Dumbsmash?

As with several ones before it, "Dubsmash", another highly overrated pseudonym promises to threaten the very sanity of even extremely clear-headed social networkers.

To those of you who haven't been wetted by the wave yet, a Dubsmash video has a (usually) self recorded video where a user lip-syncs a movie dialogue or song while the actual audio plays.

As with selfies, #hashtags and memes (I find the last one intellectual though), this new forced nomenclature is gaining popularity at an alarming rate, flooding facebook feeds and accumulating likes and comments, intimidating even casual Facebook and Instagram users into making one, lest they be left out.

This new crazy idea isn't the first and will certainly not be the last of a long chain of such pointless activities today's youth, why, even middle aged folk end up indulging in.

There isn't much to say at this point, for the craze has only begun, except for the fact that its popularity is going to grow exponentially.

I hope to sit back and watch, as but a passive observer, protecting my lucidity.

Meme courtesy: Somewhere on Facebook (Forgive the grammatical error)

PG Blues - The state of paying guest accommodation in Bangalore

Bangalore is a haven for ambitious, lucky and energetic youngsters of India, and also for those who have no choice but to live here - workers, professionals, apprentices, interns, job-seekers and of course the omnipresent software engineers - these include the "lucky" ones who get into "dream" companies - be it core, IT or call centres (Over time, the differences between the last three diminish into nothing, leaving behind stress). Many of these youngsters, of course, develop into fate-fearing, energy-deficient, physically and psychologically affected, humble addicts.

In an era where ergonomic comforts, namesake health concerns and pseudo recreation at work only add to an employee's stress, the only place where he/she can hope to de-stress is his/her place of stay. Unfortunately, these de-stress sanctums leave their tenants in distress.

"PG", which used to expand to "Paying Guest" implying a person staying with a family and paying for their stay, has now become a term independent of its expanded form, implying a shared accommodation which may loosely termed as a hostel, swarming over every possible every area in Bangalore, and spreading into every possible real estate website on the WWW. Today, PGs in Bangalore serve as a refuge to thousands of bachelors, a reasonable number of married folk (if they've come alone, yeah) - and to those who visit them, either as a (relatively) permanent residence or an interstice while they find a house to move in to. As with career decisions, bachelors' decision to move out of their (dis?)comfort zones - PGs that is, is dictated largely by inertia , and some bachelors take a couple of years or even more, to move out of their PG.

So what's with all this gibberish, why can't they go for a house or a flatshare, you ask? Bangalore's house, or even room rent policy is a heartbreaking one for house-hunters, and negotiating over these is an inevitable ordeal for tenants. Invariably, house owners demand a mammoth ten-month-rent-amount as advance security deposit before making tenants sign an eleven month rental agreement, listing down conditions that turn out to be a nightmare. What's more, misguided clients are made bigger fools of, with self-sympathetic words of landlords (especially female ones -  ok, sorry). And it doesn't end there - before returning the security deposit, owners deduct an amount equalling one month's rent as painting charges - an amount that might escalate to two months' rent in case tenants wish to vacate within the agreement period. In some cases, vacating the place within the agreement period can resulting in forfeiting the entire security deposit. The owner, in short, is a dictator who can add rules to the rental agreement at his (more often her) own free will. With youngsters from the entire country flooding Bangalore, little choice remains but to concede defeat at the hands of landlord who, to do some justice to them, sometimes turn out to be nice people. Most often, though, they aren't, and lodgers go through a pitiable phase till they settle down in their new place. Oh, and more often that not, house-agents introduce potential tenants to landlords and, for their part, demand a one-month-rent amount as brokerage.

Such being the case, the concept of PGs comes as a welcome option for bachelors - and bachelorettes. People who choose PGs are often those who've joined their first company, or those who've come to find a job, and not-so rare cases include those who wish to capitalize on the proximity of the PG to their places of interest - usually their workplace, occasionally a person of interest's residence. Students and interns find PGs affordable and easy to vacate. Instability at work, short stays, attempts to save up and inability to, or inability to find time to cook, constitute other reasons.

A PG is usually located in an innocent looking building which may be a house or a part of it, one or more rooms on the terrace of a building (in this case, an asbestos sheet usually serves as a ceiling), one or more floors of an office building, or thoughtfully constructed underground rooms (no kidding). Occasionally, though, PGs have dedicated buildings. It is virtually impossible to generalize a PG's building, for there is far too much variety.

Inside, however, they converge to an indubitable pattern -  a typical PG consists of rooms (occasionally a single room) crammed with beds, with barely any space to walk between them, shelves or cupboards overflowing with clothes, shared toilets, and, if the landlord is thoughtful enough, a verandah or terrace for tenants to hang clothes to dry. In other cases, the room or corridor is equipped with a clothes line, either invested by the occupants or generously provided by the landlord. Rooms are usually shared, and are termed as two-sharing, three-sharing (no explanation needed, I'm sure) or single-sharing (sounds silly, I know). Restrooms are poorly maintained, owing to the fact that too many people (mis)use them - well, I'd rather not describe. Proprietors often hire maids for cleaning up the place, irrespective of which, the place remains filthy.

Cheap advertisements (computer printouts or pamphlets, basically) promising the banal list of facilities including unlimited WiFi, 24 Hours water supply (sometimes claiming hot water supply), televisions in each room, washing machine, "security", parking facility, mineral water among others, can be seen in almost every street in Bangalore. However, the degree to which these promises are kept, is one that can only be answered by the pitiable tenants. From my own experience, and from first accounts that I have heard, I may say boldly that over 50% of Bangalore's PGs don't provide at least half of the facilities promised.

A precipitous - why, even a planned visit to a men's PG would reveal the extent to which bachelors go in maintaining the filthiness of the place - with clothes, books, laptops and related components, mobile phones, shaving equipment, cigarette butts and empty liquor bottles strewn all around. Girls' PGs are relatively neater (so I'm told). This is more a consequence of frustration at staying in a not-so-nice place and abhorrence towards their landlord. Some PG landlords are not owners - they take a house or a part of a building on lease and then rent it out as a PG. Whether or not they are, their behaviour with tenants is deceitful and domineering to say the least. When the tenant signs up, they display their best hospitality - a feature which degrades down to annoyingly cheap behaviour in a matter of weeks. (These days nearly everyone speaks impeccable English, especially over phone and language is hardly a criterion to judge people on) Hidden charges, addition of extra cots (implying occupants), dismissal of kind maids, adding new rules to the rental "agreement", and more. In short, they make loopholes their way of life, giving dappy excuses and thrive on their clients' dearth of choices, not unlike HR and emolument staff in companies.  As a rule, they never provide proper rent receipts, and in addition to them not paying taxes, they forcibly make tax paying tenants draft false receipts to receive their deserved deductions. Lodgers' untidiness and marginal misbehaviour may, thus, be dismissed as a poor retaliation for the ordeals they are subjected to, on a daily basis. The relationship between the landlord and tenant easily compares with that between an employee and his manager - with grudge, despise and the like masked by forced smiles, pleasantries and politically acceptable talk.

At night, large queues would form in PGs offering food, where youngsters line up, anticipating the answer to the routine question - one that veteran PG dwellers would be only too aware of, while newer ones would need practice to find out: "Will it be leftovers or fresh food?" Munificent PGs that provide cooking space would have these queues near the stove, each volunteer waiting to have a go at it - while others would wait, expecting something - even a morsel, coming their way.

I have been brutally judgemental and as often in my articles, I have put forth my very biased opinion here, generalizing PGs possibly in an unjust manner, but I admit that when such an opinion is expressed, there is plenty of room for exceptions - but irrespective of the number of the latter, I choose to treat them only as exceptions here.  In the same breath, I mention explicitly that there are good PGs in Bangalore - staying in one of those myself (yes, for a change this isn't a personal vent-out), I would be a cruel person not to say so.

With many companies and opportunities in general opening up in other cities, there may seem to be heavy decentralization from Bangalore - this may reduce the rate at which Bangalore's population grows but not the magnitude (nor its increase) itself, and I feel that other cities will only adopt Bangalore's model (forgive my ignorance if it's been around for a while). I hope that these landlords are are less of greedy moneymaking shack-owners and such hostels turn out to be comfortable nests for India's ever-adjusting youth.. I can only hope..

Photo courtesy: distantdrumlin.wordpress.com

A walk in the rain

From the day I set foot in Bangalore, the city struck me as a far less hospitable one than Chennai - perhaps because I hadn't seen the darker side of the latter - but my judgement was confirmed for the umpteenth time this evening, when I walked from Indian Institute of Science to my room.

It seemed almost supernatural, well, an incredible coincidence to say the very least that a day which had started off as a sunny one when I started washing clothes suddenly brought in unexpected showers exactly five minutes after I finished hanging them to dry - another clichéd washing day it had been - that happened yesterday, anyway.

Confident that it wouldn't rain today, given that my clothes were sufficiently drenched for it to not matter anyway, and the fact that it didn't look there were going to be showers, I set out on a walk to IISc - a pleasure that I had been denying myself for several valid and a few unacceptable reasons. As habit, I would carry my umbrella in my bag, to avoid being teased about it, and given that I wasn't in judgemental company, I carried it in my hand.

After lunch and a peaceful, slow-paced tour of the place, I decided to return to my room at Sadashivanagar after an evening snack. I looked at my phone to find that it was already 6:40 pm - I was behind schedule for my religious ablutions, and my feet decided to cater to the feeble cries of my conscience. Just as I was about to start, a heavy downpour ensued. I chose to stick to my decision, and, wielding my umbrella even as a warrior would wield his sword, I braved into the harsh outside.

The old, familiar feeling of being stranded gripped me, making me feel like a homeless man walking aimlessly on a road - friendless, for no one bothered to slow down and let me cross the road. I had grown accustomed to this treatment after eighteen months in Bangalore, but it seemed to bother me substantially today - the automobiles of CV Raman Road were fiercely merciless on me.

Even before it had started raining, I had decided to take an auto-rickshaw home, and now it was beyond question. The prospect of walking on pothole-laden roads, flanked by discontinuous strips of pavement that housed garbage, nameless organisms, human waste and more sounded hardly inviting. In this weather, auto-drivers were bound to demand eyebrow-raising fares - and while one part of me was preparing for a long argument, the other pleaded with me to simply agree to pay whatever was quoted and go home. Each time an auto could be seen, my heart would leap, hoping against hope that this would be the one, but would sink as it neared, when I'd see the passenger sitting in it - the effect was cumulative on the negative side, with the heart-leap altitude reducing and the sink-depth increasing with each iteration. The traffic was building up steadily (I can never understand why rains result in an exponential increase in traffic jams on every road I take) and I was getting increasingly worried about whether any driver would even agree to come - and my worry was eventually proved right.

After what seemed like eternity, a passengerless auto slowed down to stop beside me - the driver felt like Shah Rukh Khan holding out his hand to help Kajol into the train in DDLJ (only a simile, mind you) - and, relieved, I told him, "Bhashyam Circle", adding, "Sadashivanagaradalli" in my broken Kannada - a previous experience reminded me that there were two areas named Bhashyam Circle in Bangalore, both not very far from my current location.

Without a word my fellow interlocutor took off, implying that he had to go elsewhere. Often, whenever auto-drivers refused to come to a locality, I'd retort, arguing that they weren't bus drivers to choose their route or destination, but all that escaped my mouth today was a stream of swear words, after which I watched my last ray of hope disappear behind the veil of smoke and rain into the thicket of ever-increasing vehicular traffic.

Hopelessly though, the process repeated with three more auto-drivers, one of whom certainly deserved appreciation, maybe even gratitude - he was kind enough to shake his head indicating dissent before he sped away. The sky would've been pitch black by now had it been a clear night, but today the grey clouds formed a thick blanket spreading towards the horizon in all directions, hiding any star or planet, lest any of them turn in my favour. A few clouds at a relatively lower elevation blew like wisps of smoke which strangely resembled a smirk, and innumerable raindrops continued to emerge out of nowhere, showing no indication of cessation.

I abandoned looking at the sky and looked down at my jeans - the damage had been done - a significant portion had got wet. Cursing myself for choosing to wear this particular pair today, - it was a favourite - I made up my mind to walk the rest of the journey - a decision that meant I had conceded defeat to fate.

Walking on a rain-lashed road in Chennai would've had its own ups and down, but at Bangalore it was too literal - being located in a peninsula, the latter's roads are abundant in crests and troughs, forming wavy curves which give walkers and cyclists immense exercise, sometimes laving them inadept to do anything on reaching their destinations.

Bangalore's peninsular location also filled up the city with several bushy several bushy, slopy areas which must preferably be ignored, even on dry evenings. Fringed by these on one side and traffic on the other, my line-of-walk was pretty constrained.

Out of nowhere, a bus sailed towards me, towering, honking hard at me - I was lost for a moment, imagining the Knight Bus in Harry Potter - until I realized that I had to jump right into a puddle to save myself. Once the bus passed, I tried to imagine what would've happened at Chennai - buses may have behaved unpredictably, but any other vehicle would have stopped long enough for its driver to hurl a dozen abuses at me - a treatment that I could only dream of at Bangalore. here, drivers would expect pedestrians to magically disappear at the first sound of their horn. Even Arthur Weasley's invisibility booster couldn't make his car evaporate.

The part of the road on which I was walking funnelled down into a narrow stretch, thanks to a thoughtfully constructed underbridge (sarcasm intended) and only one car could pass through it at a time. Cars which had won the mad race to catch my lane celebrated their remarkable triumph by speeding through it in a Batman-ish way, little noticing the not so thin pedestrian whom they were splashing with puddle-water. One by one, cars followed suit, taking turns to douse me, generating waves of sizes proportional to the weight of the vehicle and the ego of its driver. From what I could make out, there wasn't the slightest indication of guilt on any of their faces - a slowdown and an apology would've, at least, metaphorically warmed me down. Why did cars have to go so fast on rainy days? Aren't they warm and dry inside? Would a little empathy be too out of place?

As the fourth car approached, it took all the resistance I could muster to stop myself from throwing myself in front of it and hurling abuses - oh, and my swear word count was fast approaching a peak value. It was funny how these words granted a deep satisfaction in helpless situations. Perhaps I could keep count of them - it might turn out to be a good distraction. Dismissing the idea almost instantly, I opened Google Maps - and at long last, I realized who my true friend was - my smartphone, whom I had found an excuse to criticize almost every week, along with other technological advances as unnecessary luxuries. It indicated a shortcut through a slender alley that it claimed to be "3 min faster" - a direction that I 'd have ignored on any other day, but today I found it wise to follow obediently.

I took a right turn to enter the solitary street that Maps suggested, grateful to be free from the bellicose traffic, only to be greeted by a road which I might've easily mistaken for Sankey tank, if only I hadn't been there before. I was now faced with the probably the least of my day's challenges - to test my competence in one of those children's games - "nondi", "langdi tang", or "kunte bille" as it's called - when I had to make calculated jumps to avoid stepping into puddles.

Climbing up two flights of stairs to reach my room was the hardest part of my journey. The sight of my bed was irresistibly inviting - it had been a long day - perhaps I'd write about it tomorrow. But for now, I needed to.. sleep..... and before I knew it, deep waves of slumber engulfed me.

Another evening at work

It was going to be yet another night-up at work - these were becoming commonplace now. "Stretched working hours", as they were called, were a product of poor project management, wanton procrastination and false deadlines.

Sulking, I made my way back to my desk, clutching a cup of supersaturated hot chocolate. This colloid had served as a tonic a number of times at work, cheering me up whenever I couldn't listen to Hans Zimmer's soundtracks. Usually I'd find a familiar face at the pantry smiling up at me, and we would exchange a couple of words, but today the place was deserted. In fact, our floor was deserted except for our team, and a couple of ladies who selflessly catered to my want of distraction in a soulless building full of well dressed, robotic staff.

Stretched hours are often welcomed by experienced staff - I couldn't complain much either. After working at this company for over a year, I too had developed a liking for the place, much against my wishes though, and this had made me work with renewed enthusiasm, diluting my attempts to protect myself from becoming a "product of the system". I couldn't blame my colleagues - age had worn them out, and sitting at work sounded far better even to me, when compared with having to listen to the pestering questions of wives. Plus, we were offered free dinner and a free cab drop at home in addition to a day off as compensation. However, these were never an attraction to me.

Was it because I was afraid of becoming a wheel in the machine? Hadn't I already become one? The symptoms all seemed to point to that - I no longer rejoiced in those long solitary walks sans music, sans noise and most of all, sans that stupid smartphone (Wow, an oxymoron!). Either way, extra working hours left me exponentially more drained as compared to ordinary working days, ruining whatever remained of my evening/night.

It was my turn to order dinner that evening, and, disinterestedly, I picked up my phone and ordered four medium sized pizzas for our team of a dozen engineers to devour. A couple of them despised pizzas, but I decided to order them since they would be the simplest things to order, given that a Domino's outlet was very close to our office. I did it so mechanically that I realized only after placing the order that I had forgotten to ask around as to what each person wanted. And worse, I had only ordered vegetarian pizzas, and the whole team had heard me. Putting on my best expression of guilt, I looked around anticipating comments, but only received a couple of feeble "How long?"s. Thanking their hunger, I turned to face my two monitors, and, just to feel the fun in it, dragged a window from one monitor to another. This did feel like the Batcomputer sometimes.

Thirty uneventful minutes passed in silence, interrupted only by the sound of typing, clicking and the occasional "How much more time?" related talk. The wait culminated with impatient colleagues urging me to call Domino's Pizza.

I hesitantly obliged, and went outside to make the call. Before returning to my desk, I caught a glimpse of the sky, and felt a pang of disappointment. It was dark yet again. I found it hard to guess a day's weather, sitting in an air conditioned hall throughout the day so much so, that I started considering it a great privilege to be able to leave the office premises while the sun was still up.

We were prepared when the delivery boy came - they had crossed the 30-minute delivery time and we were - well, certainly I was in the mood to get away without paying for the pizzas. It would have been an understatement to say that there would be an argument, and I was delighted at the prospect of having one, especially after a long, boring day. It wouldn't have mattered much even if we had had to pay, since our company would bear the expenses, but I was determined to push this as far as I could. Domino's had got away with their conveniently flexible rules and manipulative staff who could flex these rules even further, more than a few times, and I wasn't going to let them have their way this time.

I looked down at my Taskbar and satisfied myself that they had taken a full forty minutes to deliver the pizzas. Going out, I saw a plump man, wearing the Domino's uniform and smiling up at us. I couldn't guess his age, but his eyes were innocent. What might have started as rude talk started off with the kindest words I could find in me - words that expressed my pity for the man's helplessness, but at the same time, echoed the firmness in my stand. The man handled it in a very dignified manner, being extremely open and honest - he told his manager over the phone that he had indeed reached our premises late, and even without the security check, he would've delivered our pizzas late.

A twenty minute argument on the phone with the manager bore no fruit and ended abruptly under the pressure of my starved colleagues, who looked like they were ready to slay me and take the pizzas.

Since it was already night and our long-suffering delivery man had been very polite with us, I felt a reconciliation was in order. The conversation slowly drifted and I learnt that the boy's (yeah, I will address him as a boy henceforth) family hailed from Tamil Nadu, but they had settled in Bangalore, and that he lived with his parents here. Soon, he started showing a keen interest in our company and asked me if there were any career opportunities. I explained to him that we were an engineering consultancy, delivering work to clients in various fields of engineering. When I noticed that his interest did not diminish, I asked him what his qualification was. He told me that he was a student at a local engineering college. He went on to tell me that he was doing his third year in Mechatronics, and that he was only working part-time at Domino's.

Hearing this, my heart melted - and, mind you, I'm usually a cold-hearted creature. It took me a while to digest the fact that that he was nothing less that what I had been a couple of years ago - if not more. I make it a point to respect any human being as at least an equal, but I felt guilty at not having treated this boy sufficiently well. All this while I had only been impressed by his patience and dignity, but now I had started seeing him as a brother.

This might have affected me less if he had told me that he was living alone. I was compelled to believe that his family was in such a position that they needed him to work, though there could have been a dozen other possibilities.

As I walked towards our desks, semi-conscious of the twelve pairs of hungry eyes starting at the boxes I was carrying, I wondered at the cruelty of society- I had had every comfort while I was studying and had never had to, so much as go to to the market. Had I wasted all that? I had been pretty happy with my marks but now I felt I should have done more. Whenever people told me that when they were young they didn't have anyone to guide them- something that made me get angry. Now I was angrier- I had been contented with getting out of college with pretty decent marks, a job in a core company and, most importantly, without falling into wrong habits- all that any parent would want. But now I was guilty at not having done more. For an instant I pictured myself as a middle aged man saying to an irritated kid the very same words that adults told me, quickly realizing that only guilt would make someone talk l like that. So were all these adults - or rather, elders guilty? Were their saintlike personalities merely a mask to hide the guilt that had accumulated over the years? Well, at least they didn't ask me to think of them to be such perfect people- it had been my own judgement- and my mental image hadn't been entirely erroneous either. I broke off from this random thought train and looked around. It wasn't a bad place to work. I had grown accustomed to complaining about it, but now everything I had felt like a luxury I didn't deserve.

Back when I had been studying, I would consider it an achievement if I merely completed my homework and studies a little bit, but there were people who worked, did household chores and much more, in addition to studies. My parents hadn't, so much as, asked me to go to the market for something while I had been at home. And here, I was, working at a world-renowned MNC, a "dream" company for many, getting a decent (but certainly not satisfactory) pay, and still finding things to complain about.

This might not sound as a drastic revelation, my reaction might seem as melodramatic to many, and, in fact, Western readers might find it hard to discern the surprise in the boy's story, much less consider it worth brooding over, but, as with workplace harassment and the like, it is not the intensity of the act but the impact it has that matters.

I was definitely shaken, but, as with several other incidents in my life, this was going to become an insignificant memory. I looked down at my plate to find that I had finished my food. A glance around the place revealed that others had, too. I would have time to think about this later - now I had to turn on my monitor and finish of the rest of the night's work.