Chop! Chop! Chop!

Disclaimer : This post has been written by a dejected girl who has just had to part away with her long tresses at the hands of a stupid hairdresser. There is no intention to offend anybody and marketing or defamation of any product is nowhere intended.


Among all the foulest creatures that walk the surface of the Earth, the evilest of them all is the hairdresser. He/She has a power that even Lord Voldemort cannot match; to make you feel horrible about your hair. Let's have a look at what a harrowing experience it is to go for a haircut -

1. Alliteration D
One may wonder that if we take so much pain to grow our tresses, wouldn't we want to take care of it and keep it well groomed? But no! These inconsiderate hairdressers drone on like an irritating Justin Bieber song on loop - "dry, dull, damaged... dry, dull, damaged" 
(I know I have damaged hair, why do you think I am here ?! It's not my fault that the pollution in my city is outrageously high and the weather extremely out of hands!)


2. Which Shampoo?
It should be made a criminal offence under Ethical Code of Hairdressing to pester someone with this question. How does it matter which shampoo I use? Everybody is aware that all the shampoos do the same job no matter how fancy the name or how exorbitant  the price. Of course, it is all part of the marketing gimmick - they make you question your choice of shampoo and then try to sell their own preferred brand of shampoo.

3. Don't you oil your hair?
Another frustrating question. For a person who was made to oil her hair everyday of school despite the mockery it brought, the question is insulting. Even as an adult, I diligently oil my hair before every head-wash because I know that if I don't, my hair will resemble the guy from the center-shock advertisement.

4. Hair Spa le lo, Keratin treatment le lo!

Hair spa is supposedly the elixir for damaged hair! I, personally, find the entire concept a baloney because how can putting more chemicals treat your damaged hair? Another marketing strategy to mint out more money out of such treatments. But the fact remains, everybody is raving about hair spa these days but I find no difference in their hair quality !

5. 1 inch = 3 inches.

This is perhaps the most infuriating part of my visit to a salon. These people have a flawed scale and notwithstanding my constant plea for trimming not more than 1 inch of hair, they happily chop away 3 inches if they are merciful and more if they are sadistic bastards. And then, they have the audacity to ask - "is the length okay?"

Arre bhai, if I say it is not okay, will you paste my trimmed hair back with fevicol ?! Nincompoops.

I would like to mention that I have got a lot of compliments for my new haircut but nothing seems to be alleviating my grief of parting with 3 inches of my hair; I am currently planning to visit the Himalayas and seek nirvana plus those sadhu babas have long hair and can guide me how to grow my hair back faster.

Yours dejectedly
The girl with short hair

The Number 17

Disclaimer:  All thoughts expressed here are author’s personal views and no mockery is anywhere intended. I am responsible for what I say and not for what you understand.

So, it has been 1 year since the gullible girl got out of the gobbledygook of books and ventured into the real world. I have been meaning to write about my experiences but the cobwebs of the corporate world caught me up and I have been neglecting my introspection for long. But not anymore!

Before we begin, let me give you a bit of trivia. Everybody is aware that financial year starts from April 1^st and ends 31^st of March. But can we have a longer financial year? The answer is yes.

Here is an excerpt from the Companies Act, 1956 (sec 129 of Companies Act 2013) for your reference - 

"Financial Year means, in relation to any to any body corporate, the period in respect of which any profit and loss account of the body corporate laid before it in annual general meeting is made up, whether that period is a year or not the period to which the account aforesaid relates is referred to as a 'financial year'; and it may be less or more than a calender year, but it shall not exceed fifteen months; Provided that it may extend to eighteen months where special special permission has been granted in that behalf by the Registrar."


So my year in the blog is going to start from January 2017 and last till April 2018. So we are still talking about Financial year 2017-18. (I am just justifying my inability to write my year-end blog, as my tradition has always been, by using CA jargon. :P)

Oh, what a roller coaster ride this year has been!

It began with my result last year in January.  CA results have always been a jittery affair. Primarily because they say that it would be announced around 2pm but they never publish the results before 4pm. Can you imagine the state of the student during these two hours? One can almost cook rice, such is the pressure in the head. I remember my IPCC results came out at 11pm; 9 hours of torture! CA final was even worse. The website crashed around 4pm and then a gazette reached me via whatsapp! It felt incredibly foolish to believe a whatsapp saying that I was now a CA but for a few magical minutes I was blissful. And then, a friend finally uttered sense – whatsapp gazette is false! Darkness shrouded my mind and I was gasping for breath. Then finally when I could see no way out, I dialed my favourite SharmaJi’s number (she is now my brother’s wife, such an eventful year this has been! :D) and requested her to confirm my result – her father is in ICAI, you see. Sharma Uncle confirmed my result and I heaved a sigh of relief! And then I did what I was dying to do since the inception of CA odyssey, I texted my father “All my life I have been known as a CA’s daughter. Now, you are going to be known as a CA’s father. Debit equals credit ”

Hallelujah!

A perfect ending to the CA journey. Ending, did I say? It was the beginning! Inception of the hard road that lay ahead! But before that, I had a few moments of relief and fun – GMCS 2. I met a variety of people- a few assholes, a few really good friends and a few forget-after-the-gmcs people. In a nutshell, it was an eye opener. It told me what kind of people I would meet ahead and the types of challenges that were going to ensue. I sat for one off campus interview at Deloitte which was a fiasco. Big 4 never really tempted me but as every person preached me that it was stupid not to sit for the interview so I went ahead. After waiting for 3 hours, I finally entered the room. Technical sucked. HR went good. Then I was asked if I had any questions. I asked the interviewer how had his experience been with Deloitte. He began in his monotonous tone that life was okay. (okay? OKAY? He told me that I would need to work 16 hrs a day and for what? An ‘okay’ life?!). Sometimes in my not-so-sane moments, I feel that all these big corporate companies are actually a secret organization and their aim is to plague the world with frustration. Frustrated people recruiting more guinea pigs to suck life and turn into zombies.

Anyway, so then came the campus placements! The interview could not have been more different from the previous one. The interviewer was COOL, there is no other word for him and I was laughing so hard by the end that I had to apologise! So I was selected as an Internal Auditor in the company. I was on cloud 9. I was a CA, I had a job… I needed no other thing in life!

How very wrong I was.

Once I joined, I realized that things were not so rosy. Firstly, my place of reporting was Gurgaon and I simply detest Gurgaon. All the tall glass buildings copied from the west by DLF irritated me (You put up glasses all over the building, leading to greenhouse effect and then install centralised air-conditioning to beat it and then fret over huge power bills and pollution!) and the traffic was/is/will always be crazy in Gurgaon. Shuttle rides gave me sore muscles and back ache. I felt like I had aged 20 years in just 20 days. But I met this wonderful lady here who turned out to be Virat Kohli’s cousin! (I did not believe her till I saw her picture with Virushka at the grand celebrity reception last year! I openly admit that I was green with envy, Kohli is the love of my life after Harry Potter.) After the introductory few days at the new company, we were sent off to its various branches for conducting the internal audit and then reality hit me – it was nowhere near the audit I had envisaged.  I was supposed to visit the customer place and confirm our company’s services and controls were in place. The heat and exertion from long travel hours soon took toll on my health and I resigned within 2 months mainly because of the safety factors – these customers lived in the JJ colonies, since my company was into micro finance, and I was supposed to visit these areas with a salesperson on his bike!

And I was back into what-am-I-going-to-do-in-my-life phase. I started analyzing my strengths and weaknesses, interests and available options. Thoughts like ‘did I do the right thing by resigning; who is stupid enough to leave campus placement which is so difficult to get through; maybe I should have persevered’ kept plaguing me. Thanks to some wonderful people that God has bestowed me with, I could get out of it and got my next job in OBC after successfully clearing the written and interview. The month of darkness was soon forgotten just like a bad dream.

The number 17 continued to rule my stars. My CA result was announced on 17^th Jan. I joined my first job on 17^th of April. I joined my subsequent job on 17^th of August! And this is just the tip of the iceberg. ;)

The week-long induction training was my first experience in hostel and it was a memorable one. I realized why all hostelers kept cribbing about bad food – food at the mess was  extremely oily but the dessert always made up for the bad taste.

Obviously, I slept through the lectures but was wide awake during our badminton matches at night. And again, I met a variety of people – a bunch of idiots, some nice friends, a few I-don’t-even-remember-their-names and one adorable lady needs special mention here - Shraddha! She is one of the most hardworking, polite, sensible and decent women I have ever met!

At the end of our training, we were all given our postings. I was posted at Head office (Gurgaon, will you ever leave me?!) in large corporate credit department- I had to deal with the big fish, loans above 50 crores.  The next few months were horrendously challenging – I had to learn all the new stuff about loans, policies of the bank, RBI guidelines and more importantly, how to deal with people and how to coordinate between various departments I needed to rely upon for information! I tried my best but my pace was slow. I got scolded again and again. Again, some people who I call Gifts-from-God, helped me through each difficult day. Some days were so bad that I went home resolving to never be back but got up the next morning to face all the challenges.

Meanwhile, my brother got married. And a wedding, as enjoyable and wonderful and sacred thing may be, is a stressful affair! Shopping is as time consuming as it is financially-depleting. I tried one dress after the other till I settled upon this beautiful black-golden gown and a golden saree. It cost me my entire month’s salary but the look and the compliments overshadowed the monetary aspects.

After fun-filled 4 days wedding saga, it was difficult getting back to work. But what options do we have other than slogging our asses off for organizations who replace us within a fraction of second?

Just when I started to get a little hang of my work, life threw me a curve ball again!

I was transferred to the Accounts department! Out of the blue. Just like that. Personal grudge of the bosses? Or was it my slow pace? God knows how many times my mind berated me till I was shown sense (again by the good people!) that

•  Things don’t work like that in professional domain. Transfer is as ubiquitous in banks as chaai
• I need not blame my slow pace since I was a newbie and I was given 2 years to learn and train myself. Nobody catches bullet trains in 6 months, every body rides a bullock cart.
• Change is good. Change is inevitable. Moreover, wasn’t I so stressed and unhappy in that department so why not give the new department a chance?

And so I entered the Accounts department. So far, so good. My father worships Accounts, by the way. So he showed me all the positive (N.B. sarcasm detected!) side – balance sheet is the lifeline of any company’s finances, GST is the future of India, IFRS is the in-thing. He had said the same things about the credit department also… that credit department would lead to my holistic  learning as it would involve processing of balance sheets, application of tax laws. I have lost all hopes that I can ever be as much in love with CA stuff as he is.

Amongst all the anguish, I found my solace in fulfilling my travel dreams that I nurtured since childhood. I have covered Rajasthan, Shimla and Goa so far; sand, snow and sea. I fell in love with the sound of the sea. You have no right to be alive if you can’t take out time to watch the sunrise and sunset. Sunsets in Goa are proofs that not everything that goes down is sad and melancholy; it taught me to stay still and just be in the moment… the realization dawned on me that a higher power looks upon us all and I could feel all my stressed neurons slackening as the force of the mighty sea hit me. Nothing mattered anymore and I learnt just to be… in unison with my soul… at total peace.

All in all, this year was all about what they call as blooming and budding; making mistakes and learning from them; getting out of my comfort zone and most importantly taking note of my happiness and dreams.

Oh Darling, Let's Be Adventurers!

I'd have admitted that my blog posts have become as recurring as service tax returns but 2017 meant subsumption of all indirect taxes into one umbrella tax of GST so my CA-brand joke is a complete malarkey. (Service tax returns were half-yearly unlike GST returns, got the PJ now?)

Anyway, philosophers and successful people might say that only losers give excuses but I think that I deserve to justify my absence before being tagged as a loser!

So, my brother decided to get married to his beloved this year. We also undertook a totally mind-consuming (not to mention financially-depleting!) job of renovating our home this year. I had my personal goals to meet - CA and campus placement. With all the hullabaloo going on, my blog got relegated to the sidelines. Anyway, now I am here to rant again!

My aversion to everything that spells intimacy is universally known, be it love or wedding. Before all of you judge me heartless and evil as the villainess fairy Maleficent, I want to clarify that I am THE HAPPIEST person alive that my brother got married.

Personally, I believe, a wedding is a cockamamie concept. It drains you mentally, emotionally and FINANCIALLY! One's head resembles a Prestige Cooker (ironically, the tag line says 'jo biwi se kare pyar, wo prestige se kaise kare inkaar') steaming off at 250 degree F out of stress; relatives who taunt you and get upset for anything and everything at the speed of light; and your 10 years or 20 years of savings go into a sewer for throwing a themed wedding or a destination wedding respectively. Agreed, you are happy to finally be with the love of your life but why invite a clan of 500- 1000 people that you barely know and spend a million bucks entertaining them instead of just those few you can count on fingers who truly, genuinely care about your happiness? And it's just not about the money, the whole wedding saga is a torture in itself - I considered the saat pheras to be sacred before I saw all the people sleeping and snoring during the ceremony. Anyway, I can never run out of arguments against getting married so let me focus on what this post was originally meant to be about - 

How I could use all that money to give solace to my restless soul... by travelling far and wide...
Now that I have a steady source of income, I have started thinking about fulfilling my travel dreams. What appeared like a soap bubble to me earlier, now seems realistic. I have gradually begun to understand why exactly I run away from the idea of relationships and marriage - it is the thought of being settled, of getting into shackles of societal obligations and above all, of being chained to one place or routine, that haunts my nomadic soul. I keep pouring over articles and blogs that talk about places to travel in a budget, how to save for travel and what not. This blog post is my first step, symbolic of my promise to myself that from now on, I live to turn my dreams into reality... This is going to be the reminder in my frustrating moments that there is light at the end of the tunnel, so keep moving...

While the above mentioned rosy thoughts might motivate me to hit the road right away, my sane mind rings the bells - Surbhi, you need the funds! So here is how I plan to save for my travel goals -

1. Create a  travel corpus.
Call it your 'Adventure Account' to own a  'Dream Debit Card'. Remember, good things take time. It is a marathon, not a 100m sprint. Go steady but stay committed to saving for your cause. The best way is to set your salary account on auto-debit mode for some TDs (read travel deposits instead of term deposits!) because the only real life equation I understand is Income- Saving = Expenditure. Set aside some savings first and then expend the balance in a wise manner.

2. Cut down on wasteful expenditure
Once you have saved a portion of your income, focus on allocating the balance in such a manner that you are able to increase your savings by 10% p.a. Instead of draining your money on a Starbucks Coffee with a bunch of spendthrift friends, you could convince them for a Delhi-Darshan while sipping away a local cup of chai while soaking in the local culture. Or you could curb on your weekend outings to malls and cafes. The idea is to do away with everything that comes in way of your dreams; your peer group might start mocking you but be ruthless about your priorities!

3. The Great Indian Sale by Amazon
All of us are aware that Amazon is the biggest e-commerce company in the market and its revenue roots from people like us who shop away our salaries at the click of button. What I mean to say is that you need to keep your shopping tendencies off the table, if you want to savour the cuisines in the various parts of the world; that one GAP dress can cost you your trip to Grand Canyon. Either own that Louis Vuitton or go visit St Peter's in the Vatican City. Your fashion-crazy friends will definitely make fun of you, might call you 'aunty' because of your good old attire of jeans and t-shirt but we shall see who has the last laugh while watching the  Northern Lights in Norway.

4. Supplement your income
Find ways to boost your income. Just to illustrate, I keep participating in writing contests and have won 7500 bucks apiece.I know people who earn through online selling on amazon or through digital marketing. Every person has been given some skill or the other. Discover your talent and monetise it!

5. Be practical in your approach
Start with simple things like doing away with double expenses - people carry multiple sim cards and keep paying multiple expenses. If you don't watch TV, you could cut away your cable and save on a lot of money annually. You could car-pool or use public transport to save as well as contribute to environment.

6. Keep your eyes on the goal
You would often be tempted to stray away from your goals - friends and family would call you miser, stupid, crazy... but don't deter. I keep reading and looking at travelling blogs and pictures to keep myself motivated and focused. 
Here, have a look -

• The-50-most-beautiful-places-in-the-world
• Beautiful-places-in-india-you-must-visit
• 20-Places-In-Indian-You-Can-Visit-With-Just-10000-Rupees

And just to pique your interest, here is a compilation of some of the most picturesque places around the world - 

1.Christmas Island, Australia

2. Plitvice Lakes, Croatia

3. Glen Coe, Scotland

4. Valley of Flowers, Uttarakhand

All the beautiful places in India and the World, here I come !

Oonchi Hai Building, Lift Teri Band Hai :D

My great-great-great grandfather told his son that his great-great-great grandfather was friends with Uncle Darwin. Now, Uncle Darwin was a peculiar kind of a man. He, according to me, was a pessimist who believed that you will be wiped off the surface of the Earth If you don't change. Well, what he really propagated was the theory of natural selection and the survival of the fittest but what a lame person like me understands by it is that if you do not change with the changing world, you will soon be engulfed by obsolescence. 
The easiest example that I can come up with is that of Nokia. The company failed to keep up with the technological changes and lost all its market share to android phones.
They say that the only constant thing in life is change! All is hunky-dory with the concept of change except that it is a real challenge to leave behind things that you so loved and replace them with something better. But the real question that the Philosopher- Surbhi wants to ask is that if change /really/ is as good as it is touted to be. Allow me to put forth my arguments. But before that I would like to state that these are my personal opinions and are not intended to hurt anybody's sentiments, so keep control over your melodramatic tendencies please!

The world of music was bombarded a few years back by this sensation known as Arijit Singh. The whole country was in tears to hear his 'sun raha hai na tu, ro raha hu main.' He is the God of unrequited love and Messiah of jilted lovers.
But I personally believe that no matter how advanced the music industry becomes, how much we sway to Ed Sheeran's Shape of you, nothing can replace the old meaningless songs that the Bollywood produced. These are the songs that I remember singing with my cousins whenever there was a power outage and we had nothing to do except play Antakshri. (Can any game on your Playstore replace this good old Antakshri? And just out of curiosity, how many of you sing Tum hi ho instead of Tu cheez badi hai mast mast in the game?) 
The other day, one of my friends mocked me for maintaining a diary for all the movies I have watched and books I have read. He said I could do that on IMDB and Goodreads. This is one reason that makes me detest changes. It would break my heart if I even think of giving up on my diary and start a list on IMDB! Uncle Darwin said people like me would be wiped off because we lag behind.

Anyway, this post is not about changes per se. It is about the ridiculous lyrics that the songs back then had. It is about the inexplicable solace that I derive listening to these because they somehow connect me to childhood days when there was neither worry nor care! Life was easy and I was not surrounded by scary-looking & big books on GST or had deadlines to meet or stressed about responsibilities at home. This post is about what these songs are symbolic of - cable TV, video games, postcards & greeting cards, carom board & ludo, Kya aap closeup karte hain, Aahat, B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat every Sunday, Champak and what not.

Here are the songs that make me burst out laughing because of their silly lyrics but these never fail to cheer me up because each time I listen to them, I am like - what were they even thinking. :D (An absolutely irrelevant observation is that these are mostly from the movies of Salman Khan :P well, what else can you expect. :P )
Of course, there are countless such songs but here is a compilation of what I can think of at the moment!

1. Tan Tana Tan Tan Taara
I am unable to choose which lines make me laugh the most - suna hai tere chahne wale, aage dus hain piche barah or Tu meri hai pepsi-cola main tera hu coca cola :D
You got to see whole of it to get the feel of Bollywood rhymes and the dance moves because the song itself says ek baar se dil nahi bharta mud ke dekh mujhe dobara :P
Also, I am not ashamed to admit that I loved the movie Judwaa and it is taking all my willpower to resist adding the other songs from the movie, whether it is East or West, India is the best or Duniya mei aaye ho to love kar lo, thoda sa jee lo thoda thoda mar lo :P

2. Hawa Hawai
Awi Wiwi Wiwi Wiwi, chee ho ho honolulu lu lu, honolulu, Hing bekei Hong Kong king kong, I seenoosi yusiloosi hassi toso, lassi pissi, mombasa, ping pong. Ake chikke lakee chikee.
Enough said!
My favourite lines - Bijli girane main hu aayi, hekte hain mujhko hawa hawai :D

3. Papa kehte hain bada naam karega
Every time I did something stupid or scored low marks, I was made to hear this song at home :D And people wonder how I grew up to be so sarcastic!
My favourite lines - Koi engineer ka kaam karega, business mei koi apna naam karega :P

4. O o Jane Jana
Inception of Salman Khan's shirtless era :P
I like this song because of its peppy beats ! And come on, isn't it universally accepted that it is a crime to ignore a guy with guitar? :P Except the fact that this song has Salman Khan, everything about this song is great !
My favourite lines - not the lines but the guitar at the inception of the song!

5. Ole Ole
This is the musical version of the fact 'Men will be men' :P
You may disagree if you wish but this song has accepted the reality that guys go nuts in vicinity of estrogen-carriers.
My favourite lines - the main lines  jab bhi koi ladki dekhu mera dil diwana bole ole ole ole, ole ole ole :D

6. Choli ke peeche kya hai
Kukukukuk... this one needs no introduction :D
It is one of the most sensuous songs of its time! And Madhuri's dance moves are worth dying for! She alone could do justice to the wonderful beats of this song!
My favourite lines - aashiq pade hain piche, koi idhar ko khinche koi udhar ko khinche :P

7. Na jane kahan se aayi hai
Sridevi's expressions need a standing ovation!
My favourite lines  - Kisi ke hath na aygi ye ladki :D

8. Jumma Chumma 
Again, this song has the real touch of what Bollywood represents! It shows the plight of the guy begging the girl for a kiss in a quintessential filmy way ! Listen to this song if you like hardcore hindi music!
My favourite lines - Jumma chumma de de, jumma chumma de de :D

9. Tum par hum hain atke 
The lyrics are typical of Bollywood :D
You got to listen to this for its rhyming scheme :P
My favourite lines - Mere bhaiya toh bharwayenge tujhse to pani ke matke :P

10. Kisi disco mei jayein
How could I not include Govinda's songs :D His epic expressions while dancing the weird dance, set this song apart :P This one still leaves people grooving when played on DJ :D
My favourite lines - chalo ishq ladaye, chalo ishq ladaye :D

This is by no means even the tip of iceberg that the Bollywood music industry is! Comment about your songs that crack you up, in the comment box!


Yours sincerely
A person averse to changes & a 'rigid' fan of RiHiMuSo 
(~Ridiculous Hindi Music Society)

P.S. I am the founder and President of RiHiMuSo.

Whatever.

House# 13
Doldrums Lane

Panic City

Low Spirits - 100001

02/06/2017

The Secretary
The Department of Emotions
You-Make-Me-Sick Road.

Sir
Subject : Cancellation of my subscription to your department.

This is to bring to your kind attention that I would like to unsubscribe to all things related to your department because of the reasons enlisted below -

1.  I have absolutely no faith in the quality of your products. You claim to sell cherries but they turn out to be lemons. I have seen people portraying happiness when they are in fact green with jealousy.

2. There is no market left for genuine care. People run helter-skelter behind the beguile and do not believe in gestures. As they say in Hindi, 'Jo dikhta hai, wo bikta hai'. There is no meaning left in what I silently do to make life easy for people around me...my gestures don't count but what matters is that 'tumne haal chaal nahi pucha humara'. I am not the type who beats the trumpet, so the hell with everything. You neither get the care, nor the haalchaal puchna, all you get now is silence. Enjoy.

3. Anxiety and panic attacks have been the bane of my life. Please, PLEASE, P.L.E.A.S.E. just get this shit out of my life now. Earnest request.

4. Anger! I am nauseated by people who take their ire out on innocent people around them who have no relation whatsoever with the cause of their anger. People who shout at everybody and anybody have long since lost respect in my eyes. These empty vessels that make so much noise, make me reach my nadir of patience. Just erase this nonsense asap, please!

5. Exams? Frustration. Result? Frustration. Job? Frustration. Some social obligation? Frustration. People? Frustration.
Enough said.

6. In return of the trust I place in people, I only get disgust as the by-product of betrayal. It brings suffering, dejection and grief as other co-products. But predominantly, it induces fear, to be honest. I am scared to 'trust' my own judgement now!  


I hope that I have cited enough reasons to be able to call for cancellation. If not, you could send your executive to visit me and see just how sick I am of your products.
 As they say, those who are heartless. once cared too much. I am done caring and I now wish to purchase the heartless part of the adage. If you sell heartlessness, please courier it to the aforementioned address after deducting any discounts that you may be offering. Or is there some exchange bonus? You know, trading all the shitty emotions for heartlessness and I-don't-give-a-damn products?

In anticipation of a quick response from you,
Yours annoyingly
My Middle Finger.