What a day !

Thursday, August 5th, 2004 11:02
Perfect. Just about perfect. That would sum up today. Maybe the only glitch was that i had to be awake at half past six in the morning since it was gonna be a big day but then once i was up, everthing went on like clock-work. Switching on my CD player to start the day with the sweet strings of Pt. Ravishankar on the sitar, went through the daily ritual - brushing my teeth, coffee with Good Day biscuits, shining my shoes and checking the previous day's answers to the Hindu crossword. By this time water was at just the right temperature for my bath :-) After the bath, switching on telly to catch the day's headlines and finally having to rush through the dressing up and catching EC-9A. My usual seat was taken but got another one by the window and had the mandatory nap :-) It was chilly when the bus finally reached EC, checked the welcome board near Gate 6 and then had the usual idli-vada at EC1 canteen for breakfast. The chutney tasted nice and the sambhar was piping hot. So far so good :-)

I had hardly reached my seat and checked mails when i got the call from Gate 6 that the customers were already in. Never one to be disturbed when mails are concerned, read each one of them before rushing over to escort them to Nagarhole. After flaunting my newly printed business cards, started with the presentation at around half past 9 and went on till quarter past 10 without a hitch in between - not a stutter not a single loong pause to cook up a story nor a question where i wasn't confident of an answer. Then there were some technical discussions which were plainly boring (Greek n Latin are easier) so got a pal of mine to call me up and using that as an excuse skipped out. Came back to my seat to see a scorching fire - had to work really hard and quick to turn around a presentation for a meeting at a customer's premise at 1 pm. Dit it successfully and returned back to the customer meeting at hand just in time for lunch at 1:15 pm. Usually i try and dodge these since the food is awful but i had hand-picked the menu this time so gorged down some delicious paneer, rotis, pulav and rosagullas :-) Even the Pepsi can opened without troubling me :-) Post lunch, we took them on a tour of the campus and i was totally in my elements spinning stories about our amazing training initiatives and security practices. Suitably impressed, we finally packed off our customers at around half past 3.

In no mood to start new work, i sent out a few official mails, updated the BDM on the happenings of the day, cleared some pending Six Sigma work and then visited my usual daily sites - Rediff, Salon, Indiafm, BBC, ESPN-Star, Yahoogroups...Bored and with still a few hours to kill before the 6 pm shuttle, I turned my attention to Yahoo Messenger.. And by Toutatius, chanced to make a new friend D - was nice chatting up with her and finding out that life in B-schools in Inida hadn't changed much. Hey, here's wishing you all the best for your placements in a few months..Till then FUN A LOT FIKAR NOT :-) And then it happened...(how i love dramatising it like this)

Just as i was about to pack my bags at around 5:30 pm, got embroiled in a nasty fight with one of my close friends on YM. Almost 3 hours and a lot of Grrrrs and :-(s later, our friendship strengthened ten-fold. (Di, if you are reading this, you r de best!!) Took the 8:30 pm shuttle but was denied a nap thanks to my seat-mate who insisted on chatting all the way along about how small towns like Bhopal and Trichy were much better places to settle down than Bangalore. Thank God the driver drove really fast :-) Reached home, had a quick dinner, flipped thru ET and watched Friends. Twas the episode where each of them reminisce about their 30th B'days - laughed my guts off though Dad cudn't see anything funny in it - He's getting old :-) At half past 10, switched channels to see a 20-20 match between Lancashire and Yorkshire - War of the Roses - Ian Harvey was in awesome form. Its now 11:20 pm and as i type this away, i am listening to the OST of Passion of the Christ. Should go to bed in another 15. If only every day could be like this......

ps: Dinesh Kaarthik is in the Indian team. Yessssssssss. This merits a separate post.