Strangers in the dark, exchanging glances

…For that, I need to be able to weave a story, I need to be a good story teller!

“Aada, is that you?”, said Roshnai waking me up from a not so deep sleep.

Being the light sleeper that I am, I mumbled “I am here, what happened?”.

I woke up to toss around on the bed so that I could hold her tight and go back to sleep. My eyes opened slightly as I turned and what I saw confused me. I was half asleep. In that mode, you can be made to believe anything. Your dreams merge with reality and you exist in a transitional state where you find it difficult to differentiate between what’s real and what isn’t. As a student of physics, I would always get baffled when the teacher would ask me to draw the diagram showing a “virtual image” of a real object from a lens/mirror combination.

I saw a battery of lights, one red, and one blue, merging with each other to form a very nice hue of purple. I got up and sat on the bed only to see it still there. Roshnai was also up and sitting on the bed by then. It was dark outside, quite dark and hot. The AC was running at full power keeping us cozy at 25 C even when the outside temperature was well in excess of 35 C. It works with a good temperature control, switching on and off at regular intervals ensuring that the temperature doesn’t go above 26-27 C at the same time ensuring it doesn’t chill our bones. But what happened next chilled not just our bones, it also froze our minds!

The moment I sat up, I saw a flash of light outside. The transformer had gone off probably, I thought, and a stray street light was reflecting into the bedroom. I sprang out of the bed and rushed to switch on the lights. It is a pity that we do not have light switches near the bed. I saw one more flash in the living room, as if somebody was clicking a photo. As I switched on the lights, I blurted “Kaun hai?”, still a bit sleepy. Eyes hadn’t yet got used to the darkness. I stepped out into the living room, looking for something. I saw, and I froze as I saw the main door was open and some of the street light was flowing into the living room. I thought, ah! That explains the stray light. Could have been a car passing by with those fancy blue LED lights. We live in a posh locality, apparently. Every second house has either a Mercedez or an Audi or a BMW. It was very likely.

“The main door is open!” I said as I walked out, “Did you forget to…”, saying that I froze! A chill went down my spine as it dawned on me that the bedroom door was wide open! There would have been no way for any stray light to enter the bedroom with the AC on, and the door closed. Not even a stray sound! I think Roshnai had already realised it a few fractions of the second earlier. That is how she was up and calling me out. She thought I had been to the kitchen to fetch some water, or grab a bite from the fridge. There are nights at a stretch when I fail to get sleep and end up tossing around the bed, or dropping things from the side table.

The bedroom door had been opened as well, and surely we had not slept with it open. Somebody had broken in!

“Roshnai! Someone is in here!” I screamed and ran to the kitchen, switching on all the lights on my way. The kitchen has another door, which opens to the backside of the house. We dry our clothes there. It was open. And so were all the windows of the kitchen. “Chor!” I screamed, “Kaun hai?” and ran to bolt the door close. I was shaken! Scared!

Roshnai was waiting in the bedroom unable to fathom what was going on. I rushed to her and told her that we had an intrusion. I picked up the curtain rod lying in the study room and quickly checked all other corners of the house to spot anything. Nothing. Whoever it was, had run away! Leaving all the doors and windows open!

I took her to the living room, closed all doors and windows, switched on all lights and sat on the sofa. We had goose pimples all over our bodies. The more we thought about what had just happened, the more we shivered. We quickly checked that all our belongings were in place and then waited desperately for daylight, taking turns to lie on each others’ laps.

And that is how I got a chance to tell a story, and also update this blog that lay dormant for more than a month! I wish it was fiction!

How do you tell a story?

Today, I attended a sales conference conducted by my current company, and the guest speaker was the Chairman of the consulting firm I had worked with for 3 years at the beginning of my career.  I was thrilled to meet him today and hear him speak, More thrilled than I used to be hearing him while I was still a part of the consulting firm. The audience was engaged, and the talk was applauded!

What makes consultants succeed in what they do? Is it their skill? Is it their knowledge? Is it their experience? The very simple answer is a straight NO! Well yes, consultants are the subject matter experts, consultants are skilled, consultants have experience – but an average young consultant just doesn’t match an experienced industry professional. So  what sets consultants apart, is their excellent ability to communicate, to tell stories, to pull the audience together, and to explain things in the most understandable manner. I learnt this at my first job with the consulting firm I am talking about – the consultant who succeeds isn’t the person who is the most capable or most skilled or most knowledgeable, but the person who communicates the best!

If you are a seller, you need to convince your potential buyer in order to sell your product. This applies to almost anything in life. Many years ago, just after the IIT entrance result had come out, I had asked my dad to buy me a digital portable music player (that it broke in less than a month is a different story). I had to explain my demand, not just with justifiable reasons, but also by giving examples of people I knew who already had such a device. It got tough for me to convince him, but I got it nonetheless as a gift for cracking the exam ;). Nowadays, I apply the same tactics back. Dad asked me to buy a house as an investment, and I was hellbent on making sure that he justifies the demand. The economist-banker’s sense prevailed, and today, 33% of my monthly salary flows out to the loan account the day it arrives in my salary account!

Ability to convince comes with the ability to communicate the right thing, in the simplest of terms, with the most relevant correlations, and a juicy story to weave it all together. Not everyone can convince, else there would have been no bad sales guys, and hence no good sales guys. Leave alone convincing, not everyone can communicate! Of course, had everyone been a great communicator, we wouldn’t have found our not-so beloved Members of Parliament, or our very-much beloved Bollywood movie stars often misquoted in the media.

So long story short, I’ve realised that they way forward for me, is to be more convincing in my discussions. Especially when I am recommending something to someone, or selling my idea! For that, I need to be able to weave a story, I need to be a good story teller!

Have you noted that I haven’t yet made a resolution for 2013? Well, guys, this is it! By the end of this year, I hope to be a better storyteller, a better seller of my ideas, and overall, a better communicator! Oh, and after reading this post, next time we talk, please :( do not argue with me just for the heck of it, even if you believe you can play a part in helping me achieve my resolution! :P

Gujju mein baat kar usse, life set ho jaegi teri!

I like you only little little * Kuch spicy khane ka mann kar raha hai * Aur bata, hows work? * I had got the highest marks in Marathi, in school * Geddata karo Sir, Get Data karo! * Tichi shitti wazli * Bhaiyya ek Mango cone aur ek Anjeer cup dena * Clocked 160kmph for the first time and what stability! * No Boss! * Mangoes kyun nahin aa rahe market me? * 1 M = 10 Lacs * Can Sir Ravindra Jadeja finish the game for India? * YOLO * How many zeroes did you put in the Crore? * Akka – S.I.S.T.E.R. – Sister, Nakka – F.O.X. – Fox, Kukka – D.O.G. – Dog * I got a DELL, no Lenovo for me :( * Naat, scootera * Is it Quora as in Kora, or Quora as in Que-ora? * Check out Amelia Boutique Hotel in Bukhara * Behind Harley Davidson showroom in Banjara Hills * I saw 17 peacocks today, including 4 peahens. KBR Rocks! * Usse Gujju mein baat kar, life set ho jaegi teri *Can you please call the pest control guy? * It is Jaliyan-wala Bagh not Jallian-wala Bagh as taught in Maharashtra Board History text books * Yippe * I am scared * I think we need to learn Telugu, no, they need to learn some Hindi, come on! * I want to study, please ask me Fill In The Blanks or True/False * Last day kab hai? * Chal futt * That defining moment when a spec of dust gets stuck under the “Ctrl” or “Alt” key on your laptop’s keyboard * I won’t let you guys go till you dance with me * Where do you stay? Dilshukh Nagar? Wow, that must be far! * Samba! * My wife wants to visit Serengeti *Yaar mere ghar pe phone ka network nahin aata, landline pe call karna * Somehow whenever I take such by-lanes, I always end up at a dead-end, and you are always able to find your way out! * Repu? Sayantram? Aaa * 2 people voted up your answer to the question: “What do people eat for breakfast outside of the US?” * Aee namak shamak, namak shamak, aa-haa-haa *  So much pending work, so many things to do, procrastination is a terrible thing * Tu agle janam me kya banegi? Non-living things bhi chalenge! * Nigella is food porn. She isn’t just food porn, she is also, porn! * Bol Raja * There is a ban on eating rice * Sahi, congratulations :) AK kya bola? * Aaj tu fir lights off karna bhool gaya office jate time * Dear Aditya Ji * You don’t like pan? You mean Paan? * I thought you were in LA, that is Los Angeles. I had no idea it meant Learning Academy! *  There are some new sushi restaurants in Hyderabad * Is this your iPhone5? It was lying in my room! * Please dial 1 for banking, please dial 2 for credit cards. Sorry, we did not understand your input. Please try again, else hang up * Do you want an input? * Chal bye *

What makes you happy?

Writing a blog post can be tough if you haven’t done that in a while. The last time I wrote was almost 2 months back! A lot of things happened over the last two months.

First, I changed jobs! Yes – it took me a while to make a decision, but I was pretty firm about it. This new job is my third in 5 years. Who talks about too many switches ruining your career? I don’t think so. Have heard about it, but haven’t come across cases yet. As long as you are in the same domain, and doing better work than before, constantly learning and contributing more with time, there seems to be no problem! Touch-wood!

With the job change, came change of homes. Staying on the outer skirts of the city was not helping us, even though it was one of the best places to stay at. We moved closer to my workplace, actually we found a place midway between mine and hers. Banjara Hills. Fancy name, isn’t it? Yeah yeah. Ask me about it. It is fun living closer to the happening places in the city. Not that we have been making the most out of it, but it is still cooler on the liters of petrol you save every weekend!

We have been spending precious hours every evening after getting back home, searching the internet for cheap fares all around the world. Can you believe that we haven’t yet decided where we will travel this year, or when. By this time last year, we had already come back from the most amazing trip to Istanbul. I had also made a trip to frozen Europe just before that. This year seems dry. We just came back from a road trip to Suryalanka. Surya what? Yes, Suryalanka. It is a tiny little beach (long, but largely cordoned off due to the presence of Air Force Station) with just one pretty mediocre AP tourism resort (that charges you a bomb). Okay, it was relaxing, and the drive was a lot of fun, but a slightly cleaner beach and a slightly better resort would have made me immensely happier. We plan to do two more trips this year. One, preferably to north India in summer, and then one outside India, sometime in the last quarter of the year.

So what makes you happy? Long drives like we do? Sitting on a beach and watching the waves hit the shore endlessly till the sun goes down? Dancing your night away to loud beats? Talking to your friends? Or eating an ice-cream? Cats?

Remember my last post,  ‘People, Always’? It was about how people end up making you happy or sad, it was about how people end up teaching you something for life, whether you like it or not. But I recently came across a song, which emphasizes that it isn’t always people you can hold responsible to make or break your day, but you yourself! Go “watch” this video, don’t just listen to it. This video makes me happy for some reason. Just as I told you last time that good conversations make me happy, good music also makes me happy!

P.S.  To get a feel of the newly launched Google Play Books for Indian android users, I started reading Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Read about 100 odd pages during the days off at Suryalanka. The story seemed so engaging that I could not resist checking the synopsis and character outlines, online. That is when it dawned on me that the novel is almost 1500 pages long, with the abridged version itself running beyond 600 pages. Killing my curiosity, I moved over to YouTube to watch the 4 hour long epic 1958 movie, based page-to-page on the novel. It took me 3 sessions over a span of 3 days to finish watching the movie. It left me touched, and not really feeling miserable. I went back to the book and read the last 50 pages, in a fitting finish to my overwhelmed emotions! And this, I realized, is the best way to read a book and also watch a movie based on it!

People, always!

There is this quaint little place in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, called “LaMakaan”, where you can find me almost every other weekend. You may find me there with a cup of Irani chai, a plate of samosas, a dish of khatti daal, a camera, or just my phone! You may find me there with my family, colleagues, Twitter friends, acquaintances, photographers, bloggers, random people, or just by myself! That place is so pretty, it is almost perfect – perfect for conversations – with yourself, with anyone! If you are the kinds who converse only on GTalk or FB, LaMakaan is still the place to be. Ask why? Because, Free WiFi!

When I was a kid, I was a complete introvert. It would not just get tough, but rather uncomfortable for me to strike a conversation with anyone, forget a stranger. I think I was in that mode pretty much till I graduated from college, and a bit into my first job. I would generally stay away from ‘people’, and much to my own self. Today, I think, I am in a much better position. I think I need to thank social media for that! Facebook, Twitter and the likes, make it easier to connect with people you share similar interests with. Similar interests means something to talk about. No? I think yes.

Everybody is talented. I learnt this at college. What talent each individual has, is best known by that individual himself. When I meet people, all I look for is their talent, all I see is their talent. Recently, I’ve come across a lot of people – at work, at parties, at social gatherings, at meetups, on Twitter, etc. All of them are awesome. Seriously! Now I know a bunch of people who bake great cakes, who write awesome blogs, who click awesome photographs, who know awesome restaurants, who travel to awesome places, who play awesome music, who are awesome fitness freaks… and the list goes on. You know, each of you is awesome! And a good conversation with any of you makes my day.

However, people often don’t know what their talent is, or they knowingly misuse it. Those are the kinds of people that worry me. These are people who don’t know where they are going. People who don’t know what they want from life. Okay I know that Great people discuss ideas. Average people discuss events. Small people discuss people. However, the people I am discussing here, are even smaller. Tiny, really lost in the vastness of the universe. These are the people I meet and wonder how lucky I am. These are the people I pity. These are the people I meet and wonder:

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

You changed your travel plan only so that you could come and stay with me for a day? You cared to go out of your way only to get my favorite perfume from Istanbul? You took me around the city when I had just moved in? You RT’ed my tweet when a friend’s friend’s friend’s wife needed blood in Srinagar? You replied to all my emails asking for help? You made a difference to my life! :)

You managed to lose 15 kilos last year? You have a baby and a full time job and also party every weekend? You climbed some of the highest peaks in the country? You fought a miscarriage? You sang a beautiful song? You made a difference to my life! :)

Talk to me about food, places, photography, health, technology, religion, history, policy, or just about anything under the sun! And I will figure out a way in which you would end up making a difference to my life :)

You all get a warm hug :)

And all you lonely people? Yes, you’ve made a difference too! You’ve taught me to be more cautious. You’ve made me realize that I can’t read people very well in the first interaction. And you’ve given me a chance to do my homework, sharpen my skills and be a better judge. You too, made a difference to my life :)

At the end of the day, it is the people you meet and the people you interact with, who shape the person you are! So, shall we catch up at LaMakaan? :)