Thought Crimes

Some of you might have stumbled upon this page thinking you’re about to read about James Bond’s adventures one summer. However, I’m afraid you won’t get any descriptions of Aston Martins, Ultra-tech gadgets, hot women or shaken and not stirred martinis here. Its Ian Fleming you want. But if you want to read about Lefty’s highly eventful summer, stick around. You might not be disappointed.

The summer of 007 started off with a brilliant trip to Bombay. Cousins were visited after a long time, old memories were rekindled, fond moments were spent together and we were back to the good old capital. The highlight of the trip was a visit to Sahara City, or Aamby Valley. If there’s no paradise on Earth, these guys will ensure there is one in a couple of years. Majestic place. Our eyes couldn’t take in enough of the great expanses of greenery surrounded by mountains and sheltering a coupler of serene lakes in their midst. Add to it a sumptuous meal in which I managed to devour both Mughlai and Continental delicacies, and you get a fair idea of the kind of day it was. Getting back to Bombay made me take a solemn oath that there was no way I could ever live in that city. Planning is an unknown word there. The side lanes in my hostel are wider than their main roads. Its no wonder that the city is flooded every time 5 dogs decide to take a leak together. 2 hours to traverse 15 kilometers, I ask you? Give me Noida any day.

Having put the trip behind me, I was pressurized by my family to get rid of my highly cool (a list of people who admitted it will soon be posted) hairstyle to pander to the eccentric demands of the corporate world. It was to be the first of many occasions in the summer when I would curse myself for having landed an internship in GENPACT. That’s not to say the internship was not a great learning experience. It was. It did me a great deal of good. It’s just that I am unbelievably lazy and the assignment, though by no means an exacting one, did demand that I showed up at the office Monday to Friday. So there’s no need for any GENPACT employee to take umbrage.

The six weeks I spent in Gurgaon on my assignment were a unique experience. I had to clothe myself in fancy dress (trousers and full shirts), sport a good boy hairstyle and explain to all and sundry why I, an engineering student, was doing an internship in finance. I thought about doing an Agastya Sen and giving demented answers to each person who asked, but in the end decided against it and stuck to conventional explanations. I met a whole lot of people there. My team was a very dedicated one and I admire them for the commitment they showed to their work. Someday, I hope I can emulate their example. I also spent a lot of time with a motley group which forcibly reminded me of my days in the Audio Section. I had to keep a smile pasted on my face, let out a polite ‘Ha Ha’ every couple of minutes and keep praying that I could find an excuse to run away from such people who were determined to prove that they had an IQ only slightly higher than Lord Emsworth who, if stories be believed, has an IQ slightly lower than a newly hatched chicken.

I’d like to tell you some anecdotes about the work I did, but my company made me promise that I would keep their information esoteric. I shall therefore not fail the trust that the company has placed in me. All I can say, as I have said to many who’ve asked me this before, is that I did statistical analysis and data reconfiguration. And yes, this is also Chandler Bing’s job and I say this to show my fervent admiration for the character

The GENPACT internet filter tended to make life miserable. Here I was, in front of a comp. with the whole wide net open, and free, before me and I found out that they’d blocked all email sites, social networking sites and sports sites. Uncyclopedia was blocked under the heading ‘Pornography’?! Wikipedia, though not blocked, was ‘frowned upon’ as an overly law-abiding employee had the grace to tell me. Blogs turned out to be my salvation and I used to mentally urge all Blogo-Sapiens to keep posting regularly to provide some office entertainment to me. Old Man Poochie rose to the challenge magnificently, churning out posts almost daily from his evergreen imagination. Bang Bang made me sick trying to Ima-jee-ne. He’s probably still got the same thing on his blog. Raps posted thrice in a single shot and then felt that his debt to humanity had been paid. Matty Boy showed great promise in the beginning but then his enthusiasm seemed to have fizzled out. I notice he’s got back to blogging with a vengeance now that I no longer need regular posts. Talk about fair-weather friends. Good Girl pegged away, slowly but surely. The Lazy Labrador started a blog and immediately forgot that he had done so.

The third eventful thing that happened this summer was that I rode a bike. At last. The miracle came about thanks to The Complete Man, who not only obliged with his mean machine, but also planned a cricket match, which was the reason he was there in the first place. The two matches we played were pretty good. We lost the first but won the second. I played the mature role of a sheet-anchor in the first match. I even bowled a couple of overs. The blazing sun meant that I was in no mood to deliver my usual scorching yorkers so I had to resort to my once famous Shaahi Leg-spin. The sting was missing though, and I got hit for a dozen runs in one highly forgettable over. All this finger-biting play paled in comparison to the brilliant experience that riding a bike was. As The Complete Man also pointed out later, it felt as though I had all the power in the world in my hand. The afternoon made me determined to buy a bike the minute I start earning. It’s going to be an uphill task though, for my parents would sooner accept the idea of Lefty entering a live-in relationship with a Playmate in Pakistan than the idea of Lefty on a bike. Let’s hope they soon change their point of view.

Oh, and I also turned Twenty over the summer, effectively ending my teenage.

Those were the best days of my life!

# posted by Saagar @ 7:43 pm