Soul Cleansing

Mumbai rains are awesome or awful depending on whether you travel by car or train to work.

For the carpeople, esp with drivers, its a wonderful 45 minutes to an hour to work and back. What's more beautiful than watching a sheet of rain on marine drive and the sloshing of waves aginst the concrete. The continuous splatter of rain on sheet metal and the wave after wave aginst your window pane. The airconditioner works so well!

For the muggles on trains, its not a pleasent time. Jumping out of a shared cab and making a dash for the protection of the station is a never-winning race. You will always hit the last puddle before u get 2 the safety of the concrete roof.

I enjoy Sundays the most. Wake up in the morning. Open the sliding windows. With a warm cup of tea in my hand, watch the earth getting washed. It's a cleansing feeling. That's a real nice feeling.

And Sunday is just a day away. Time for soul freshening.

Cya

Blogged Down

To all my regular readers who hang on to each word that I craft, my apologies for my disappearance. Blame it on work. Work is really irritating. It stops one from pursuing the really important activities that go on to make a healthy life. Like playing computer games. Like catching the matinee show of Sarkar. Like writing my blog.

I work in advertising. My job is to get business. My team's job is to manage them. It looks like I am getting a little to good at my job. And my team is wilting under the onslaught. Over the last few weeks, no one in office has played a round of Doom. Or raced around a track.

So i decided to help the poor souls out I have been, as they say, getting my hands dirty. Meeting clients and all. Been some time I did that. Actually wrote a brief. It's like revisiting childhood. But it's been fun.

Hey, sorry but looks like I have to run. Another client is calling his slaves.

See you soon. Be good.

With apologies to Alice and all the fish

Missed out on the Alumni. Got the days wrong. Dont think I missed much. The week has been a kind of rollercoaster. Work rolling in and me coasting along.

Had a farewell party midweek at home. Everyone had a real blast. All the booze got over. All the food got wasted. Dumb Charades was in season.

The weekend looks a goner. With pitches coming out of the woodwork. Lots of powerpoint happening i see.

Looking forward to the next week though. Will be in Kolkata. Home. Sweet home. Fish, fish and more fish. And some special friends.

Well. Thats about it. Will bring you all rosogollahs.

Till then.

Who the hell is Alice?

Another college reunion is in the cards. The hordes have started pinging each other. Been out of campus for over 14 years. And every year it gets scarier and scarier. Dreading the year the registration desk-person will address me as "Uncle". But one can no longer run away from the fact that the year is approaching soon.

The last reunion I went to..two years back.. convinced me that I am out of it. One of the oft-played songs on campus was "Living next door to Alice" and I heard the new version of it playing and kids yelling at the right moment enquiring politely who Alice is. Broke my heart.

Will go anyway..report back later

Friday evenings in advertising

It's strange how invariably every client that I know remembers that important brief just after lunchtime on a Friday. I wonder if its linked to the 2 hour lunch he has just finished at Trishna. Does he rememeber the agency when he's pushing the third vodka tonic (or red bull, depending on his era) to the side or is it when he is sucking on that juicy crab leg. Wonder if its love or is it just love.

Whatever the reason, the phone starts ringing past four with jobs that HAVE to be shown on Monday first thing. Being the person where the buck stops, one has to find really imaginative ways of pushing it down the ladder..the buck ie. The collective protest levels in the advertising world on a Friday evening if harnesed could easily light up the currently unlit hoardings in Mumbai.

Today is a special Friday. Monday is a holiday. Goa is in the air. If not, at least Matheran. And a lot of packed suitcases will see no sand. I am not a popular man right now. I am hiding in my cubicle after effectively destroying a lot of people's love and lust life for ever.

Why does this happen? Are clients just bad planners or are they just sadastic. Or is it just that they need to free up room space in Goa.

Anyone has any answers?