The Eternal Optimist!

I started learning German out of curiosity but it is becoming a hectic exercise as I advance throughthe levels. Teaching style of the Germans does not match my learning style. Six hours a day, six days a week, one just takes in new words, grammar and culture. While class work focuses more on group work, I tend to be more of a pause-think-observe-learn person. I am simply overloaded by the content and my classmates rush ahead with work while I am still busy thinking about how can one get more creative with the given assignments. One only finds time on weekends to focus and 'digest' the language, working in peace and solitude. However, the very teaching and assessment mechanism of the Germans works in my favor. They believe that language is learned best in a group as it gives you lots of opportunity to talk. It gives me lots of opportunity to observe. Secondly, while classes focus on group work, exams are held in a different class than usual. Oral exams are hel...

Dear dad, Yes, you work hard to give me the relative prosperity we have today compared to your times, yes, my life seems more comfortable in material terms, but I also face issues. Please, try to understand. Yes, you are right when you say, that today’s generation cares more about practical life than emotions and relations.   Yes you are right when you say today’s generation is confused. We are confused because we witness the differences that exist between the values you taught us and the ways the world operates. We are confused because we live in times markets and sociopolitical situations are fast changing. We value our culture with the same zeal and passion that you do but we do not hesitate to make pragmatic decisions and welcome that change if it benefits us.  Yes, I am always on phone or the Internet, Yes, I know its not always good. but dad, its the need of the hour.   The Internet has opened the doors to infinite knowledge. It h...

Unlearning is the key to successful innovation. I wish to have these words tattooed across my forehead so that I never forget them. That is what I learnt during my two year long career as a journalist in ‘our Great News Channel’.  It’s a really simple two step process. First, you list all the assumptions people have about a story. Then, you break them all. It was my boss, the editor of Our Great News Channel who taught me these things.  It was him who set the core value of my writing both in journalism and creative writing. “Content is king”. He used to remand all his staff from time to time. Get your hands on great content and present it in an entertaining manner because infotainment is the best means to keep your audience hooked in information age. He was a boss with brilliant ideas and very liberal way of leadership. When I looked at his ideas and his ability to build networks of knowledgeable people, a nickname just popped into my head. This man understood th...

 I was very enthusiastic about rising fast in the small Goan media business. I worked entire September without even taking weekly offs, had one month of continuous all nighters for the first time in my life and the little problem of acidity I had then, developed into hyper acidity. This condition has ruined my social and gastronomic life.  I have skipped a couple of birthday parties, a dinner invitation at hotel Delmon, cant eat oily and spicy food, cant stay online all night and worst of all,  my mom and our neighbors, the armature Ayurveda enthusiasts,  have reduced me into a genuine pig who is fed  all the  bitter, most horribly testing  herbs  on the planet. Despite their best efforts, when I continued to throw up every ounce of food I consumed, I went to a homeopathy doctor who gave a long prescription of his sweet homeopathic tablets for a change. I had to compulsorily eat something and pop a pill every two hours. When things were...

  Yes, I was wrong. In calling the office as wonderland in my last post. Its actually a mini rural Maharashtra. Most of the employees come from distant villages in that state and they commit three most despicable sins.            1.   They don’t read my blog  2.    They don’t laugh at my jokes  3.     NO INGLIS See? This is where I run in trouble due to my addiction to English puns and idioms. My frequent references to different sitcoms and dramadies on Star World are met with blank stares, I come across graduates (in Marathi) who spell ‘cylinder’ with‘s’ and ‘eradication’ with ‘I’. Contrary to my Germany educated cousins, (ahem) the office people think my English is impeccable and I get respect to a point where it becomes uncomfortable.  The situation is so awful that I had to create an imaginary English speaking friend (who look and talks like Agent Smith in Matrix.) to preserve my English skill...

Ola! My reader friends!  I apologize for the long silence that befell our interection in the friendly virtual world the cruel real world kept me on my toes . Anyway, I just got down to scribbling as I found the next target for satire.  It’s this newspaper that gives really awesome news.  For the purpose of this blog, we’ll call it the Daily Devil Lets get to the point. So this new job opened up the world of working of the print media which we in the audio-visual media have sometimes considered… errr…. ‘not above us’. Firstly, they’re night owls, considerably relaxed then the audio visual folk. And compared to our lean but mean but great news channel which I had compared to the nimble little British intelligence service, the Daily Devil employs a lot more man power. There’s a lot more work and you’ve to write a lot. Finding shortcut in work is not easy. And of course, the sub-editors, the desk workers who write, not necessarily intelligent but sensible news from...

I think the city of Panaji is like a beautiful painting and you cant take your eyes off it. Roaming the city in late evenings after office has become my hobby. I don’t walk. I don’t do anything on my own account. The streets come alive and pull me on and the sea sings songs of joy. Miramar beach is my trusted friend. It is here that I built my first sand castle as a kid. It is here that I wrote my first poem . I shared my grief here with the sea and tears from my eyes fused with the waves to become a part of their calm humming that provides hope. There is this place, elegant as a nobleman, charismatic as a leader, whoprovides a peek in the corridors of power. The hill of Altinho-abode of the ruling elite. Sometimes I stand before the Archbishops House and pretend I own the place or stand on the heights of Altinho imagining I rule the city spread below. The mentions and bungalows of the city’s powerful barons, the sophisticated black coated lawyers at the high court and govern...