully. He said, “this guy is a ch***** of a different level”. It may sound crass but that’s the only word to describe Shoaib Malik. Who else will get married to a woman he hasn’t even seen, on the telephone!! I just can’t get over the hilarity of it.

I really don’t care who’s right and who’s wrong in this entire episode of telephonic shaadi (patent it Shoaib Malik before someone else beats you to it!). And now that Ayesha is claiming she also got pregnant with his child - did he even impregnate her over the telephone?? Brilliant…he should patent that as well.

If you ask me though, I think the guy could've been duped. But then, given how dumb he is/was, he totally asked for what's happening. And that's exactly what prevents me from sympathizing with him.

The question I can’t stop asking is – why is Sania Mirza getting married to this guy of all the people in the world? She is an educated, financially independent, career woman. She's a smart woman too, or at least she comes across as being one. Then why is she marrying such a stupid guy??

Maybe Shobhaa De has the answer. She thinks Sania has fallen for Shoaib’s “boyish good looks & rakish charm”.

Voila! If this is the case, I think their marriage will definitely happen on April 15th. Unless law gets in the way. Or the real Ayesha turns up! Sania Mirza is a woman in love after all, and a woman in love knows no reason, no matter how smart, practical and accomplished she is otherwise. The bookies will be better off betting on whether SRK will dance naked at the end of this IPL.

Inshallah.

Of Nice Guys & Imperfections

Nice guys are such a rarity, right? You know the kind of guys who don’t swear, talk respectfully all the time, who make sure they drop you back home after a night out even if you’re not their girlfriend, who always hail a cab for you & hold the door for you, who always give up their seat for a woman etc.

But you know what….after a point even nice guys get annoying! Just like perfect women are annoying.

You know the thing they say about perfection….how we all look for someone who’s just a little bit imperfect b/c that tiny bit of imperfection makes them even more appealing & attractive?

Well, guess what….that’s all bull. We look for someone with imperfections b/c they make us feel better about our own short-comings. They reassure us about ourselves. And we all look for external reassurance, alright. Anyone who says we don’t is probably the most insecure person around.

Defense mechanism, they call it.

How The Mighty Fall

The media can’t stop digging skeletons out of Michael Jackson’s cupboard. There are contradicting reports of MJ being healthy & emaciated at the time of his death. While some media reports claim he was a picture of health (contrary to rumors about his continuously deteriorating health) others report that he was all skin & bones when he died, and during the autopsy all that was found in his stomach was a bunch of half dissolved pills!!

They’ve been writing about how his nose had started rotting and collapsing thanks to 13 plastic surgeries he got done in his face.

They’ve been talking about his delusions regarding his financial status, and that even though he was penniless he kept borrowing to finance his high-maintenance lifestyle and quirks.

They’re saying how he had been dressing and dancing the same way all his life, implying that he never learnt to move on in life, completely ignoring the fact that the way he dressed and danced WERE what made him Michael Jackson!

They’re saying all this even as his music flies off shelves at music stores around the world. Yes, he was the craziest person alive. But he was also a musical genius, a phenomenon, an inspiration to countless number of people, and he lived by his own rules.

How many celebrities have the courage to follow through with their desire to go from 'being a black man to a white woman', without caring about society or that doing such a thing might affect their popularity? How many Christians would willingly convert to Islam in an age where the religion is getting increasingly associated with terrorism?

The man is dead & gone. In death, if not in life, can’t we just leave him alone?

A Country for Idiots

Our country seems to be very conducive to the existence of stupid people. It provides them the perfect ambience in which they can thrive.

When was the last time you got served 'hot' coffee at Cafe Coffee Day or Barista - when you ordered a 'hot' coffee? Do you remember the last time a shop floor assistant at a retail store such as Pantaloons, Shopper's Stop or Big Bazaar (if you are a Big Bazaar shopper) was able to answer your query or help you locate an item you were looking for? Stupidity seems to be the sole hiring criteria for these stores. The higher your SQ (Stupidity Quotient), the brighter your chances are to get employment at one of these places!

Take the past weekend for example. I went to Cafe Coffee Day & ordered for hot coffee. Knowing they have a tendency to serve luke-warm coffee, I asked them specifically to make sure it's hot. When I got the coffee, it was tepid. Then I went to Big Bazaar to buy microwavable dishes. It's clearly one of my least favorite stores to shop at but I had little choice. I asked them to direct me to where I could find such dishes & they escorted me to the section where they sell microwaves!!

Not to be outdone by these people, the boys at my office canteen have decided to give them stiff competition it seems. I asked for a slice of toasted bread with some butter on it. Five minutes later, another guy from the canteen came to ask me what I wanted. I repeated my order. Ten minutes later, I got a slice of untoasted bread without butter. I asked them to take it back, toast it & put some butter on it. The second time the guy came back, he had a slice of untoasted bread again but he had somehow managed to put butter on it. I sent it back again & when he finally came back with the correct order, I had finished my lunch.

As a friend argued, intelligent people would not work at such places at the meager salaries they get paid. Granted. But one does not have to be "intelligent" to understand what 'hot' coffee means, what a customer means when he/she wants 'a slice of toasted bread with butter on it' or the difference between 'microwavable dishes' & a 'microwave'!!!

You get the point. Stupid people are everywhere. Now only if it was legal to kill them!

What's In A Name, You Say?

Me (on phone with a guy at Subway): I'd like to place an order for delivery please.

Subway Guy: Mam, what's your "good" name?

I gave my name (Let's assume it's X)

Subway Guy: Is that really your name, mam?

(Silence)

Subway Guy: XY? (First & Last names of a popular actress whose first name I happen to share) followed by a giggle.

Me: It's not funny. Please take the order.

Subway Guy: It was a joke, mam.

Me: I haven't called to listen to your jokes. Please take the order.

Subway Guy: Yes mam, what would you like to order?

I wish people got a life. And a sense of humor. They're not as funny as they think they are. If a woman shares her name with a popular actress, chances are she's had people making jokes about it all her life, and doesn't find it funny or appreciate it anymore.

Things Fall Apart

All the time in relationships & friendships. Due to misunderstandings, unmet expectations, misplaced accusations, incriminations, people making a judgment about something you might have said or done - or not!

Sometimes your closest friends fail to understand you. Sometimes they are quick to form conclusions. Sometimes they are so blinded by expectations, they can’t bring themselves to respect the way you are and accept you for it. You try and explain it to them a few times, make it up to them, take the (misplaced) blame even, just so you can preserve a friendship that means something to you. But you do reach a point when the only thing you can do is let go. For how long can you keep acting the way people expect you to act?

I don’t understand why people expect you to act a particular way in the first place, and get offended & upset when you don’t! Is that fair? Agreed, there has to be some level of expectations in relationships & close friendships, but the beauty of a friendship over a relationship is that you’re not supposed to prosecute a friend over unmet expectations. Friendships lose their meaning the moment they become binding.

Especially for free-spirited people like me. I dislike being tied down just as I detest tying others down. You will not find me holding grudges against friends who forget to call back or do not call back for whatever reason. If I want to talk to them badly enough, I call them back. I don't sulk when a friend cancels. It's okay...things can come up. The world isn't about to end, and neither is our friendship. I do not expect people to act one way or the other, I do not hold them to what I think they should do! I give them their space when I feel they need it, they do not need to spell it out.

Similarly, I need my friends to not expect me to act in a certain way & get upset when I don't. If you can't understand this bit about me even though you claim to know me so well, our friendship had a chance in hell to begin with!

Unfortunately, as I have learnt the hard way many times over, not acting the way your friends expect you to act can often be misconstrued as not caring enough, not being committed enough to the friendship or not valuing it enough. Apparently, bonding over brownies & cheesecakes & shopping for shoes isn't enough to seal friendships. Is anything?

Friendships thrive when there is a willingness to accept the other person the way they are.
They are meant to be fun zones, not an element of life that stresses you out & ties you down. That’s what relationships are for! Sometimes, your closest friends fail to realize this, and you wake up to this realization only after things have fallen apart. Completely.

P.S.: Title of the post borrowed from Chinua Achebe. Feeling expressed - heartfelt.

Have You Mailed a Pink Chaddi?

What could be the most horrifying gift a man - an orthodox, regressive middle-aged man – can get on Valentine’s Day?

A box of used or cheap pink chaddis for sure!!!

Yes, they can be dug out of your closet as well :)

The Pink Chaddi Movement has spread like wildfire. And rightly so. A man who does something as heinous & abominable as getting a bunch of women beaten up for pubbing, and does nothing to stop the millions of men who visit prostitutes & the covert dance bars of Mumbai & other small towns, deserves to be treated no better.

Apparently, Pramod Muthalik has retorted to the Pink Chaddi campaign by saying that he will send Pink Sarees as a return gift to the 'Consortium of Pub-Going, Loose & Forward Women' who are the originators of the Pink Chaddi movement. He has also said that any unmarried couple that will be seen hanging out on Valentine’s Day will be forced to marry!!!!!

While he is works over-time spewing venom, what does our government do? (Ostensibly) arrest the man, let him out on bail & watch him do more goondagardi. Publicity-hungry hooligans who have no respect for the law are ruling our country and our impotent Goverment is watching the country burn with folded hands from the sidelines.

I really strongly believe that any man who oppresses women or tortures them in any way what so ever should be castrated & left to live out his life in s**ual frustration. No punishment could be worse.

How Many People Will Buy Her Yoga DVD for...Well, Yoga?

'Ash' You Like It

Apparently Aishwarya Rai was supposed to do 'Dostana'!! Aren't we glad she didn't?? She would've ruined not only the movie but even the GORGEOUS clothes designed by Manish Malhotra...if she fit into them, that is!

Her reason for not doing the movie : "It was supposed to be our first film after our wedding, in which I would have ended up with another hero (Bobby Deol). I felt it would not give the right message."

Errrr....What message did she want to give out? That she's married to Abhishek Bachchan and not to anyone else? I think the entire world & their dead ancestors know that by now, thanks to Abhishek Bachchan's appearance as her arm-candy at innumerable events/functions since their wedding.

Really...there's a reason I keep insisting that Aishwarya Rai is D-U-M-B. She just proves it over & over again.

Actually, one of my friends said something really funny about her the other day. She said, since her marriage, she's been seen in public more often with Amitabh Bachchan than with her husband. Come to think of it, that's so true!!

Entwined Destinies

I have always been intrigued by why we meet the people that we meet in our lives.

It seems to me that there is a reason you meet every single person that you do. You don’t know it upfront obviously, but during the course of life certain things happen that make you realize that there WAS a reason you met X, Y or Z.

Some people pull us out of trouble. Some help us when we really need help. Some come into our lives to teach us certain things about ourselves, life or the world we live in. Some add the fun quotient to our lives. Some enrich our lives in a way that we realize one fine day when we’re doing some sort of introspection.

In short, no one exists in our lives “just like that”.

I’m also completely baffled by the fact that we often meet complete strangers who come out of nowhere & become such an integral part of our lives that it becomes difficult to imagine life without them.

There is no logical explanation for meeting them….you’ve grown up in two different worlds, your backgrounds are as different from each other as chalk is from cheese, you interact with two sets of people who have nothing to do with each other etc. Yet, you get thrown into a common circumstance by some freaky stroke of luck…such as ending up at the same workplace, or you move to a completely new city and meet someone randomly…and you become the closest of friends. Sometimes even life partners. When you look back you find it completely bizarre that you met because until a while ago you didn't have a clue of each other's existence!!

This is as intriguing as it is baffling, but it is these people that we meet randomly along the way that make life worth every bit of pain that it is :)

ABC to XYZee

American Born Confused Desi Emigrated From Gujarat, Housed In Jersey, Keeping Lots of Motels, Named Omkarnath Patel, Quickly Reached Success Through Underhanded Vicious Ways, Xenophobic Yet Zestful

This is the fun part of it. The difficult part is living the life of an ABCD (or American Born Confused Desi) as second generation Indians in America are mockingly referred to by first generation Indians studying & working there.

Being an ABCD is tough. It carries with it loads of anguish – being the one that is discriminated against by your own people; and an identity crisis – not knowing whether you are Indian or American as you live the life of an Indian at home (enforced by parents) and of an American outside.

Living with an identity crisis must be tough. Not knowing which side of the fence you belong to, you are constantly being torn apart by two worlds. Your family & your friends as well as people you interact with outside your home push down totally contradictory set of values down your throat. And if that isn’t enough to deal with, you are discriminated against by people who share your ethnicity yet consider themselves superior to you as a) they know where they belong, and b) they made it to America on their own merit & hard work whereas you got American citizenship served on a plate!

Most ABCDs deal with this by building a wall around themselves that they let only other ABCDs in. This doesn’t earn them any brownie points; in fact only makes things worse for them as they are perceived to be snooty & arrogant.

What few people understand is that this is their defense mechanism. Most ABCDs would be happier if their families just let them be what they are for all practical purposes – essentially American. Because they go to American schools, study American literature, watch American television, live on pizzas, burgers & Coke, live by the norms of American society, have American friends, teachers, bosses & peers, date Americans (secretively if not with the consent of their parents), work at McDonalds & Starbucks when they are in high school, hold summer jobs etc.

Parents would not only be doing them a huge favor by letting them be, but also prevent them from suffering from the complex that results from not knowing where you belong.

The antithesis of an ABCD is an FOB (Fresh off the Boat). This term is used to refer to people who have freshly arrived from India and who :

• Speak with a strong Indian accent ala Appu of ‘The Simpsons’
• Haven’t been introduced to the concept of bootleg jeans; rather wear straight-leg or (even worse) tapering jeans that get bunched up above their ankles and keep slipping inside their sneakers
• Have unshaved legs or armpits (in the case of some women)
• Do not understand the concept of standing in a queue
• Do not believe in saying ‘Please’ & ‘Thank You’ to housekeepers, janitors, grocery-store workers, bus drivers & other such “miscellaneous” people
• Say ‘rubber’ instead of ‘eraser’, ‘lady fingers’ instead of ‘okra’ & ‘brinjal’ instead of ‘eggplant’
• Have not been introduced to beef yet
• Wait to come back to India to get a hair cut as hair cuts in America are expensive
• Try to bargain at Walmart
• Whose exposure to American television is limited to ‘Friends’ & ‘CSI Miami’ and who think ‘Saturday Night Live’ (or SNL) is a show about places one can party at on Saturday nights
• Who don’t understand the concept of having a beer on a Sunday afternoon

Sad, Useless Pieces of Sh*t

When will Indian society finally mature? Why do Indians have a sadist urge to control other people’s lives even while theirs is falling apart at the seams?

It bothers me a lot, and after having moved to Calcutta it has started bothering me even more.

Why is it a big deal if a girl lives on her own? It doesn’t mean she doesn’t get along with her parents, or that they’ve disowned her or thrown her out of their house.

If she comes back home late does that automatically means she’s a whore?

If male friends stay the night at her place that doesn’t mean she’s sleeping with them or having a group orgy!

Why is it an issue if her boyfriend stays over? It’s her place, she pays for it, she can do whatever the hell she wants with it as long as she isn’t inconveniencing her neighbors.

So what if she wears a short skirt or a see-through top?

SO FUCKING WHAT???

It’s no one else’s business but hers. She can live her life whichever way she wants to! Why don’t useless aunties and old hags with no work to do, no purpose in life, and who spend all day sitting in the balcony looking at who’s entering whose house and who’s leaving whose, find something better to do with their miserable, pathetic little lives?

It makes me angry. Very angry.

If I had my way I would first ask them to find out who their husbands/married sons were sleeping with (IF any woman would care to sleep with them, that is) & then to take that kitchen knife of theirs, their knitting needle, or their walking stick and stick it up their own fat arses!!

Happy to Make Your Life Miserable

The ‘Happy to Help’ campaign is all about customer service, right?

Let me say this loud & clear - Vodafone SUCKS!!!

Ever since Hutch was taken over by Vodafone, their services have gone to the dogs. I have had numerous interactions with Vodafone customer care executives where I have literally felt my blood pressure exploding through the roof. Today I had one such interaction.

I moved to another city so I have a new corporate connection. Now my understanding was that if you have a corporate connection and wish to get international calling facility activated, you don’t need to pay a security deposit. This was the case with my previous account – I had international calling facility without having paid anything.

I called Vodafone customer care today to get international calling activated on my new connection & the executive told me that I had to pay a deposit of Rs. 1000. We haggled for about ten minutes over this, I repeatedly asked him to confirm, screamed at him & just when I was about to bang the phone on him, he said that if I wait for 3 more DAYS I could have the facility activated without having to pay a deposit…because apparently, you can do so after 3 months of owning a connection!!!

Any halfway-intelligent person would have shared this information earlier on in the conversation. Only a dimwit would wait for the customer to get totally pissed off & start screaming at him before he shares this information!!!!!

Vodafone seriously needs to look at the IQ of the people it hires for it’s customer care centers, especially since they’re trying to differentiate themselves from other mobile service providers on the basis of their customer care. DU-UH!!!

How could the marketing minds at Vodafone have missed such a basic principle??!!!

They also need to improve the communication skills of their customer care executives. Their understanding of the English language is NIL & God only knows what they speak!!

A customer does not interact with the marketing, brand or the C-level executives of a company. They might be geniuses for all we care. Customer service executives are the point of contact (for any company that has a customer service center), so if your customer service sucks, YOU suck!!

Here’s another example of Vodafone absurdity…They gave me a credit limit of Rs 500 with my new account. Just because I had switched circles. Not withstanding that I have had a Vodafone account for the past 4 years with a credit limit of Rs 10,000!!!

I mean, who the hell comes up with such retarded policies??!!!

Dear Vodafone, since you seem to have a bunch of imbeciles working for you, let me help you out with this one…you don’t need a Harvard or Yale b-school graduate to tell you that keeping a customer happy is essential to sustaining your business. The supposedly brilliant IIM/ISB graduates you hire should suffice!!

You're welcome...and HAPPY TO HELP!!!

The Joker

I wish he was around to collect his Oscar...

Of fun times and new beginnings

N is leaving Bombay. She was my manager at my previous job. I remember we used to think she was totally hyper when she had newly joined our team :)

She didn’t have much work at the beginning - as is usually the case when one joins a company - where as we were loaded with work. She used to ask us every ten minutes whether we did XYZ work, how much work got done, how much was still left to do etc.? And we used to think, “We have a hyperactive manager…GREAT!”

But in no time she became a friend. I’ve spent many happy, giddy ABSOLUT evenings at her place bitching about work and gossiping :)

We used to watch shows such as Big Boss, Indian Idol & KBC (hosted by SRK) at our respective homes & text each other non-stop throughout the show! We used to make fun of people’s daftness, their bad singing, the stupid things they did on the shows... we’d exchange some 50-60 texts between the two of us during the 1 hour shows!!

There were a few things that I admired about N, her ability to separate private and professional issues being one of them. Irrespective of whether she was friends with a person outside of work, at work she was very professional & no-nonsense. She is also one of the most fair managers I’ve known. I think these qualities endeared her to each & every member of the team. I hope I’ve been able to imbibe some of that.

I don’t know about her but I feel that N & I got along well because we are very similar as people. Apart from sharing interests such as reading, movies & more recently, blogging, we are both very straight-forward people. We’re both very transparent and we say it as it is. There are people we like, and people we don’t like, and most of the times the way we feel about people is apparent. Though I must admit I suffer from a more acute case of foot-in-the-mouth disease than she does. On New Year’s eve last year, N, another colleague of mine & I were planning to go out after work. We went to wish our group head before we left for the day. Now, our group head was a very lively & enthusiastic lady who wanted to go out with us every time we went out. She asked us what our plans for the evening were, and I, being the biggest foot-in-the-mouth-putter in this world blurted out that we were planning to go out. She got excited and asked us, “Oh, where?” Suddenly realizing what I had done, I had to cover up and the only thing I could come up with was, “Errrr…we don’t know what we’re doing yet. We’ll just…errrr…go out on the road & figure out what we want to do!”

Inherently, both N & I like to have fun! I remember one of my earliest and most fun memories with her was when we went for a client meeting to Hiranandani Gardens. The meeting got over around 4pm, it was raining and we were without a car. So instead of going back to work, we went to a coffee shop at Hiranandani, had steaming cups of coffee & chocolate doughnuts, and even walked in the rain!

I was very touched by all that N did for me when I was leaving Bombay. She threw a farewell party for me at her place, gave me presents, took me out for dinner, and she & her husband (who btw is one of the very few genuinely nice men I’ve met) even took me out for breakfast at Mondy’s...oh, Mondy’s :(!

So N, for all the fun times we had, here’s wishing you even more fun in the new city of blinding lights :)