Chapter 9

Now getting back to my little merry life. I got done with my finals ( lets not talk about it , I might end up taking anti-depressant injections when i think about it)! So to cheer myself up, my friend asked me to join him and his friends to a club. Now in 3 1/2 months , this was the first time I was certain to go to a club in boston. Last time when I tried , we ended up going so late that we stood in the line for 1 hour just to bear the brunt of winter building up.
Back in mumbai i went to 3 1/2 clubs in my 21 yrs of life there. ( the 1/2 coz we entered , tried sighting inside, realized it was a sausage fest , brought ourselves a drink and then left).

So here I started my journey for another night,
without any foresight
or any idea as to how would it be
what is it going to bring out of me !

We went to this club which plays retro music. Now when my sister saw me dance the first time , she knew then and there our family had a male winner . Over the years my friend srini introduced me to some old moves and so i was excited to go to this club , to unleash my new moves for old songs. Before we entered, we started the usual binge drinking. By the time we entered i felt like i was hritik already.
I was forced to leave my card as tab as they had a minimum amount to be deducted from the card when u swipe the card once ( bars, they know how to persuade people into drinking and then milk them later).

This was really not a good idea!

Every tom, lee and santosh knows that if you drink too much of beer, you have to spend time with the restroom. It was good in a way, during this time i had a very strange conversation with a pretty girl.

girl- is this the line for the restroom?
me- yes it is . I see no other reason to stand in this part, at a corner of the club and wait with legs crossed.

Strangely, this wasn't the end of the conversation. It continued further until it was my turn to relieve myself of the pressure.But during this time she was asking me about the mishaps in mumbai and the whole india pakistan situation. It got me all excited to talk about. So i waited with a new drink on myself till her turn was done. And then we began to speak.
Later as the conversation grew on, i realised she was without a drink

During this moment i went into flashback . I have been practicing the american anthem in a bar 'So can i buy you a drink' in front of the mirror. I thought of myself standing in front of a mirror and then thought to myself, this was it! the time had come to put what i have spent 3 months practicing into action

me- so can i buy you a drink?
girl - uh huh, no i am good thanks
me- why not ?
girl- oh i am not comfortable with the idea? and so i dont let people buy me one

then i go into silence for 30 seconds and i do something astonishing

me- alright then....
girl- alright what?
me- then why dont you buy me a drink?
girl - (laughs) no way
me- why not ?
girl - (looks at my glass) you still have a long way to go till you finish that
me-(chugs down and then points) how about now ?

--------------------------------x-----------------------------------------------
No she dint buy me the drink..
But what completed that night was instead of storing my number, she stored my blog address. oh well atleast i had a name to stalk on and add in orkut. But i would never forget this day, the day when i asked a girl to buy me a drink (without practicing)

Chapter 8 (2+6 november)

Today I would like to drift away from my life and speak about certain happenings in my city back in India. Yes I come from mumbai and I was quite shocked to hear that terrorism has now taken such a new face.Since the last few years , we have heard of serials blasts but this act of terrorism would really make us think. What next? How worse would it get from here ?

I am a humanitarian but I havent reached that stage in life where I can help another human by monetory funds. This does not mean If I would find a group of men trying to hurt someone , I wouldnt jump in to save. But i guess I would do something, hopefully I never come in such a situation.
Getting back to the topic, I would not get into the normal act of getting into blame games of cops ,politicians,a certain nation etc. I am sure there are a million other doing it, but I have certain important observations which I would love to share.

I would like to start off by saying I was shocked to see the pics of the terrorist showed on the news channel. One of then looked like a kid who hasnt even hit puberty. These guys actually had the balls to fight off our NSG for more than 2 days. This just brings a couple of question in mind.
Are these kids being trained from birth to do this ? How are these kids being whitewashed to actually give away their life at such a young age ? what is being said that they really dont care about their life anymore ? I came to think of it as these guys are fearless. Now who are fearless? Those people who do not fear anything in their life. Thats a big training on its own. Once you do not fear your life , you could actually do anything! Just imagine if this training was used for a more productive use than a destructive like this.

I would like to speak few words about Late Major Unnikrishnan.He was a south indian from the bihar regiment who sacrificed his life ,ironically in maharashtra. A state which long time back had anti south slogan and recent anti-bihari,up slogans. I am surprised he wasnt stopped from entering TAJ as he was from the bihari regiment? why did they not throw stones at the NSGs or hit them from being from bihar now ? In a way it speaks that during crisis, we are united, which am glad but then If i was a certain someone, I would be ashamed that a GUY FROM A BIHARI REGIMENT FROM THE SOUTH FOUGHT BRAVELY AND GAVE HIS LIFE FOR MAHARASHTARA. I have nothing against mahrashtra, i am an adopted maharashtrian in a way because i am born and brought up here, but I am glad i do not think that way .But if Major unnikrishnan thought like the certain sect of people in mumbai, he would have been nicely enjoying life back home. It would have been much better as today we mourne the loss of a a great man who gave up his life fighting for his whole team ( wonder how many marathi manoos were in that team ) ,rather he gave his life for INDIA for the greater good. If only I was 10 % as brave and courageous as him and if and only if more mothers produced brave men like him, we would be a much better black. Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, I salute you and today for the first time in my life i am glad to be having a part of your name sir. May his soul rest in peace and hope his family come through such a time ( i am usually not emotional , but while writing this I feel like crying out aloud).

We lost many other top cops like Mr Hemant Karkare. Its a sad day when you lose 2-3 top cops (non-corrupt). What saddens me is that now the Malegaon case would go to the thrash again and a year from now, nobody would be punished for lifes lost there.What saddens me further is that we lost another honest man.

Now there have been more things troubling me. I heard rumours that foreign nationals were given more preferance than the locals. In a way its shows real good hospitality but when did death become racist ?When you are rescuing, I thought you should rescue the needy and not the colorless or colorful. I am just suprised that this can exist only in a country like India.

The media should be ashamed of themselves for creating certain rumours and worse off showing of the operation and informing about the motive of the military during its operation , helping the terrorists in way. I do agree we need news, I personally would love to hear about the military operation but that does not mean that we give up our secrets ! They nicely covered commandoes taking position on the nariman tower. Clap clap good job guys, you just made them aware of where they would be attacked from. So much for the element of surprise. I was watching IBN online and i saw that the show anchors had made contact with a foreigner trapped in TAJ. During his interview I was shocked when the Anchor went like ,' So bruce any wishes or ( i am sure he tried hard to stop himself say last wishes)'. How de-moralizing is this ? That guy actually makes an effort to call you up and then you say any last wishes ? HAHAHA. So much for morale encouragement. I am truly dissapointed with the media , but thats not new i guess.

I heard interesting comments on facebook such as send the politicians inside to fight the terrorist. Haha, and do what increase the casualty list ?Rather spend the attention of ambulance and firefighters trying to save the needy than the fancy. Rather spend resources trying to flush militants out rather than on protecting the politicians who would go inside fighting. Insane comments.

I guess I would like to talk a lot more, but I would like to end saying that this is not exactly a shock. I would not end saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH or WE WONT BE RESILIENT NO MORE or POLITICIANS STAY AWAY. We never really picked up from the blasts 2 years ago. what i am hinting on is when we know where all the leads are from, we are still in peace talks with that country. I am absolutely disgusted with the stand. If this happened to USA, would they be like,' hey I am sure they just made a mistake, lets get into peace talk with them?' I am sorry but they do not do that , they invaded 2 different countries and now very few have the balls to stand up against USA.
In a nutshell we have an old saying, one oil stain can dirty the whole water, in this case we know where the OIL BARREL is and something should be done to make sure we dont get stained again. What do we do? if you ask me today I would be like burn the bloody OIL BARREL down but I guess thats not the solution, but a solution has to be created as we do not have many unnikrishnans and karkare to give their life everytime someone tries to stain us.

JAI HIND!

Chapter 7

Its been almost 2 months here now. I have been thinking, what do i miss the most ? then it struck me.

my mom? i talk to her every second day ( i do miss her of course)

my dogs? i see them every quite often, but i do miss them a lot.

my prospective fiancee? i talk to her on the weekends.(i don't have a girlfriend)

and then it struck me.
My friends! srinivas and srikanth. they do deserve a mention on this blog after all they made me hate blogging after forcing me to read their painful blogs.

One used to write about how much he hated life and one wrote shit anyways. Both were acting like little goth kids frustrated in life then (now its my turn).

But these guys are more than friends. they were like brothers.I miss gaining attention from these guys ( i was just told by a certain someone that I should earn attention and not gain attention) (i am an attention seeking a****** i guess). that's what i miss them the most for.

Back in India we did crazy stuff . we used to go out on car drives(called ROAM) every night and shout crazy stuff randomly at people ( we were quite a menace). we used to make the car shake in a very erotic way, in a silent traffic signal giving wrong notions to passerby and other drivers. Once at a signal , we got out of the car, did tribal dance encircling the car thrice, sat back and then drove off, much to the shock of people around.

The last thing we did was stage a mock kidnap with a known friend ( he is one of my fav too but he doesnt deserve a mention as he doesnt call me up even though he is in USA). It was hilarious and those were days i miss the most.

Those were days, and i have no words to say how much i miss those guys. however these a****** hardly called me up.

All this while, i started befriending this weird girl from Chandigarh. she used to make me say the word 'Punjabi' like 100 times till i stressed on the 'bhi' of Punjabi. And then it happened , she introduced me to one of her friend, a sardar. as soon as i saw him, i saw the srini in him. I knew i found my 'Boston' srini. Now i pretty much hang out with this guy and the weird girl ( i don't find her weird anymore , either i am used to it or weirdness understands weirdness.

there are 3 things srini likes to do:-

throw attitude.

drink.

try hitting on girls.

( i would abet him in all these crimes and srikanth was forced into this by us )



Now i am in hunt for the boston srikanth. I recently made an advertisement ,as he has always been my favorite ( sorry srini, reality bites (kidding :P(ill tell u real reality over the phone))), and was ready to put it out on the Internet.



Wanted a short hispanic ( and only we can call him that for his color (i am not a racist)) who likes to sleep at odd hours or every hour, doesn't mind to click photos of himself in weird positions all day long and loves to throw attitude online.



The search is still on.

PS: i still have strictly brotherly platonic love for these guys. Miss you f***faces.

Chapter 6

So now, I started working. I felt like one of those typically middle class guy ( sorry for this usage, but i guess i am a middle class). Rush on time for work, skip food for work. Eventually after week, i got my first pay check.I was all excited, after all it was my first one. The last time i ever earned money was in a college tournament for gaming where i won just a triple figure . but here it was a four figure sum in a week. When i opened it up, I shouted in pain!

why ? my eyes went direct to tax cut. They cut 15 % of taxes from a student. I think i suffered a cardiac arrest for a moment when i saw that. I took out my calculator and start calculating the final figure I would get every month. After some careful subtractions, I saw that i needed to remake my budget again.

That night was tough, the budget list went some thing like this:-



rent - same.

food - cut down on extra unwanted food.

liquor-same.

clothes- one underwear a month.

bar- hopefully girls buy me a drink.

girls- ill have to sell myself to make money for this.

extra luxuries - banana a day, on weekends kiwi fruit.

I was shocked to see i was actually living HAND TO HOUSE!

after all this , i saw that i should have a saved a whooping 5$ 55 cents in a month. I calculated, I would be a million-nair in 15 thousand and 15 years exact.

nice!



I went into depression the next 3 days. i went late to work. i spent time looking at birds outside flying in freedom, not worrying about money . Now most of you guys would be wondering, don't i get money from my house ? I refuse it. I chose to live this life of paying my own living expense.



I have an old relationship with money. once an astrologer looked at my kundli and called me 'Dhanlakshmi Bank'(prospective girls note this down).But after looking at the probability of being a millionaire , i was like, Thank you uncle!
however someday, u never know .u never know.

Chapter 5

We always have a feeling of 'feeling incomplete' on certain days . I could explain this with a very small example( my brain works like a 17 yr old). Suppose you see someone of the opposite sex, and you really like that person. You wish to get to know that person, get more friendly, get close and then, etc., etc. ( you know ). After that suddenly one day , you really dont care much and you move on to next target.This is how I have been mostly all my life. I knew i was getting the job, so no point to continue searching vigorously as before( its a bad habit in a way).

How? Simple , I signed the work contract then and there. The feeling was unique. It was a building block to initate my bank account( in dollar). I felt like a man, a grown up man.Little did i know , the tax would kill me.



During this time, I forgot to talk about my third apartment mate. You need people like this, joyful, cheerful, loves to get drunk. As soon as he entered out apartment, he came all the way to my room. Not to greet me, but to see if i was taller than him.
He was dissapointed that whole night.

He has been used to staying in a hostel back in India ( SITUATORY WARNING: The experience in some hostels can be very dirty and very scary). I knew what was coming, the feeling of living in unhygenic condition. And he did not dissapoint me even one bit. But I was ready, if this is a battle, I was ready to go at war!

Chapter 4

Finally, the time had come. It was time for the long weekend. I have always been amazed wondering as to why do people here get so excited about 'long weekends'. People wait to buy all the stuff they need for months together on the longweekend , as there are special deals on that specific weekend. It beats me and always will. I used to think that everything has a price to pay for, especially when you are desperate for it. And then when I heard about the epic 'thanks giving ' sales story, I stopped bothering.


So it was a tuesday, the one waiting for the the labour day weekend and I had lost all hopes for an on-campus job. I started planning my schedule to take 4 courses ( BU has a very strange fees structure. If I take 3 courses, I pay a certain X amount and if I take 4 courses in that sem , I still pay that X amount. So If I have no income the best I could do was try to save my expenses). I couldnt decide on 2 and now I was planning to take 4. My favorite selection method has always been 'In pin safety pin' and "Inky pink ponky'.



I was out shopping for files ( I miss those cheap stationary stores in India) at staples, when all of a sudden I got a call. The caller said that there is a technical assistant position available and wanted to know when I could come and meet him and discuss about the position. First,I thought it was the routine call where I end up appropriately dressed, just to lose that job. However, , I just couldnt place this job in my head as I had no idea which application this was. Dont blame me , I applied to around 21 on campus jobs in 2 weeks. I was honest and I told him, "Sir, I really cannot remember who you are and what this job is about as I have applied to many other job opportunities". And then he said something that got me stunned for a second! He said "this is not posted as an on-campus job,so when can we talk more about this?".



At that very moment, I felt that god truly existed (I am a god-fearing guy).I have been running around and behind jobs for almost 3 weeks and then suddenly, I get a call without even applying for one. First I was wondering if people recogonized me as ' The guy who dresses up to get a job' and knew that if they couldnt find someone suitable for a job, I was still in the hunt. I really dint care , that evening I was excited . Was it time to get my first on-campus job? Big or small, a job is a job and a salary is a salary( framed from the words of Simon , a bar manager I met in singapore. He said ' Young or old , a wh*** is a wh****. I call it Simons First Law.)

Chapter 3

In the second week,I finally got few job responses. It was a strange feeling. I had never tried for employment before this. I used to introduce myself to girls as an unemployed youth( Some thought I was really funny, I was just being honest). Even during my under-graduation placement fair, I did not sit any placements. Maybe because I was sure that I wanted to continue studies in the land of opportunities( good choice hopefully). I just sat one placement , that too on being forced by my mom . She felt that I would gain some experience ( the only experience I try to hunt for at this age is the art of understanding women and making money in a casino). I sat for the placement paper test , and I did not even clear it ! Well it was a mock CAT placement. If I could crack that , I would have been sitting in IIM-A and not in Boston writing a blog. ( NOTE : all those who did pass the mock test (placement paper), hardly made it to the IIMs) .

Now on the day of my interview, I was dressed to to get that (part-time)job. The whole morning I was telling myself infront of the mirror that 'I was the man for the job'. And then during the interview , it was a different story .I met my interviewer in a strange manner . He was a nice guy , I met him first outside the toilet ( I was tensed) and then later we met formally in his cabin. I spent all the time trying to convince him, I can do the job. I was telling him about my research interests, my past experience and my future plans. Whether he was convinced or not, it did open a road for me . He said he would refer me to someone soon. My hopes were shattered . I knew I couldnt wear that same shirt in the same building for that week again :(

Rejection has always played a big part in my life . Girls constituted the highest percentage of the total number. Second has been getting what I really want in the first attempt ( besides girls ofcourse). I always hated rejection in school , but then slowly when u grow up you realize ' Whatever happens , happens for good ; or atleast you make situations sound that your a winner second time . My uncle was right in saying , either you are on the top or your at the bottom and at both the places , u are lonely.
At the moment , I was at the bottom. And he was damn right . I was lonely as hell.

The days passed on with some more job interviews , some asking for my schedule and rest saying they would call me up if my resume gets selected. If there is something in boston , I would not crib about , it would be my apartment. It is on one of the most noisiest street. I had an option to choose 2 rooms . One was facing the alley and one was facing a house which had 3 girls sharing a house in the first floor. I chose my room that very moment( no prizes for guessing which). Little did I realize, they would shift out of there on the much awaited 'September First' moving day.

Chapter 2

So then the story continues. I spent the first few days in my uncles house ,1 hour away from boston . I felt good somehow . Why ? Maybe because I had unlimited access to food and drinks . However the various essence required in a student's life was missing. Socializing with the same age group ( for me preferably opposite sex with age no bar).
On the first weekend , I decided to go meet my new roomate, an Indian born but residing in the US for 17 years now. I was excited , He was too , but out of no option .Back itself in India , I wanted to stay with an american. The reason being , I loved their lifstyle as depicted in movies such as American pie . However little did I realize that the life here would be similar to Harold and Kumar ( without the drugs ofcourse).

I shifted to my new apartment the following week along with him . The days were pretty much the same . Wake up , search for employment online( part -time job) , mail resumes for ever posting available , try and get them on the phone in the evening to check if posting was still available ( sister's idea) and wait till the next morning. As this went on , there was one thing confusing me , which courses to choose for my MS.

When I was ready to start my new Graduate life , I had a vision of trying my hand at Bio-electronics. I had a fanciful idea to make a portable device to diagnoize HIV ( curse for mankind , restricts random sex )and many other diseases without the cliche blood tests run in laboratory. What do I mean ? Yes a device which scans through the crowd and beeps red when it detects someone with the disease I am looking for. But then when I reached here ,I snapped back to reality . Its not that its impossible , but since its a specialized field , I would have to do my PhD.

When I was a kid , just for fun, to see what aspect of physics I was interested in , My uncle brought me a 'assemble your own electronic project kit' . He wanted to see if i was interested in hardware or in computers .
I never touched it.
However one day , I sold it to my friend as he desperately needed it, for a good profit( he must be pretty pissed on reading this). Thats when he knew , I was made for management.

And so after careful thought ( nightmares in the night) I decided to choose my courses as the last thing one would want is finish your MS and not get a job. Its worse than your girl running away on the wedding day. Because then I would be the epitome of practical joke played by destiny.

Chapter 1

It really sucks to start over afresh in a new place to be frank . Back in mumbai , life was getting much smoother. Its funny , when you are done with something old and you are moving to something new , the old stuff seemed like being close to complete . Everything was perfect... mom's food ,friend's alcohol ( not much ( room-mates promise!)), long drives , thoughts of going to clubs, finally easily getting the perfect girl for a date (took me life experience of 21 years to learn that) etc and then THADAAAK I get my departure ticket smacked right on my face.
And here I am in boston. Costly frozen food, hardly any friends , cheap corona(pros), no car to drive ( only T line and Bus) and girls (cons)? HAHAHA. That kinda summed it up for me , did it not ? To make matters worse , the first thing I did as soon as I landed in boston was search numbers of employers & send in my resume to get an interview for a decent paying job rather than going to pubs and night clubs to get some girls telephone number.
To make it worse ,I heared stories of all my friends in other cities saying ' we had a party and we invited some girls over'.I am sure they were having a blast I would be lying if I said , I was indifferent. To be honest ? I felt miserable and was frustrated! .
No job was clicking ,
no girls were looking ,
food was always eaten freezing,
and my room rent for different reasons was day by day increasing !