The Title Song

The song that moved me at its first hearing in my college days and is also the title of my blog is a composition of the legendary band "The Verve". The Verve was formed in a small Nothern English City of Wigan in 1989. Long acclaimed as among the most innovative and spellbinding bands on the contemporary British pop scene, the Verve finally broke through to a mass international audience in 1997 with the instant classic "Bittersweet Symphony".

The band led by the magnetic Richard Ashcroft was known for creating one of the most complex and rewarding bodies of work in the history of modern rock 'n roll. Thier elemental music identity grew leaps and bounds with hits spun one after the other, distinguished chiefly by Ashcroft's elemental vocals and Nick McCabe's echoing guitar leads. The band's long arduous journey culminated when they were at the peak but not before it went on to encompass a major break-up, multiple law-suits, an extensive diet of narcotics and a penchant for the psychedelics. Know more about the band and its members at The Verve.

Chris Martin introduced him as "the best singer in the world" when he performed "Bitter Sweet Symphony" (which Martin called "the best song in the world") with Coldplay at the London Live 8 concert in 2005.

Here goes the lyrics of the song, but dont be contented with the words and do make it a point to listen to the song.....

Bittersweet Symphony
The Verve
'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Try to make ends meet
Your a slave to money then you die
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
You know the one that takes you
to the places where all the things meet yeah
No change,
I can't change I can't change, I can't change
But I'm here in my mould, I am here in my mould
But I'm a million different people from one day to the next
I can't change my mould
No, no, no, no, no
Well I never pray
But tonight I'm on my knees yeah
I need to hear some sounds
that recognize the pain in me, yeah
I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind,
I feel free now
But the airways are clean
and there's nobody singing to me now
No change,
I can't change I can't change, I can't change
But I'm here in my mould, I am here in my mould
And I'm a million different people from one day to the next
I can't change my mould
No, no, no, no, no
I can't change I can't change
'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Try to make ends meet
Try to find some money, then you die
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
You know the one that takes you
to the places where all the things meet yeah
You know I can't change, I can't change
I can't change, I can't change
But I'm here in my mould, I am here in my mould
And I'm a million different people from one day to the next
I can't change my mould
No, no, no, no, no
I can't change my mould
no, no, no, no, no,
I can't change
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
(It justs sex and violence melody and silence)
(Been down)
(Ever been down)
That you've ever been down
That you've ever been down

The departure...

Amidst the confusions and wierd abberations that I was having, I just landed up in UK at my client's office on 25th Sept 2005, a brand new Monday of a brand new week(I refer to this as current and everything is relative to this), exactly a year and a dozen days past my landing in Kolkata. Well, I would love to tell you as to why all those threads of thoughts that troubled me before my departure from India. The story that needs to be told till today unfolds as below........

Thu (Last to last Week): My PM asked me if I would go toUK to support one of my colleagues. I asked him as to how long I would be gone and he said maybe a month or two .... real short term. I denied because I had started some serious CAT preparations and had a strong feeling of Belling it this time. I could not have given this reason and hence made up some ancient, tried and tested crap about family troubles (touch-wood) etc etc. Then he started his lecture saying that work is like serving your duty and I should feel responsible etc etc. Then he asked me to convey my decision by tomorrow.

Fri(Last to last Week): I was busy, he was busy .... we didn't meet. I felt relieved that the problem is resolved. Also I really not prepared for it. So, had a peaceful week-end, studying and enjoying with my friends. But, I should have known that there is always a lull before the great storm.

Mon(Last Week): My PM called me up and asked as to what I had decided. By then I had talked to my parents and some of my other friends & well-wishers, and came to a conclusion that I'll take everything in my stride. But before putting up the question to me he said "I've asked another senior guy (SD) to go if possible but he(SD) has some problems of his own." I said "That's good"(and internally was hoping that the noose has been let out of my neck) and as a reply to the question posted earlier I said "I don't mind digesting anything that comes to my plate." and I smiled, though I never wanted to, as I made an exit from his chamber.

Tue(Last Week): In the meanwhile, I had tried my level best to persuade the other senior guy (SD) to please take up the work and go to UK for the assigned job. The senior guy refused b'coz he was getting married on that Saturday and also was marked to go to US for some other project and yes that was long-term. As I had seen it coming in my dreams over the past few sleepless nights, my PM walked upto me and said "Kartik, so you are the chosen one :) " I was asked to get all my documents for the subsequent VISA processing.

Tue day end and Wed first half(Last Week): Running hither-tither to get all documents, photographs and approval letters. I sincerely missing Hari then, how confortable everything would have been riding to all those places on his bike, but unfortunately he was held up with some critical work at office(i just wonder when some work is not critical :)). Atlast before lunch on Wednesday I submitted my documents and the VISA form for UK to the travel desk. The respite amidst all this chaos in my world was a sumptuos lunch that I enjoyed at the B'day treat of my off-shore team lead.

Wed eve(Last Week): I shopped some formal shirts, ties and shoes. Spent the evening with Hari just like that, reminiscing the old days and buying stuffs.

Thu(Last Week): I reported late at office and also left early in order to do the remaining shopping and get hold of all the goods, I mean cigarettes, medicines, etc that my on-site colleagues had asked for. I met some of my friends and narrated the story that you read now.

Sat(Last week): Yesterday I had been in office to just collect my foriegn exchange and bid good-bye to my team here, who were pulling my leg that I should set the trend by doing some work at on-site instead of just forwarding the mails to off-shore with a subject line of FYI(For Your Information) and FYIA(For Your Information and Action). I had to board my flight to Heathrow from the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, Dum Dum, Kolkata at 1330 hrs (IST). Last night we had a gala-time chit-chatting and packing my baggage at the room. Well, the feel of the GBP in my hands gave me a special kick.
Early morning I woke up, did my prayers, called up home and some friends and ofcourse did the stuff that every other human does. Ram, one of my roomies, accompanied me to the airport and I thank him for the same since it atleast helped me push the break on the growing swarm of butterflies in my stomach. Well, once inside the airport lobby, I just followed the instructions that were given to me by my PM and the guy at travel desk and went on to finish the formalities for getting in the Cabin baggage, cleared the immigration check and finally relaxed in the bay eagerly awaiting my flight to get docked at the terminal.
It was a virgin experience for me boarding an airbus and travelling in a flight for more than 1.5 hours. As luck would have it, I travelled my entire 9 hour voyage in the Executive class of AI, streching my legs to the fullest, pushing the back-rest to the max and enjoying the movie on the adjustable TV as I sipped through my Champagne. Well, I got upgraded to an executive class b'coz there was a duplication of my ticket with some BA passenger who had to be accomodated in AI due to cancellation of BA flights. But, one should never complain and took everything in my stride :)

Yesterday (Sun -Last Week): Having landed at LHR and wading my way through the innumerable immigrants, I passed into the foriegn land under the pretext that I was a Senior Associate with my company and was in for some requirement clarifications and bagging some new projects into our off-shore kitty. I had quite a relaxing ride to my pre-booked hotel 'The Regent Lodge Hotel' and got into my room after resolving some conflicts with the authority over there and having a chat with my on-site team lead. I spent the night feeding on some candy bars and quenching my thirst with the fruit juice cans each worth a pound.
Sunday morning my senior came over and took me over to his apartment and a small trip to the client's office. There in I met the first person with whom I had earlier conversed over the phone regarding some project issues :Mr. M, who was settled in Britain and spoke with a heavy Tamil accent. Also, I became of the fact that we drink the running water from the tap when we are thirsty. How on earth was I to decipher that after living in Kolkata, wherein drinking one glass of water directly from the tap may infect with all the water-bourne diseses you can think of.

Today i.e. Mon: I took the most convinient bus-ride in an year, from my hotel to the office, attired in the best formal clothes I had packed and yeah, I wore a tie for the first time since the beginning of my professional life. I await my meeting with the client and users wherein we would discuss the issues for Period Rationalise, that is the first and foremost reason of getting me here.
I still wonder how much is to be explored and wondered about the place, Dunstable and how many such things to be learnt like quenching your thirst with the tap water etc.
Be patient and I'll let you know how I digressed from my path of belling the cat and landed up again back into the same old work, I was doing at off-shore.
TO BE CONTINUED.....

Killer of Dreamz ..

My first attempt at penning down some of my thoughts as a poem.....

What am I,
a Man of Principles or a Killer of Dreams,
Toiling hard I was - day in & day out
for a dispensible cause that I called FUN,
While my mother begged me for a
visit to HOME.
I visited London instead, had some RUM
and traipsing about in Scotland was I,
caring a dime for the RAKHI sent by my
sister in Motherland.
A core professional that I've become,
I shake hands with my father
who longs a hug from his parted son.
Busy was I, on an analysis and coding spree
while my dear frens persisted that I quit
and follow my dreams.
Hey GOD, what has become of me,
I have a heart of stone and nerves of steel,
I hence bend low and pray to thee,
Please make not any more like me.
AMEN

The Kolkata Saga - Part I

B 'n B (born and brought up) in Nagpur, graduated from Allahabad and then trained in Chennai and Delhi left me with only one direction to go, in order to have inhabited all the coasts in India, EAST. Even during my numerous adventurous trips that I made EAST had been the only coast untraversed. But as I say LIFE is a bitter-sweet symphony and it gave me a fair chance to enjoy the eastern culture when I was posted at Kolkata to work for CTS.

Flash back: The memorable day 10/09/04 when 9 out of 10 people who got their posting in Kolkata were attending the final rituals of the Training program at 27, Whites Road, Chennai. What a lovely batch it was all the prisoners collectively numbered 308 :-) !!! And even more adorable was the troup destined to reach Kolkata on the 12th of September 2004 - a conglomeration of 3 mallus(Hari, Nibin & Shakki), 1 tambi(G. Anthony), 3 UPites (Sachin, Rahul & Swati(f)), 1 NE gal (Zeenat) and a hybrid(Kartik)- thats me and best part was none of us had ever stayed or for that matter even visited Kolkata !!
I had a very pleasant candle-lit dinner with my remaining 3 room-mates and we mulled over the memorable moments that we had spent together at Chennai. Even the others had their food and bid adieu to their beloved ones. We all proceeded to Egmore Station from where we had to board the Chennai mail. Finally inside the AC compartment away from the heat and sweat ... it felt like heaven. But at the same time everyone (i mean those who had some feelings :P) was sad camouflaging their emotions with a hard-pulled smile. The real feel-good factor happened when Sh. Priya, one of the prisoners of the 308 batch came to the station to see us off. Sharp at 10.30 pm the train started - destined for the 'City of Joy' with 9 apprehensive souls dreaming about their share of joy ..........

15 days at Akash Ganga: So there we were, stranded at the Calcutta railway station outside platform number 20, involved in an altercation with a bunch of taxi drivers over the sky high taxi fares they were demanding to drop us at the only address we all knew: Hotel Akash Ganga, 1, Orient Row, Kolkata. Frankly speaking none of us knew heads or toes about kolkata and didn't even know whether they were asking for the right amount. But based upon the past experiences with the taxi and auto drivers in India, we kept pestering for a cheaper drop. Finally after all the disputes settled we all got dumped into 2 taxis along with our luggage and were bound for the Hotel. As we cruised across the magnificent suspension bridge - we all were pouring our heads out of the taxi to have a full view of The Howrah Bridge. After that bitter altercation we all were wide awake at 5:45 am and enjoyed the ride to the fullest. The drama again started when everyone was teaming up with one another to find a perfect room-partner with whom he/she would spend the next 10 days (although we all got it extended till 15 days under the pretext that we had not managed to find a house to shift into :-) ). Another reason being everyone wanted to be away from the one and only Rahul Dwivedi.....one of the UP guys I mentioned. Though he was not a bad guy, but he was quite boring as he never enjoyed the company of others and the later didn't enjoy his.
Oh!! forgot to tell you, we all had an all sponsored trip from Chennai to Kolkata, including the food 'n stuff. All thanks to Vijay who didn't board the train and Nibin 'n Party who got the ticket encashed. Vijay quit CTS as soon as he heard about his posting at Kolkata and is now having a good time in the States.
The hotel rooms were pretty descent with the TV, A.C. and also a geyser. Now, stop thinking as if it was the first time I had checked into any hotel :-) The best part was my roomy and also sutta partner Shakki. Also Hari was put up in the next room. We three-some had wholesome fun and even more when accompanied by the others.
Out very first day at Kolkata was an eye-opener. All our concepts of breakfast were shattered when we were offered dishes like mutton-chap, keema kulcha etc as breakfast and we all were expecting to hear something like bread with butter, fried eggs etc. (Well, later we realized that we had been looking in the wrong places.) So, after a bickering start to the day, we now set out on a hunt for some good restaurant and finally landed up in one owned by a mallu and served all the south-indian delicacies from idli to idiappam. As you might have guessed the 3 mallus were ecstatic :-) So was everybody else and on that happy note we had a brunch (break-fast + lunch) and retired to our rooms for a pleasant nap. After a refreshing sleep, all we hungry creatures again ventured out into the wild. We experienced our very first Tram ride as we hopped into one as the mild drizzle suddenly turned into a heavy shower. It was bound towards someplace called 'Park Street' and we got aboard from Park Circus.
I'll let you know some insights - Park Street has now been renamed as 'Mother Teresa Sarani', although none of the addresses of the shops display that but there is a single sign board on one of the crossings which proves this point. And one more thing, even the trams have an executive class :-) One of the tram bogies would have a giant-size cieling fan attached while the other won't. Hence if you board the former, they will charge you 50p extra as compared to the later.
We were joined by one more guy 'Asru', a school freind of Zeenat and our first acquaintance in Kolkata.We all got down at a place as soon as the rain stopped. After a heated debate on what should be done next - watch a movie, eat something, roam etc. the general consensus was to EAT. Again started a frantic search for some descent place where they served veg as well as non-veg. All thanks to Swati for that. And to our surprise we found none, moreover it was pretty late in the afternoon - around 4 pm. As a result of that, we all filled ourselves with the road-side stuff i.e. rolls, tea, sweets, samosas and what not. The return journey was an eye-opener in terms of the public transport system. We boarded a jam packed bus (3A - if I'm not wrong) the boyz standing and the gals seated...there is quota everywhere !! The bus seemed as if it was a boat earlier on and they had raised 4 tin walls around the flattened boat with wheels attached to the bottom. It felt as if we were riding on the sea where the roads were waves, dented at places by the tram tracks. The buses have very good breaks and the driver doesnt hesitate an inch in exploting his resources. Leave alone the standing public, even those seated are not spared of the back-ache which results after a mere 5 minute ride.
Can you even guess what is painted on the door of the driver of these buses? - 'Pilot'. And believe me they live up to the expectations of that name :-) This very memorable day ended with a copacetic dinner of biryani at 'Zeeshan'. Well, that almost became a spot for our evening snacks & dinner when we returned from office, through-out the stay period. All of us were very exhausted and had a good night's sleep to wake up into a new day, that again would be cherished by maybe all of us - The first day at CTS, Kolkata. (Read about that in another post) !!
Every day for us would dawn at around 8:30 am, there-after a heavy break-fast and a chauffer- driven ride to the office. Now, don't start reading between the lines to comment that we had our breakfast without finishing the daily chores :-) Also, dont misconstrue that CTS had made arrangements for the daily drop. We always took a taxi but on all days the same taxi. He surely was a person to learn from atleast in terms of punctuality. The weekdays were pretty de-energizing and dull. After the droopy office hours and travel we all were left only with enough energy to throw ourselves on the beds and watch some shows on the idiot box. The weekends were even more enervating with umpteen futile trips made to Salt Lake in search of a house to shift into.
But, this highly spirited group of ours never missed out on capitalising on any of the occasions. The very first of these happened on the 13th of Sept. It was Swati's b'day and we had planned to have a party at midnight. The cake, chips and soft-drinks were arranged for and also a very special gift (though it hurt our pockets that time :-)) Sharp at 00.00 hrs, expecting to be the first to wish her, we knocked at Swati and Zeenat's door. Wallah !! both were wide awake and Swati's college friends were a minute ahead of us. But despite that dismal start we had a good time relishing the cake, chips and cold-drinks. There was a good deal of gappa-goshti / adda / bakaiti interspered with the sweet melody of 'Ghumshuda' that was played on Swati's cell by her numerous well-wishers. Ahh!! talking about the special gift we gave her. We gave Swati her very first identity in Kolkata - a new SIM. Time flew by and we all were back in our beds by 4 am and I feel Rahul would deeply regret not being part of that celebration, though no one ever enquired about that.
There is a good story associated with the cell numbers too. Along with Swati's SIM, the others, except for me and Shakki, too got their numbers and in a sequence. This lead to innumerable instances of Hari answering someone asking for Zeenat, Nibin re-directing Swati's relatives and vice-versa. But for the poor chaps they never got some-one from the opposite gender on the other end of the phone who would be interested in talking to them :-) Life cruised smoothly over the ocean of new experiences at Kol and we were deprived of any celebration until Zeenat's b'day (20th of Sept.) Even on that occasion everyone enjoyed their part of cake, chips, soft-drinks and more importantly 'the chatter'. But for Zeenat we couldn't get any gift :-( and I'm really sorry for that. As you might have guessed we were deprived of the "esteemed" company of Mr. Rahul Dwivedi.
I sign off for now reminiscing those lovely memories that savoured our stay at Hotel Akash Ganga before we shifted to our respective rented houses in Salt Lake.