Intrinsically American

'Hey how are you! is not a question its a greeting. It's something you say in passing and it doesn't imply that you would actually wait to hear the answer'!!!

ahh how eternally grateful I feel to the ethics professor for spelling this out and loud in the class as typically American. I had been having my own ethical dilemma with this greeting to the extent that I had devised a counter approach. Shoot this question in the other person's direction with a smile before he throws it at you and then rush off..

Then i can't get the deal of food that is served just 'too cold' for my pahari appetite.

I'm yet to spot something with a 'made in america' label, a bandanna scarf for a team building exercise also reads, 'made in china'

I'll perhaps keep adding to this list!

Stocks!

A: ‘So how is your stalker doing?’

Me: ‘I don’t invest in stocks (pun intended)!’

B:’Your stocks just went up!’

Me: ‘I don’t invest in stocks’

These conversations were in different points of time and in different cities and in different contexts. But the recurrence of the word stock stuck me in the economics class! New perspectives with the economics and accounting classes that have made their way into my life. However I’m not going into the economic value here but yes I’m definitely going to look at the ‘value proposition’. How much do we invest in the stocks of public admiration and ego boosts? How do we respond to market buoys and market dips?

For all the time I said, ‘I don’t invest in stocks’ the truth is none of us are really so detached. The market is all around us and we are very much there. However we all choose to be affected by it in different measure. There are the very aggressive investors and the highly volatile stocks and then there are the consistent performers and occasional shooting stars. It is interesting to watch the relationship for different people however the more enlightening part is to be your own audience.

When you find yourself in a different place, different geographically and far removed from your comfort zone and your circle of friends you get an honest audience of yourself in a new market! You get registered in a new stock exchange and there you go. Some days play rough and it seems you can’t make sense of anything around. It’s like you don’t fit in at all. I have had this feeling before but what took me by surprise is how I was affected thinking where I stand in others estimation. I was thinking of my stock. It is a different environment around. I look back at the relaxed 4 years of college and I know this is not the same deal. Back then it was more relaxed, it was more about friendship and now all I hear is networking. While I’m writing the above lines I can hear all the ‘told you so’ comments from friends ‘who’d been there & done that’! Dude I’m not complaining, I am experiencing it firsthand. However for everything that may change, everything that I may learn or unlearn I still wouldn’t bother myself with my stocks, intangible assets work for me J

New Friends need New Games

And then someday you just realize you played your best game of ‘mafia’ not today but the first time someone taught you.  I think of the mafia game and I recall the Nagarjuna Sagar, the Tata winger, the ‘shutter-island’ ah!  And the wonderful bunch of people I befriended back in Hyderabad. I suddenly realize how earnestly I miss them all.

And then we sit in CCD coffee shop assuming the characters of our favorite movie.  It was pure awesomeness, what an august company it was-the Kungfu Panda, Master Shifu, the Tigress and the peacock J Round and cheerful that’s how ‘S ‘qualified the Panda round. Sophisticated and prim R was the peacock through & through. I just recalled C was multitasking; she was the Tigress and the Master Sheep. To shadow the peacock in the Jade palace (Shilpa Park) we needed the Master Sheep.  And for this new school of histrionics Kungfu-style! I had to be the unassuming Master Shifu.

I still believe it was the rain dance on the roof top in Hyderabad that gave me the sneezes! All dripping and cold, that’s the way to enjoy a Sunday shower at home. And how do you enjoy the sun on weekdays? The team communal breaks in the evening.  Barista time in the ‘sprawling’ office lawn under the sun umbrellas, talking of life philosophically, talking of dreams, and cracking jokes at the manager’s expense…‘Pyar batete chalo!’

 I could go on counting all the ‘good-times’ but what strikes me today is how in retrospective all the days look so much more beautiful. Every time you move in with a new set of people you again have to make a fresh start. It will again take an effort to learn a new game because ‘the mafia game can never be as much fun as it was the first time when someone taught you’.