Ghonchu gets an email

[Thanks to Soumava for the idea of this story]

Everyone gets emails from time to time.. Why should anyone be surprised that Ghonchu got one!! Well, this one was special.

Ghonchu switched on his computer at office on Monday morning with a bleary eyed look, of having to withstand five continuous days in office again. Outlook said 17 unread mails in his inbox. Indifferently, Ghonchu turned away to drink a cup of tea assuming most of them must be from his manager asking why he still hadn't started on a task expected to complete last week.

After drinking tea, and chit-chatting for some time, Ghonchu got back and casually perused the subjects and the senders of the mail. His heart leapt (as it always did) when he saw that one of the mails was from Sweetu, a colleague in his office. Even though he knew that the contents would be purely impersonal and would probably about some technical ask, he still cherished it. Ghonchu did not open the email from Sweetu straightaway. He was like a child who didn't want to eat his ice cream out of the fear that it would be finished too soon. He stared at the name for some time, gloated over the fact that he got an email from Sweetu and very carefully with one religious click of the mouse opened the email.

The email was very short. The contents were :- "Missed you :)".

Shocked, Ghonchu's heartbeat increased from 85 (when he was opening the mail) to 110. Ghonchu read-and-reread the mail again in a state of shock.. "Does she have similar feelings.. Are we twin souls after all!"

Ghonchu quickly started composing a reply to the mail. "Dear Sweetu, Even I missed you over the weekend. Two days are quite a lot of time to be separated from you. Regards, Ghonchu." Ghonchu re-read his email a dozen times, removed the second sentence as being too mushy and changed the word 'Regards' to 'Love'. Finally, as he was about to press the 'Send' button, when he saw something else which made his heart turn cold.

The original email from Sweetu had gone not only to him but also to Irritatu. Ghonchu uttered a few choice things (@#%@#$#^#) he would like to do to Irritatu whom he had always suspected of being too close to Sweetu.

However, he didn't have too much time to ponder before Sweetu and Irritatu came over to call him for lunch. Ghonchu glared at Irritatu, smiled sweetly at Sweetu and joined them. The two of them were casually chatting about some movie which Ghonchu had not seen, so Ghonchu fumed inwardly.

In the midst of conversation, Sweetu turned to Ghonchu and asked, "Oh Ghonchu! You will follow up with the partner team on our requirements, won't you."
"Eh!", said Ghonchu blankly.
"I forwarded you an email! Didn't you see? To both you and Irritatu."
"Oh!", said Ghonchu.
"The mail I had forwarded contained the context of what needed to be done. I had forgotten to add you and Irritatu in the thread originally, so forwarded it to you both in the end."
"Ok!", said Ghonchu quietly and focused on finishing his lunch.


Ghonchu went back to his desk and reopened the mail. This time he read it completely.


From: Sweetu
To: Ghonchu, Irritatu
Sub: FW: Partner


Missed you :)



_______________________


From: Sweetu
To: Senioru
Sub: Partner

Ghonchu and Irritatu should be able to take care of the dependency on the partner team......
......

Ghonchu goes to Nagarjuna Sagar dam

Ghonchu got up in the morning, feeling excited. He was to go on a road trip to Nagarjuna Sagar dam on Krishna river, around 150 kms from Hyderabad with his team-mates Vidu, Ronku and Somu. Had he known what all adventures lay in store for him, his excitement might' ve been much lesser.

Having rented a car, they set off with Somu at the driver's seat. After however driving for an hour or so, they ran into their first hurdle. The car started stuttering, and finally stopped. However Somu and Ronku had some expertise about cars and they figured the problem was that the car was overheating. On opening the bonnet, they figured out that they needed to feed something called coolant to the car. Ghonchu, who himself didn't know anything about cars, pretended to nod intelligently agreeing with the others.

They all bent expectantly as Ronku poured coolant into a cylindrical can under the bonnet. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, there was a sputtering noise ptttr, ptttr and steam started coming out of the outlet. Ghonchu, whose nose was closest to the bonnet in his bid to show-off his knowledge of cars; jerked backwards and landed 4 feet away on the ground.

Ghonchu decided nodding at the right time was sufficient to look intelligent.

After performing some more experiments on the car, and it failing to start, they started despairing. They kept pouring more and more coolant; which the car kept happily guzzling, making noises like grrrp grrrp grrrp. However, they were lucky enough to get hold of a car servicing shop where they towed their car, left it for repair and continued their journey to the dam by bus.

On reaching the dam, Ghonchu felt it was worth the effort taken to have come there. The dam looked monstrous with water flowing elegantly out of six of the gates, and causing a waterfall-ish effect with water hitting the standing water with brutal force.

Soon thereafter, Ghonchu's friends decided to take a bath in the catchment area. Their enthusiasm went up on seeing other groups there - with girls. On reaching that area, they saw a sign - "Danger. Crocodiles may be found here. Do not enter the water." However, Ghonchu's friends disregarded the sign seeing other groups there. Ghonchu, himself was extremely worried and judging by his reaction to lizards, his fear of crocodiles was only around hundred times more. Since he did not wanting to seem a coward, he entered the water. Since Ghonchu didn't know how to swim, he didn't stray too deep. He just stayed close to land and looked around at his laughing friends who had gone further in. The other groups had gone. All seemed peaceful.

Ghonchu decided to put his face underneath water. Having done so, he saw something which sent a chill up his spine. He saw a long, dark object floating towards him. With a strangled yell, he shouted "crocodile". He was waist deep in water, and hurriedly tried to run back to land. In doing so, he lost his balance, but still managed to reach the rocky outcrop near the water. With his eyes facing the water, he moved backwards until he stumbled and ended up sitting on a log of wood. The others had swam out of the water too and were watching with baited breath.

Gradually, a shape emerged.. It turned out only to be a log of wood.
"Whew!", exclaimed Ghonchu and wiped his brow and looked at the others in relief. However, the others still seemed to have expressions of horror on their faces. Ghonchu quickly cross-checked the log, and then told the others, "Hey, its just a log of wood. Can't you see?"

Nobody responded anything. All three, Ronku, Somu and Vidu seemed to have frozen into silence with shocked expressions. Before Ghonchu could ponder more on why that was so, he started to feel the ground shake. "Hey, an earthquake's happening!!", Ghonchu exclaimed thinking that so many things were happening today. The others still didn't react before Vidu slowly raised a finger pointing towards Ghonchu.

The log of wood, Ghonchu thought he was sitting on was actually a small crocodile which had just moved. When Ghonchu realized that, he leapt up in alarm with another scream and sprinted away from the catchment area. He kept runnning and did not look back until he reached the road.

Soon the others reached to the safety of the road as well with panting breaths. Ghonchu's face was ashen white from shock and it did not seem that he would ever speak again. Somu quietly asked him, "Ghonchu, are you ok?" Ghonchu tried to reply but no words came from his mouth. When finally he was able to say something, it sounded very similar to the noises the car had been making in the morning. "Gpppr wpppr", his teeth chattered with numbing shock.

They collected the car on their return journey, with Ghonchu still not speaking too much. Unfortunately, on their return trip too, the car started giving trouble by overheating. Since it had now become dark, Ronku asked the others to provide light from their mobiles while he poured in the coolant. Ghonchu, with quaking hands and remembering his morning experience enlightened the surroundings as Birbal had once prepared khichadi.

Ghonchu eventually reached home at midnight. He consoled himself with the thought that if nothing else, atleast he got a nice snap taken of himself with the dam in the background which could be posted on facebook/orkut. This was the pic taken!

The beauties of nature!

A few weeks ago, I went by an early morning flight. It is a sheer delight to watch the moving clouds, and then see the sun rise and hit those clouds.

At one point, the cloud cover was so magnificent that it formed a complete massive snow-like bed on which the aircraft seemed to be gliding. A massive swirling pure white, lit by the sun's rays and the only thing visible from end-to-end; the soft-cloud bed seemed to stretch endlessly.

The aircraft continued to glide on the white sheet underneath, which gave an impression of some heavenly land. No wonder, we always perceive that heaven is up somewhere; if one is an admirer of natural beauty, what I saw could easily be described as heaven. I had this crazy impulse to walk out of the aircraft, wrap myself in a blanket of soft white cotton-type cloud cover, and go to sleep in that serene environment.

And then, all of a sudden, the white land ended abruptly with a gigantic abyss of nothingness. Watching the aircraft moving from over the white beautiful land to just empty space, where nothing exists underneath gives a queasy, yet amazing feeling feeling. Almost as though one were traversing a river and unexpectedly encountered a waterfall chasm with a dramatic drop.

It was beautiful. Period.

Some inhabitants of my terrace

Ghonchu learns cooking – Part 3

Links to Part1 and Part2

Ghonchu walked into the kitchen and switched on the gas with the expertise of a professional cook. “Phatak”, said the lighter; “whoosh”, roared the flames in the stove; and Ghonchu replaced the lighter with the smugness of a job well done. Having learnt to light the stove and cook magi previously, Ghonchu was already an accomplished cook. However, an artist’s pinnacle is achieved only if he cannot surpass himself any further. Ghonchu had decided to paint his next stroke in the art of cooking. This time, he intended to make chapattis (roti).

Any reader who was worried on reading the above line underestimates Ghonchu. The Ghonchus’ of this world may not be great cooks, but they are hard-working and perseverant and accomplish their task no matter what.

Ghonchu had learnt the steps to cook a chapatti. He took some wet flour (atta) and made a ball out of it. Having smeared dry flour over it, he began kneading the flour. He started using the belan to knead the mixture of wet and dry flour. On using the belan once, the round flour turned to a reasonable flat shape. Emboldened, Ghonchu swished the belan a few more times. However to his consternation, the flour started sticking to the belan, the roti plate and his hands. Having recently watched Spiderman, Ghonchu was reminded of how Tobey Maguire must have felt when he first learnt about his spider-like characteristics. With a ‘yuck’ emanating from his mouth, he quickly went over to wash his hands. Afresh he started over. Slowly, the flour, albeit wet and sticky began to take shape. Ghonchu paused for a moment to admire his handiwork. After some thought about the shape of his roti, Ghonchu eventually concluded it was like those amoebae drawings in his ninth grade biology book (read shapeless).

He put the wet amoeba on the gas allowed it to get dry. After some time, he decided it was time to turn over the amoeba. With this intention, he touched the roti plate with his fingers. Two seconds after that he was licking his fingers. It is best not to talk about the screams and oaths heard in those intervening two seconds.

But the Ghonchus’ of this world are not to be outdone. He cleverly found a pair of tongs. “Ha! Where will you run now?”, Ghonchu mentally asked the hot gas plate and the overheated amoeba. Using the tongs, he turned over the amoeba. After a few more tosses and turns over the gas, his first amoeba was ready to eat. With a smile of satisfaction, Ghonchu sat down to taste his accomplishments.

The roti tasted like papad as it had been overheated. However, Ghonchu still proudly ate or rather munched his amoeba shaped, papad-like roti.

In retrospection..

I completed one year in office life two weeks ago. My thoughts on office life, and other things I learnt in the last one year..

- I need to thank all my team mates and friends made in office. Before joining the industry, there were the usual doubts which everyone has, how different is it? Is there peer pressure? Can one be thyself without facing any politics and so on and so forth?

I am happy to put all those doubts to rest. I found that people are friendly, helpful and great human beings. I could be myself without having any thoughts of all of the above mentioned things at any point. Or it may be the case that I am too blind to notice anything wrong (which may not be actually bad). I have been able to transition from college life to industry without any glitches; I can still play sports, still talk nonsense most of the time, still make people smile and still hopefully not be judged too much (not sure about the last part :-) ). This part of the post is a testimonial for all my office mates.

- Something I learnt about people in the last one year. Most people are good, if you choose to look only at their positive traits. Something I learnt about myself. It is worth investing the effort to try and look at the positives when you are talking to someone. It changes the dynamics of how the conversation occurs.

- Another thing that I learnt that is staying aloof and not talking too much is the worst thing you can do when you are already down. It formulates a vicious cycle in your mind, and coming out takes more effort than it would have been if you had shared your thoughts.

- The next thing I learnt, is that how one sees thyself is of paramount importance and that ultimately makes all the difference in self-confidence irrespective of however highly or indifferently one is perceived by peers or friends.

- Ok, enough of serious things. On another note, I joined facebook a few months ago. While I haven’t become an avid follower as yet, what I seem to see most is that some ‘friend’ or ‘friend of friend’ is getting married/engaged daily. Depending on my mood, it either worries or delights me :-). More often than not, it is the last of those. But there are signs of change amongst my peer group. Instead of updates, someone going on trips etc etc, as it was up to a couple of years ago, there are more messages of ‘got engaged’ types.. Times are changing..

Spain are World Champions !

This post didn't appear earlier because there wasn't much to write about the final. All one could say is that the game was a poor advertisement for football. There must have been millions of people who were non-football followers but just watched the finals; and they would have been disappointed. Many must have wondered why this is the most popular game on earth. And that is a pity, because the tournament was played at a really high quality, and mostly in good spirit.

So Spain did the double with the Euro Cup and the World Cup. Deservedly so. Netherlands, to their credit tried their best, kept Spain at bay for all of 117 minutes before a weak clearance undid all the good work. Such are the small margins which decide high stakes.

The only point worth mentioning is that how a number of people feel that Spain play only possession football and have won just because of that. I beg to differ. What I would say is that the quality of Spanish players is such that they are the only team in the world which has the ability to keep possession for long periods of time. No other team in the world would be able to play short, clean passes, even when they are being harried and closed down by the opposition.

Sneijder, De Jong, everyone tried their best; and were successful largely because for most part Xavi and Iniesta didn't have much of an impact. Two clean chances for Robben, both created beautifully by Sneijder; and Robben might be left ruing all his life, that the world cup was in grasp. Ironically, for a player who has been much maligned for diving, Robben chose not to go down when Puyol tackled him. Had he gone down, Puyol would have almost certainly been sent off, and that too might have changed the course of the game.

Sneijder had a great game and would be my man of the match despite ending on the losing side.

The World Cup has come to an end. A small word of appreciation for the hosts who did an apparently great job w.r.t all arrangements. Lets forgive them for the vuvuzelas :)

SF2 : Efficient Spain shut out Germany 1-0

Spain did what they usually do. Pass the opposition to death. Germany tried to do what they did against Argentina and England. Counter-attack. Unfortunately, they faced one minor problem in this game. To be able to launch a counter-attack, you need to get the ball first. Also they got an early goal in both the previous games, which drew the opposition out and made it easier for them.

One of my hunches before the match was whichever team scores the first goal would win. Although this match ended up having only one goal, things turned out as expected. Spain passed and passed and passed, when they finally scored late in the 73rd minute, they shut out Germany after that with some more passing. Had Germany scored first, things would have been more interesting. That would have drawn Spain out allowing the much-famed German counter-attack.

For the purists, this one was a lesson in football. Spain showed tonight why they are the rated as the most technically fluent team in the world. Tonight, one major quality which Spain possesses was on display, something which isn't so obvious and usually gets hidden behind the brilliance of Villa or the passing by the trio of Xavi, Iniesta and Alonso.

'Off the ball running and closing down the opposition!' This is something the entire Spanish team does so efficiently and so brilliantly that often it doesn't allow the attack-minded opposition players to even come into the game. The same reason caused Ronaldo to cut a forlorn figure in the pre-quarters, and tonight again, Klose and Podolski were barely allowed a touch of the ball.

For all the beauty, the technical ability that Spain have, they work together as a unit and close down the opposition players superbly. Force the opposition player into making a mistake, give the ball away, and then the whole probing cycle of Alonso, Xavi, Aniesta, Xavi, Alonso, wide to Ramos/Villa starts all over again.

Man of the match : Carlos Puyol. While he had a very poor game against Paraguay where he was caught out by Nelson Valdez's pace, tonight he displayed great mental strength to come back with a strong showing and showed the positive trait of his defending - dealing with high balls with strong dominating headers. To cap it all, he got a goal with another of those powerful headers. A rare direct goal by Spain.

For Netherlands, they can only win against Spain if they accomplish one task. Outrun Spain. Paraguay tried it to good effect in their first half, but couldn't sustain it. Close down, don't allow the fab two, Xavi and Iniesta, time on the ball. Yes, Spain will still have majority of the possession, but if allowed to pass, they will just pass Netherlands to death. Just as they so neatly and efficiently, wrote the obituary of an upto-so-far rampant German team tonight.

QF4: Spain vs Paraguay 1-0

So Paraguay found out what must be done to contain Spain. Run, run and run. Close down, work hard and fight for the ball. Leave Spain on the ball and they will murder you. As I write this at the end of first half, it seems Paraguay know the formula and indeed look the likelier of the two teams to score. In fact, they have had a goal ruled out incorrectly for offside. Puyol has struggled against the pace Nelson Valdez and another striker might have made more use of it.

The two Xavis', Alonso and Hernandez have done extremely well with their inter-play and intricate passing, as always; but most of it has been sideways and in front of the stubborn Paraguayan defence.

Paraguay is aware of the formula, all they have to do is the minor task of implementing it.....


A dramatic second half which saw two penalties, and two misses all in a span of less than 3 minutes spiced up a drab encounter. Spain were a touch lucky, with a couple of decisions going in their favour; one the earlier disallowed goal, and the second where the Paraguay penalty should have been retaken. It would have been really interesting had Paraguay scored.

But, notwithstanding those decisions, when a dull game needed a bit of quality, a bit of finesse, a bit of crispness, in cometh Andres Aniesta. The man who was unlucky to miss the Player of the Year award in 2009, showed what a class act he is, yet again. Driving at the heart of the Paraguayan defence, he cut past a couple of defenders, to lay a perfect pass to Pedro who was unlucky to hit the bar. Who does the ball fall back to? Yet again, the Spanish talisman, David Villa. If you ever need someone, with the ball at his feet; the opposition defenders diving desperately in front of him; and all you want is someone with composure, calmness and the ability to slot the ball in the net; you couldn't ask for a better person than David Villa. Had the same composure been shown by Roque Santa Cruz a few minutes later when he was one-on-one with Casillas, the match would have been back in the balance. That is all what differentiates a good striker and a great one.

Did Spain deserve to go through? Not sure. Paraguay were definitely unlucky; and one must say that it remains to be seen if Spain can come back from a losing position, if they encounter such a situation in the later stages.

Man of the match : Andres Iniesta for his moment of magic.

QF3 : Germany trounce Argentina 4-0

So the much hyped match, touted to be a virtual final after Brazil's loss yesterday turned out to be a mismatch. And that seems surprising, judging by what had been written about Argentina till yesterday. In hind-sight of course, it is easy to take Maradona and his boys to the cleaners and talk about the beautiful football played by Germany.

Interestingly the teams that have won in the later stages have quality midfielders who have the ability to stamp their class. One of my beliefs is that a midfielder or a defender has to do far more than what is expected of him to be talked about in the same breath as a forward. A forward, however all he has to do is his job, score goals and he is labeled a hero. So when the world sits up and pays attention to midfielders or defenders, it means they are special.

And that has been the hallmark of the two quarterfinals. You talk about Sneijder and Robben in the same breath, but you don't do the same for Kaka/Fabiano and Gilberto Silva. You watch a poetry in motion when Messi gets the ball, but are unmoved when Mascherano is on the move. However, for Germany Schweinsteiger and Klose are talked about in the same breath and the same is true for Spain where the diminuitive Xavi and Iniesta are talked about as much as Villa or Torres.

So it proved to be difference today. Argentina for all their class, needed the supply. When that was cut out because Schweinsteiger and Khedira dominated Mascherano and co, Tevez and Messi had to often come back deep to get on the ball from the halfway-line. Even if Messi got past one,two defenders as he did on a few occasions, there was the giant frame of Mertesacker to snuff out any danger.

To be fair to Argentina, the scoreline as in the case of England doesn't really reflect the true state of the game. Germany were just more clinical. They were deadly in counter-attack, dominated the midfield and solid in defence.

Man of the match : there could be many really. Schweinsteiger, for his drive (similar to Sneijder yesterday), or even for his single handed creation of the third goal; Mertesacker, who stood his ground against the likes of Messi, Tevez, Higuain, or even the skipper Lahm, who was his usual best, strong in defence (totally nullified Maxi Rodriguez), and rampaging while going forward.

However I would like to nominate Joachim Low as today's man of the match, because nowhere was the faith shown in his young side more sweetly proven until tonight. The Germans were swift, speedy in closing down, had the energy to counter-attack at a swift pace in both matches vs England and Argentina. The reason - they had age on their side and the legs to do it. That alone was the single point of difference between two quality sides today. And how !