Shubham Choudhary's Blog, page 8

In conversation with: The relationship guy!

When I talk about the blockbusters this blog has given, three names that come to my mind are In conversation with: A married guy (co-author Anil Sharma), The real resume of a girl (co-author Shubham Khandelwal) and The Facebook relationship (that’s just me )

All three not only won people’s hearts but managed to be liked by the critics as well. Not to mention they also bagged tangy Tuesday and spicy Saturday awards by Blogadda. So this article, is my sole attempt to recreate what I did with Anil Sharma is the article mentioned first. This time, we’re in conversation with a guy who just got in a relationship. Without further ado, let’s introduce you to Mr. X. (He doesn’t want single girls to know his name now.)

Me: Hello Mr. X. Would you please leave your phone and join us here?

He: Oh sure. Hello everyone, love to be here.

Me: Yeah, no one came to watch you. Anyway, what were you doing there on phone? Messaging your girlfriend?

He: No, I was posting about her on twitter.

Me: Ummm… Anyway… So let’s talk about your relationship. How did it happen?

He: You know how difficult it is to get a girlfriend these days?

Me: No.

He: How would you, you don’t have one!

Me: I do.

He: But you never tweet about her! Lame! Anyway, it is difficult. I really had to put in hard work, dedication, efforts and what not!

Me: What not? Let me guess. Money, endless messages and time?

He: Who cares about time? Before her I used to watch roadies auditions all the time.

Me: I’d skip that part. Let’s get a little more personal. Was she always the one for you or it happened suddenly?

He: Suddenly. Like, in a moment.

Me: When?

He: When she said it!

Me: So you’re saying that you said yes to a girl who you didn’t feel for?

He: Look at me. Do you think I have that option?

Me: I’d agree to that! Moving on. What was the first thing you did after this love realization?

He: Posted that I am committed on Facebook.

Me: What! Ok second thing.

He: Twitter.

Me: Alright after that and Google+. Gtalk, Skype, Whatsapp and all other crap… what next?

He: What? Shouldn’t I get any sleep?

Me: Sigh! Ok, so what was her reaction after seeing all this?

He: Who?

Me: Your girlfriend? What did you think!

He: I know. Just that it feels so great when someone says ‘your girlfriend’! Well she hasn’t seen anything yet, hardly comes online!

Me: Still she chose you? So what do you think she likes in you?

He: I am really a good friend. A nice human being. With people in every condition!

Me: Wow! That’s big. Can we get any examples of those qualities?

He: Yesterday only. This girl said ‘I am really sad, mah dog hasn’t eaten anything today’ on Facebook and I commented ‘There there’.

Me: I should have seen that one coming! So tell us one thing you really like about her.

He: My friends say she is hot. Out of my league. Maybe she watches Champions league all the time, that’s why!

Me: SHE IS A FOOTBALL FAN!!!! . Ahem. Ok. That’s good to know. So is there any advice you would like to give to all the single guys there?

He: Ha! Suckers! I win!

Me: That was… umm… precise! So tell us about your love life. Any special dates?

He: Not yet. I just got committed. Posted about it. We couldn’t talk next day and now here I am. But you don’t need to worry, I’ll blog about the date once we do it.

Me: I am sure that’s something every reader will read! And this question remained untouched somehow, what did she say when she first told you about her feelings?

He: I love you! And then after we cut the call, she sent me some mail I am yet to see.

Me: I feel old. Things these days have changed or it’s just you?

He: It’s me. Not everyone is lucky to have a girlfriend you see.

Me: How do your friends react to this?

He: I am not able to give them time now. They are kind of angry, I think it’s jealousy. But some respect me too. They even raise their hands when I see them from far.

Me: Do you have vision problems?

He: A little myopic.

Me: Hmm. I am pretty sure they have their middle finger raised while they’re respecting you that way. One more question, with so much going around you, what do you think is more important? Work, education, family, country or relationship?

He: I’ll answer that indirectly. Only single guys answer one of the first four options.

Me: I think it’s time to wrap. It was (not) a pleasure talking to you. (I feel choked and it seems I’d have to take a treatment for bullshit syndrome!)

He: Wait, I am getting a call.

 He: Hello

She: Hey, how are you.

He: I am great. Love you!

She: What?

He: Don’t you love me cheeku?

She: Are you drunk? When did I say that? And don’t say that name again, ever… to any girl!

He: But 3 days back you said that on phone. Remember?

She: I love YouTube!!! That’s what I said you idiot. I even mailed you a video of the cat combing her fur that day!

Don’t think much, he fainted. We took him to a hospital where he proposed a nurse and got beaten up.

That Mr. X is almost every other guy these days. Not literally, but well, almost. So guys, life is simple. Take it easy. Learn to appreciate and be modest and above all, listen properly.

In case you don’t like it, comment below and I’ll make sure I make the perfect excuse for that.

Tagged: funny, funny interview, roadies, single guy

The Next Indian Generation

Before you go any further, here’s a warning… This article does not make sense. Seriously. There is no way your deep intellectual mind and my verbally diarrheic mood are going to sync at any point. Still, I know you’re a BIG fan of the blog (just say yes, it’s a rule…), so I promise you one thing; If you reach till the end and don’t like the article, you tell me about it, and we’ll both laugh about how I managed to troll you.

There’s a big crowd of embarrassing people out there. While there are people like Rahul Dravid who make their parents proud, there’s one kind like Uday Chopra which makes their parents feel bad about doing it in the first place so that they were born! And there’s also this third category like Abhishek Bachchan which has successfully managed to confuse their parents.

That bums me too!

Anyway, this makes me think, why would someone want to have children? If they grow up one day to become THAT!!!

I am not being sarcastic, not saying no offence to anyone, I am just being truthful here. Either they chose the wrong profession or their parents chose a very bad day not to use protection.

Talking about embarrassing children, taking a few examples, the first name I can think of is Rahul Mahajan. An upcoming politician turned an eligible bachelor turned a weird comedy judge turned a step less dancer. That guy is not the only Rahul to have embarrassed himself publicly, but he sure is the greatest one. Best thing about him is the laugh. Don’t Google it, you’d prefer Justin Beiber’s songs over it!

Coming to the next best guy, you all know him already. Uday Chopra. His father was the king of romance; he is probably the sting of his father’s romance. I liked him in Dhoom movies though. He was definitely less constipating than Abhishek Bachchan’s voice and Esha Deol’s dance. But I am pretty sure his father would have wanted him to study and maybe open up a business where he didn’t have to speak. See, it’s when he starts to speak, the problem begins.

I could list worse, but the list would be incomplete if I don’t include Sanjay Dutt in it. Before I go ahead, I like the guy. His personality, his style and the movies. But the things he does, I am pretty sure Sunil Dutt would have preferred putting him into day boarding if he ever saw that coming.

Rahul Roy, Rahul Gandhi… a hell lot of other Rahuls. Abhishek Bachchan, Tushar Kapoor, Shamita Shetty are a few other laureates in the list.

But then I remember, in my last article I had said, if you can’t talk good about someone, don’t say bad things either. So I’ll tell you some things I like about them. That is… well… umm… You see… I… I think they… Well… Hell! Leave it.

I should also appreciate my parents for being the courageous ones. Not only they gave birth to me, and despite of my father being a genius and me being extremely poor at mathematics, they’ve been handling me pretty well for the last 21… no… 22… maybe 21 years.

Before I start making sense, let me tell you that this article is a result of the frustration I had after a real bad day in my work. You see… I didn’t do it.

Coming to the end (Yes, this article was small… Thank your stars or probably the mirror you didn’t look at after you woke up), I’d say one thing to our famous celebs. Beat your sons when they’re young. Put them in Boarding schools and probably make them eat boiled cabbage. Do anything, but kindly don’t make another disaster like the aforementioned.

In case you need any help, talk to Rakesh Roshan or Javed Akhtar on how to raise your children. (My parents are busy these days… else… you know )

PS: Hope you like this new thing about the blog, that I am about to tell. An article every Sunday. A definitely funny one (Or at least a desperate attempt to make you laugh… like this one). That’s a promise from now on.

For the serious ones, occasionally, we have a Friday.

Tagged: abhishek bachchan, celebrity sons, embarrassing people

A Republic Reality

It’s been quite a long time I posted anything. And I am not proud of that. But I am happy that I have a lot of people noticing the same. While I could have written about the gangrape case, nirmal baba, indian cricket team, the army issue and a thousand other trending topics, I chose the republic day to be the topic for my return.

It’s quite surprising to see the turn of events. We used to say happy republic day in the past, now we have coined the terms ‘ghantatantra’, ‘peepublic’, and ‘the monarchy’ day. Believe me, facebook is full of creative minds.

I also share the views, where we mock our weak government, joke about the policies and condemn the decision makers. But at the same time I think, how does everyone get the right to speak on something they don’t even have a clue about?

India is a republic, we have the right to speak. That everyone knows, but what about the things we can do? What about the part where you have to think and analyse what you speak.

Recently Rahul Gandhi was made the VP of Congress. I saw over a thousand tweets and a hundred Facebook statuses rejecting the motion. And ironically, most of them were by the people who have no interest in politics (visible from there Facebook info.)

No offence meant, but it includes even those who can’t even speak properly when the interviewer asks ‘tell me about yourself’, how can they decide if Rahul Gandhi is a good leader or not?

Not supporting him, infact to remove any misconception, he sucks, it was probably the worse decision of all times. But what I imply is, if you can’t ‘be’ the change, don’t mock the change.

A lot of people had been criticizing Dhoni for being a bad captain and losing throoughout. One century, one last ball six and they are his biggest fans. I wonder if Manmohan Singh announces an increament in Dearness allowance, will they become his fan too.

Lot of random talks, coming to the point. India is our country, the 1.2 billion people here are Indian and hence related to us. We have a lot of good things to be proud of. If you can’t help the country by going out and doing the right thing, you don’t get to decide what’s the right thing as well. If we’re here only to talk, why not talk good stuff and atleast let those who are doing that feel appreciated.

If Anna does a fast, we have an issue, Amir does Satyamev Jayate, we say it’s a propoganda. If Kejriwal says I’ll join politics, we say he is corrupt. If a girl gets gangraped, we make a fanpage of her!

India recently test fired it’s supersonic missile in november, not many people have an idea about that. In olympics, India won so much, all it could create was a facebook fanpage and a twitter trend. I won’t give stats, but just google the things like Mr. Godrej, TeachForIndia, The boson, agni V, top 10 women achievers, the oscars and the literary awards… You’ll get an idea what it is to be an Indian.

I don’t want you to rise up and make the change, fight the evil, do some devouring stuff. No no.. You’re good sitting there… Looking really sweet. But while you’re at it, munch some popcorns and tweet about the right stuff.

Oh, happy republic day. Promotion is my right, so do buy my book ‘My EX Fell In Love’ on all the online stores. Check it out here, http://www.bit.ly/booklinks , http://www.bit.ly/booklandmark and http://www.bit.ly/bookgoodreads . Have a great time. Jai hind.

Tagged: awakening, freedom, india, rahul gandhi, republic

12 ways to Perfect straight hair, Not so ‘perfect’ after all!

If you were to ask my friends, I’d probably be the last guy to give any kind of advice on hair and hairstyles according to them. And hence, when I saw this post on Indiblogger to post something about ‘perfect straight hair’ I thought I shouldn’t do it. Since 1) I am a guy and this one seems to be a girls’ topic. 2) The aforementioned reason, were there, I closed the browser and started typing random stuff that came to my mind. And apparently, this post happened.

And now that I see, they actually wanted Crazy, Whacky and Weird Ideas only. So here we go.

Today is 12-12-12. A date which won’t appear for the next 100 years and we won’t be seeing such a repetition again for that much time (till the next 01-01-01 comes). So let’s add one more 12 to the count and roll with it.

Remember those ‘center shock’ ads around 10 years back? They claimed they could get your hair straight. Although that chewing gum is hard to find now, you can still manage to make one at home. Mix some concentrated lemon juice with tamarind and dissolve around 2 Tablespoon salt in it. Drink it in one go, if you survive, it will be with straight hair!
Ever had a grill sandwich? Yummy isn’t it. Now don’t switch off the grill after taking out the sandwich. Wrap silver foil around your hair and put them in it. Press the hood hard till you’re sure they’re straight (I’d recommend having someone around to keep a check on your breath… umm… in case it’s gone!)
You won’t iron your hair, right? Coz that would be weird! How about using a steam iron though? At least make it trendy!
This 12-12-12 thing reminds me that we won’t have such a repetition again. Or will we? Those who want a 13-13-13 can totally listen to Himesh’s song “Tera-Tera-Tera Surooooorrrrrr”. No matter what happens, I am pretty sure his voice will get you enough shocks to give an erection to your hair!
Getting straight here isn’t tough, if you see that like this. Listen to “Dabangg 2” songs. ALL of them. Yes… ALL!!! I can bet that you’ll be pulling your hair so much in the meanwhile that they’ll become straight. Rock lovers, replace Dabangg with Justin Beiber.

6. Let’s get a little sciency now. Take some iron nails and some feviquick. Empty the tube in a plate filled of the nails and before the nails stick to the plate, stick them to your hair. Now stick a magnet to your shoes and wear them. The nails  ttract to the magnet and the curls just vanish. See, who could tell what you learned in class 5 would help so much.

7. So we’ve tried Eatables, Instruments, Music and Science. What’s left? I’ll tell you. Kids. We all have that bunch of little weirdoes around who will do anything to make your time like hell. Every under-3-feet kid has this habit of pulling your hair when they’re irritated.

So lift one off the ground and in case he/she doesn’t pull your hair, there’s no harm in tickling a bit to get them to do it (Unless their parents are around.)

8. Are you rich? What? Yes? Will you marr… err… nothing. You must be having a garage and a car then. Go lie in your garage and roll over a car or a motor vehicle over your hair. They’ll get straight, stylish and the treads of the tyres might as well give them a new shape!

9. This one is actually a serious one. Suggested by my sister. Use a comb regularly and read this http://www.sunsilk.com.au/expertise/best-hairstyle-is-as-straight-as-can-be.html. I hear it works! (Since I have a lot of female readers, I’d prefer a feedback on this one )

10. While I am suggesting everything to get you straight hair in every not-so-possible way, people would say why have straight hair at all!? When you can have superb curvy… err… curly looks.

I’ll tell you why. Coz then you’d look like this.

My fellow MNITians will know the reason of my death in the next few days now!

11. Listen to 12 Rajinikanth jokes and tell yourself that Rajinikanth can’t get your hair straight. Since it’s his birthday, he won’t kill you, but he’ll surely straighten up your hair by thinking about it.

12. When none of the above ways work and you’ve reached till here, look in the mirror, you already have straight hair! After all you read a full post on my blog. Not a cake walk I tell you!

So this is it. I have tried not making sense as long as I could, if by mistake I made sense somewhere, that was purely coincidental and unintentional. Kindly bear with it.

Also wish me luck, maybe the super awesome sunsilk people will give me a goodie for writing this!

And you do know my book is published, write… err… right?

Buy it here: www.bit.ly/booklinks, www.bit.ly/booklandmark, www.bit.ly/bookflipkart

 

PS: Thank you Shubham Khandelwal, my co-author in the most liked post till date of this blog “The Resume of a girl” for his inputs in the post.

Tagged: 12-12-12, indiblogger, rajinikanth, shubham choudhary, style, sunsilk

And hence, “My EX Fell In Love”!

Writing a book isn’t easy. Well so isn’t eating a whole pack of caramel popcorn but yeah, people do that. So did I (umm… wrote a book, popcorn is still out of my scope).

I remember how a few years back I used to be that careless undisciplined and freaky guy who would always put personal interests and family over any other thing. Years have gone by, things have changed… and now I am… well… the same careless and freaky guy, just a little more undisciplined now.

If you assume that I am going to tell you a story of how “My EX Fell In Love” came into existence after one magical conversation I had with some genius who made me realize my inner writer, then sorry to disappoint you, this didn’t happen. I have always been a guy who loved to write. When the torture of write ups became too much for my school and college teachers to handle, I decided to convert that to a blog and irritate the rest of the world.

It wasn’t even a month since I had created “ABugInMyMind” when I started receiving some superb comments from my friends. And one day when one of my articles got published on some other website, similar response was seen from people I didn’t even know. I won’t say I wasn’t used to such responses since I had been writing one liners and small articles for some popular websites even before that, but to become a blogger and then being praised by people who are good at it was something different.

So the journey went on, and one day someone (yes, I am not going to say the name) randomly said to me “You should write a book!”. I am pretty sure that guy wasn’t in his senses when he said that, but even I wasn’t, so I took that seriously.

Unlike other engineers or many known Indian writers, I unfortunately didn’t have any story of my desperate attempt at a failed love or a heart wrenching breakup. So I made up one freakish tale of my own, took some inspiration from my friends and as they say, I could make them laugh with my poor jokes, so I mixed some of that in it. And when they told me you need a funny title, came “My EX Fell In Love”, the name, in my mind.

I used to ask my sisters about what kind of names would suit a guy who has this and that characteristics and she always used to give me some names along with a weird expression of what I was up to! So yes, Yatharth and Vikalp are my thoughts while Sanchita and Pratishtha is something I got from them. After writing a synopsis and 4 chapters, I told my family that I was writing a novel. And believe me, my mother didn’t faint! She actually praised me.

I kept on writing and a funny tale of Yatharth and Sanchita took shape.

After the basic story was done, I started taking help from one of the, well, only writers in my vicinity, Harsh. He told me how to approach a publisher and everything about it. I did the same, even before my manuscript was done. One day, when I was just doing the usual stuff, i.e., bunking college and sending out some letters my mom wrote to relatives, I got this email. “Congratulations, we have approved your story for final consideration; you can mail us the full manuscript.”

I didn’t jump out of ecstasy, but I did rush home to complete the rest of the novel which took me another month. But yes, I did get a publisher, I got a superb story and a few characters that I actually lived while I was writing them. I still remember how every chapter and scene I wrote used to make me laugh and how I used to speak those dialogues sometimes. Crying is something I never did, and I believe the readers who like the book won’t shed a tear as well, since there is no such instance in it (My bad!)

I wrote not because I wanted fame or money (Writers these days hardly get any). I wrote because I had realized writing was my passion. I could leave everything to write at peace. I wrote because I wanted to see how far I can go.  Will the world, which has always praised my articles when they read it online, like to pay to read what I wrote?

Apparently they did! And till now the reviews have been unbelievably good. So I’d say, though Indian writers have that stereotype image and so does campus love stories, but do not judge a book by its cover, unless it’s mine as my book’s cover is awesome!

The Cover

As one of the reviews said, “If you have a few hours and want a good laugh without exercising your brains much, do give “My EX Fell In Love” a try”

You can buy the book online here: www.bit.ly/myexfellinlove , www.bit.ly/booklinks

Like it on Facebook: www.facebook.com/myexfellinlove

And for more reviews: www.bit.ly/bookgoodreads

And me, well I am always here: www.facebook.com/awesomeshubham

Enough marketing Do tell me if you have any thing else you wanted to know (except for the question “is it your story?” )

Tagged: book, flipkart, homeshop18, my ex fell in love, shubham choudhary, writing

The Gifto’logy

You… yes… you! I am talking to you bozo! Where do you think you are going? Just because I didn’t write anything funny for a month, you think you can just unsubscribe! Not that easy buttercup.

And because you had such a lame idea of moving away from this blog, not only I spammed you and brought you back, I’ll also make sure you read this another post filled up of my useless experience and aimless sarcasm.

Also, I heard that while no updates were here, guys were actually able to go on perfect dates… now we can’t let that happen, can we?!

We all love gifts. Girls, to be specific, love gifts on every occasion… like their birthdays, results, first meeting anniversaries, marriage anniversaries, their pet’s birthday, cousin’s marriage, when they look good (to appreciate), when they are not looking good (to cheer up), when they feel good (to celebrate), when they’re not feeling good (to make them feel good) etc. etc. etc.

This post is about choosing a gift. Since ages man has struggled to choose the perfect gift for his dream girl… or well… any girl for that matter.  All this started when Adam chose the first wrong gift for Eve, the apple. And the humanity came into existence after that! Since then, he sometimes gifted a stone and sometimes a wheel, sometimes a radio and sometimes some junk of steel. But women! Will they ever know how important these things actually were! All they could see was how ugly those things were.

All in all, the world has developed and so has man… umm… a little bit. So we now understand what women want (Or at least we pretend we do). So how should we choose a gift? Let’s start with your girlfriend. (Imagine one; I know you don’t have it in real.)

You know every girl has that one guy who she loved but could never get. And one guy who was crazy about her and could never get her. And then there’s you who accidentally slipped a text saying I love you to her instead of her hot friend who you actually aimed for. Well, while the first guy is the lucky one, our aim is to find the second guy.

You know him? Brilliant!

Catch him and ask him what he would give to her as a present.

Make a list of everything he says. Congrats, you now have a list you can cut off from the options.  Well there was a reason he couldn’t get her, wasn’t there!

Next up: Find a shop. Cosmetics is the easiest way to go, so dig a little deeper, do some research, consult some female friends, watch some ads and well… buy the product that is displayed on the poster outside the mall. This isn’t your final gift, this is to accompany the major one in case she gets pissed off at that, which, let’s face it, she will.

Now, major gift. We have many options. Dedicating a poem, making a scrapbook, singing a song or making a mix tape of her favorite songs, this is what you do when you’re broke and she’s mad about you. Otherwise go the classic way, shed some bucks!

In that category, we put the gifts that wealthy people give. Like, throwing her a surprise party (this way you’ll also get to talk privately to the hot friend), giving her a day off in a luxury spa or maybe giving her treat at the best restaurant of the city.

Now here’s where I come to your rescue. Now who wants to spend money when there is an easy way out! Since ages, man has ignored one fact that every woman knows about him, that he is stupid when it comes to understanding women. He can be a rocket scientist, a top-notch percussionist, a world-famous writer or maybe a gold medalist athlete, but he is stupid. And we don’t have to be embarrassed about that, because frankly, who has even tried!

So when you don’t understand her, you won’t obviously know what kind of food she will prefer on her b’day night or what friends she’d like to invite in her birthday party. Now here are two ways to get that done.

1)      The hard work: This is the one you’re gonna say you used. Here you talk to her for an hour daily, make a list of her favorite things and her best friends, ask her every freaking detail about her choices and obviously, getting her a mix tape of her favorite songs. (What’s with girls and Enrique I’ll never know, right!?)

2)      The hot friend: This is the one you’re actually gonna use. Remember everything you had to do? Just make a list and ask her hottest (and the best) friend to do the honors. You just make the tape and get the credit.

Some pointers here. You see every group of girls has that one hot girl on whom everyone tries his luck. And we all know your girlfriend ain’t that girl. So if you have trouble finding the best hot friend, either you are with her (Which is not possible) or this group doesn’t have that girl (in that case, you’re a moron and I forbid you from reading further!)

To all the girls who are mad at me, isn’t this girl cute?

If in case you forgot to think of a gift well before the occasion, do one of these things. Open any collage making software, find 4-8 pictures of her and scramble them on a mushy background. Decorate it with some stars, bells, maybe a santa hat and get it printed. Stick a chocolate above, good to go!

In case you have to wish belated. Get ready with a 20 minute long speech of why you could not wish her on time since your very important interview and bad health struck at the same time. And then with the aforementioned gift, stick a sorry card and one “best girlfriend” card too.

Girls, who have been wondering that how none of this post was true and how they don’t like gifts this way and how feelings matter more and how they’d prefer a simple message over an expensive necklace, I whole heartily apologize for spreading such nonsense, but this will get you better gifts from now on.

Anyway, this post is over, as you all know I am a published author now. This Tuesday you’ll get to see my book online. Do buy it, though I won’t recommend gifting that to your partner

Tagged: birthday, dating, gift, girls, relationships

Like a dream!

Engineers’ day it is, hence the post

Most of my posts have been personal more or less. So here’s one more. This one is by far the closest one to my heart. I remember saying the same last year after my b’day. And I say it again… I could not be happier with the way things have been. After the happenings of yesterday and the day before, I had a lot to say and a few FB statuses could not justify that. Then I thought, what is the one thing I have, that most of the other students don’t. And the second answer in my mind was my blog (The first one being a few backs!)

Starting with the scene sometime back:

Placement session kicks off in college with 1-2 students getting the jobs of their dreams every day. I was mainly worried about three things.

a) My grade sheet wasn’t the ideal one that any company wants to see. PROBLEM!

b) None of my good/great/best friends were getting a job they wanted.

c) My grade sheet!! (Did I already mention that?)

Now this session is to go on for over six more months and it’s just a start, but still the desperation for getting into a good job could be clearly seen on most faces. When I had started engineering, unlike others, I had one simple aim: To get a job. No MBA, GATE or anything like that. The Part time RJ, Hacker and now a writer, all this came along the way and nothing was pre planned. But once the final year started and I got kicked out from the first placement test I gave, the fear of ‘not getting a good placement’ started gripping me!

When I talked to people close to me, these were the general replies.

“I am pretty sure you’ll make it once you get to the interviews”

“There’s a long way to go, keep trying”

“If you won’t, then who will!”

“Your dream company is yet to come!”

And of course the fourth one was my favorite reply. The company I was actually waiting for. Deloitte! Not that it offered a big package. But it was probably the best suited profile for my resume. I didn’t really sit in many companies when I got this message from Sahil, my friend and more of a partner in the placement season! Deloitte was coming to the campus in September. Soumya, my friend cum competition for Deloitte was supposed to handle the process.

No reason, Just felt like adding this!
Courtesy: Sirona consultings

I was pretty sure (and nervous) about the first round of Deloitte. I sat for it with full zeal and just after the completion I came to know that I had also made it to the final round of another company “Oracle Financial Softwares”. Now the problem was, Deloitte screening results were to be announced after Oracle finals.

I decided to give up on oracle and sit for Deloitte. But then, talking to three people changed my mind. Kalpit, my senior and mentor, Gaurav, my cousin brother and again, mentor… and lastly, Soumya. All the three were of the opinion that what all I expect from Deloitte, I’ll get in Oracle as well and if everything goes well, I’ll have an even better future. (Now I think soumya just wanted me out of competition )

So, it was a tough decision to make. But I decided to sit for oracle and put an honest effort to get into it. And then, I gave my first ever technical interview. Unlike most others, my interview went on for over 40 minutes. The interviewer made sure I told him every freaking rule I knew about C and data structures! Plus a simple question “Does sun rise in the east for everyone?” took 15 minutes when I started proving how!

It went well and I was convinced I’ll make it to HR round. And within 10 minutes I was informed that I did. HR round started in an hour. And it took another 1 hour to be completed. The questions I was asked were not very different from any other interview. But the interviewer was. My CV was scanned line by line and he made sure he asked me every single thing about it. Some highlights were:

He: Such a brilliant performance in 10th and 12th, why so low in college?

Me: No excuse sir. I didn’t study.

He: Don’t you have any excuse?

Me: I could say I wrote a book, started a company, met an accident, co-ordinated a fest… All in last 1.5 years, but that doesn’t stop me from getting good grades… so… no!

He: Book. Tell me more about it. And convince me that you won’t become a professional writer and leave us.

Me: If I could become a full time writer by writing one book, I would have. But that’s not the case, I’ll continue to write even after you hire me, but that won’t affect my performance in company.

He: So I see that you are quite a creative person. Won’t you get bored if you have to code all the time?

Me: Sir that’s why I sat for oracle. I have heard and you said the same in PPT that your coders are given full freedom in their work and the creativity and innovation is respected. 

He: It was great talking to you shubham. Any doubts?

After the interview, they said I could go home, results will be declared the next day.

I came to the campus, formally clad, nervous and my heart skipping a beat every time someone asked about ‘oracle’!

At 1, the HR entered the conference hall. 25 candidates who had made it to the final HR round out of the 300 appeared were sitting there. Outside the room were almost 2-300 friends of all of us, waiting for the moment.

After 10 minutes of a talk, the HR manager told us that 11 students were selected out of the 25. Names were going to be announced and our heart beats grew faster and evidently louder. Soumya was standing right besides her not even smiling. I got a little worried. Name 1, name 2, name 3… till name 9… my name wasn’t there. I thought 10 names had been announced. So the next name was announced, which wasn’t me and I lost all the hope. With every name, there was a little clapping and one more smiling face in the room. I had no idea how will I face the 100 people standing outside for me. But then the HR manager said… “And the last name is…” and I looked up. Her next words were… “Shubham Choudhary” and before she could say anything, a loud hooting and even louder clapping covered the room. Not only mine but actually many smiles were there and many came forward to hug me.

That moment she said what I was waiting to hear for a long time. “Whoa! So much cheering! Are you famous or something?” And all I had was a smile. And to that, soumya replied, “Ma’am he is our local celeb. Wrote a book too” and she smiled and said “Alright then, you’ll manage the team of recruited people from this college!”

After a lot of handshakes, wishes and hugs, the door opened and all our friends rushed in to wish us.

Before that I had seen a few, after that I saw a few, but that day the people went crazy like no other time. I got the beating of a lifetime. And so many hugs. Every person who saw me had only one word… “Congratulations!”

I was happy. I celebrated like never before. Not because I had a job. Not because I got a response no one else did. But because I had proven myself in front of those who thought I couldn’t. A guy with below average results was standing with a handful of toppers in the same line. I was in bottom 10% if marks were taken into account. And I am in top 10% if time of placement is taken into account. And instead of any mass recruiter, I got to go on a premium profile in the 3rd largest IT company of the world.

Of course I was a little sad I heard this. “You made it to Deloitte finals”! Now a GD and PI were left which I couldn’t appear in. But who cared. And to add to that, I stood there in soumya’s place while the Deloitte results were being declared. And I am glad that two of my best friends, Khushboo and Soumya, made it to Deloitte.

Times will come and go. We’ll get better jobs, we’ll have greater incomes. Our lives would be different, our cities would be different. We’ll make new friends. From students, we’ll become professionals. But no one will ever be able to replace the mark this month has made in my mind. No one will ever be able to delete the space this time has occupied in my heart.

I couldn’t be more thankful to all those who called me right after they got the news. I thank everyone who wished me on Facebook. Shilpi di! Sahil, Vipul, Soumya, Shubham, Mitin, Sameer, Sunil, Pragya, Aayusha, Juhi, Mona, Ajeeta, Vineet, Apsara, Tarun, Aayush, Shailesh and everyone else who was there with me in this awesome moment. (On phone, in person!)

Please do not at all take this as an acknowledgement or anything like that. I am yet to get over this thing and this just came out. No matter what, I love all my friends.

Don’t you just love seeing such things!

This line I should have said earlier, but I kinda felt like ending with this. For the first time I saw my father crying because of me. And I was happy! And it was the same day my blog crossed 25,000 Views and I got to see the final cover of my book (I’ll upload soon )

Tagged: Campus placements, deloitte, OFSS, oracle, personal

India… Indeed.

I have heard about déjà vu. Can’t say I have seen it yet. But sometimes there’s this thing which you hear all the time and don’t believe it until you see it. Kind of something that happened to me.

This post, again, is totally different (and quite long) from what you usually see on this blog. Instead of telling you about my observations, here’s a little of my experience. Lately I have traveled a lot, in the last 2 years specially. I like travelling. When it’s within your country, it helps you realize what you are. Makes you an outgoing person and boosts up your aspirations. Gets you closer to your country, your roots… or in my case, makes you fall in love with your country.

Here I am going to share my experiences from the 3 great journeys of my life. Starting from Delhi, then Mount Abu and ending up in the south, Mangalore. I was in first year of my college. Hadn’t really travelled much before except for a few places. Delhi is a place where many of my friends and relatives live. So I used my holidays for good and packed my bags to go there. That time, I didn’t have any expectation from the place apart from the fact that I did expect to see a lot of hot girls out there.

It was December, a winter season in Delhi when you can’t see anything but fog in the morning. Driving a bike in that fog was one hell of an experience. We (I, my sister and her family), took our car to see India gate. This was basically the plan, which kept extending as we proceeded. Not only did I see a whole different side of the country with all the buildings like the parliament and the president’s house. I got to see all the things I had only studied once in my history book. The red fort, the Rajghat, the Qutub minar, the Iron pillar. Mesmerizing was the word when I saw the names of the soldiers carved on the India gate. For a moment the patriot inside me woke up. I felt like the proudest Indian alive.

A whole day travel was followed by a trip to Chandni chowk and Connaught place the next day. There I saw the real Delhi. Mostly filled with people from Punjab though, but there is a special feeling you get when you interact with a Delhite. I had a feeling somewhere in my mind that my hometown is a better place to be in… not that I was bias, but the security mishaps, other similar cases and the ‘safer earthquake zone’ were some points. After those 2-3 days, the feeling just vanished. Reason; I didn’t feel different. I was after all, in India! Nothing was different. The culture, the atmosphere and the people only made me feel happier to be an Indian.

All in all… Delhi:

People: Awesome

Tourist attractions: Mind blowing

‘India’ factor: 10/10.

As a metropolitan: I have been to 3, this was the best.

If you are acquainted with a metro, Delhi is awesome. And the malls are too good to shop. Also, don’t miss any of the food joints you see. The paranthe wali gali to be specific is one hell of an experience.

(Don’t try to take the ratings seriously, they are as random as any of my posts)

Part two of my travelogue is my journey to Mount Abu. This was in the summers of last year. A random plan with the best of my friends. Here’s a tip, do NOT think of visiting a place in Rajasthan in summers. Though we did the same… but I was with friends, we didn’t even realize it was hot. Mount Abu is a place of temples. Near Gujarat, it offers a great variety of people. Typical Rajasthanis with long moustaches and the typical Gujaratis with no moustaches

It was a short trip, but we managed to see all the temples and big tourist attractions the place offers. If we start counting the places worth a visit, the list is endless. Starting from the brahmkumari temple and the Shiva temples, we reach the Dilwara temple which is by far the best experience of my life. Each and every stone, every design… so wonderfully carved. Every step has its own story and each pillar has something to say. The markets there are not costly like we generally see.

In the Durga temple which is on the mountains, you get to see the different ‘roops’ of goddess and from the top you can actually see the whole city. (Just like Nahargarh in Jaipur, Rajasthan). Gurushikhar is the next destination which actually makes you feel on the top. And I still remember our guide’s words when we reached there. “You’re on the highest point in Rajasthan.” Feels great!

The evening can’t be better spent when you’re at the “Sunset point” and then the night at the Nakki Lake. The water totally compliments the calm atmosphere.

Mount Abu isn’t really a place where many people live. It’s kinda separated from Abu. So you don’t get to interact a lot. But you do get a cultural vibe from everyone around. Spiritually this place is the most enriching out of the three. When compared to delhi, the place is absolutely opposite both in culture and people around. But still you find one thing common. The ‘india’ factor. The fact that it is still your country and people around are ‘your’ people. You are never alone in the place and whatever language you speak, food you eat and things you do; you will find similar people around.

All in all… Mount Abu:

People: Great

Tourist attractions: Top Drawer! Fantastic! Amazing!

‘India’ factor: 10+1/10.  (And extra 1 for the beautiful preaching the people at Dilwara gave me)

As a city: Infrastructure might not be great, but hats off to the engineers who designed the road plan!

You’ll find hotels and food joints all over the place. Food here is good. And if you’re visiting without a plan, no worries, people there are the best to help you in every way.

The latest trip I had, was earlier this year. We all went to Surathkal, Mangalore in Karnataka. It was probably the best of the travel experiences I’ve had for many reasons. It was in south, a territory unexplored for me. It was a 10 day long tour. It was for Spic Macay, an organization dedicated to make you realize the strength of indian culture.

The 2 day train journey was tiring. But once we reached and settled, we realized the upcoming days were going to be even more tiring. Unlike the previous trips, this one was much disciplined and also we got to interact with thousands of people from all over India. The first five days went in seeing the various performances from the classical artists from the state and outside. The last day was a heritage walk where we explored the city. Saw all the places for which it is known for. For our surprise, it rained heavily.

The only thing I couldn’t handle was food. So here’s this point. When you’re from north india and don’t have a taste developed for south indian foods, the same thing which is heavenly for the people there, will become hell for you. I literally craved for good food. But the time duration was long enough to make me develop the taste for the food. Unlike Delhi, Abu or any other place, you won’t find people speaking hindi there. Finding anything which is even remotely related to anything from north india is tough. But soon you see that this is the beauty of the place. Even when it is like a whole different part of the country, it’s the love, the affection and a spiritual commonness you see in the people which binds you with them.

The food we ate primarily consisted of “Ghasi”, “Ayyangayi”, “Rasam” and “Rasayanam”. And I must say, the rasayanam was good.

And you can’t deny the fact that we all love Dosas!

All in all… Mangalore:

People: Nice (They speak English so sweetly! )

Tourist attractions: Very good!

‘India’ factor: 10/10.

As a City: For the first time visitors, you just need to visit the beeches once before you start the trip, and you’re gonna love the place.

Food, beeches, temples and some more beeches. That’s precisely Mangalore for you. It might not provide you the best ‘tour’ of india, but it does give you the ‘different vibe’ you wanted.

I have also been to places like Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, M.P and almost every city of Rajasthan. One thing I found common in the aforementioned and the above places was that no matter how different the culture is, how different the food, travel or living habits of the people are; they are all the same loving bunch of people who have the same political and spiritual thoughts. Who will always welcome their guests with a great zeal, who will love the food they make and won’t mind adding a little extra spice anytime! Who will fly kites, the dates may be different. Who will always have interest in football and cricket. I salute the person who coined the term “Unity in Diversity” for India. For I don’t see a reason why we can’t be called that.

I’d like to end with one very good quote my friend harsh says. “If you are in any part of India and want to start a conversation with someone you don’t know, talk about Sachin Tendulkar.”

I am proud to be an Indian, and lately, I am proud to be writing about it.  :)

And yes,

This post has been published by me as a part of IBL; the Battle of Blogs, sponsored by WriteupCafe.com. Join us at our official website and facebook page.

www.indianbloggersleague.com

www.facebook.com/IndianBloggersLeague

You can also like this page of Harsh Snehanshu, who is writing a book “Routes to Roots” on India.

Tagged: Delhi, IBL, india, Mangalore, Mount Abu, Spic Macay, travel, Unity in Diversity

5 texts a day… keep hatred away!

Hello government, You suck!!! Just when i was ready to post about the 5 message limit, you extended it to twenty!!! :/

But guess what, this is MY blog… I’ll post whatever I want. So go ahead.

So this is my take on the recent ban on text messaging. After Christopher Nolan’s ‘ban’e, this is the next ban India is talking about. Actually saying a ban isn’t right, it is a restriction, now you can’t send more than five twenty messages each day. But for youngsters like us, this is even worse than a ban. Imagine a situation when your girlfriend got pissed off right after the fifth twentieth message. Or you accidentally sent a wrong message and you don’t have one left to say sorry.

The most grief stricken are the students who used to laugh at their crotch during lectures, i.e. texted with the mobiles hidden behind the desks. Now they’ll have to actually attend the lectures!! I pity those who now cannot send me the messages saying a poor girl will get a dollar if I forward that to 10 people. Poor people! That was the sole way of entertainment in their otherwise worthless life.

Here are a few jokes that occur to my mind while I hear about the restriction and people’s reactions to it.

Now that you can send five messages per day, maybe guys will be able to figure out which girl is the one. OR at least narrow down the list to five!
So the government wants to prevent hate messages. Are we allowed to send five hate messages per day?
Earlier they used to say “Dear girls, if a guy pauses a game to send you a message, marry him.” Now I think we should change it to, “Dear girls, if a guy sends you a message, marry him”.
For me the perfect couple now is the one in which they send all five messages to each other.
In case a girl replies to your two texts in a row, believe me guys, it’s time you should tell her your feelings. (I know you feel since you texted her twice as well.)
For those who are happy since they didn’t have a message pack earlier as well, BEWARE! These people, after recovering from the trauma of this restriction, might start studying/working and beat you!!
The government is very thoughtful; they put a restriction on messaging right after they said they’ll provide free phones to villagers. This way they will refuse to take one!
Do you know which the latest Rajinikanth joke is these days?

Rajinikanth can send six messages a day.

Do you know why haven’t you heard about this?

No one sends forwards now!
Now most roadies contestants don’t know if eid was this Sunday or Monday. Since they didn’t get any ‘happy eid’ message.
Whatsapp is the new replacement for text messaging. While it’s number of downloads have increased twofold in the past week, there were a few hundred broken phones with ‘bada’ OS found in trash.
While everyone is busy blaming the government for five message restriction, no one noticed that V.V.S Laxman retired from Test Cricket. Those who did, unfortunately couldn’t send chain forwards about it.
Multiple Sim phones are also becoming popular now so that people can send more than 5 texts a day. Probably after the ban is lifted, we’ll have lots of fraud cases to deal with. What a planning by the government!
The new company schemes are something like that. “Recharge with a 15 day message pack worth Rs 25, get a talk time of 15 and data pack of 1 gb free.”
Now the classic excuse of getting a girl’s number, “I have to go now, why don’t you text me” won’t work. Guys need to change their ways, temporarily at least.
The last one: How many jokes did I say? Fifteen, I bet this is more than the number of texts you sent in last two days. (This one still holds true if you haven’t send more than 10 texts today  )

So how big is the effect of this restriction on your life? Tell me. Did you awkwardly keep staring on your mobile screen wanting the failed text to try one more time? Or you are spending way too much time on Facebook and Twitter now? I believe none of you can say that you didn’t try resending the sixth message when it happened for the first time.

From my side, I’d like to give a few suggestions to our government. Don’t remove the restriction, life seems peaceful now. At least people realize the importance of meeting and calling. For those who are far, we do have social networks to stay in touch. And in case you want to increase the restrictions, make it at most 2 statuses per day on Facebook. The people blabbering about this restriction are becoming way too annoying now.

And a few more restrictions can be on the number of likes every day. This way not ALL girls will get them and we’ll know who are the most intellectual hottest ones.

This is it. Feel free to tell me how you liked the article. Comment here, share if you like. And well… Text me

Tagged: Government, restriction, sms, trai

Being human!

Hello, this is my 55th blog-post, and the tradition of experiments continue. Without saying much, here is a new kind of post for my blog, “55 Fiction”.  A 2 minute read.

 

“I hear that you are the best in the market. The ‘Ravan’s you make for dussehra are widely sold.”

“People say so, sir”

“What is it? Your knowledge of the religion or love for the festival?”

“Maybe that or maybe it’s my love for art and festivity”

“Oh.. And What’s your name young man?”

“Saleem.”

 

Yep, this is it. I hope you liked it.

PS: Happy Eid. I know none of my readers is a follower of racism or casteism or anything like that, but we can always spread the awareness

Tagged: casteism, Eid, Humanity, india