Home Sweet Home and the Crossroad Blues.....

My kaka tried real hard to ensure that I dont go home on 31st May.He kept on calling maa and made up stories about how careless, irresponsible I am and how I criticized their food .My mom actually got convinced that I told kakima that Mujhse vegetarian khaana nahi khaaya jayega, mere liye baahar se chicken mangaao. IPL was coming to an end and the week was so peaceful because kaka was in NYC. And then he came back .....again....

In the end ,I managed to go to Allahabad by some train called Jharkhand Express from Old Delhi Railway Station. Now Old Delhi is literally old and dilapidating. Its the kinda place which foreigners call "Real India", the Travel and Living people usually show these scenes with the tabla and sitar playing in the background. Its such a cultural shock going there from a place like South Ex. The station itself brings you straight into Bihar from Delhi. I didnt know my berth and the train guys didnt bother to put up the reservation list, so I made the mistake of asking kaka to find out from Indian Railways website what my PNR status was from the station. He went something like ,"Shirsesh Nath Bhaduri, age 19 years , train Jharkhand Express, Ticket number xxxxxxxxxxx, going from Delhi to Allahabad, sex male, ..........................................................................................................................................., status confirmed seat number 2 coach B1"...5minutes of bullshit crap just to piss me off.This is my kaka for you.

Had an amazing weekend at home.

Came back on Monday morning and when I went into my room I was surprised to find high heel sandals, flowers, female clothes all over my bed. For a moment I wondered if I was in the right room and then kakima came and took me out.Turns out her sisters were sleeping there that night.Rushed to the office, did the normal work.

Now I was in a dilemma...whether to continue working on the imagegalleries,footers and the WAP sites or to work on PAL.

Shrikanth said I should make it very clear what I wanted to do. Now this was a sticky situation.If I refused to work on the imagegalleries and stuff I piss off Indraneel and if I work on it I learn just the technicalities of Digital Media and not really the marketing stuff I was here for.It was then that MrSanjay Kailash , Indraneel's boss stepped in and the doubts went away.

Mr Kailash is kaka's oldest and closest buddy. Infact they both lost their first job at the Kashmir hotel together.He also happens to be an Army Kid. He and my kaka, have come a long way since. He now lives in a penthouse in Gurgaon and drives an Endeavour.Kaka says it is indecent to discuss salaries but both Mr Kailash and kaka earn such mind boggling amounts that you cant help discussing it.I'll not discuss it here though. Touch wood.

Mr Kailash said, Dude, you arent going to "learn" marketing in 1month, neither can you contribute to our company in that period, what you can do is learn whatever is coming your way,anything and everything.As a beginner you are the lowest level of food chain.

I decided I'll do both.

World Cup heat was on. Now the three of us had an extra work of making player and team profiles, finding pictures of all players and sizing them.Usually it takes about 3weeks to do this job. Indraneel forgot telling us about this work before so, we had 3 days instead.Those three nights I hardly slept. Kept on updating the things till it was over.We managed to complete it. All our dinners at the best restaurants helped in a big way I would say, but therez something wrong with these North Indians.Why are all of them, almost all of them, vegetarian???How can someone have Paneer and tofu in Mainland China when the prawns and the crabs on the buffet are visually flirting with you??I mean, Mr Kausal , a sikh guy, was also vegetarian. Now thats abnormal. Managed to polish off whatever was served, though.

Almost the entire office was going to England to watch the matches. The funny bastard wasnt. Seeing him gossip about how someone junior than him will to go to England and why he can't go was the funniest part of my stay there. The travel desk was adjacent to our workstation and everyone who was going used to come to the Traveldesk guy for tickets ,Visa etc. Funny bastard being so popular , they used to chat with him while getting their work done. OH you should have seen the look on his face.

Kosal carried on leaving on time .His philosophy was simple- Give me work or I leave on time.

This didnt go down well with the funny bastard and said a little something to Indraneel over dinner about Kosal's habit. Next day ,Kosal got an ass whooping. Funny Bastard even came to Udai and said, Tu itne din se hai yahaan hai, you are senior to Kosal,usse kaam karaa nahi to tujhko kaam karna padega,dekhle tujhiko exploit karte hai sab.... Udai replied," Aapko kaam karaana hai to kaaraa lo, main jiska boss nahi hoon usko order nahi dunga.".... Funny bastard never said anything about Kosal to Udai again...

The Happy Bong's Story and the legend of Funny bastard

So now there were three interns left.Udai, Kosal and me.

Udai, is a very smart and likeable guy.When Kosal and I werent there,thanks to a sudden resignation of an employee in Digital Media team, the three interns, then ,had to handle the work. Vishnu and Prachi were too busy in the 10min work they took all day to complete, and thats when Udai stepped in and delivered. Everyone says , he might just be the first intern ever to get a PPO, pre placement offer for the uninformed. Atleast we three were very friendly with each other and shared happily each other's work, a healthy environment to work I would say.

When Mr Nakul, the weirdo left , I shifted to his position ie.between Mr Kaushal and the happy bong.

Mr Kaushal Dhingra, is a very healthy( "look who is talking ",anyone????) Punjabi who likes his aaloo ka paranthas with loads of ghee.When he came to know that I live enroute , he offerd me a lift from ITO ,some 10 min from our place. He is a little fucked up when it comes to technical things.I had to write down the "Steps to follow" for posting a scrap on Orkut. I am tempted to write the steps down here, seriously it would make a hilarious reading, but he has been so good to me so I would refrain from making him the laughing stock.

The happy bong is very humorous. Being the only Graphics designer in the office, he usually very busy before events like the T20 World Cup which was round the corner. So obviously he was very busy. He is very funny, seriously. Even jokes that class3 kids say, evoke such a response when he says them. He is witty and a very popular guy in the office. People say, those who speak much are "dil ka saaf". This is where it changes and the myth of "dil ka saaf", gives way to a slimy, witty ,funny bastards that he is.

Shrikanth and Indranil are not in very good terms. Indraneel is his boss, so obviously he wins the arguments. I am a little biased towards Shrikanth , I agree, but then I haven't seen him doing anything wrong to anybody so far. He is so patient with everyone and when he saw me reading a "How to make a business Plan" thingy, he took me to his workstation and taught me everything. I dont know if he is a good employee or a smart corporate , but he is very decent for sure and if I have to take sides I'll definitely be on his.

Pre World Cup , saw very hectic times. I started staying at the office late hours. I didnt mind it actually because I was working and staying late for work also earned me a free dinner and a ride back home in a chauffeur driven AirConditioned car, a better mode of transport than DTC anyday.

Now group discussions between the happy bong, Indraneel and Shrikanth were usually aggresive. Our team being the only tean that stayed so late, they had the priviledge of having loud discussions without anyone knowing about the rifts.

Mr Indraneel shifted close to our workstation for some days because of obvious reasons. He could get his work done as and when it came.Now Shrikanth sits at a distance.

It is here that I came to know about office politics and the legend of funny bastard was getting clearer.

I would like to think I am a good friend. Shrikanth and the happy bong were very good friends. When our profs scolds or speaks against my friends I feel my defending my friend is my duty. Happy Bong added more masala to it.

He would say a little something, that does not qualify as speaking "against" him but does the damage anyways.

for example if something hasnt been done and Shrikanth could not get the production team to speak, Indranil would get very angry and say something ,which is understood. The happy bong would say something like ," Bechaara bahut rude hai yeh , isliye koi iski baat nahi maanta", almost as if he is so sad that Shrikanth isnt good at getting work done.

When Soumya said that she is a Tangerine employee posted at ESPN, but all her interview and recruitment was done by Indraneel, he said... "Tu employee nahi hai ESPN ki, tereko Tangerine ka experience milega, jahaan jayegi ESPN ka brand nahi milega"....Obviously this got her worried and she asked Indraneel about it. Indraneel is not a very patient listener, he went offfensive. The happy bong ,was giggling when she got the scolding.So now he isnt Happy Bong anymore , he is the Funny bastard

Weekend at Blu O and the "real" thing

This weeked was much better.Yuvraaj Nopany ,a college buddy who shares with me a disappointment we both will never forget,and I decided to go to out together and do some bowling.We decide to go to Blu O, the biggest bowling alley in the country and the only alley with 24 lanes.Situated in Ambience Mall, which also happens to have superlative records of some sorts ,it has a pub,a cool sitting area and a serves international cuisines. Took a DTC from Karol Bagh and reached the place.

The place totally rocked.I mean I havent seen hot chicks in numbers like these.Nopany and I were "looking around", if you know what that means.As usual ,this place was very expensive. Suryansh ,my cousin, said he has been here before for a birthday party.a birthday party here??? I mean , even a breezer costs some 200 bucks, and a birthday???.....Rich people

Nopany and I started imagining a place like this in Kgp. The only spoiler being the long queues for the bowling thing. So we thought ,lets just check this place out and later forgot about bowling.It was too expensive anyways. We later went to the PVR Gold Class and watched a pathetic film.I dont remember the name.It was some bullshit about apocalypse and things like that.We both were laughing at the climax ,apparently a very serious and sad moment in the film.

The next day, Vishnu and Prachi left.I was supposed to do their work.Prachi's work was essentially to write and send footers, a cross promo ,ESPN does with each sport update it sends.I was now handling it.But the work hardly required at max 10 mins.Wonder,how she passed her time.Vishnu gave me a basic idea of how to upload pictures in the WAP sites image gallery.It was only later that I realised that he told me virtually nothing, as I took 3-4 days to understand the nitty gritties, a lesson learnt -noone gives you the details, everyonez here to impress, and as a replacement your doing a good job would take away some credit from his efficiency.Anyways, the image galleries are working now.

I met another intern called Kosal, from MICA. He is the guy who inspired me to listen to music in the office. He hated Vishnu's habit of staying late.He said, Vishnu stayed late because he started working late.Our boss likes people staying late in the office anyways. I was doing both ,Vishnu's and Prachi's work and still had so much time left.I am not praising my efficiency here, neither am I commenting on their efficiency. I am pointing to the habit of staying late in the office just to impress your boss and to have the free dinner and the free ride home. Kosal said he had been a victim of a similar practice at the place he worked before. What this practice did was ,it forced people who had a life outside office to sit in the office and do no/very little work. I found Kosal's point of view very logical and resolved to leave the office on time if I had no work.

Sent my first footers. Mr Indraneel said they were good and I was like so happy that day- my first compliment :) .

On wednesday, Mr Indraneel said, "Dekho partner, aaj raat rukna padega". I had no work anyways.Even Kosal was staying back. Had some work and after all of us were done with the work, Mr Indraneel took us out for dinner to Pind baluchi, a good restaurant I was told. They were playing 80s rock ,just the kinds I listen to.And everyone was going- This dude has a rock band as well, and I almost raised my hand to wave at my new fans, a total "Thank you Thank you ,it was not possible without you guys, muhhaaa, muhhaaa" kinda moment.

There was this lady in the team as well.I hadnt seen her before.Her name is Soumya, an erstwhile TV reporter for Sahara and now the Producer of Mobile ESPN. She was pissed off for some reason.Learnt later , that she was forced to have dinner, she wanted to leave early.She had some occassion in her family. As my uncle says, THATS CORPORATE LIFE

Thursday and Friday..nothing much....But the weirdo

Things happen to you in Kgp.You change.Your taste changes.Last night at a party met few women from kake's office.Now he said , girls are not really very "smokin hot" types in his office.I thought they were pretty good.You saw the change.A 40 year old guy, an age when guys are supposed to transform into flirty birdies ,has better standards.Now thats what I am talking about.

Vishnu and Prachi were leaving this week.Took the brief. Learnt photoshop for helping the happy bong.

Remember the smart corporate guy I was sitting opposite to, on my first day.He looked like a very decent guy.Met him in the office.Man!!!Appearances deceive.He is more boring than the biggest nerd in my college.He was sitting between Mr Kaushal ,(an employee of some other company posted at ESPN, a very helpful guy, someone who started giving me lifts to the office when he came to know I live enroute) and the happy bong, who happens to be a very busy guy,because he is the only graphics designer in the office .Now this guy apparently is very impressed with his own mimicry skills.Apparently one day he went to the happy bong and said something like......Pushpa,I hate tears Pushpa,tu mat ro....And the happy bong gave the typical delhi-ite respoinse----- Abey teri maa ki _______, Pushpa kaun hai be,agli baar aisa sunaya na to you'll be having tears.

In another such incident, he went to Vishnu and did Sunil Shetty's mimicry.Then he asked Vishnu ,kyun bhai kaisi lagi??....Vishnu being a very polite guy said, "Bahut acchi thi, magar kiski thi yaar?"

He apparently went to MrKaushal and said, "Siiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrr, kal raat ko night fall ho gaya".....Kaushal ,otherwise a very good guy was so furiuous that day.

On his first day he added every guy in the vicinity to his, Facebook,Orkut, Gtalk account.The happy bong was like ,"Tereko kyun doon bey apna id".

I came to know later that he used to use the office phone for his trunk calls,which went on for an hour or so.

On his last day he clicked pics with almost every guy in the office and even added the pics on his Orkut account the same day.

His last day was celebrted in the department. Everyone was going ,"Siiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrr" , that day.

But Mr Nakul,the guy we are talking of here was a pakaa chipkoo.

Mr Kaushal was even more furious the other day....Mr Nakul , gave him a call at 3am saying, "Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrr, Main pahuch gaya sir,aap Chandigarh kab aa rahe ho..Aapko dekhne ke liye NAYAN TARSE" (that was his favourite song)

Conversation

Indraneel: HI...Whats your name?

Me: I am Shirsesh Nath Bhaduri

Indraneel:Sorry...I didnt get it...Can someone be louder please

Me:Shirsesh Nath Bhaduri ,SIR

I:What did I ask you when we met yesterday?

M:If I was hanging around ,sir

I:What did you say?

M:I said yes

I:Why didnt you stay then?

M:I thought you came to my workstation and spoke to me

I:You what?

M:I thought

I:Now dont repeat the same sentence again, I aint deaf

M:Alright

I:The most important thing in business is communication.If you cant communicate, you cant do business.If you cant speak ,you are dumb....If you cant follow orders,you are out...if you cant listen, thats the door(pointing to the door)

M:(turning around to see the door)

I:What are you studying?

M:Engineering at IIT KGP

I:What re you doing here then?

M:I wanted to see how corporates work

I:Why are we animals and is this a zoo?

M:Because I want to know if I fit in the zoo...oops...place sir

I:What do you want to do?

M:Want to be an entrepreneur(same old story about the restaurant and crap)

I:I dont think this place looks like a restaurant ,does it?

M:Yea,its brighter out here...(then realsied he wasnt looking for an answer)..Oh no not at all sir (Obviously, was that even a question,huh)

I:You want to have restaurants and you are working in a sports channel to learn how to do that..Now thats logical

M:Sir I want to corporatise restaurant business.Make it professional, an institution, something like the change Bansals brought to Coaching class business.(I thought that was a good answer, learnt my lesson I guess)

I:What have you done so far?

M:Made a presentation for Mr Shrikanth on PAL.And took the brief from Vishnu ,Prachi and Udai.Downloaded Opera, the browser for WAP sites

I:Oh Opera is all bullshit

M:Right sir

I:So I gather you have been whiling away time at the office,working on the net and nothing else.I want some good productive work and I expect my team to stay here till 8pm ,ATLEAST

M:Yes Sir

I:Leave

The first weekend and the "firsts" that followed

The first weekend was quite.Went to IITD to meet friends and Kakima said the cafetaria there is amazing. Rs30 for a pitcher in Delhi, thats like truly amazing. Kake and kakima invited some "frands" for a "gat togather".Awesome dinner that night.Frankly, a respite from the "dal-chawal" they were feeding me with.What am I ?? Some herbivore cow.Had chicken for the first time there.Kake you should have thought about it ,"bud-dy".
Monday, day 6.....Met Shrikanth again, discussing my "observations" on the PAL website.As it turned out ,most of my observations were very obvious.Crap man!!
He asked me to make a wishlist and present it to him,my first presentation.
Did that the following day.Not bad ,he said.
Just as I was leaving, he said he'll introduce me to the Head of Digital Media.And this is where my "real" experience kick off.
Mr Indranil Aikat, he rose from a post of "Senior Manager" to the post of "Associate Director" level in just 11 months.Kake said his boss is like super impressed with him. A bong , he happens to know kaka as well.He is tall, unmarried,workaholic who likes to have all his meals in the office, late dinners included.Nothing wrong in that, but you know there are married people in the department as well, who might feel like having their dinner at home too.So from a phase of "no-work-all-day", I was being shifted to a department with "all-work-no-play".
He asked me if I was going to hang around for a while.I was about to leave, but was happy to oblige.
He came to my workstation after about 10 minutes and introduced me to Vishnu,Prachi and Udai, three other interns in the department and asked me to take the brief from them as to what I would be doing.Met another bong in the department, Mr Dibyendu Roy, a funny,humorous graphic designer.
I took the brief and left.
Next day, at the office Mr indraneel called me again.Thats where I got screwed for the first time.

Day 5- Revisited (The Obituary)

One of the darkest days of the history of my life so far.If I write an autobiography someday, there would be an entire chapter based on this episode.After all, this was the first time someone stole something from me, my dear cellphone, the phone which had all my songs, contacts,SIM which I had for like 4 years now....

It all started with the grotesque plan of kake dropping me at Andrews Ganj, the bus stop between Moolchand and South EX.Now, that day on the busy Ring Road, a roadside board or something fell on the road, causing a huge traffic problem.Obviously, buses were moving very slowly, and they were like jam-packed.They were scarce and the first bus that was going to Dhaula Kuan was a blue line one and was carrying anywhere between 100-120 passengers, all managing to breathe, somehow.Apparently, this bus though is supposed to go till Dhaula Kuan, its final stop is Munirka some 2km from Dhaula Kuan.No ,heres the thing, blue line conductors NEVER say the truth.They wont lie but not say the truth either.So if you ask them Bhaiyya Dhaula Kuan jayega????.....They will say something like Haan, walking distance hoga,2 rupaye mein pahuch jaoge wahaan se.It took me Rs7 from there to Dhaula Kuan and Rs7 atleast 5-6 kilometres.

Now, to take my laptop to work I needed a backpack.Kake se kaha, Boss backpack de.He carries merchandise of all companies he has worked in.The number of companies he has worked in being large, he indeed has a lot of freee ka maal.Infact ,I remember when he came to our place in Ambala I had asked him Dude aapka chaddhi bhi Microsoft ka hai , ya woh kharida tha??...He had a Microsoft ka brand new backpack. Apun ne maar liya woh bag.

This bag is good looking and one of the straps it has this pouch for mobile phones.

Yes, you guessed it, when I boarded the bus from Munirka, I realised the pouch was missing.I lost my phone.

At office , pinged Kake, told him.This was the best news he could have ever had.The chance to get my mother mad at me.This anti-christ ,satanic guy immediately called mom and said something like ,Aapke nalayak bete ne mobile phek diya kahi pe...Kyun dete ho us nalayak ko... phone-wone.

My mother and kakes clashes are legendary.At times I really thought kaka came to our place to entertain himself by arguing with mom and seeing her face go red with anger.

This moment was his idea of maximum fun. Added some other garam masala to how I lost the phone, combined with my idea of hiring a bike to ride to work, idea of driving his car to work, made Mom, really really angry.

Mom probably went something like this

Papa, din raat desert mein war-game mein khoon pasina ek karke itni cheezein laake dete hai aur yeh ladka sab udaa deta hai.Nikaal do isko apne ghar se, khaana dena chod do, kapde dhulwao, neeche sulao, apni car saaf karwao, jhaaadu pochaa lagwao is nalayak se.She went on and on.

Kaka was underestimating my mother.Her reaction was very very serious, so much so that he actually ended up defending me.

Mobile hi to ghoom kiya bechaare ne

Thats my fiesty, fiery mom.She made my kaka go soft on me