An Indian Lover Boy

I have been in existence since 1982 but spices of life all around me have shown as to how the lover-boys of the generation have evolved. I expect the feminine gender to tell their perspective from the other side as i have been unable to observe much in this regard.

The turning point was a friend whom i never expected would go in for a love marriage but finally ended up with one. This has set my thought process rolling and i am beginning to see how lover boys have evolved over the years. A small peek into my father's diaries by chance have shown me the world of 70's and 80's and how love progressed during that era ... { Don't worry dad !! I knew that you had expunged all crucial entries :-) }


Lover Boy of the 60's: This was the time of Dev- Anand types ... Any bloke who had a good sense of humour could manage to attract most of the chicks around him. Love was much closed and took place in full privacy unlike the later years. Shakespeare and keats provided the much needed fodder for the words. The pick-up lines started from here which even some of my friends use the same today. For example: The practice of gifting Teddies,key-chains ... started way-back here and some of my friends even continue to do so. Come on mates !!! Evolve ...


Lover Boy of the 70's : The era of the angry young man ... Any man fitting description of Amitabh would do for females and likewise any female fitting description of Rakhee gulzar would do for most males ... By Amitabh i mean, the person should have a Rajdoot or bullet, should be tall, lanky and should have that anger in his eyes ... Not much comments here except that anger was very positive "TURN ON" point for males and for females it had to be "SHYNESS".

Lover Boy of the 80's and 90's: This was the time when being rebellious was rewarding Anybody with long hair, tatooes, ear-rings would be called as lover boy .. the shirts would be like the one which one of my friends wears even today ... Elvis types ... any fella looking different from the crowd would create his market demand .. this applied for the geeks too and for the first time they came in contention during this era ...

Lover boy from 1995 onwards : This was the time of "Sensitive male" .. Actually concept is bull-shit except that the male was less chauvinistic than his earlier seniors. Frequent calls to females enquiring about her welfare and especially " aaj ka din kaisa raha ??" was seen as a quotient for sensitiveness .... although personally speaking i feel that there is nothing else creative to talk and hence this concept emerged ... People remained sensitive towards "their females" and were suddenly rebellious at home with other females like mothers and sisters.
Places like Mumbai and Delhi became really the hip-hop places to be and it was not common to see people romancing other people much much senior to them. Now don't you think "This is sensitive".

Lover Boy of Today: Now this is the icing on the cake .. With the evolution of intelligent systems like the chat-rooms and social networking sites .. people who were extremely shy suddenly found a way to beat all others in the race. Such people discovered talent which was in much demand - The Talent to spontaneously write and express the right feelings by writing. Geographical distance became no longer a constraint and a boy from jammu could easily date a girl from the south all within the confines of his room. In short, "Any fellow who could type and write decently could afford to have a girl". An online friend suddenly became the best thing which one could possess.... Things like Smartness, beauty, poise, grace, elegance, finesse, dexterity, artfulness took a backseat and an abstract concept emerged called as " The beauty within ". I am not saying at any point that something is amiss here ... It is just an evolution.

This was the era of the IT fellows .... Being in front of computer right through out the day robbed them of their time which they would have spent outside ...By the way, don't be surprised to know IT guys have the 2nd best hook-up quotient (the best ones are the NRI's dear .. Nobody can match them ) these days as they have the money as well as the necessary time to spend time (online time :-) ) with their females ....

Some of the professions which i might have missed out would be doctors, lawyers, scientists and consultants (yours truly) .... It would not be wise to comment about doctors and a waste to comment about lawyers but consultants ... yes !!! People who are on frequent tours right from the day they start ... More nitty gritties on this after i actually start working though ... Maybe some one would write a blog by then too ....

The Power of Huddle

Cut to a time in 2004 December ... A small lab in DRDO with just 50 scientists working were attempting to form a cricket team to represent in inter-DRDO cricket tournament at hyderabad. Yours truly was in full enthu to put up a team to atleast represent the lab and looked forward to this as a good team building excercise in the laboratory.

Nobody gave us even an inkling of chance of winning a match. But the eleven that we had were a determined 11 lead by Rahul Kumar and ably supported by Naresh, Gopi, Balaram, Ravi, Shofiqul, yours truly, Abhinav, Balaji, Anil Terkar and Bhowmick. This 11 created shockwaves in that year by reaching the semi-finals and beating big-shot teams like RCI, DLRL, ASL before finally losing to DRDL(eventual winners of the trophy). I felt proud at being a part of such a performing team and almost building it from scratch by approaching each and every person to practice for the game and so on ...

Cut to 2007 ... six determined boys .. Arun, Timmal, Ananth, murali, vaibhav and yours truly were again on the verge of achieving immortality for sjmsom by reaching the semis of basketball. The team was written off even before they played their first match and the day they played .... rest was history ...

Now all this key-strokes is not to illustrate the roller-coaster ride that i was having over the past few years ... i.e motivating people and making them perform the max ....

The common points between both these events was the GREAT INDIAN HUDDLE ... We used to huddle before each match. The huddle used to instill a confidence and motivation which hithertho would not have been possible individually. The huddle dissolved all our fears and brought in a synergy which we never imagined. The huddle psychologically empowered us to clear our obstacles and pushed us to the limits which we never foresaw. It made us realize the individual unused potential that each one of us had .. be it while playing cricket or playing basketball ..

I salute to the Indian cricket team who made this powerful psychological team building and motivating tool of which i have been a beneficiary ....

Life is Beautiful

A Movie !!! What should i say ? It is not a movie, it shows a way of life. A poignant relationship between a father and son that brought tears to my eyes at the end. This movie has shaken, stirred the emotions which i have and has brought forth a simple topic in a very elegant manner.

A Father who inspite of the most gory situation is in full humour in front of his 7 year old son. In the first half of movie, the father or the central character Guido is shown as a flirtatious happy-go-lucky individual who at all times says to his "would-be" - " Bon journ !! Pricipessia " ...
They finally get married and have a son name Joshua in the movie.. The father & son are of jewish descent and hence are sent to a concentration camp in the fascist regime of Italy.

Here, young people are brutually killed in the camp. The father uses all his humour to keep his son engaged and doesn't for a moment make him realize that there is death in every corner of the camp. The child consistently asks a lot of questions to his father as to why other kids are dissapearing ? People are telling that they burn people here to make buttons and son ... But the father manages to bring a humorous answer to every question posed by his son... He remains cheerful in all moments of the movie and it is this character which made me feel that yes .. I should be like him .

You better watch the movie to get a full grasp of the way in which the father engages his son.

In the movie it is said " This is a simple story - but not an easy one to tell " .... Hence this blog is about this story - but definitely not an easy one to write.


PS: Along with 12-angry men and shawshank redemption, this movie too ranks right up there....

The Winner's Curse

After a long time, i found something interesting to write upon . This concept was witnessed live during my trip to Matheran. A phenomenon exists in economic theories often exemplified as the WINNERS CURSE. Here the winner in a group event may end up being worse off than others. This is more common in auctions but it is even more popular when a group of friends embark upon a trip.

Scene #1: We are all sitting in a hotel in Matheran ready to have breakfast.

Aravindan : Hmmm ... Lots of south Indian dishes here .. I think i will order Idli ..
Pamma & Me: 2 Aloo pohas for both of us ...
Karthik: Well ... the cheapest here seems to be idli -vada .. I will order that ...
Pamma: Don't worry karthik .. Whatever the bill ... it is to be divided equally .. It is very difficult to assign individual bills to persons ..

Rajasekar: Wow !! One masala dosa .. with Amul Cool for me then ...
Gyan: I think Puran Poli will do better for me then ...

Karthik : Hey !! What is this ? I think i better have a 75/- Gujarathi thali for breakfast ....

Suman & Aravindan: Wow !! Man !! Aloo poha is fundoo ... another aloo poha along with idli for breakfast..
Myself & Vikas : Wah Gyan !!! Pooran Poli badhiya hai ... bhaiyya !!! do Puran Poli aur lana ...

Everybody started ordering now all exotic dishes because everybody felt as the bill was being shared .. it was useless to optimize and hence the entire breakfast bill ended up as 500/- for our group ....


Scene #2: In a Nimbu-Pani stall in Matheran ..

Sujay : Hey !! I am feeling thirsty .. Anybody in for a lemon juice ?
Karthik, Aravindan, Suman & Myself: Hey Sujay !! Count us in too ...

Soon others joined ... and the bill was shared in common ... Now one of us felt of having a 2nd glass .. the moment he said he wanted to have a 2nd glass ... 5 others who simply jumped in as they did not want to be affected by winners curse ....

Thus in this winner's curse ... each person does not see as personal optimization of expenses as a way of reducing overall expenses .. The truth is each person simply does not want to subsidize the expense of some other person .. As a result he ends up enjoying himself to the maximum possible at each point ... He might not want to order a dish but as soon as he sees others ordering.. he feels why not give a try ... Anyway everything is gonna be shared and thus this results in him/her trying dishes which he otherwise would never have during such occasions .....

I know that i would not do justice by simply writing a paragraph on it but it is really fun in watching such an event live and often ends up in a lot of jokes and fun all around ...