Rated 10 on 10

MANY MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY TO MY MOST BEAUTIFUL SISTER WHO CELEBRATES HER BIRTHDAY TOMORROW! Normally birthday wishes occupy the post-scripts in my blog but for the person, who might be the only one who has read all my blogs and continues to read each and every one of them the day they are updated - sis, without you Writer's World might not have survived. Thank You! Here is a little story with a special dedication to you.

"It's the Best", "Never seen anything like it", "DUDE! You are an idiot for not seeing it yet!", "You shouldn't be living in this world for not watching the movie!", "That movie.... that is the meaning of true love. You CANNOT miss it man!"

ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT! Ughh.... Do any of you know that feeling? Of being the only person who hasn't seen a movie and that happens to be the best movie ever!? Have you been through that trauma where literally everyone - no exceptions, no ifs or buts, no conditions at all - Everyone gives the movie a 10 on 10 rating! And you haven't seen it yet.

And what's worse, I am an out and out movie buff! I am the kind of guy who makes it a point to catch every movie, and that too on the date of release itself. I am the kind of guy who enjoys any kind of cinema irrespective of the amount of masala smothered over it or the level of dehydration it has suffered under the excuse of "Art". Notwithstanding all the sarcasm, I enjoy and appreciate and love all the movies, even the ones hated by all. Yes, hated by all! I come out of the theatre, emerging from a crowd which is almost suicidal for having been through the kind of agony the film had to offer and still walk around with a smile - There is no "bad movie" in my dictionary. And now this movie comes out... Which is LOVED by all, loved my meters and measures that drive me nuts and I HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET!

And what's worser? It is a love story. Alright, why this little piece of information makes me excited is another story - a little flashback. There is this girl in class.... whom I really like... and.... don't get irritated guys, there are certain things that even a writer struggles to say. Anyways, I really like her and want to propose. But ofcourse, the worstest disaster struck me. She put her arms around me, pecked my cheek and said, "I love you so much. You are like a big brother to me!" I got BRO-ZONED!

Yes, you are right. It is officially the worst thing that can happen to a guy, much ahead of polio, cancer and even AIDS. Jokes apart (a crude one - sorry), I really really like her and I feel that the romantic content of this movie can change her mind. *What an idea sirji!?*

Alas! God and his cruel jokes! Why o why? Why is the world so mean? What ‘mean’ you ask? Day 1 - Booked the ticket. But mom wanted me to go to the temple with her and it was a command I couldn't disobey. Day 2 - Booked the ticket. Minutes before college disbursed, our professor announces the last date of project submission and arghhh.... Movie Concelled. Day 3 - Booked the ticket. Her mom wants her to go to the temple and apparently it was a command she couldn't disobey. The saga continued till day 11! You feel angry reading this blog? Imagine the plight of the writer who had to LIVE this!

Now all this might seem bad, cruel, unjust, unfortunate and all that. But when it comes to The Destiny tournament, do you know what the most atrocious rule of the game is - Good luck strikes only when you hit rock bottom! Only when you have exhausted every swear word in and out of the dictionary does college declare a strike and my love "happens" meet a generous friend who gives her two tickets to this movie. I mean seriously God, you could have saved yourself from so many curses had my love met her friend a couple of days back. And you would have saved me from all this guilt! Sometimes I wonder who even made God in charge of everything?

Yeah, yeah, I am not complaining. Moving on... 

After 60 days I walk into the air-conditioned comfort of Escape, staring at the big screen playing up-coming trailers which freeze me instantaneously. I hold her hand and watch the trailer a couple of times till she pulls me into the theatre. I make a small detour and pull her towards the... what do you call it? The food section or whatever... and gape at over-priced french fries, over-prices soft-drinks, over-priced icecreams and over priced water and order one of each. She says, "No need of all that!" but I insist. Our first date after-all.

Gutka Suresh does his job (For those of you who don’t know Gutka Suresh, he is that guy who appears in a No-Smoking ad before every movie), the lights are turned off, the AC is soothing, her hand is next to me and the screen turns on the magic. There is music, an intro-scene followed by the credits that is accompanied by the same music – enthralling. The entire theatre is glued to the screen, watching with unwavering eyes, capturing every micro-second with such rapt attention that it makes me wonder – with half this concentration in class you can so easily clear CA.

*Umph* I hear a groan behind me. *Ugh*Ugh* I hear a very peculiar sound, it kind of sounds like laughter but there was something odd about the noise. I swear at the unknown source of the weird noise and focus on the movie. The male and female protagonists had just been introduced, the story was moving at an increasing pace, totally gripping. I held on to the seats, anxious about every next scene, hilarious comedy, heart-breaking tragedy, all of it had been wrapped up into such a fine mixture, so delicate in its composure that it pierces into your heart like the thinnest of knives and leaves a scar which one can carry forever. The movie didn’t have an interval (for a change), the heroine were just about to – “Arghhh!!!” Bloody Blundaleomite, I heard that voice again. I is it creating disturbance at such a crucial moment. My necks snaps backward showing a face flushed with and see a boy sitting with a girl… talking to each other… in signs.

For a moment my eyes flicker between the screen and the couple. I notice the hero dive into a building that’s on fire to save the girl stuck in the 17^th floor and I look at the young man narrating the story to his deaf friend. As the hero burnt himself, the deaf girl cried in shock, and as the girl in the movie screamed for her man, the deaf girl bore a glow in her face. And her friend tirelessly narrated each and every word uttered, each and every sound that came out of the movie. I tap my friend's hand and show her the ‘side-track of the movie’.

“The hero is waiting for his lover’s call. He is mumbling something under his breath, cursing his girlfriend for not calling her until finally he hears a ring in the phone. He pounces at the cell to pick it up, only to find that he was shortlisted for a very exciting post-paid offer from customer care”, the boy explains a scene in the movie to his friend. And the girl reacts…. Priceless! My friend and I watch the scene in awe. Not on the screen, but the one being narrated by the boy. The reactions of the girl who cannot hear anything what’s happening in the theatre, who is oblivious to everything but the signs shown by her friend, and the joy she derives from watching a movie through his hands… let me just tell you, the joy I derived out of watching her reactions was simply out of this world.

“They are many a times. Life – so much more fun around us that on the screen!” My friend tells me and leans on my shoulder. The movie gets over, everybody gets up to applaud the cinema and my head is still turned around looking at the young couple. I see the young girl, so childish in her cheers, and her boy-friend, so mature in his efforts. They hold hands and walk out of the theatre.

Love

Leap of Faith

Beware! Whatever I am going to tell you know is an extremely exaggerated, dramatically extrapolated and maliciously manipulated metaphor of what really happened. Read on:

I have always loved heroes and always picturised myself as one. A brave, cool, charismatic, macho, rough and tough, don’t-you-mess-with-me “Don” kind of hero whose legacy and fame would make dames flutter their eyelids. The kind of hero who is happiest only when faced by a challenge, whose excitement knows no bounds when an adventure knocks the door, the guy whose heart-beat no threat can falter, addicted to the adrenaline rush and unaffected by any amount of the same. This guy is a figment of my imagination, this is the hero I want to be, but he is not someone you haven’t met. He is the Dark Knight, the Super-Saiyan, the Don, the Vampire Hunter, the ever-observant mystery solver, sometimes the joker and the Captain Pirate too. Smooth, Suave, Sophisticated and most important of all – Fearless!

I am him. I am the fearless, the undefeated, the never-give-up, hungry-for-more challenger, and I am faced by my biggest challenge.

The battle field was set - it was a dark maze inside a medieval castle, hundreds of doors and windows, flights of stairs that seemed to be endless, windows that showed you nothing but flashes of lightning and let in nothing but bats and splashes of rain, silence that was deafening and the dramatic aura of imminent death was literally tangible. I had not memory of how reached there and had no intention of finding that out as a much bigger question lay ahead - how do I get out?

But the showdown didn’t wait for the silence and darkness to blanket me completely – the roof above me burst open and a dagger flew straight past me, missing my ear only by the width of a hair. No! Fear cannot touch me, nothing can surprise me, nothing can weaken me, for I am him. I only smile at the face of danger. I only welcome the challenge with open arms. I am cool, level headed and instead of saying my prayers for having my life, I am pull myself together and set after the arms behind the dagger.

All the walls break down and reveal armed brawlers racing towards me. “These are not your everyday ordinary brawlers”, Anne Hathaway says. “Neither am I”, say I and pick them out one by one. Hey, don’t look at me like that, I have never been in a real fight in my entire life so if u expect me to put together an original action thriller you should also bring me a profession stunt master and a choreographer; preferably the brains behind the game-play of Prince of Persia because I am going to use the exact same moves against these villains. And for those of you unfamiliar with Prince of Persia let me make a weak attempt and describing it to you.

I kick on the pillar and throw myself at the mercenary nearest to me, knocking him off with one hand and grabbing his weapon with the other. I somersault on the floor to reach for another one’s foot with my weapon, kick a second guy on the chin making him fall over his colleague (even brawlers have dignity man!) and rising to my feet to block the slash of a fourth dude. I throw my weapon at him, smack another one on the neck to stun him, pick his armour and knock down another couple to stand triumphant in a room full of corpses. TADAAAA!!! (you can quote your favourite hero over here now. My second choice would be, “Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahi….. Namumkin Hai!”

*Gasp!* I am being choked by a giant of a man who strangles me with both hands. Now (we are very near the climax now). The villain enters the scene (I would prefer the masked man from the Dark Knight rises, but over here the villain is Mogambo from Mr. India). This master villain is probably ten times stronger than me, flanked by ten of his loyal goons, each of whom is as strong as me. And as all of them close in on me, I realize that my end has come.

“Now let us move on to the next topic – Derivatives!” The teacher announces and the entire classroom of 800 students starts to turn its pages while I stare at the man standing on the podium, behind the mike; my head filled with his voice, “Add the profits of 5 years”. His words repeat in my head again and again and every time he says that, my voice intercedes, “Why don’t we consider time value of money?” I look around and find some of my classmates sleeping, the others focusing on the teacher and some others doing some other unspeakable things.

Alright, alright… If you are still confused let me explain the metaphor. I am faced by a challenge called ‘a doubt’. But I cannot overcome that challenge because on one hand I am being choked by the fear of asking a stupid question and making a fool of myself and these 10 henchmen are closing in on me, representing my classmates who will laugh at me if I am ignored by the teacher. And there is this Mogambo, the thought of, “What will he or she think?” and these are challenges that the super-hero within me cannot overcome. He fails! Nope, it cannot happen. All the great warriors in the universe put-together cannot surpass this fear, this nervousness – the villain is too strong.

Now, in this scenario, I, the real narrator of the story, can very well let the student go ahead and swallow his doubt as it is and live with his fears and prejudices. I have no sympathies for him, let the Bloody Blundaleomite do what he wants. But! The super-hero’s defeat? Un-imaginable! That simply cannot happen. But wait, the super-hero is nothing but a shadow of the student himself. Bloody Blundaleomite now I have to twist the story such that the student over-comes his fear and asks his doubt. Only then will the super-hero have succeeded. Alright, follow me very closely as I bring success to the stories of this spectacular super-hero and this lousy duffer of a student:

Mogambo is very close to me now, his breath falls on my face – and its burns my skin. My butt is lifted from the bench as I stand up to ask my doubt, but I cannot straighten my back. I simply cannot gather the strength to raise my head and ask my doubt.

The brawler chokes me, I cannot breathe. The henchmen have their swords touching my neck, I start to bleed. The guys sitting on my bench have started asking me what I am doing. One of them even makes fun of the way my butt is raised. Some other from the front row turn around to look at me.

“Captain Planet – Give me the Power!” I cry out loud and wriggle my way out of his arms, but his hold is too strong. “Not anymore!” I shout as I grab the stinking giant by his back and throw him over my head at the other goons around me. “Stare wherever you want, you jobless hooligans!” I shout in my head and stand up with my right arm raised.

Mogambo stares me down. I stare back at him. He launches a punch at me and puts me on a fork. “Turn around and run? Or throw a punch back at him?”. The sir looks at me and says, “Don’t make any disturbance. Please be seated.” Maybe it is a stupid doubt after all. I mean, how is it possible that I am the only one who has thought of this? I must have missed out something. I will just pretend I was adjusting my pants and sit down.

Hah! Run away? This super-hero is too powerful for that. Scars are nothing but designs on my skin. I know no fear, I am least bothered about defeat. But if I am going down, I am definitely throwing one last heck of punch before I go. “Sir! Why haven’t we considered time value of money in the previous problem?” Leap of Faith. Some also call it the Leap before you think theory! I don’t care if he scolds me for making a mess, for creating confusion, for troubling the entire class or whatever. But I am not going down! Atleast in my dreams I am a super-hero. Have to do justice to that guy.

Bam! Mogambo falls flat on the ground! Sir smiles at me and responds. A few henchmen try to attack again. A few students threaten me for making sir go into another long lecture. But once again – the hero has won.

And you know what the funny part of the story is. This hero who saves the universe on a daily basis at night, doesn’t manage to fight of some simple villains during the day such as “the will power to not click the snooze button in the morning", stay up to study another one hour at night, say “Love you” to his dearest on valentines day and all that. To all the readers out there, who, I am DAMN sure, have authored this little super-hero somewhere, sometime in your life, show the world how good an author you are.

The narrator is shamelessly guilty of hypocrisy and has exercised every right bestowed upon a preacher under the “It’s easy to preach” Act.

Love

Who Are You To Judge Me?

Who gave ICAI the right to judge me? No metaphors, no introduction, no digression, no reluctance to rely on clichés, no attempt to be diplomatic, no guilt of injuring emotions and absolutely to fear of saying things that would earn me the fury of all – this is the reality, the truth, the bare facts that glimmer before my eyes and I can take no more of this Atrocity. I have no clue how you are going to take this but as a blogger I feel obliged to write this article, duty bound to express my views and guilty of not having shared my thoughts on the matter so far.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) announced the CA Final Exam results a week back and that of CA IPCE just two days back revealing shocking figures. The pass percentage has dropped to a decade low of 3.11% from 10% last year. The grapevine informs that this is an attempt by the Institute to improve the quality of CAs. Others agree that by having reduced output the demand has increased. Apparently CAs are being offered better pay scale and all that hungama.

Let the institute do whatever it wants. ICAI is an independent organization with an undisputable and enviable reputation which flaunts to the world some of the finest members of the profession. It has its policy to implement, reasons to draft those policies and the rights to so. Period. No questions raised and no fingers pointed. But what irritates me is, and I tender no apologies for what I say or how I say it, WHY ARE WE BOTHERED ABOUT IT? I see brilliant people – Accountants, tax specialists, auditors who weave magic, experts in finance and Business management, people who have a flair for numbers and the charisma to lead, people who have earned deep-rooted respect from the clients they serve and people without whom the Engagement partner is helpless – I see these people struggle to earn a tag of two letters – C.A… and I ask – WHY?

Never give up! Success will be yours. One day you will achieve. Not now, but soon.  Failure is the stepping stone to success. Victory comes only to those who…. Blah blah blah…. Proverbs flood my Facebook wall during the months of January and July (that’s when the results are announced). To all those who shared the posts I reiterate the same with one addition – Choose your battles carefully.

Brilliant extra-ordinary, etc, etc, I have used those words to describe some of my friends who did not clear the exam. I shall use the same words to describe some of my CA friends too - some really inspiring dudes. I will also say that there are absolute duffers who didn’t crack the exam. And there are those, around each and every one of us, we have all seen them, some characters who make us wonder, “How in the name of Bloody Blundaleomite did this fellow clear his 8^th standard?” Look at me in the face and tell me it is not true? Tell me you haven’t met people and thought the exact same words only to have the shock for the day - “He is a Chartered Accountant!?”

Live examples of CAs reporting to non-CAs are aplenty. And even more are CAs who slog until they earn the tag. Devdas’ who yearn for their lost love and drown themselves in the ocean of “Never give up’s” and “Next time’s”. What is stopping a professional from going up the corporate ladder, or as a matter of fact, any organization? One needn’t “qualify”, to qualify as a professional. If you disagree, I lament – “O corporate jungle, Please lend your ears. Show some maturity and don’t bother who clears”.

There is a charisma. A charismatic curse that draws students towards it and behaves like a Venus flytrap. Once in, never out! Yes, yes, go ahead and say it, “You won’t understand!”, “It’s easy to preach”, “Say the same thing when your results come, kk?” True, emotions are overwhelming, defeat is tragic and repeating the effort is frustrating. But the fact remains that we are somehow stuck in the unhealthy chase for “C”. “A". The fact remains that this exam – or any exam for that matter, is only a test of your skill. A test. A test. One of the tests. One of the thousands of ways to find out if you are worth a job, worth a promotion. There are 999 others ways to show the world that we have the skill set but this truth is forgotten in the rat race. “Why should I qualify?” the question is never asked.

The irrelevance of exams, the flaws in our educational system, those are words too big for me to use I dare not venture there. But I have faith in the world. Economically speaking – The market knows the fair value of an asset. Don’t take this for a motivational session – it is not! I am not trying to motivate anyone and I am least bothered about how long shed your tears after the heartbreak of results. This is a social awareness… thingy.... kind of article. A playback of whatever Amir Khan said in 3 idiots. A blind hunger for an unworthy certificate. Yes, unworthy in the hands of a real Chartered Accountant, for he doesn’t need one to prove his worth. And yeah, a Chartered Accountant is an amazing human being – trust me, I see… Every day.

Wrapping up this article for the moment. Have loads more to write but since my exam due in another year I have tons to study. Notes to copy, problems to read, books to finish!

Love

P.S. Many Many Happy Returns of the day to my dear sister who celebrates her birthday on Feb 3 (tomorrow)! Love you ma!

P.P.S Advance Birthday Wishes to our dearest Super-manager who celebrates her birthday on Feb 3 (yes, tomorrow)! Love you too…