Take that Ms. Banerjee

This post is in response to Ms. Madhuri Banerjee's 5 Guys every woman should have. I was utter shocked to see a renowned and responsible journalist misconstruing a noble act of five brothers and an eternal sacrifice made by one of the noted chaste woman in Hindu mythology. Your post might have talked about the 5 guys a woman must have but mis-portraying Draupadi to be lucky and walking with a different person after every sunset makes me question your credibility. You probably have to revise your knowledge on this subject before you even think about it.

1st thing - She was shared among the five husbands because of the vow that Kunti had imposed on the five brothers. Kunti (woman) imposed it and the Pandavas (Men) abode by that, respecting their mother.  But, one has to never forget that the same scriptures mentioned Draupadi bearing just one son (Abhimanyu) with Arjuna who won her in the swayamvara. Do you know what must have gone through the mind of a woman when she is asked to share 5 husbands and the men simply fall for that vow imposed on them by another woman? You wanted to support your non-sensical post about a woman having 5 men in her life before she gets settled with one, quoting the example of Draupadi? - Can anyone get more foolish than that?

As far as your post is concerned, there are men who fit in all the 5 categories you mentioned, PERFECTLY! Stop fooling yourself and come out of the virtual world called self-denial. The man who can treat you like a woman is standing right next to you, kissing you good night every single night and tugging you safe into the blanket every day. This coin called Relationship has another facet as well, if you ever wanted to flip it. You named just 5 types of guys a woman should be with, I can start counting on the different types of woman a man must be with before he settles with one and the counter never stops.

Did you ever read this phrase:

Karyeshu Dasi, Karaneshu Manthri;

Bhojeshu Mata, Shayaneshu Rambha;

Roopeshu lakshmi, Kshamayeshu Dharitri;

Satkarma Nari, Kuladharma Pathni

It is a verse from Neethisaram, in praise of women! It clearly classifies every aspect of how a woman should be and people like you wouldn't understand because you think you are much ahead of the philosophy and ethics in life. Do you think, making Chick Flicks or authoring posts like these make you sound Uber cool? You may well be cool but would never master the Art of being a Woman. There is difference in living life and leading life and neither you nor people who admire your post / work would understand that. It is way out of your league!

And yes, I forgot to throw some light on the contrasting side, the >5 types of women that men should have 

1. A girl who doesn't have a lot of expectations from him. 

2. A woman who doesn't nag about everything all the time

3. A woman who can let him be at peace

4. A woman with lesser mood swings

5. A woman who can cook well and feed him, sometimes if not daily

6. A woman who can let him be himself

7. A woman who allows him to talk without thinking twice

8. A woman who is unselfish and not over protective

9. A woman who doesn't pester him to talk out everything

10. A women who can understand that Men don't enjoy Window shopping

I can keep writing all day, but I feel that it is a mere waste spending more time to revert back to you. I have other useful things to do in life. I am glad I don't have as many complaints about women in my life as you do (about men in your life)! 

Adieu!

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Facebook-ology

The much needed post for the wellness of the Cyber mankind. I don't want to wake up everyday to see my facebook page filled with idiocy that I don't really care about and so do several others who are just there to find their long lost friends or may be for some casual ball. Urban Dictionary, my Dutch Uncle, terms "Facebookology" as 'The knowledge of whats going down on Facebook'. A couple of people asking me to blog about this and Sapota's mere frustration made me think about the Facebookology. Over the past few months, I was analyzing the spectrum of my friends on facebook. I couldn't resist but categorize them into gangs:

1. Fervent Faction: People in this gang are always upto something. There are people who 'like' every status message they come across; there are people who add every person they just stare at, you just smile at them on the road and there'll be a friend request even before you go home; there are people who are crazy about one particular thing and keep hammering their passion on the rest of the junta. We don't really care, you see!

There is a small group of people within this gang who are really curious on who visited their profile and who tagged them. They try all the different apps that are available on facebook, "Your Top follwers", "Who you would kill you", "Who is your best friend". "What would be your future". Damn it, don't you really know who your best friend is, do you need an app for that?

2. Jobless Jarheads: People in this gang never know what facebook is all about. They assume it to be a toy box. They are too idle to kill the time. They share every video they see, even though it was uploaded on the internet in the Stone Age and everyone else has already shared it like a thousand times. They think, think, think and think and then decide to spend their time wisely, they create a Farmville or a Cityville account. If that is a guy, he would create Mafia wars account because he is too masculine to design farms. They don't stop there, they feel privileged to show their farm layouts and city planning on facebook and the people whom I'd like to really appreciate are the ones who actually open those photos and 'Like' them.

And if they are too wise, they would start asking facebook which celebrity do they look like and who would be their life partner. Ok, I'd take the liberty to tell you that you are acting like an Ass now (whether you take that to be a donkey or the behind, it is upto you). You might do it for fun, but we plead you to create a private account for that, add people who could tolerate those activities and share your feelings there. We respect your privacy.

3. Spamming Syndicates: The subgroups in 1 & 2 and a few other people comprise this gang. All they know is clicking on the link which comes across their way. They something interesting about them, "Your best friend", "Your top follower", "Yo XXXXX you were tagged in this video". People in this gang are really self indulgent which is why I think are always after the word"You/Your". And Ta Da! they are all over facebook posting spam. And finally, we see a sorry message at the end of the day asking us not to click. Thank you, We are not as foolish as you were!

4. Barging Barrens: People in this gang are the ones who keep the facebook server up and running all the time. They are keen on updating their status every hour. If they have nothing to say, they post !@#$%^&. And you don't feel like hiding their updates because they are too dear to you. Now, there is a small fraction of this gang which does not post crazy special characters but they'd crash land into every possible place in the neighborhood and "Check-in".  If you are with a group of friends and hanging out after a long time, we understand. But if you are alone, busy doing nothing at some cinema hall or shopping mall, who cares?

Sapota predicts that there would be days when people will start updating their statuses to "Just had breakfast", "Just had coffee at Starbucks", "Window shopping at XYZ Mall with Tom, Dick and Harry". He says "He has much bigger problems to worry about".

5. Juvenile Jammers: People in this gang are just out of high school and they think they are too old for myspace or orkut. It would have been much better if Zuckerberg regulated the access only for .edu email addresses. He could have weeded out all these High School Graduates who do nothing but tag people in crazy photos or continuously access the useless apps on facebook. The other day it took 10 minutes to remove all the crazy tags I was associated with. Time is not a matter, patience is!


6. Legitimate Laggers: I termed them 'Laggers' because people often tend to forget to notice any updates from people in this Gang. And that is because rest of their screen's real estate has been occupied by the rest of the gangs above. These people try to spread general awareness or share interesting articles but noone really cares because they are fed up with the numerous scumming. And hence doesn't show up in the News Feed. It also includes the people who are victims of the 5 groups above and the sole reason they are on facebook is to know how and what their friends are doing. But sadly, all they say is Horoscopes, Paul the Octopus's updates, Which Celebrity are you, Top viewer of your profile and every possible useless piece of crap.


Some people implode within themselves, some laugh at the rest, some bitch about them, some feel worried and people like me BLOG. Share it! To the change, fellas!

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The eternal Black Hole called Job Search

Everyone in this world goes through this phase atleast once unless the person is really wealthy and aimless in life. Surprisingly, I have been getting back to this phase every year since 2004. It never gets rid of me and I never get tired of it and the irony is we get along pretty well. I have now become a Master at Job Searching techniques and I sometimes end up thinking that I should probably start a firm that would help others with Job Search. I still ace up my sleeves when it comes to job search, sometimes I have been lucky and sometimes it has been hard on me. Speaking Chronologically:

1.  May 2004 - After finishing 2nd year of college, I feel that I'm a grown up and should stop pestering my parents for my luxuries and I am on the roads searching for some part-time jobs. Dubiously following Sapota's advise - I take up a "Faltoo" job where my earnings hardly met my necessities.

2. January 2005 - I decide to take another path and start tutoring while I study for my GRE and earned quite a bit but that ended very soon when the high school kid finished his High School.
3. May 2006 - Straight out of college, I decide to pursue Masters. Having found a 3 months leisure, I attended several interviews for Call Center jobs and failed and finally ended doing Event Management. 
4. August 2006 - I come over to the US, my hunt for on-campus jobs and assistantships start; I was the first one to start and the last one to end up with one.
5. December 2007 - Realizing that I would have enough time for next Summer, I search for the jackpot Internships and off campus jobs
6. June 2008 - I decide to move out to Kansas and start searching for jobs in KANSAS
7. 2009 - Tired of working Part time, I search for a full time job (all year long)
8. 2010 - The search continues
9. 2011 - Madhuri leaves Kansas and now I'm searching again

A typical day during this phase would include atleast 10 emails saying that you application has been rejected and atleast 50 of them saying that "We have received your resume". Whilst I'm not qualified for most of them, rest of them do not like "International Aliens". I'm still not tired of wearing the Black suit over and over to look professional. As an insult to an injury, I graduated from Grad School in 2008 which I feel is the worst time that one could ever graduate. I have composed thousands of emails, formatted my resume atleast 20 times and tailored 50 different cover letters to suit different jobs but I still feel I'm an under-achiever. I ruled out speculations regarding 3-page resumes, skepticisms about international hiring and still I find myself nowhere closer to those numerous job postings floating out there.

Everytime, I talk to someone - I get to hear "I hear the Job Market is good these days"! Hell yes, Can't you see I'm working on 5 different jobs simultaneously, Do you care for one? It looks to me like 1000s of my emails and 10,000s of my applications are just going down the drain. They set out in the right direction, but they never are reverted - just like the ships entering the Bermuda Triangle and never coming back. Some said, your resume is still being reviewed, some said the position has been offered to someone else, some said they closed the position, very very few said they'd offer me the position and most of them never responded. I always wondered why they responded back using Postal mails to say that I was not selected for the interview process. Some people, however, make it look like a cake walk off course through the back door referrals while some join the racketed firms with no option left and take up a challenge disguising 5-15 years of their life. These people should enter the Ripley's Believe it or not contest.

The whole application process starts with Google searching for jobs in my area and the process goes to an extent that I end up at wikipedia searching for local companies with Careerbuilder, Linkedin and several others being the usual pit stops. Rarely, I make it to the interview process and then the merry begins. It starts with "Tell Me about yourself" and it ends with "You'll hear back from us soon". I'm tired of answering the questions: What are your strengths and weaknesses and I'm falling short of instances that would explain situations when I had a problem at work and how I overcame it. Yes, I am a team player and I love conversations. No, my bosses never had any complaints against me and never did I cause any problems to my co-workers. I know A, B, C, C++, JAVA, COBOL, VB, .NET, SAP, TCP/IP, YAMAHA 2.5 and everything that you can name and you can pay me just 25K an year.

Good Luck to the folks who are in searching phase and applause for the ones who have been through it successfully. 

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2 hours minus Technology

This dude I'm talking about is alone right now and has scheduled several appointments over the 1st half of the day on a cloudy Wednesday. He owns a car which needs to be serviced, has a Debit card and its PIN has been locked out and a Sony Ericsson C 905 with a shattered screen and as the menu card reads, today's special is fever + nausea. Apparently, he realized that he has to catch up with a lot of things that were being pushed over a few weeks but what he didn't realize was that he had planned too much for the next 2 hours.

After a night full of rigorous coughing and non-stop sneezing, he reluctantly wakes up, showers and decides to go to work, only after finishing those tasks. While brushing his teeth, quickly grabs a pen and writes down the list of things that need to be done. Grunting at the new guy who has been shouting directly to Chennai without using the phone, he cursed himself for having found a new roommate. He then did what he is usually best at, plan the order of doing things. After listing down few of the many to-do things, he set out hoping to complete all the listed tasks. After he drove for a mile, he realized that he forgot his antiquated cell phone at home. Without giving it a second thought, he decided to drive further and complete each of his tasks one after the other. And the story starts here!

He directly goes to the Service Center, drops his car off for an Oil Change and a few other fixes. He manages to get a ride in his own car to downtown where he could get and moving most of his works. He first visits the library to renew a books and realized that it didn't open until the next 1 hour, so he had no other option than returning the books through a dump. He then decides to walk to the one of the banks which was one of the few tasks and felt the deficit of a 50 oz weight in the left side of his jeans. He missed it because he could have avoided walking alone and staring at Spring deserted pavements and traffic lights. Dawdling and ambling, he finally approaches the bank, tries to open the door swiftly and no sooner he notices the "Hours of Operation" in-scripted right by the handle.

Ta-Da! Only if he had a phone, he could have survived the boring Wednesday morning waiting 30 more minutes for the bank's door to open. Or, he could become the Alladin to chant Khul-ja-Simsim. The latter one was impossible and the former one far too possible. As he was counting the number of cars that passed by him, sitting on the side steps, a stranger from the nearby gas station walks up to him. He extends his hand out to him, greets him, and introduces himself as David and his opening line was "I am not the David in the Bible". By now, this dude has judged the new dude who was in his mid fifties to be a homeless guy who was waiting to rant away his ramblings. As expected, he turned out to be one. For a change, he was a well-informed homeless man. They both talked about ethics, mythology and politics. As a matter of fact, he was just listening while the old man kept saying. He again wondered, while still pretending to listen to the man very keenly,  how could he forget his phone. Just before 9.00 AM the man left and he made this dude promise him that he'll attend the "Jazz House" while he played Ukelele tonight.

As the doors opened, he got his work done at the bank and set right out for the next thing on his list, to another bank. As he was feebly walking, he now realizes that he hadn't brought Gatorade which could have given him some energy to walk the couple of streets to reach to the bank. By the Grace of the Holy Mother, he reached there, got his work done. He comes out, walks to the bus stop and he realizes that he does not have the Bus Route Map to now when and where to board the bus. After waiting for a couple of minutes, he decides to take the '11' no. bus (11 -> two legs) and starts walking. He gets weaker and weaker as he walks and finally reaches the service center. He was on his own after that but look at how he could have saved time with technology.

• He could have used the phone to know the timings of the Banks or the Library
• He could have walked to the bus stop and take the bus instead of walking all the way
• He could have avoided the intellectual discussion with the aged man
• He could have called the Service Center and arranged a pickup from Downtown.

The dude in this post has not given me the rights to disclose his real name. But you know who :D

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The Name Game

A lazy Sunday morning, something wobbles by my pillow while I'm still cozied under my comforter and no later I realize it is my cell phone that is vibrating, dragging me out from my hard earned Weekend sleep. In a blunt voice: I say Hello and the other person on the line says: "Is this Shake-it?" FYI Ladies and Gentleman, my full name is 'Shakti Vishnu Teja Kamisetty', the whole underlined part counted as my First Name. I sprung up from my sheets and said "Who?" She resumed her jumbling and started saying "Can I speak to Shake-it Kiss-i-maa...". Now I was totally up on my feet and said "You might want to stop right there! My name is Shakti Kamisetty and you can call me Vishnu (very sternly for an early morning's 11.00 AM call)."


If this was my encounter, some of my friends had their share of funny experiences as well. "Sai Kamineni", the good friend and then roommate of mine, visited his Graduate Advisor and the first question that popped out from his big head was "Are you Kameena?". Within his mind, Sai cursed, "Tu Kameena, Tera baap Kameena, tera poora khandaan kameena" but couldn't raise a word. He calmly corrected the advisor and walked out. This guy Vamshi from Kansas sadly told me how his name was butchered sometimes. Sometimes he called "Wash-me" and sometimes "Wameesh". My name was anagram-ized several times too, calling me "Vunish", "Vunashi" and what not. I always wondered why can't they simply follow the syllables; pronouncing We-issh-nu is no rocket-science!

While some people tailor their names accordingly so that they don't feel ridiculed, some people make sure they are called correctly. Yogesh, a guy I know cut short his name to "Yo" and that made people ask his name thrice instead of twice. Madhuri, tailored it to "Maudri" as people are ignorant of the "dh" syllable. Vidya Shankar challenged a gora, that he'd give him $10 if he got his name right the 1st time and made it simple by asking him to call him "V". I, at times, used the name "Victor" instead of "Vishnu" esp. at Taco Bell and Mc. Donalds to make their life easier but I stopped doing that after I was made realize by Madhuri. So now, I fall under the category of people who make sure they are called correctly - "Vishnu with a V".

Nevertheless, I had problems with my name even before I came to the US. My name was too long to be entered into the High School Certificate. I was amazed to see that it was longer than 24 characters and as usual, puzzled, I asked my parents "Why 3 names while I am just one person?" I am sure many of you have some funny experiences too, would love to listen!

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