DELUGE INFERIUM!!

though am a huge mumbai fan yet the monnsoons this city ofers is slightly beyond my appetitie.however if it werent for the supid corporate trap am stuck in id be spending some more days here smoking up or just chilling with the rain and a hot coffee.quite a respite from the sticky and irritaingf the capital offers.
but its not just the monsoons which are irritating ,the govt office i have to visit and the buffoonery is mindbogglingly and turns your head into a pin cushion.
though ive been very vocal about my aversion to a corporate job.little do i realise that am stuck in a typical job profile.talking to clients ,deliverable and the jazz(quite oxymoron ,considering how pleasant jazz is)however, the effort which goes into makeing a marlet report which we never bothered to read in clooege or the exclusive trade journals we hasd accesss to in college nopw seem excuisite when i have to do it myself.
thats as much praise for the job i can gather .rest i still think a corporate job sucks.firstly,you loo into a desk for almost 13 hrs a day and pretend you're living a good life.for someone whose been to sea its not a comfortable position .moreoevr the buz words do get to you after some time.
STRUCTURE           ALIGNMENT       TOP DOWN    BOTTOM UP   INSIDE OUT
they're nauseating and don't know who bothered to sit and think about it.apparently they represent the holy grail for consultants ,which i am currently till i get back to sea and get some oil on my hands.
also the money ,the glamour belies the salaries juniors get while thier seniors walk away with commisons and bonuses with the grunt work you put in.so its more about the politics than the merit.quite a broad classification but still.
apart from that trying to make non shipping people explain how it works makes me loose hair every day.the fact that they consider it easy to understand is an example of their naivety .if it were so simple clarksons ,drewry and the likes would not have been shelling out packages to their analyst and consultants like they are doing now.

Firstly thank you mr phton for the godspeed ypu endow my work with.10 min for this tab to open is not much of a time .
ok so last times blog was mostly a stress venting excercise( when isnt it?).nevrmind.
well i find myself today in a very precarious situation as of now. my corporate career seems to be in doldrums with me trying to bite more than i could chew.good lesson to learn.however, what i did was fun.trying to build a pricing model for matime LNG which almost all the brokers said they dint know anything about and those who knew wont talk without being paid.niether would i!!its all about the idea after all.
my colleagues who apparently have no knowledge of whatever i do are acting as my sparring partners .basically babysitting me until my boss arrives. its very frustrating to work with someone who believes in the broader picture and doesn't believe in the concept of finding the lacunaes in the system in ordr tp provide a solution.i thought consultant and analyst while writing expensive reports provide their own analysis and data modelling.but what  it is just a better organized college assignment which is marketed and sold in a manner makeing it  a source of profound knowledge and business insight.

so when you talk about doing something new theres alot of resistance and those comforatble in thier seats would never wnat it to happen or will never help you do it .i dont feel bad about it coz people such as these make you realize youre doing something right or atleast youre going to sleep peacefully bcause you did what you believd in .

my switch to a corporate job has changed my perception about life completely and sailing just doesn't seem like a career option now .its like a side income source and excuse to stay away from home as well.made me realize the satisfaction a start up can bring to your life just anything small .entrepreneurship is not that bad after all.could started my own thing had there been some help .but my current financial credibility doesn't allow me that luxury either so have to go back to sea and come back get the house repaired etc and other shit!!

PS :dont listen to All India Bakchods in the metro .ppl standing around will think youre crazy

IN TRANSIT

mumbai has to wait for now.thanks to the amazingly fast railways website which Ive been trying to access for the last two hours. not that it disappointing all the time .it has proved worthy of the millions spent over it but nevertheless it proves quite useless as of now. Ive been travelling a lot by train (when things were better at home there was no question of it as taking a flight seemed the only option but  times change) .though long and tiresome they allow me privacy and the luxury to get buried into my thoughts, read a book listen to music without anyone calling out for me.add to that getting down and hogging at the fried fare at stations.or the flavoured milk in baroda , biryai at a station just before pune.in the process you also get to see small towns which you never hear of but are amazed at the modernisation deep within the interiors. however it is the bus journeys which are most enjoyable never mind the fact you have to wait for a smoke but  otherwise the constant buzz of the engine and the sights and sounds of the hypnotic hillsides are irreplaceable by the comfort and speed of the railways. cant afford an enfield but always wish i would in the future as i perceive it to be an amazing mode of transport if you're the sorts for whom the journey is more enchanting than the destination. Ive grown even more fond of my concept of travelling ever since i read "walk across America".very clearly does the author express his true intention of his still ensuing travel.to know himself better which a normal family setting and city influences doesn't allow as they guide more towards it wants you to be rather than what you're supposed to be. however this means forgetting about your responsibilities and other stuff (including bitchy friends and judging relatives) which doesn't seem possible for me but i guess ill definitely go wandering once there's some moolah to keep the family happy and pay off all dues and loans.lets hope it happens fast.

MAXIMUM CITY INDEED!!

Mumbai has this sheer enormity which absorbs anyone coming to it.though it doesn't extend an open armed welcome but yet it blows you away with its speed of life and  carefree attitude.i v never heard mumbaikars being concerned about what you wear where you live or where you hang out.true some reservations are always there.after all its a materialistic world but compared to the snobbery experienced in the capital Mumbai is always a welcome change. one of the best part about Mumbai are the cheap and amazing irani restaurants which have generation after generation served the most amazing non veg fare . the few places where you feel at ease in the sweltering humid summers of a coastal city yet the easy going ,unassuming nature of these places put you at ease immediately.
bade mians though i guess is nothing more than an overpriced shit hole!!compared to the amazing stuff outside bandra station or at baghdadis or the innumerable joints in haji ali area. anyways, apart from these as an engineer unwilling to work in a office and wanting to get my hands dirty(not really) mumbai has well connected industrial areas around and within which though is a major reason for the pollution yet also provides employment to millions of workers and professionals who otherwise would be rusting their skills and pushing paper over pen (its a terrifying though .writing is a more of an expression and if god forbid have to do it for a living id never have words to express ever.not that i am eloquent now but still.)

MAXIMUM CITY INDEED!!

planning for Mumbai again. whatever be the reason ,ive always enjoyed going to mumbai. though theres always been a mumbai -delhi war ever since i came to senses.even blood relatives picking on each other actually leading to major fights(been there done that). but still, the feel of a local cannot be matched by the comparatively luxurious and boring Delhi metro. the only thing bordering on entertainment or culture on a metro would be a surdy playing lecher songs on his expensive cellphone or bhojpuri songs emanating from some bhaiyas cellphone(though its nice coz they dont realize youre not allowed to play music on the metro )but nothing compares to hour long performances mandlis put in a packed local .so powerful and absorbing it is that you'll be forcing yourself to get down at your destination.that apart the newspaper vendors,singdanas and other stream of vendors make even the most mundane journeys lively. that apart its the people of mumbai which want you to come back there again and again.the sheer vivacity and will to keep on living unaffected by disaster or tragedy (though Delhi has its moments in showing its resolute and united face). my reason s to visit mumbai have been work related but then theres never been an instance when ive overstayed just to enjoy a few extra vada pavs and cuttings which are the cheapest form of  evening hang out i have ever seen.not to mention the speed of service and the amazing weather mumbai generally has compared to the extremes up here. lot of people go to Mumbai to look at the sea but being a seafarer  whenever i look at the ocean its seems like homecoming .the free unopposed wind and the crystal clear skies(none of this is there in Mumbai thanks to the pollution.)

HINDUISM!!

for a hindu the ultimate act of faith,as described by our gods is to perform our actions in line with our own conscience and forget about the result .if it harms someone then it is the others choice to harm you back and he is entitled to do so.with such an open definition of  dharma i wonder how we hav today come to formulate and follow rigid traditions in the name of our religion. though i will not deny the thousands of conversions to other faiths and continuous malignant of Hindus by Muslim leaders is painful but then it is their choice .however as a Hindu it is up to me how i interpret my dharma and act accordingly.
when i read the epics in our religion it often amazes me how forward thinking our ancestors were and how open the society was.it is described as a system where everyone's work was the foremost tenet and rest came later.it was a society where men and women both were judged by the same yardstick and allowed to indulge in similar excesses.this in the vedic ages which is prominently mentioned in valmikis Ramayana.but in today's society when we talk of such things it is considered immoral as it threatens to liberate people from the shackles of mindless authority and traditions.the more we try to embrace the deeper we dig ourselves into this pit of hopeless faith.
biggest example of our hypocrisy is censorship in arts ,literature and music citing hurting of religious sentiments(though Muslims are the biggest culprits yet we also enjoy a piece of the cake). if it were for the explicit descriptions of intimacy then the kamasutra and the temples of khajuraoh should be razed down (if Muslim rulers  had their way they would've done it here too) .texts describing thousand concubines of our gods and erstwhile rulers should be burned.maybe this is why today the original Ramayana is inaccessible to the common man as it would provide a diff version than the pious one we've brain fed all these years.

HINDUISM!!

being a hindu has been a source of confusion for me rather than a path to spirituality as the fairer races assume.i have been a part of the generation which grew up witnessing the horrors of 93, godhra riots , regressive hindutva ideology and divisions based on caste. having friends from diff communities following different tenets to live their lives forces me to look closer into my own religious beliefs.
i have been to a few pilgrimage places but never to the major ones.mostly because of a rational approach towards travelling ( i still yearn to satiate my wanderlust but somehow these places kick up the forever rational ship engineer in me thereby culling the thought at its nib).so id rather introspect and allow the current social structure to influence me as i express my views on the oldest living religion on earth.though am no scholar or even a liberal arts student yet this curiosity stems from the longing to understand ones religion and beliefs rather than following them.i belong to the arya samaj sect of Hindus but my grandmother and mother dint come from the same so we have a temple at home to and regular perform puja and offer our deities. however the arya samaj doesn't believe so. it completely abominates idol worship or any kind of offering to it to the extent that as followers we are not even allowed to enter temples which propagate the thought of man made idols assuming the place of tenets of hinduism. it is with this point of view that i start to ponder as to how hollow has become the beliefs of hindus over the past centuries.right from exploitation based on caste system or regressive attitude towards new thoughts or for that matter raising temples and performing pujas to hide ones black money or for penance when the same could be used to fund or feed millions of children across the country. hinduism is essentially a way of life flexible and non conforming unlike Islam or Christianity. this is best exemplified by the four akharas across the country where Hindu sages prefer to live in perpetual trance and at the same time detach themselves from all worldly temptations following what is right which also is their own prerogative as hinduism clearly states that each one to decide his ow dharma nd act accordingly.thereby banishing any claim over rigid traditions which today we have used to replace the iron will required to do what is right by allowing mindless and regressive practices to represent our faith.