7 Kinds of people you see in a gym

Well as I write this I cant help but quote one of the many funny lines Chandler has said in the famous series F.R.I.E.N.D.S- “Oh yeah, I'm a gym member. I try to go four times a week, but I've missed the last...twelve hundred times”

And out of the few times I have been in gym, I have seen the 7 kinds of people around:

1.       The Hulk: These are regulars. They take out time from gym and give some time for friends, family and work. They intimidate you. You have just one expression when you see them – ‘wow!’ and one question when you see them ‘how?!’. You don’t want to be them; you can’t be them for sure. Yet you are jealous. They make you nervous when you have to work out near them. They don’t give a damn what others do. They keep working out and never leave before you do.

2.       The Young Gun: He is in awe with the hulk. He wants to be the next hulk. Typically in his late teens or early twenties. You can see him screaming at the top of his vocal cord pulling up one extra rep of that heavy dumbbell which is way out of his league. They make the quarter-lifers realize why they are getting more uncle-ized.

3.       The Seekers: They need expert advice on everything. They talk more than they work out. They are always around the gym staff. They need to know what they should eat, how is the best way to work out etc. They are never satisfied with the answers. They have access to probably more information about working out than the gym staff. If only they worked out as much they talk.

4.       Uncles & Aunties: They are the ones who realize pretty late that they need to be fit. But better late than never. They will run on a threadmill wearing salwar with a nike, they read newspapers while cycling.Yet you have to commend their spirit.

5.       The Time- Passers: They will find all the excuse to not work out. They will talk around. They will watch TV. They will request the manager to put a particular song. They will discuss about work out. They will gossip. They will constantly look at the clock. For them 20 reps means 10. And when its finally time to leave, they will look even more tired than the hulk.

6.       The Babe – You have absolutely no idea why she is in the gym. But surely after seeing her you will know why a lot of others are so regular in gym. 80% of time of the trainer is usually reserved for the babe and you can see the result too.

7.       The Paying Guest: I am one of them. I paid for an annual membership (heights of optimism) to convert my family pack to a ..err…probably not a six pack, but yeah at least ground zero. I am the one who goes on rare occasions. I am treated like a guest. My instructor has just one question to ask – when am I coming again next time? I always tell him “tomorrow! (read: I have no idea)”. And one fine day, while hogging to some really delicious junk, I burp loud holding my paunch and the feeling of guilt reminds me of my annual membership that I need to use sometimes. Once again I take an oath to visit my gym after…hmm…I don’t remember when I went there last! Life goes on...

Properties of an engineer

Properties of a weird specie of people called ‘engineer’ -

1. He is found in varied professions banking, entertainment, media, advertising, Hotels. If you think he does only technical jobs, you are wrong. He can do anything; you just have to train him. Yes he is a threat to your job too. You can keep cribbing that he is wasting his degree doing other jobs, but secretly he doesn’t want to use his degree at all.
2. No. Pls don’t tell an engineer to repair your broken tap, mixer-grinder, car etc. He can exactly tell you how it works, but cannot tell why it doesn’t.
3. All engineers are not math-geniuses. Lot of them actually hate maths. It’s like a pill you don’t like but cant do without. He may very well solve complicated calculus equations, yet make silly mistakes in divisions and multiplications
4. He likes to complicate his life and try to find a complicated solution. This is how he feels, his degree was worth of everything he had sacrificed in life. Do not teach him common sense. That’s the last thing he would like to use.
5. He will always pretend to know more about gadgets than others, often fumes if a non-engineer knows more about gadgets than him.
6. He will leave no stone unturned to flaunt his engineering degree and to brag about it. Secretly he knows the only thing to flaunt about the degree is that engineers have evolved as people who can bear with any kind of academic torture.
7. Half of these species go abroad for further studies just because others are going, Lots of them get into IT,  other do courses which have no relation to engineering and the remaining few do actual technical jobs. Most of the times, the last herd are the most satisfied lot.
8. Female species are often rare in engineering colleges, speaking to one of them is considered to be one of the biggest achievements. Guys having girl friends were given demi-god status and were often consulted by the have-nots for tips. Very often these demi-gods were the best source of all information related to the better gender.
9. All those habits which make the boy a man are often introduced to and perfected in these 4 years.
10. ‘40’ is a special number. It is like the finishing line of a marathon for an engineering student. ‘All Clear’ - That’s what defines any successful engineering student. He strives to see that number on his mark list, and any shortage in that is multiplied with the worst swore words in any possible gaali encyclopaedia, often targeted to the professor who taught that subject, the examiner, the paper-setter, the invigilator who didn’t let him copy, the exam-neighbours, the cricket series, the crush and every one else who cleared the subject. Basically everyone except himself.
11. You have written as many pages of assignments that can bring down a forest. Every engineer is a skilled editor. The assignments of the one who can bring down a toppers assignment to an optimum minimum pages is a benchmark for all future manual Xerox copies of the same. Yet there is always scope of further reduction.
12. The humble scientific calculator suddenly becomes a device with usages even the inventor wouldnt have imagined in his wildest dreams. It becomes a secret message device, the storage device for formulas/important values for exams, the boredom killer in lectures.
13. Has often being taught important definitions in local language by professors.
14. Has weird usage of words, even in normal circumstances. This blog title is one such example.
15. He might have spent the most torturous academic years of his life doing engineering, he actually starts living after his engineering. Yet he will cherish it as the best years of his life.

Chhattisgarhiya Sable Badhiya!

Sable Badiya Chhattisgarhiya! – it means ‘Chhattisgarh is the best’ in Chhattisgarhi language. Those were the bold letters written on a giant gate at the entry to the capital city – Raipur. I still remember reading these words when I had taken my first steps towards the city. I still haven’t been to find the reason why locals there think so. However there are few things that make CG a bit unique in its own way.

Few enlightening things about my Karmabhoomi – Chhattisgarh:

1. Apart from Tigers it houses a human population of 25,540,196
2. No, not all people staying there are Naxals
3. No, not all people staying there are Adivasis
4. Yes there are a lot of people who buy cars there (for all those ignorant @$$es who kept asking me “Tu waha gaadi kisko bechega, forest officials ko??” )
5. During summers you cant differentiate between a girl and a guy, both are covered by super long scarf on top half.
6. Yes there are malls, 6 sprawling ones in a small city. Now you just have to find people to visit them.
7. Everything is as expensive as metro cities, surely they have at least tried to replicate one aspect of Metros
8. Summers are like a baking oven, can go upto 45 degrees
9. ‘Bhaiyya’ becomes ‘Bhiya’, ‘Haan’ becomes ‘haau’, ‘Paani Puri’ becomes ‘Gup Chup’
10. Rare to find localites, everyone is either a Marwari, Punjabi, Oriya, Bengali, Maharashtrian etc etc
11. Peace loving people, hardly witnessed petty crimes
12. Terrible food options, though I can vouch for the fact that ‘Rasoi’ in Bilaspur is the best vegetarian restaurant I have tried yet. No food available before 10 am and after 10 pm. 
13. It is not unusual to see a jerk stopping the vehicle on a flyover and talking on phone and waving other people to move ahead his car
14. Cattles on the road give you an exciting driving experience
15. Wine shops remind you of Mumbai Locals, round the year, as if the next day is a dry day.
16. Sunday is a holiday, even for shopkeepers. So if you make plans to do some Sunday shopping, you are sure to be disappointed.
17. Every Autorickshaw is a 10 seater, and even 15 seater if the traffic cop is on leave.
18. Remember those School Bags with buckles to close them? You get those as a free accessory with every bike. They are used as a side carrier!
19. Have seen a Bhelpuri waala sporting a huge LCD screen on his thhela powered by an Auto Battery. Call it a jugaad or innovation, means the same. He is a celeb.
20. Don’t be shocked if you feel your plane has landed on a railway station. Yes it is the airport.

Having said all these, I must say CG is developing rapidly thanks to its abundance of rich mines and minerals. It is one of the fastest progressing state in India. 10 years down the line I am sure any MBA passout getting posted will be happy to go there. I have absolutely cherished every day of CG, each one of them was a learning experience. I evolved. No matter what all reasons people have made to make that quote, but for me this was the reason why Chhattisgarh was truly sable badiya.

Why this viral di???

 ‘Why This Kolaveri Di (Why This Murderous Rage, Girl?) is an Indian song from the soundtrack of the upcoming Tamil film 3, which is due to be released in 2012… The song was officially released on 16 November 2011, and it instantly became viral on social networking sites for its quirky “Tanglish” (portmanteau word of Tamil and English) lyrics. Soon, the song became the most searched YouTube video in India. Within a few weeks, YouTube honored the track with a Gold Award for getting the most number of hits.’

 – This is an official Wiki Entry for the Kolaveri Song and pretty much sums up the introduction for a song for all those (if at all) unaware of the phenomenon. If there are actually people like that I guess we can successfully declare them Web-Illiterate.

When I first saw the song pretty much before most of us started sharing it, for me it was a catchy song sung by a southie star for promoting his new movie through social media. What followed was a mass sharing on facebook with endless likes and status messages about the song, crores of tweets and millions of hits on youtube. Many of them shared it just because others were sharing it.  It took me completely by surprise that my north Indian friends started humming the song and they thought Dhanush was a south Indian singer until I corrected them. Last heard the song has crossed borders and even Pakistanis are going gaga over it. And then we were thrown in some interesting and some really ridiculous versions of the song, all trying to cash in the fame. This included a female version (yaawwn!), Metal version (murderous rage to the core), Rnb version (wannabe), Sharad Pawar Slap Song (okayish) and even a jr sonu nigam version (cute, good way to make a son popular)

Many of us have wondered why this song has become so viral, I have tried to pen down some of which I have heard or read:

1.     The Musical Theory: First of all let’s not take the credit from the creators of the song. The young Music director, Anirudh Ravichander and the Actor cum Singer cum Lyricist, Dhanush is told to have composed and made the song in 25 minutes flat. The song has simple urban lyrics, very simple to be understood and one that you can relate to easily. This makes the song very hummable even by a non-tamilian. It has a very addictive rhythm that makes you listen repeatedly.

2.     The ripple effect: You might have seen the video just to know why people are sharing it and many others have done it too. This has in turn made it even more popular.

3.     A highly critical but interesting theory:  Reasoning why the soup song has become so popular is also the reason why it is so popular. We can conclude two things from the fact that it has become so popular - First, it is establishing that we live anxious lives, always in the quest of answers for the Five Ws, the one H and their cousins. It is probably out of this curiosity and never ending journey to know the unknown that we are listening to it again and again. Second, by going viral we are also trying to heal our anxious selves. There is often so much things of meaning around, meaning being created out of nothing, meanings to explain the unexplained, meanings to define, to regularise, to legalise – that at times we feel it is good to transport ourselves to modes of zero-meaning; where there is no meaning of anything whatsoever. Kolaveri di is one such zero-meaning mode. Let us not unravel the meaning of why this kolaveri di, it supposed to have no meaning and let it be that way. It is just a moment of zero gravity for our mind.

4.    The Mathew effect: The Matthew Effect dates from the 1960s. It is the theory, first expressed by sociologist Robert K. Merton, that those who possess power and economic or social capital can leverage those resources to gain more power or capital. Put simply: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Or as it is expressed in the Gospel of St Matthew, from which the effect takes its name - “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” Thanks to the Matthew Effect, the already famous get more famous, the often quoted get more and more quoted…It is easy to see how this transfers into social media – the more something is spread the more it will be spread even further by word of mouth. So next time you see 15 friends from your list sharing a same link, there is high probability that you would be in that list too on your friend's walls.

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Can't believe you are actually searching for an explanation here!

What to expect from a Sales Job after MBA!

1. Your Targets – That’s the first word that pops into your mind when you hear ‘Sales’ and sure it is the first thing that you are fed with once you are ‘Sales – ready’. It all starts from this one most dreaded word. This is one number that constantly hovers around your mind most of the time. And after 20^th of every month, this number starts intruding your sleep and can give the ghosts in your nightmares a run for their money. Suddenly you will recite this holy number even when you are deep asleep. Suddenly you will realise you remember this number more than your best friends birthday.

2. Your Product – Before being sales ready, you are given a bible of sorts about the product you are going to sell. Trust me it is the best sleep inducer. You try to read the alien language and repeatedly fail after the 3^rd page and promise yourself – “Next time, I am gonna read it full No matter what”. And thus you give birth to a fine art which is overused ruthlessly & repeatedly – ‘Procrastination’. You master it as time passes. But thankfully this stops much later when you start answering the customer with “Sir, I will get back to you on this”. This is when you will go back to the biblical product book and will read all those words with so much enthusiasm like never before. You will suddenly see your product everywhere while previously you never knew this product even existed. The very sight of it make you go “hey I sell them!” with a glee. You get possessive about your product and donot like a single word against it. This is when you know about your product like never before. Its like an arranged marriage of sorts, you don’t have a choice but to love your product.

3. Your Boss – Usually a guy who had started like you. Do not presume he doesn’t know the ground realities. Don’t make false stories of why something didn’t happen. You will be caught and bowled. He will be behind you all the time like a thermo-sensing missile, like a Hutch Pug – ‘where ever you go our network follows’. He will ensure that your life is a pressure cooker. The more heat on your bum, the more you whistle. At times he will show you your real worth, will prove how a big mistake was it to recruit you, how useless you are and the list of insults goes on. At the beginning you take it to heart and his words keep banging your head all the time. Later you get accustomed to it. Moral of the story : Don’t take your bosses brickbats very seriously learn to shut off when he starts his blah, but take his praises more than seriously (you will get to hear it very rarely)

4. Your Life – If you are someone who has never lived out of your home, things are going to be really different for you. Suddenly you will get to learn a lot of things which you thought were by default your Bai’s. You learn to wash your clothes by your own hand, you broom, clean your utensils. You get to know the prices of groceries & vegetables; even names of some you never knew. You will work on Saturdays; your Sundays will seem longer. You will find yourself watching every stupid movies releasing on friday. Your laptop is full of stuffs like ______ (Fill in the blanks as per your own interests). Facebook is where you meet your friends. You will start calling people whom you used to ignore just to hear someone talking. You will feel happy to see your home location in movies, in my case ‘Mumbai’ - which is seen in every second movie. You will stare people speaking your mother tongue as if you seen a UFO full of Martians. You suddenly start liking the “The customer is on another call” message, because you feel like home when you hear it in Marathi. Maggi is your saviour when the cook bunks work. You start learning how to use different weapons in kitchen. You will search for holidays to book tickets to your hometown. When you reach home, you tell mom to cook all those things you generally complained about for having every second day. Your 2 days in your home-city = 1 month in your job location.

Despite all odds, I believe the learning is immense. You are enlightened by the fact that not everything Philip Kotler said was true. All those presentations, projects, assignments, case-studies etc will seem fake and will fall flat on your face. You learn what really works and what not. This is truly the first step for all Marketing Aspirants. You get to evolve as a person. You become Independent and start becoming more responsible. You get to meet new people, see new places and learn new things. I was hesitant and apprehensive at the beginning to take up this assignment. Now when I look back I feel,I would have missed a great deal had I declined it.