The TimePass of India

Audi
Mercedes
Siemens
BMW
Blaupunkt

See the trend? All the above mentioned companies apart from being among the best in the business are also German...

I have always had this fascination about German Engineering, so much so that I wanted to do my Masters(yeah in engg!!) from Germany! But that was long ago, just around the time I had entered engineering.. After 4 yrs of hardcore(and theres absolutely nothing sexual about tht) engineering, I was damn to tired to get involved in Automobile Engineering in an alien country... But the point is, Germany always amazed me..
I mean, imagine, a country with a population of 8 crore, being the third strongest economy in the world..The number of Scientist this country has produced..The fact that someone from this country actually thought that they can win over the world if they wanted to!!.... But most importantly, the engineering brains that this country has are what finite element analysis is made up of!!

There is this joke about German enggs tht I am fond of..
The Russians send the first man in space in April '61...
JFK, the US president at time was really miffed at this. He called his chief engineer and asked him, - "How in the world did the Russians get their man in space before we did!"
To this the chief engg replied - "I am sorry sir, but their German engineers are better than ours!!"
Hahahaha... wait till I tell this to my boss...

Talking bout my boss, hes the Head of Tech transfer, so effectively hes the one who's responsible for the entire factory. Now he is one of the representatives of his country for me.. So when I talk about Germans, a lot of my observations will be based on him... Ofcourse there are other Germans who come here in really good suits and really bad English.. Sometimes when they don't know a word, I suspect they throw in the the German equivalent.. Every other of their sentences starts with "nicht" or some word sounds like that... The shrug accompanied by-"I dont know!" is native to all Germans ... And may I add, apart from the guys who are a part of management, the others have a terrible sense of fashion!! I mean, Paris is just a stones throw away ppl!!

*One of the things I have noticed bout these guys is that they are extremely polite.. And these guys are supposed to be gas-chamber-suffocating types!!
*They don't change jobs that often! The guy whom I am talking about has been working in the company from like ages!! He worked for Audi for a few years before moving to this company though...
*They are extremely patriotic .. They have a simple policy- everything German is quality! Everything German is good.. German cars, German electronics, German beer, German cellphones !! It took us a lot of cajoling to make them allow the usage of Indian spares in the factory...
*One more thing I admire about them is their dedication towards work.. So someone who works 36 hours a week(yeah! try believing that!!) back in Germany, does 48 hour weeks(Like the rest of us) here!
*Somehow quality inspection takes 3 hrs when our German boss does it.. Somehow 25 yrs of service for a transformer isn't good enough for him..
*Somehow he can run around the factory all day when there is a crisis(Hes 52!).. A bolt not fitting in? Crisis... Too much copper/iron dust on the shopfloor? Crisis..! Nut not tightened correctly?..You guessed it right! Crisis!!!

There are times when something gets messed up real bad and I look at him and he seems to say to himself - Why the f*** am I here!.... No, not angry, just despair..
Sometimes ..well, things don't get messed up and he seems to say to himself.. "Man! They did it, didn't they!"

There is this middle aged colleague whos really cool, and always positive, he has 10 years of work ex and we(the young ones) look up to him.Lets call him GS sir.
All the guys in my dept. have been to Germany..Sir has been there more than a couple of times..But he does not contribute much to the conversation, its only the new foreign-returns who do the talking... And most of them are starry eyed about the buildings, transport, the facilities, the engineering, the cars, the people... They talk about the places they have seen and the Mercedes and BMWs they travelled in... And how fast their trains are.. and how when a train is late by 3 mins its considered a breach of quality ...& How a crater on the road is a national crisis .. " All the young ones(like me) gather around them, listening to their stories and wondering why we cant have smooth roads and trains that are on time...
"Apne yahan sab chalta hai re",they say...Somehow "chalta hai" is our ideology. "We are like this only!!" Garib desh ki yehi problem hai...

Garib desh?

The young ones look at each other feeling bad, feeling helpless.. Garib desh?

Sir says nothing.. He just looks outside the window.. and keeps looking there...
Comeon say something...someone..anyone.. Comeon sir, say something to get our young, inexperienced spirits up!

"Aaayega", sir said....

"Aaayega... Apna bhi time aayega.. Abhi toh humne sirf shuruvat kiy hai....Kuch din theherjaao... Yeh Garib desh, ek din sab ko dikha dega...Apna bhi time aayega..."

Apna bhi time aayega.. Yeah..

The difference is - German Engineering!

You know you are from Mumbai when.....

Stock market quotes are the only other thing besides cricket which you follow passionately.

You take fashion seriously.

You spend more time travelling than you send at home.

9:47 fast, means something to you.

u think tht delhi copied INDIA GATE frm mumbai's GATEWAY OF INDIA...

You're suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.

You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.

Amitabh Bachans house is a landmark

When there's no place to breathe in the trains but there's place to play cards and sing bhajans!

You refer to the city as Mumbai and not Bombay .

You say that Pani Puri is waayy better than Gol Gappa's even when they're the same thing

Every three months you look at your street and say "Why're the digging the road again?"

You actually pay for your rickshaws by the meter.

You know what the term "video coach" stands for in the local trains...

"Gheun Tak" is your life ideology.

You aren't surprised when somebody throws a water balloon at you while you're walking on the streets during March.

you can only smile forgivingly about the size of any other city in the world.

Every time you speak Hindi in front of a Delhitite they have the WTF expression on their face.

When while giving directions you say "Right MARO aur wahan pe ek bridge GIREGA"

You have hung on to dear life at the local door.

When you think everyone who lives to the south(Mumbai) of you is a snob and to the north of you sucks

when u c movie names like "shootout at Lokhandwala" & 'Ek chalis ki last local" & don't have to ask what the name means

you consider the local train "empty" when you find a spot for your two feet to stand on.

when "chalta hai" is the most commonly used word

Everything to the north of Mumbai is UP-Bihar and everything below is Madras

if someone calls u "aap"-- u start laughing on their faces...

when you call the BEST bus, BST, even though BEST is painted on every single public transport bus operational in Bombay

It takes longer to get off from your house to the station than from one end of Mumbai to another by train.

Being truly alone makes you nervous.

Crorepati, Lakhpati, Hazarpati, Chillarpati all travel in local Trains daily-together!.

You have learnt how to stand in a queue

u treat mumbai as a country itself

when you actually see random people coming to help you when u have a problem

u want to get into the train already that is already in motion & u have 5 hands taking u in..

You are back to work next day after the city is bombed - Truly the spirit of Mumbai

When you allow complete strangers to spend the night in your house because its raining outside and half the city is submerged...
You know you are from Mumbai when....

There is this post where I have written bout me being a Pro-man... I dont think too much on the words I use, but this one was pointed out by a friend and I have to explain what I meant!

So I searched in the dictionary on my cell phone.. (Yeah, I hav a dictionary on my cellphone, techsavvy or wht!)
The dictionary on my cell says - Proman - Not found! (Arrrgh these cellphone dictionaries)

Therefore(wow! I said therefore, whatta day!), I had to come up with my own definition of Proman

Proman/pruh-maan/1 n. someone who believes that men are better at most things.

Let me refine this -
You see, a proman believes that men are better than women at most jobs like changing a flat tyre, driving, hunting duck, ice hockey, engineering, arm wrestling and stuff..

But then women are definitely better than men in jobs like say nuturing a child, nursing, jobs involving creative designing, writing, colours, decorating, organising...

I mean, most of us have had female teachers while we were young, and I for one didnt like male teachers being introduced when I was in the 3rd grade. If my decisions were worth anything in the Mumbai Univ, I would make them recruit only female teachers.

Talk bout nursing, how many of us would want male nurses? Or lets take fashion desinging, even though this field is full of men, not many are tht straight... And women take up these fashion designing courses, while I still have to come across a guy whos enroled in such a course...

In short in jobs requiring high EQ girls will always be better...

Take for eg-babysitting, most men would suck at it. I dont know if its the cologne that men use or sumthing, but babies hate us. The only men I know who rocked at dealing with kids were Danny, Uncle Jessie and Joey. For all I know even they needed the services of Aunt Becky for things to fall in place...



Now, I am sure you feel women can be good drivers and can change flat tyres, and beat guys in arm wrestling, infact my cousin beat me back when i was 10 yrs old and she was 8yrs old (not to mention double my size and strength)... But then I grew up to have well rounded biceps,and she grew up to be all girlie, 6yrs down the line I challenged her again...sweet revenge!.. life is so fair!
I feel there are guys who can be good male nurses, and as American idol showed some of them can be good nursery teachers and good singers at the same time(not to mention good looking..)

There is nothing that men cant do or women cant do... But then we were hardwired differently so that we could complement each other(this is my guess). This different hardwiring makes us good at some jobs and suckers at others, and I guess thts how it was meant to be... And remember, there are exceptions to every rule. You might be one guy/girl who might be good at the things that I believe are opp sex territory... If you are one,...celebrate,... coz you are the exception to the rule.... You are exceptional!!



This post is dedicated to all my female readers who take time out to read this gibberish!
And yes, Happy Womens day! Proman!

There comes a time in your life when some girl will sweep you off your feet, his Grandpa used to say. That is what grownups say when you ask them why they married the one they did...

There was this girl at his place, tall, pretty, shy, the works... He was swept off his feet the very first time she walked into the room.
Just out of college she was.This was probably her first job. She had a tough time taking care of her saree. She must have been used to wearing Tshirts and jeans, poor girl had to wear sarees here. But most guys like traditional wear on their girls and so did he... She kept her hair open and it kept falling over her face. And then she would have to tuck it behind her ear.

He was so shy of her. He would look at her all day long and she would think hes so attentive. He acted all boyish and awkward, it was like he was in the 3rd grade again..

He had never met a girl this pretty in the last 8 years! She was perfect! All of a sudden getting up early seemed cool, for that was the way he could meet the girl he had been dreaming about last night.. The 5 hours spent around her were the best 5 hours in his day..

He so wanted to tell her how he felt.. But he had no guts then, he wonders if he still has any.. The best way for guys like him is to write it down on a piece of paper and give it to her to read. He was no poet, but they say when in love, even lines thrown in together sound good.

He wrote it in his notebook, on the last page. No one reads the last page he thought... No one does, but she did..
She laughed as she read it..

Now come on! whats funny there!! Its how he felt! So hes no poet! Maybe he sucks at poetry, but thts does not give her the right to laugh like that at someones feelings.. He thought he shouldn't have written that poetry or the piece of crap that it was.. Maybe she was just like all the other girls, maybe she was no different...

"Aaaww..thts so sweet of you", she said after she finished what seemed like the mother of all laughathalons..

What? sweet? nice! she must have liked my poetry! he thought

"Well.. I would like to meet your mom tomorrow", she said, still smiling..
What? why? Now shes gonna complain to my mom? She was being such a kid..

Anyways, he took his mom to school the next day...
"Your son loves me!", she said..
They both looked at him and started laughing...
"He does? He never told me about it!", his mom said.
"Yeah! Lets hope he marries me when he grows up!!", she said and they both started laughing.. This one lasted more than the last laughathalon!

"By the way, your son writes really good poetry for a 3rd grader", she smiled and lovingly gave him a peck on the cheek...
And all he could do is blush... like a 8 year old does, coz thts what he was...an eight year old...


But you know whats amazing bout this story?........ The 8 yr old went on to remember all this 14 years down the line...



Swept off his feet...

One of my friends says that I never talk about myself... I got this in an email from her, and decided to put it up on the blog...



1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? - my name means one who knows everything... Its not a noun, its an adjective used for God

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? - Men dont cry! We hunt..We kill duck..We eat raw meat..We no cry!

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? - yes, its another thing tht others dont :P

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAL? - i like dal chawal with buttermilk and a lot of other side dishes (wht? i like to eat!)

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? - none tht i know of!

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? - Yeah, i am a nice guy!

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? - with close friends only
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? - No..if AXN and world's most amazing videos have taught me anything, i wouldnt!

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? - Nope..dont like any

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? - hahahaah...i love this one..no, i dont!

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? - yeah...though not ass-kicking strong, i am strong enuf not to let my ass get kicked

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? - coffee almond

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? - depends on whether the person is a guy or a girl!

15. RED OR PINK? - red

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? - tht i find it difficult to dedicate myself to one thing..this is my least fav thing bout myself

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? -my kid sister..miss her big time..noones here to laugh at my silly jokes now..

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? yep

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? - grey pants and no shoes(why was this ques included? )

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? -uttapa.....

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Pehli Nazar by Atif Aslam from Race...imagine me listening to a hindi song! But this ones the best since Doorie..

22. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? - Fluorescent Orange..I rem kids fighting over it..

23. FAVORITE SMELLS? - Dettol, Jai soap, the Cologne tht u get on Indian Airlines flights, tea(when its being made), Gillette roll-on

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? - Akshay Sukhtankar..hes a classmate who now works in the same firm as me..

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? - yeah i do..shes pretty cool

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? - liked cricket but lost interest after Ganguly was dropped from the team...

27. HAIR COLOR? Black, coloured brown

28. EYE COLOR? - black

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? - no..my eyes r too sensitive

30. FAVORITE FOOD? - anything thts vegetarian and spicy will do..i hav a weakness for paneer and mushrooms

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? - happy endings..i love them (I hope I dont come across as girlish )

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? - Mithya..loved it, except the ending....

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? - dark blue Tshirt, actually its SPCE's mech Tshirt...

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? -winter afternoons..Diwali vacations if I can get them..

35. HUGS OR KISSES? - Cant I get both? Hugs I guess..

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? - not much of a dessert person actually... i like to have fruit salad though..

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? - Arshat!

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? - hero, boss , guru :P

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? - blink! It was given to me by a friend, and the literary genius tht i am, i hav been trying to complete it from the last 1 month

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? - er..a mouse!!?

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? - Simpsons, My wife and Kids and Sarabhai vs Sarabhai

42. FAVORITE SOUND? - bagpiper, guitar, birds chirping, mooing cows with bells round their necks

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? - Havent heard them.. But arent Rolling stones those skinny guys with swollen lips..why are they so hyped?

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? - I hav been to London once. I hope this is not one of those philosophical questions...

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? - Yeah, i can climb up walls and stop high speed trains with my left hand..

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? In a hospital

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? - yours I-am-what-I-am!

Face lift!!
Yeah... My blogs got a face lift.. And I am the Plastic surgeon(sounds cool ) behind this fab work!
(Hilary duffs Pic below is just to make sure you read atleat some parts of this post :P)



The template I had a few days ago was one of a kind but I was bored with some much dark green (or bottle green as girls wud call it) in the background and wanted something white, Simi Grewalish white...

It took me about 40 manhours to design this template completely. The main structure is "inspired" from Finalsense.com's Auto template. But it seemed to impersonal...too unarshatish.. So, I had to come up with this!

So what do we have here?
I wanted the diary-feel so I have kept tht area intact. Actually I have tweaked it a lot! Top and bottom margins, padding, line height are some of the things you have to take into consideration. For a mech engg like me, who has trouble even with C and C++, Css stylesheet was gonna be difficult, real difficult.
With a lil help from Pushkar and Sameer and a lot of Trial testing, I have almost achieved wht I had set out to achieve. :)

The header could hav been better, I agree, but its not me, if its not shabby :P...

All these days I have really missed blogging(stop rejoiceing, I am back!). Revamping your blog takes a lotta time.
Point to be noted: I dont have a lotta Computer Engg as friends. I should do something bout that! It would have been less frustating(yeah thts the word) with a Comp sci guy by my side..

Now tht I have the template back in place, I ll be blogging more often *evil grin*

There is so much I wanna bore you guys with...I wanna talk bout how the xml collapsed and how coding sucks and stuff, but I guess I ll keep it for another day..I am too tired anyways..

Well for guys who wud wanna have this template follow this link.
I wudnt mind if someone wud like to make donation for the Arshat Chaudhary foundation for lazy engineers (Believe me, this is your chance to give back to the society) Know-thy-self Blogger Template

Last sunday I met some of my oldies. I call them my oldies coz i have known them for more than 9 years now...And as it goes with old friends, it was great fun...

Some musings
*Powai doesnt have half the outlets tht Nirmals does!
*Powai still is a lot of fun
*Its fun with your old friends even when you have nothing to talk about and nowhere to go...
* Your friends know you too well to see through you when u are lying..
*You can talk bout anything to them
Arshat: Some guys make me wanna be a girl (@#$#! did I say tht out loud?)
Harish: whaaa?
Sandy: ewww..
(Yeah! I had said tht out loud..)
Arshat: er..well George clooney and John Stamos...
and my German boss (shit! did i hav to say his name!!)
Sandy: ewww..
*Well maybe you cant talk bout everything with them

*The problem with ppl who know you inside out is tht they judge you before hearing you out..

*Its bloody cold here! Sunday was the coldest day in the last 45 yrs in the history of mumbai! (10.2deg C is the recorded temp in Santacruz..Powai is colder..In Mulund its snowing...I have a tendency to exaggarate)..Take out the wollens ppl!

*Its fun when there r two guys and a girl! Coz when I say sumthing stupid, trust Harish to come up with something equally foolish.. Makes me look a lot better

*If there is a single girl among two guys she ll get special attention..(Ah! genius!)

*Mochas is absurdly costly!
Sandy : I will have the "cookie crumble"
Arshat: tereko cost patah hai? Rs.95!! (I can be quite a chindi if i want too)
Harish: I hope you know, ur cookie is gonna be this big(his fingers denoting the size of a 5 rupee coin)
We being the smart ones called for the- "Con panna" for Rs.40! Nice choice we thought..

When we got our orders we found the "Con panna" is called so for a reason. You see, its a CON! The size of the cup was smaller than the cups which come with the Barbie friends set!



(My female friends hav passed me on this info..I havent even touched Barbie till date..er..well..maybe once or twice..)

Sandy got her cookie crumble, the size of cream on which resembled the hills tht overlooked Powai..
Bloody Mochas..
Just to add, we mowed down half the hills from Sandy cup...Lifes so fair..

*There are many firangs roaming around in Powai..With not many hotels around, I wonder where they come from..

*All my friends have topped their respective trades sometime or the other...For eg - Harish topped school..Sandy topped the univ last yr... In most parts of the world having such friends would classify me as a loser but I can safely say they are not as geeky as their portfolios sound..

*If there is a single girl among two guys she ll get special attention (Did I mention tht already?)

*No matter how much u like the guy and how much you miss each other, u cant hug at the end of the day
Arshat: akward hug or cool guy handshake?
Harish: cool guy handshake for sure!
Stangely enough ask a girl this and you get a stare tht will make sunny deol pee in his pants


Its been a great 9 years with you guys...We have been through good and bad times together.. We might not hav a lot of time for each other more so as we get involved further with our respective careers and stuff... But I just want you guys to know, phone calls or no phone calls, mails or no mails, we will remain friends forever...
I hope I be there when Harish gets married and stuff (and stuff? :P).. I hope to be there when Sandy has a daughter(I m sure u gonna have a daughter...)
And hope we be there after our retirement and then we talk about all the fun we had when we were 20 over a cup of...er..."Con Panna"?? :) 2 guys, a girl and "Con Panna"