Was I sacked??

Waking up on Friday mornings is fun, there aren’t enough words in English to precisely describe the feelings but I could comfortably settle with saying that its just an antonym for what I feel on a Monday morning. The very idea that you can do whatever you have been doing at office for last 5 days, without going to office excites me. Today is no exception.


The Friday fever woke me up at 7:30 Am, if it were not for Friday, I would have safely decided to take the 11o clock bus, but on Friday it should be different. I stood up, I looked like the fast forwarded version of my video taken on non-Friday weekday. I need to leave for my bus-stop by 7:55 Am and I did all I could to do so and of course, making sure that I do not compromise on my looks, after all today is Friday, huh!

Well, to make the story more interesting, all those scenes of me running to the bus stop, getting into the bus, crossing my fingers and praying for a girl to sit beside me, me cursing the guy who stole me of that chance as he sat beside me in spite of many other seats being empty, bus getting stuck in a traffic jam because of a Maruti 800 crashing itself into a truck, are removed from the story and I will take you to directly to the scene post break fast, yeah the swipe in machine.

I swiped in, as usually waiting for my chance amidst all those non-believers in technology who fanatically swipe-in and swipe-out at all the machines available to them. I generally swipe in at only one machine, because I always think that continuous sound of beep-beep-beep might awaken the alien spirits and might even provoke them to attack Infy, so all the people out there thank me for saving you from aliens. Digression!!!!. Let me continue the story- After swiping in, I headed towards my work area, a secure zone which requires me to swipe in.

I happily ramp walked(now a days limping is re-named so) to the swipe machine where I swiped in, beep said the machine, but red LED was too lazy to turn green, I tried again, this time the beep was more of an angry one. I was slowly allowing myself to react. I tried again, no luck and this time around the swipe machine almost called me names with the security in charge there giving me a weird look, I gave her an assuring smile so that she will not mistake me for an in filtered MNS activist. I gathered all my courage and tried my luck for the last time, it was red again. My jaw dropped.

The failure of my last attempt has seen the surprise in my face turn to worry, my worried expressions can be precisely put as one sentence, was I sacked? I could not even reach my manager, I did not know what to do. I did not even want to log into Infosys network, what if I am unable to log onto. My brain started calculating all the necessary next steps, is my resume ready? Will dad be allowing me to sit at home for that long? What will I answer the interview panel of the B-School if they ask the reason for the gap? Will Infosys provide me with an experience letter………..

Just as my brain took me to the verge of madness, my phone rang, it was my room mate, “abbe tera ID kaam kar raha hain kya?” My jaw dropped!!!!
How did he know? I quizzed him with questions about HR approaching him to tell me that I have been sacked and other permutations of the possibilities, he was hell confused, he called me a few names and asked me to see what was the name on the ID card, I obliged, it read Shripad Anirudhha Wangde.

How to bite ants?

If there is anything that I am consistently worried about since my child hood it is ants. These little creatures, which are so awe inspiring to human kind in many areas ranging from sociology to biometrics, have at most inspired me to thrash them to death.

It seems that there are some 12,000 species of ants on the face of earth and ants constitute of about 15-25% of animal biomass. But, to me there are only 4 kinds of ants
1) Red ants or biting ants
2) Black ants or tickling ants
3) Big ants or oh my god I have to run now ants
4) Flying ants.

The even numbered categories of above have hardly bothered me; my animosity with them is more of induced type because of their brothers in the odd numbered category.
You would most probably know the reason, unless you are from Antarctica or Greenland or Ice land, where our ant brothers have decided not to go.

The first time I came to know about the lethal nature of these little creatures was when I was around 3 years old when a Big ant decided that it can easily attack my cousin who was one year old then, sitting nude on the ground happily engrossed in eating mud. This big ant went and attacked his….. Well you know. It took around 10 minutes to remove the ant and 15 minutes to remove its head from his……hmmmmm. Since then, I prefer to sleep alone in a grave yard rather than to have an ant around me.

Ants continued to inspire me in their optimism to think that they can easily attack a person several thousand times bigger than them. These attacks resulted in many a crazy act like me dancing in cricket field, much earlier and much better than Sreesanth, and people running towards the nearest tap to get an instant relief from an army of red ants. And so here I am, who declared a war against the ant race and fighting it ferociously for last 22 years and believe me, this war seems to be lasting for eternity.

My mom has been my commander in chief in my war against these creatures; she just hates anything that crawls and god save any creature that catches her sight crawling because it gets the opportunity to feel the heel and the ground simultaneously. Thousands and thousands of insects have been killed and when there was no time there were insect repellents used generously.

But, insect repellents are for those loser insects, ants are different, they are super organisms. And one fine morning the ant optimism rose to new highs when they decided to attack a packet of ant repellent which my mom bought as she has got better things to do like mending her maniac son rather than slapping each ant of the army to death. My mom instantly sued the local Kirana stores and the case is still going on as there is no evidence that the ants have attacked the ant repellant.

The war was going on well, until recently. But, a few days ago, when yours truly was sleepy after a days hectic job of eating and more eating and trying to sleep in between, something happened and I woke up itching maniacally my lower rib.

My mom, who is an ardent follower of those science fiction movies where a normal person sleeps normally but wakes up like a monkey, almost believed that I transformed to a monkey and even tried to confirm by checking whether I developed a tail. But before she could, she saw the boils on my left lower rib. Well, the Red ants attacked me again. I guess these ants are from China, as there are 5 boils on my left lower rib, and the 5 boils looked like the Olympics symbol.

Now I have had enough, and to make matters worse this article tells me that insects do not feel pain when squashed. Considering that I have been insulted by another red ant the other morning, I have sworn to make my war against red ants more vigorous, I need to device a way to bite these ants, they should feel pain, they should get the itches, they should get the boils,they cannot ignore others' egos, after all I am going to become a manager and I have been told by my ex-manager that I have to heed to others' egos when I speak and satisfy them for me to grow in an organization.

Is Population growth a problem?

If you think that population explosion is a problem, think again, only if you are in Japan
This article http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/05/stories/2008050557182200.htm says that Japan has lowest percentage of children in last 100 years. May be Indian male horniness is of some help to Japanese dormancy, so all those people who were excited by cheer leaders and threw an abuse or two at them, why dont you try your hmmmmm... whatever in Japan?