Thursday, January 27, 2011

127 Hours - Rock Solid


"This rock... this rock has been waiting for me my entire life. It's entire life, ever since it was a bit of meteorite a million, billion years ago. In space. It's been waiting, to come here. Right, right here" -127 Hours

There comes a time in our lives when we are forced to evaluate all those decisions we had taken, the people we chose to ignore, the phone calls we never attended, the texts and e-mails we never responded to, when we nonchalantly brushed away the concern and love they had for us with no regrets. We never go through such self-catharsis when things look bright for us, when everything clicks, we do it when we are down in the dumps, when we are stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place, the title of the novel the movie is based on. 127 Hours is more than just a triumphant story of one man, it shows more than just the man's will to survive, it not just shows him as a man who overcame all odds, but it also shows him in his most vulnerable, someone who wants all those chances back to make his friends and family feel special but never could because he was too self-involved and busy living life on his own terms.

Danny Boyle's "127 Hours" is based on a true story of Aron Ralston who had shockingly survived a little more than five days wedged between a rock deep within the cracks of Utah's Blue John canyon. Stuck between a rock into the cracks of the earth, and with no traces of any living being around Aron is forced to look back at all those moments he had spent with his family and friends, people from whom he had distanced himself, as he slowly comprehends the value of those people who had showered him with love and care. Things go great for Aron at the start, as a free-spirited charming mountain biking adventurer he encounters two lost trekkers Kristi and Megan and introduces them to the canyon which he calls as his "second home". He takes them to places and crevices which one could never imagine existing in the vast canyon, he charms them with his zest for life, he introduces them to his style of care-free, risk taking life as he slides between crevices splashing into an aquatic body that seems to surface out of nowhere. It all goes wrong for him when on his lone expedition he falls into a deep crevice with his hand sandwiched by a rock. Out in the middle of nowhere underneath the earth with his water and food supplies running out, Aron is pushed to the extreme by a stoic and unrelenting rock which refuses to budge even a millimeter.

With some brilliant photography, smart camerawork and slick editing, the movie has a racy feel to it. Boyle keeps the viewers hooked to the proceedings as he introduces us to Aron Ralston, brilliantly played by James Franco. Aron is introduced as a happy-go-lucky adventurer, unafraid to venture into the unknown. There is always a smile on his face even after a stumble leads him to fall off violently from his bike, he savors every moment of his adventure, a testament to which is that he clicks a picture of himself after the fall from his bike. The hand-held camera that tapes Aron's ordeal into the pit lends a "live" feeling to it, none of it seems edited, it all feels raw and real, more the reason to feel an empathy for Aron. Aron's care free attitude is slowly replaced by that of fear as he slowly comes to terms with the fate that will be meted out to him within the pit. With an arm stuck in a rock and not much to work with, Aron uses every tool at his disposal, he uses a blunt Chinese knife, a poor replacement for a Swiss Army Knife which was out of his reach as he packs his bag in the opening scene of the movie. You only wonder what if had he found his Swiss Knife?


With each passing minute seeming like an hour Aron pleads, wrestles, curses the rigid rock but to no avail. As a caged man isolated from the outside world, Aron undergoes all those feelings and emotions that one takes for granted- thirst, hunger, love and for a brief moment lust. He reflects on all those little events and people his life had shaped around, people whose presence he had failed to appreciate, the sunset with his father, videotaping his sister playing the piano as a young boy, the "I love you" mouthed by his girlfriend on a blizzard amidst other half-naked friends, the breakup that happens during a game of a basketball. It all happens in a dreamlike trance as Aron suffers from lack of food and water, close to death. Aron realizes all that he has neglected in one brilliant scene where he plays a morning talk show host interviewing himself. As the cynical host he interviews Aron the man who once considered himself a hero is now cut to size as a mere mortal battling death, as he waves hello to his family and friends and tells them how much he misses them, we can feel a sign of repentance in Aron.

James Franco breathes the role of Aron, he has grown on from the Spiderman franchise we once used to relate him with. As Aron he is smart, witty, carefree yet brings a vulnerability with him once he gets stuck in the crevice. His anger and pain, joy and fear are well documented by Danny Boyle who has delivered a follow-up much better than the grossly overrated "Slumdog Millionaire". With split frames, a hand held camera, only one actor in a closed hostile surrounding to work with Boyle does a great job. He captures Franco's emotion from his anger towards a rock, to the pleasing feeling of the sun's rays warming his feet with great skill. The soundtrack of the film complements the spirit of Aron, with "If I Rise" by A.R Rahman and "Festival" by Sigur Ros celebrating the triumph of the human spirit.

127 Hours has moments which would make you squeamish, bloodied moments which portray the depths to which a man is willing to go just to break free. Aron Ralston's spirit was unbreakable as that of the rock he was stuck to. Danny Boyle and James Franco leave no stone unturned in capturing Ralston's riveting struggle for freedom and in the process appreciating his new found respect for the people close to him.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

A Breakup


A Job and a Relationship

A job is much like being in a relationship; you devote all your time, energy, and every emotion to it. It asks for your commitment, you work with a commitment, it asks for your care, you work with care. Much like in relationships, there may be times when it sails smooth and there may be times when things get rough. A job is much like a relationship because you get back what you give.

In a job just like in every relationship you ask yourself:  "Is it worth giving your heart and soul to what you believe in?"

In a relationship you ask: "Is it worth being truthful to a person whom we have met by chance?"

In a job you ask yourself: "Is it possible to keep doing the same thing every day with the same level of energy?"

In a relationship we ponder: "Is it possible to love the same person with the same enthusiasm?"

In a job you ask yourself: "Where will I be in five years from now?"

In a relationship you wonder: "Where will WE be in a few years from now?"

In a job you ask yourself: "Have I been doing this long enough to ask for a bigger role? To take it to the next level?"

In a relationship you ask: "Have I been with her/him long enough to take the plunge? To graduate from being a lover to being a spouse?"

You ask your friends, your peers, other couples for advice. If the answers to the questions above are the ones you want to hear, you decide to stay committed, with a dream that this commitment (to a job/relationship) will yield big results. If the answers are not the ones you had expected, you decide to do what you feel is right. You call off the relationship. You break up.

Falling in Love

For me it was love at first sight. When I first entered the reception of my would-be workplace there was something inside me that told me “You belong here”. Maybe because it was located in one of the most hippest tech park in the country, maybe it was the radiance and the energy the place was emitting, maybe it was the reputation and the brand name that it commanded in the market. Getting a job would earn me a few brownie points amongst my peers and friends, we all want to be hooked up with the “Prom Queen” right? And why a “Prom Queen”? Because it would improve our image amongst our peers. For me the new workplace was like a Prom Queen, someone whom I wanted to hook up with, someone whom you can show off to your friends, a name of the corporation saying which would raise eyebrows and make your friends turn green with envy. I had fallen in love with the company just like I had that crush with the new girl in my class when I was an eleven year old. It was like one of those movies where an outsider is invited to attend a wedding, and promptly falls in love with the endearing and loving family, secretly wanting to be a part of it. It was then decided that I would whore myself to any level just to get through those doors. For me Neverland was beyond those doors, and my resume held the key.

The Relationship

It started out like any other relationship. I was hopelessly in love with everything she had to offer - the ambience, the pay, the people, even the stale coffee. It was a period where I could say without no reservations that I was “married to my work”, a marriage fixed by the HR managers. I was blessed with some wonderful in-laws too, in this case my colleagues. I was in complete awe of the place, but like with any other relationship where after a given timeline the excitement level starts to come down, so did it happen with my affair with my workplace. My excitement of having the perfect job was coming down; the romance in the marriage was dying a slow death. No more had I the ache of a young lover who craved to see his beloved, the aspiration within was slowly being replaced by a feeling of monotony for continuing the same rigmarole of a job. And as the interest slowly started to die, my commitment started to take a dip. Mistakes were made like it happens in a relationship, questions were asked like it happens in a relationship, long nights were spent sleep deprived trying to mend the mistakes made, trust for a brief period of time was lost, a price was paid for a slip-up much like when a guy is caught unaware by his girlfriend for ogling at another woman. An unsatisfying job is much like a failed relationship, it ends up teaching you a lot. I learnt that a billion dollar organization is much like a gorgeous looking girl- it’s got a great reputation, it has a great package, it gives you a great job, but you tend to the do same chore every day. The best thing to do when the relationship is crumbling is to go for an honorable exit.


The Exit

The exit was carefully planned, no word of breaking up was uttered until a back-up was found after whoring myself with the same fake yet desperate enthusiasm with which I had done in my previous interview. When the deal was sealed, I told those clichéd corporate words to my superior which one does while breaking up - “We need to talk”.

With the formalities of an exit on the final stage of its completion, I returned my ID cards and my access cards to the authorities. It was like I was clipped of my wings, I was a fallen general whose stars were stripped off his shoulders, my name was deleted from the employee database and all traces of me were removed like I never existed. Final goodbyes were exchanged while fighting back tears and promises of meeting up again were made with friends, men and women whom I once met as “Colleagues” had been upgraded in my Taxonomy of Life as “Friends”. I walked through the corridors for one last time, these corridors had many stories to share, stories of employees who had carved a name for themselves and were legends within the office premises. These corridors were decorated with care for many festivities, these corridors had the laughs of employees embedded in them, it was a witness to their moments of triumph, it was a witness to their moments of despair, it was a guardian of many secrets and an alibi for many revelations. Of all the things that changed within that giant organization, it was these corridors that remained the same, strong and stoic, deprived of all emotions yet with many stories of success and failure to tell.

It did not matter if you worked for a year or for a decade, employees may come and employees may go but an organization is a behemoth that breathes on forever.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Frozen - Spine Chilling




What are the basics of a good thriller?

Neatly developed characters - Check!

An environment that plays a role as vital as the characters - Check!

A storyline so simple yet told in such a precise and crisp manner that it keeps you hooked till the end - Check!

Add all the three and voila! you are all set to make your own cocktail of a low-budget thriller without any cheap gimmicks.

Director Adam Green gets his key ingredients right and serves us a dish - Frozen. Though only ninety minutes long "Frozen" takes little time in introducing us to the premise of the story - Mount Holliston, a New England Ski Resort opened only in the weekends. The resort is visited by two best friends Dan and Lynch and Dan's girlfriend Parker, much to Lynch's chagrin who just wants to spend some "buddy time" with Dan. What was planned to be a weekend of fun and ice-skiing turns out to be a disaster as the three friends are stranded at night on a chairlift in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by snow capped mountains with the ski resort closed out till next Friday. Braving the weather, frostbite and a pack of wolves circling beneath them the three friends are forced to make life-and-death choices, the consequences of which form the rest of the movie.

Made by an independent production house "ArieScope Pictures", "Frozen" tells its tale with a sincerity and street-smart flair which is associated with such maverick establishments. It does not have any well-known stars, nor does it have any special effects. The brittle relation between Lynch and Parker is smartly built up as both the girlfriend and the best friend vie for Dan's attention. Lynch's sarcastic comments on Parker's smoking habits and more are one of the few incidents that underlines the simmering uneasiness between the two characters that slowly surfaces even before the three board the chairlift, which makes you look forward to how they will react in a backs-to-the-wall situation. 

Dan is torn between his childhood friend and his girlfriend, and his angst is well portrayed by Kevin Zegers. Emma Bell does a great job as Parker, initially shown as a wily customer who dupes a bemused chairlift operator into giving her and her "girlfriends" a chairlift ride at a lesser price, she slowly changes into a picture of a scared, confused and helpless girl who just wants to go back home and feed her pet dog. Shawn Ashmore as Lynch has the most  solid role amongst the three. As the insecure best friend he goes all out in making Parker feel unwelcome to the trip with his snide and sarcastic remarks, and at the same time shows his devotion to his friend Dan by reluctantly accepting her as a part of the trip.

With almost Eighty percent of the movie taken on a chairlift, and with only a limited boundary to be explored, cinematographer Will Barrat does a terrific job as he captures the mood of the actors, their isolated feeling and that of the nature they are pitted against in detail. With only a restricted surrounding to play with, "Frozen" could have easily lost its grip within the first forty-five minutes, but the interest is sustained throughout the film as Man's most primeval instinct, that of survival against nature is shown in gruesome acts as the characters are forced to risk their lives, love and friendship for each other. What makes your heart go out for the characters is that their innocence is shown intact even when they are faced under a life-threatening situation, as they try to take each other's mind off the disaster by talking about favorite type of cereals or Parker's pet dog. They discuss the fragility of life in a conversation regarding the 9/11 disaster wherein people had jumped off from buildings with a faint hope to save their lives. The intricacies of life and death have never been shown in such a simple yet engrossing manner in recent times. 

"Frozen" has its few disturbing moments which will make you cringe, which will make you squeam, yet never do you find the usage of it as emotionally manipulating or over-the-top. "Frozen" is a simple story of three ordinary youngsters looking out for each other, all the while fighting to survive in the toughest of conditions. Made with a lot of heart, and with a lot of grit Adam Green shows you how to tell a story by staying well within the boundaries.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Give Me a Sign!

Some of us believe in it and some of us don't, yet all of us are enamored by it. We compare ours with celebrities, we feel we share their own traits. "Hey I and George Clooney share the same sun sign!" we exclaim as if we are chosen to act in a movie alongside him. We may share the date of a celebrity but that does not mean that we share their fate. But then isn't it quite a thrill to know if we really are like what Linda Goodman has described us to be in her book?  Let's face it: we all must have read what the week holds for us as we leaf through  our Sunday newspapers, even though we know that chances of "You will have financial benefits"  or "You will fall in love" or "You will inherit a family heirloom" are highly improbable, yet we are still tempted by the curiosity of what a Linda Goodman or a Vaamanan Namboodri (the always incorrect "fortune teller" from The Week) has to tell about us.

In a culture like ours where we consult our stars when it comes from buying a car to choosing a spouse, the bizarre revelation that there are actually thirteen and not twelve zodiac signs would turn our little personal universe upside down. For me the news of hearing that "You are not a Gemini, but a Taurean" had rattled me to the core in the same way that an over-aged wig sporting hero from yesteryear Hindi movies would be when he hears from his mother "Vijay, tum hamare bete nahi ho, tumhari maa koi aur hai" (Vijay you are not my son, your mother is someone else). It was as if the universe had played a cruel joke against me, but for once I was not alone at the receiving end. 

I had grown up believing that I was a quintessential Gemini - The Twins. I had all the traits of a Gemini, I would be reserved in front of new people, I seldom spoke and when I did my voice would drown among the cacophony of others. I was very slow in making friends, it was when the Good Twin had complete control of me. It was one of those rarest occasions where I would actually think before I speak and had a Halo circled over my head. But it is among the company of the closest of my friends that the Evil Twin surfaces as out of nowhere I grow the Devil's Horns, my sense of humor would move from lewd to gross to slapstick to cynical, I would play pranks on the closest of my friends, and I would metamorphose from the Mama's Nerdish Boy to the prankster with a  devil-may-care attitude. How cool is it to have two people residing within you who are the exact opposite of each other? Not many... hell NONE of the Zodiac signs offer you that kind of package. JFK, Johnny Depp, and the Big Daddy of them all Mithun Da ("Mithun" = Gemini in Hindi ) were all Geminis. JFK was enigmatic, Johnny Depp is a chameleon and Mithun Da is a bit of both (and you can't deny that!).  If the reports are to be believed then my new sun sign would be Taurus. 

It is a tough ask to STOP behaving like a Gemini and to START acting like a Taurean, you don't read Linda Goodman and say "That is how she has described a Virgo, so it is time I got my virginity back!". That is much like going to bed as a man and then waking up as a woman, which would mean I would have to stop shaving and start waxing, and that too regularly. A change in sun-sign means a change in almost every aspect of a Gemini that was embedded in me since birth. A change in my character, a change in my tastes, a change in my fate, a change in my email id which means gemofagemini@yahoo.co.in will be replaced by turbulenttaurean@yahoo.co.in. It would also mean a change in my fortunes, so if in 2011 as a Gemini I was predicted to have a promotion at work, then that would be struck off the list and will be replaced by a Taurean's "You will be diagnosed with goiter", which means I better start eating more salt.


Why I don't want to be a Taurean and stay as a Gemini

Taureans are identified as people who are

Patient and Reliable - That I am NOT. I may be patient which may occasionally be displayed when I am in a queue to book a railway ticket. But reliable I am not, you cannot rely on me to proofread your thesis on "The Effect of Global Warming on World Economy" and give you timely feedbacks, you cannot even rely on me to send you the snaps I had taken at a birthday party the other day.

Persistent and Determined - I always believed in the Homer Simpson theory: "If something's hard to do, then it is not worth doing at all". I have been labeled as a Serial Quitter, something which I don't deny. I have quit full-time courses, I have quit part-time courses, I have not even spared Distance Education courses, because I always believed in maintaining a safe distance from any sort of education, be it high school education or sex education.

The Taurean Professional - It is written that a Taurean can make good bankers, architects, bureaucrats, auctioneers, chemists, insurance people compare that to a Gemini's profession who are mostly debaters (JFK), diplomats, authors, poets, journos, teachers. Which one of the two professions is the most yawn inducing? Clearly not a Gemini. A Taurean Profession asks for a stability that is as stable as a flatline recorded on a deceased patient's cardiograph. I am on the verge of moving on to a third job in less than eighteen months, stability is not my kind of ability.

Compatibility - This probably is the only aspect of a Taurus that I am willing to embrace.  Having barked under the wrong tree all these years after having made to believe that a Gemini's perfect compatible partner could either be a Leo, Libra, Aquarius or an Aries, I now have to start from a clean slate by searching for women who are compatible with Taureans. "What's your Rashee?" will be my conversation starter hereon with members of the opposite sex.

The last yet a prime reason why I wish to stay a Gemini and not a Taurean is that I always get a spelling error whenever I type "Taurean".

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Black Swan - A Surreal Transformation



                                          I was perfect... - Nina Sayers


We live our lives seeking for perfection in whatever we do, even in the smallest of jobs. Athletes seek perfection in their performance, actors in their acting, musicians in their music. A job of an artist is one of the toughest, since theirs is a kind of job that is viewed and talked about by millions. Artists go to mind boggling limits to attain that perfect moment in their artistry, in the process forgetting the fact that perfection is just a state of the mind, it is just an opinion that may differ from one person to another. They immerse themselves in their quest for perfection so much so that they fail to realize the line that starts to blur between illusion and reality. And who better to showcase that blurring of lines than Darren Aronofsky? The man who had provided a new lease of life to a then-struggling Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, the man who had directed one of the most depressing and heart-breaking films ever made- Requiem for a Dream, is now back with the brilliant Natalie Portman (V for Vendetta, Leon) in the psychological thriller Black Swan, which could probably be the highlight of both their star-studded careers if it wins major awards at this year's Academy awards.

Black Swan tells the story of a shy and gullible Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), a talented ballet dancer from the New York City Ballet company who is chosen to play the lead role of both the White Swan and the Black Swan in "Swan Lake" under the direction of the demanding and relentless Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel). Leroy finds her to be perfect for the role of the White Swan since she has the natural innocence, grace and purity that requires to be portrayed in the role, but he voices his doubts over her portrayal of the Black Swan - a role that requires her to transform into seductive and deceptive temptress. The weight of living both the roles, coupled with the pressure of her domineering mother (Barbara Hershey) and the fear of losing her role to a stunning, bold and sexually preying fellow dancer Lily (Mila Kunis) sends her into a state of paranoia where the mind plays tricks with her senses, and also with that of the viewers.


Darren Aronofsky takes us into an art form which has never been explored extensively in recent times, that of ballet dancing. As the initial few moments of the film unfold we are introduced to the rigorous and relentless rehearsals that ballet performers put themselves through while risking their bodies. Dance steps like the on-point step where ballet dancers rotate their bodies fluidly on support of their toes could leave you in awe and in admiration of this strenuous dance form. Longevity is something of utmost importance in an art form like ballet which requires their performers to remain in pristine and supple condition and on top of their game. Nina is touted as the next big thing by Leroy, as he selects her for the part of the Swan Princess overlooking a has-been suicidal prima donna Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder) who unable to bear the rejection launches a tirade on an aghast Nina. 

Darren Aronofsky deftly handles the transformation of Nina from the reserved and sexually repressed White Swan that she is, to the cunning, charged-up, malicious Black Swan which Leroy wants to see in Nina on stage. There are disturbing scenes aplenty in the movie that underline the birth of the Black Swan within her. Obsessed with breaking her Miss Goody-Two-Shoes image to fit into the role of the Black Swan, Nina goes on a night out with Lily experimenting with sex and drugs letting out that dark side within her. She transforms from the obedient Mama's girl to a violent, moody, vengeful woman who would stop at nothing to achieve that perfection in her role of the White Swan and Black Swan even if it results in her distortion of illusion and reality. This clearly is Natalie Portman's role of a lifetime, and one could think of no one else who could have played the role with such conviction. She has put her body, mind and soul to live the role of a troubled ballet dancer, which is translated convincingly on screen as she looks every bit of a lithe ballet dancer. As a viewer you feel sorry for the naive and simple Nina as she is bullied by her peers, by her overbearing mother, and by the manipulative Leroy. But as Nina slowly transforms into the deadly Black Swan your pity for her turns into a shock making you wonder on whatever happened to that gullible girl you had seen on screen a while back.


It is not only Natalie Portman's portrayal that makes this feel like an opera, but also Clint Mansell, an Aronofsky regular who lends an opera-like feeling to the movie with his background score. She is ably supported by Vincent Cassel (Eastern Promises) as Thomas Leroy who brings a meanness and uncompromising trait of a director who expects perfection from his players. The sexy Mila Kunis is a perfect foil to Nina as she oozes a sensuality and boldness which is lacking in Nina, Barbara Hershey plays her role of an understanding, over-caring yet strict Erica Sayers with aplomb. Winona Ryder (Edward Scissorhands) is scary and intimidating as Beth Macintyre in her blink-and-miss role of a washed out ballet dancer. Darren Aronofsky with great hand-held camera work, and dark and gloomy settings creates a feeling of paranoia around Nina who feels like she is being followed and is under threat of having her role sabotaged by Lily.


Black Swan is not meant for everyone, it has a dark and disturbing theme that shows us a  woman dedicated to her art, is searching for perfection by venturing into her dark side only to loose touch with reality. It has a partly surrealistic setting which leave the viewers flummoxed with what unfolds on the screen. There may be questions which will be left unanswered by the time the end credits roll thanks to its abstract narration. It is not your regular popcorn movie where all the loose ends are tied conveniently for your understanding, since that is how an Aronofsky movie works. Black Swan could well be the movie that fetches the much deserved honors in this award season to Natalie Portman, who has refreshingly reinvented herself in every role that she has played, since a twelve-year old Mathilda in Leon, to a quirky and adventurous girl-next-door in Garden State, to an angst-ridden mother torn between two men in Brothers. With Black Swan, Natalie Portman has effectively transformed from a demure Duckling to a graceful Swan Princess.


Trailer: Black Swan

For Your Reference


It is said that joy when shared doubles in value. And it is true, when you share your happiness with your friends and family you realize that it was worth sharing. There are many such things which one can share with their friends. Joy when shared is doubled, sorrow when shared is halved, love when shared increases manifold. A man can share many things with his friends, except his underwear, his woman and the most important of them all : his job.

We always believe that it is a luxury to have a close friend of ours at our workplace. Many of us have our friends from school and college working with us under the same roof. It brings us a sense of security to have our close confidants within our reach, someone with whom we can bitch about our colleagues and bosses, someone with whom we can rant on the complexities of an MS-Excel ( I am still figuring out on how to use the VLOOKUP function), someone who can give us an introduction or a number, whichever is easier to get, of that pretty girl you have been secretly ogling at who works in his/her team. The organization you work for acknowledges this need of an individual to be working with his/her close friends and have come up with what we know as The Referral Scheme, where you refer a friend to your HR and they after an interview process hire them. Its the case of killing two birds with one stone, or in other words nailing two beautiful women with one.... you get the picture right? At the end of the day, your company gets a "resource" which can be "resourced" upon, and you get a friend in a world which is infested with sharks, foxes and vixens. And also, you get a referral bonus for screwing up your friend's life by suggesting them a job at your workplace and sharing your misery.

I always feel that there ought to be some guidelines for referring a friend at the referral scheme, guidelines which may not be charted out by the HR team because we live in an era where one can get a job if s/he just knows to type. And that is what they are looking for, someone who atleast knows to type if not anything else. Yet, we should not get carried away by this criteria, we need to look a few steps ahead to see if they are suitable for the job. We need to have our own mental assessment of our friends before we refer them to our company.

S/he is suitable for the job if:

a. S/he is not as smart as you, on the contrary it would be even better if s/he is dumber than you. Because after a point of time, you would really not want to work under someone whom you have referred.

b. S/he is willing to forsake their lives by working their asses off and are also willing to put in extra hours at work if and when required.... without complaining.

c. S/he does not whine and moan incessantly about the job they have or the unfairness that is doled out to them, because nobody has got the time to listen to all that. We are too busy meeting our targets. We may hear them out for old time's sake while nodding our heads and saying "Tch tch... that is sad yaar" while actually we are thinking about what to write in the minutes of a meeting where we had no idea what was being discussed because we had spent half our time trying to stifle our yawn all the while acting interested. We can only hear their problems, but do we really listen to them? No we don't.

d. S/he should not expect you to accompany them to the office pantry or the office restroom whenever they feel like drinking a cup of stale coffee or to take a leak as a result of the stale coffee they just had.

A gender exception for the last point.

e. He should not be good looking and wittier than you because you do not want him to be the stud (read: pricks) that gets to hang out with the pretty girl(s) at the office for whom you had been harboring feelings since the last financial quarter.

We have heard of many such stories where friendships have been soured between two friends owing to the pressure and responsibilities experienced at their common workplace. One cannot look forward to the expectations in a relationship that was forged in a world outside the office to be carried out within the walls of the office. In an office you are too busy looking after yourself, a friend falls second in the priority list. There may be cases where you may love your work and may go ga-ga over all the freedom and opportunities it offers, but the same opinion may not be shared by your friend thus causing a difference of opinion. You may have the most honest of intentions while referring them, but then, there may come a time when they feel that they have been given a raw deal wherein what they expected from the job did not match with what they have been presented, thus damaging all your noble intentions of seeing them work alongside you. 

A referral bonus is the amount paid to you as an acknowledgment for having referred your friend to the company. I may feel good that I am making a little extra out of referring my friends and also that I am helping them to eke out a living. But then, when I think of my workplace threatening to sabotage our relationship I feel that I am better off forwarding them mails of opening in other companies rather than the ones in mine. I may not earn that referral bonus, but I'm atleast saving a relationship.

Monday, January 3, 2011

There is Something About Baby

There is something about a baby, that angelic rascal whose sight can make the most staunchest of hearts melt. They eat a lot, crap a lot, leak unannounced and cannot speak their baby-dialect without forming a froth of bubble and spit all over their mouth. They cry out loud, they cry out without shedding tears, they wake up at odd hours with a shrill cry, and the most scariest of all their traits is that they know no fear. They are the most easiest to please, they have no demands except they need to be fed on time. They are easily entertained- all you have to do is take them in your arms and sway them from left to right, up and down. It is their very presence, the need to please them that makes matured and sane men and women act crazy as they contort their face in different shapes making sounds which one could never imagine be created from the voice box all with a hope of seeing the apple of their eye flash a toothless grin.

The "Awww-so-cute!" Factor

They are great chick magnets, which woman would not want a man who is good with kids? It is a tried and tested formula where once you upload a picture of any toddler on Facebook you can see a dozen women clicking on the "like" button, of which half a dozen of them would post a comment beginning with "awww.... so cute!".

There is a saying that a baby is God's incarnation, what with all the joy s/he brings in our home it seems to be true. But there is also a saying which says that:

A baby is an angel whose wings decrease as his legs increase - Author Unknown

Trouble begins when the baby grows into a kid and when they grow as kids, as it goes with human evolution; they are bestowed with the power of reasoning. They begin to have an opinion on everything, and they start asking questions for which adults have no answers, they try to grow too big for their shorts. They are gifted with Man's most primitive curse of all: that of needs and wants which when unfulfilled is followed by tantrums that involves a long face, sentimental movie dialogues from Yash Chopra/Karan Johar movies (production houses that employ the same kind of kids to act in clichéd bratty roles) to make parents feel guilty and the most powerful weapon of all - a wailing that is followed by stomping the feet on the ground. There are some who bite the bullet and give in to their tantrums, there are some who try to pacify the kids by sweet talking to them of which the little twats take excessive advantage, but there are a very few of the third kind - those who give them a sound and proper hiding. A hiding every now and again will ensure that they never cross the line. The brat pack of Calvins, Bart Simpsons and Dennis all seem adorable only in comic strips or T.V shows but not in real life. The baby that seemed to be the embodiment of an angel would have shed its wings and grown onto be a tantrum throwing devil incarnate.

How we all would have wished that they never grow up and remained as babies which were a miniature version of the Michelin Man. Babies are pure, they have no malice and they don't judge. They have no needs and find joy in the smallest of things be it the sound of their rattle or a rag tag stuffed doll which is their best friend, they trust you to catch them when you throw them up in the air, they sleep with no worry in the world, they hold your fingers tight with their tiny little hands. Their laughter is the first thing you want to listen to when you return home from a tough day at work, they look at you with eyes wide open and try to converse with you in a language which you wish you spoke. They do not ask for much, all they ask for is to feel the warmth of your hand and the touch of your skin.

Kevin Pietersen the English Cricketer has a reputation of being a fierce competitor on the cricket field, he is a man with a larger than life persona. A man who is considered hard to tame and tough to reason with, an arrogant sportsman who seems infallible and invulnerable when he is on song. Yet, when he is in the presence of his infant child he is stripped of his arrogance and his superstar image. For his child he is just another caring and loving father who has big plans for his kid. He falls prey to his son's spontaneous and unselfish love which is embedded in the tiny heart of every toddler. He fondly refers to his son as "the little man" in his tweets, for it is these little people who make us feel BIG!