The TimePass of India

The first week at Siemens was pretty good. I didnt really expect it to be so much fun. Everything at Siemens is so god damn lavish. The plush convention centre where we spent our days, the wooden ceiling (yes, wooden), the pretty canteen, the beautiful enviorn, did I mention the wooden ceiling?

Now, this is not my first time visit to a corporate office. I have been to Schlumberger's office and while it was pretty, it wasnt anything like Siemens.

We joined on Monday. We were asked to sign our names at the security centre. The security centre is wired and always has hip-hop songs playing.(Pretty cool, u wud think..Wait till u see the guard gyrate to the beats)

We were then asked to assemble at the convention centre.We were alloted table nos. At the tables we saw placards with our names inscribed on it.

I searched for "Arshat Chaudhary".

A rose was placed on the table along with a welcome message and a leather bag.

The hall was dressed in white! White tables,white chairs, white curtains...There was a big screen projector on the wall. There were two 43' LCD displays positioned halfway through the hall. The hall could seat more than 160 people!

Monday and Tuesday were spent attending lectures and getting a feel of the things around us.

On Wednesday, we visited the Kalwa factory which is actually situated near Airoli. This day was the only day I got really tired. But you might expect tht when you have to tour factories (five in no.) spread over 50000 sq mts of land.

Mine is a new factory,and its so new tht you can smell the paint! Most of the eqiupment was shipped from Germany. The doors are imported from Dubai and they open vertically (Like they show in sci-fi movies).
The storage area is airconditioned and its so large tht a 6 storeyed building would stand there! The shop floor is air pressurised. The girl:boy ratio was 1:137 when the reports last came in. There are 138 employees out of which only the receptionist is female!(subject to change without prior notice)
The project is top secret so I cant revel much data.

Thursday and Friday were real fun. We had settled down by then. All we did is sit on the last row and crack jokes all day long. Komel would come up would one good joke and 19 bad jokes every fifteen minutes. Abhijit should be proud!
I gotta learn a lot from Komel. Quite philosophical he is! Among all tht philosophy its good to have Akshay's cool attitude around.

I loved the breaks we got. The tea break being my fav, not coz of the tea but becoz they used to serve mouth watering cookies! We must have had atleast 12 different types of cookies - choclate chips, tuti-frooti, cocoa cookies etc. (And all tht free of charge! Mouth watering or what!)


Now the most imp question the mech guys must be dying to ask! "Were there any girls?" Lots! LOTS! Its been ages since we have been with with so many XX chromosomes in
one room. At all times (esp. during lectures) we had an option of admiring any of the 3 pretty HR ladies who were almost always present in the hall.We had both western and southern zone GTEs at worli. And since I have always had a weakness for Tamil girls, this place was to me what Lords is to Ganguly.

I was really smitten by this dusky damsel. But the loser tht I am, cudnt gather the courage to talk to her.

Saturday was an outbound training to Silent hills resort , Palgher. More on tht later.Will keep you wonderful people posted as Siemens happens.

Siemens, cookies and damsels!

A lot of words in this post are in marathi. But read on you, will get the main idea of the post.
This is one experiences that I wanna share with you.

I know tht some of the readers here know about my plan about the classes I wanted to start.

As you might know, one of the best method of advertising is through pamplets. So we decided to print some (800 copies) for our classes.

Once these copies were ready we had to distribute them to prospective students. This is where the fun starts. I and my cousin, Aroop, decided tht we choose K.J.Somaiya coll of engg. as the distribution site.

There was no security at the coll gate, so I went about my business, distributing pamplets to any kid with a hint of facial hair. In my entusiasm I forgot tht I was standing within the campus. Aroop, the law abiding citizen tht he is, was standing outside the gate, distributing pamplets.

All of a sudden, a kaka type guy (uniformed security) comes from god knows where and catches hold of the bag in which I had kept the pamplets.


kaka: Chalo, saab bulata hai.
Me: (realising tht kaka is surely marathi) Kaka pun zala kay?
kaka: te saheb tula saangtil...

Me: Alfa to Aroop..Alfa to Aroop...We have a Broken Arrow! Alfa is down! Alfa is down! This is not a drill! I repeat!This is not a drill!

Aroop came running. Aroop has a way with marathi kaka type guys.He has done his schooling from King george dadar(Sukhi's school). They give special training there.

But this time his charm didnt work. We were asked to sit near the security's cabin.

Kaka: Saab busy hai.
Aroop(to me):Tu tension mat le! BMC aur police mein apun ka bahut pechan hai(this was the King george in him talking)
I felt better after he said tht.

After 10 mins we got bored and started talking about our joining date, movies etc.

There was a bigger(in size and post) kaka who I thought was hinting at some chai pani.

Me:Bigger kaka, kahi tari kara na tumhi!!
Bigger kaka: Ata me kay karnar?? Tumchi pavti (receipt) fadnaar mothe saheb. Je karnar te saaheb karnar

What? there is an even bigger kaka?

After 5 more mins every body got bored but Aroop looked amazingly cool. He was like his father owned somaiya's. It was like it wasnt somaiya's but chaudhary's.

The original Kaka: Sahebaana thoda chaha-paani dya.
Aroop: Kay kaka? aamcha kade swatah nokri nahi!! aamhi kay denaar?

For the record, Aroop is placed in Infosys. And I am placed in Siemens.

Still, we gave him 50 bucks and got out of there.

Was a lot of fun!! We felt like we were a bunch of 22 yr olds(coz thts wht we are...)

One gyaan Aroop gave me was-No matter what happens, confidence lose nahi karne ka!
Point noted mate!



Of pamplets, kakas and Aroop!

This post is to thank Pushkar for all the hardwork he put in making this Header.

There are a lot of things I love about the header. I mean look at the Elephant. I wud have named him Jumbo or Appu(if he was Indian). But Pushkar name him TP. Yes! The name of the elephant is Mr.Time Pass.

I also like the Unlimited edition and Rs.2 on the top left of the header.
Also my name in the centre of the header looks pretty neat, doesnt it?

Great work dude! Thanks Pushkar!

I am sure all you guys must be thinking - why the hell did I change over from a well established PR3 blog at wordpress to blogger???!

The answer is tht the people who run Wordpress are bloody idiots! My blog was suspended coz I posted Viral tags on my site. The name may sound dangerous but its actually a simple experiment tht has enabled to increase their ranking overnight.

Curiosity killed the cat.

I wanted to know how in the world will copying and pasting a certain code on your site lead to an increase in PR(pagerank)?


The next day my blog was suspended from WordPress. Yep, just like tht!! No warning no nothing.
Maybe their fascinating Terms of Service empowered them to do so. I offered to remove all the stuff on the blog tht they might want removed...But those ppl cited their TOS. One thing you suckers at WP shud know - if you name your TOS as fascinating, ppl are not gonna take it seriously. Infact point no 14 (or was it 12) in the TOS asks the readers in a mocking way if they are still reading the TOS...


This is what happens when you have a bunch of nerds trying to be supercool. Thts why WP will never be as big as blogger. As I have noticed in the last few days, Blogger gives you more freedom. I was not allowed to add javascript in WP. Here I am encouraged to do so. Ican edit the template of my blog here, tht was never allowed there. There are a bunch of other facilities tht are better here.


But even after a sour divorce and calling each other names,I cant help remembering the good times WP and I had. WP's best feature(if there ever was one) was its dashboard. Also WP was good looking. WP was more like a model while blogger is more like a businesswoman.
I guess I got into first impressions too much.


It goes out to all you guys and girls who decide if they like him/her purely on the basis of appearance.



Think again.
If TV ever taught us anything..This shud be it.


For the suckers at WP



Buzz off. What the heck happened here?

I love comic strips… Not the Spiderman or Mandrake the magician kinds, coz they are like Ekta Kapoor’s serials which just go on and on and I cant remember who died/was raped in the last episode.

My current fav is Bizzaro

Every morning, I flip through mumbai mirror to reach the second last page - to the comics section - to Bizzaro

The ideas tht hit Dan Piraro’s mind are amazing! They catch you off guard

Look at the comic strips above…You would never think of it, would you?

Everyday, there is something different, something stupid, something bizzare!

Bizzaro! -by Dan Piraro