I have seen the world change

Yeah, right!

I’m back! Finally! After a 6 month break (read, study leave, hehehe) I am back to routine, monotony and utter and complete boredom. Yes, office is to blame. How much has the world changed, really, in these 6 months where I only stepped out to go to the library and nowhere else? Okay, to the sandwich and chaat wala too, but that’s not important.

1. The Mumbai metro began its operations exactly a week before I was due to join and I was asked to haul my ass to a client at Andheri. Bham! Mumbai Metro, zindabad! At a flat rate of Rs.10, hell, it was (still is) cheaper than rickshaw and in some cases, the BEST bus! It’s nice, really. Fully air conditioned, beautifully maintained, well run and crew that is ever on its toes and always available. But, there’s always a “but”. Everything in India comes with a con, right?

(i) Do you know what I love most about the Mumbai metro? The lingering paan smell. Oh! Also, the fuck awesome body odour emanating from men and women travelling alongside me who not so surprisingly, considering the Rs.10 fare, smell of sweat and stink of raw fish. (I’m vegetarian. I hate the smell of fish, cooked or raw. I don’t care; go ahead and judge me, oh! You just called me a bitch. I agree.)

(ii) Do you know what’s slightly worse? How people are unable to use the token barricade. They long jump over the barricade and run. Damn! I shouldn't have stopped my long jump practice in school. And, more fun? Since people can’t use the token barricade properly, their entry into and exit from the metro station is delayed, by not just a few, but several seconds, nay, minutes! And? Yep! You guessed it right! There’s a huge, huge crowd behind them, trying to get out! Oh? I am an idiot, right? I should have just shoved and pushed past people like these other people and broken my own code of discipline, manners and courtesy. Hmm.

(iii) So, who are these other people? The tourist crowd and other *ahem* crowd who are taking joy rides on the metro since “aga! meytro madhe fakta daha rupyat amala AC milel!! Tsal zauyah!”  (Arre! On the metro, for Rs.10 we are getting an AC ride!! Let’s go!!) Here’s some not-so-common sense to you jackholes. Go ahead, take your joy rides! I’m not the one to stop you. I don’t have the authority (I wish I did!) You know what you can do? DON’T TAKE YOUR JOY RIDE DURING PEAK OFFICE HOURS! OR IS THAT SO DIFFICULT TO BLOODY UNDERSTAND? You are giving the MMOPL revenue, great! You are getting an AC ride for Rs.10, awesome! Please, as a consideration to us mere mortals who earn our living, take your rides between 12 and 4. Let. Us. Please. For. The. Love. Of. God. Travel. In. Peace.

(iv)  Also, if any of you women, ask me ever again whether there is a ladies’ coach, I swear, I will NOT keep a straight face and respond and will give such a scathing response to you that I will feel bad about it for the rest of my life. We don’t have separate coaches for men and women. It is all the same. The metro is not a nau/bara/pandra dabba local train. It’s the metro. Fuck! It gets you from Ghatkopar to Andheri in 15 min. Can you PLEASE not ask me about ladies’ coach ever again? Thank you!

(v) A sincere and heartfelt request to MMRDA, Veolia Transport and Reliance Infra, please, please, please just increase the fares already. At least half the crowd will get filtered out in a matter of days. Trust me when I say this. Just do it already.

2. Mumbai local train- Ah, it’s been a year since I last travelled by train. Yes, because about 2 months before I was due to go on leave, I was sent to the office near my home for tax audit filing. So, a year since local train travel. The first day, I travelled by a Thane local, to Ghatkopar and felt like a death sentence would have been much easier. the crowd is MUCH more rowdy, uncivilized and just pure yuck! My mistake, the first day I travelled by ticket. Second day, I stood in line and got myself a first class pass. Doesn’t make the travel A LOT better anyway since the ticketless crowd prefers travelling by first class, since they are ticketless anyway! So, there you go!

Yeah, so, these two were the two main aspects of “seeing the world change”. LOL. I feel like I’m 100 years old! “I’ve seen the world change” heeeheeheee. I’ve missed the blog, AND my regular readers (Do I really have any?) muah!!

Knowledge is great, literally!

Being thoroughly bored with my Chartered Accountancy coursework and keeping well in mind that I will be required to show some amount of volunteer work on my resume to apply for B-schools, I applied to a charitable organization in Mumbai to start volunteering there. While work took up my weekdays, going to the NGO was going to be my every Saturday goal. On the first day, I was asked to reach their office in Mumbai where four other volunteers and I were given maximum possible details regarding the organization and work done by it; at the end, we were asked to provide the nearest possible location that we could volunteer at, accordingly, I was assigned a BMC (BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation) school. The school, located in Parel, was a government run school where Marathi was the main medium of coaching. However, the NGO had co-ordinated with the school to provide additional teachers and extra volunteers (like yours truly) to provide English medium coaching. On my first day, being completely clueless as to what needed to be done, I reached the school and was assigned two very mischievous children to whom I had to impart the basics of English and Math. May I add Class II English and Math, something us adults take for granted, I had to actually teach the nuances of. 

Only two words can possibly describe my experience, exhausted and exhilarated. The enthusiasm with which the kids started doing Math was sincerely shocking for me. It made me think about how lightly I had taken school just because my parents could afford to send me to one of the best schools in the state. At the end of day, I spoke one on one with the principal of the school and to my shock, heard myself say “I’d rather have back-end work, like managing the library or something.” After giving much thought to my words, I realized that taking the future of a couple of kids in my own hands is some responsibility I would not at all be comfortable with! What if the kid can’t understand these basics and fails in advanced Math, what if the kid doesn’t understand the grammar and vocabulary I am teaching and fails in English in an English medium school! The next Saturday, I was given the task of arranging books in the library and that has now become my Saturday chore at the school. I love the work. I love books, I like order, I like things being organized, I love the fact that at least someone is benefiting from my work.

Only recently it hit me with full force that my CA course is about to come to an end and all the future decisions that I had put off, will have to be made soon. I enjoy the work at the school so much, that I know for a fact that I wish to work toward education, toward betterment of society through literacy. While I was earlier focussed on joining an MNC post my qualification and drowning deeper into the work I no longer genuinely had fun with and obtaining an M.B.A. to worsen my life, I now want something I enjoy, even with a lower pay but with satisfaction at the end of the day. After thorough research day-in and day-out, my ultimate goal now is to join the AFID- Accounting for International Development and provide volunteer accounting work as frequently possible, what better way to utilize the knowledge I learnt? This organization does volunteer accounting across the world and helps various charitable organizations in improving their financial management with a thorough assessment and consultation.

But, only armed with an accounting degree and no knowledge or background in social services, I researched various universities across the world offering a degree in Social work. While a Master of Arts is out of question for want of a Bachelor of Arts degree, a Master of Science in a related social service major is my goal. I particularly like the MSc in Social Work offered by the University of Portsmouth, England. The coursework includes an introduction, basics of social work, practices thereof, scope for improvement, practice placements, policy analysis and need for change therein, and social work on a local, national and international basis. This course, spread over two years is, in my opinion, one of the stepping stones for me to get my wish. There can be no greater satisfaction to me than to see my qualifications being put to use by charitable organizations primarily aiming toward improving education worldwide. Knowledge is great, literally!!

Exams are important: Concentrate! (I think not)

I feel like my head is going to burst! Argh! I have so many thoughts, all of them useless or of no importance when compared to my CA Final exams that more than half the time I catch myself day dreaming. Seriously! What is wrong with me! Okay, I thought I'd write everything down, clean the slate and start "understanding" Advanced Auditing and Professional Ethics again. I wish I could just ponder and ponder and ponder all over again about all those unnecessary topics.

1. I am absolutely hooked to all the chic lit books that are on offer for free in epub or pdf format. Literally hooked. Why? Because chic lit books DO NOT require any use of the head. It is just plain read between the lines, skip a couple of pages, two hours later, bham! You are done with a 305 page book. Seriously, I'm reading Meg Cabot, Lucy Diamond, unknown authors! Oh, the Shopoholic series! I have The Godfather Returns with me, I've read some 15 pages of it and kept it aside. I do not wish to read anything heavy, as if my textbooks weren't heavy enough!

2. I can't stop thinking about travelling solo. I recently chanced upon this awesome WorkAway website (yes, good morning to me) where host families provide free accommodation and food. In turn, you need to work some 4 hours a day, 5 days a week; work as in help them out in whatever way they have listed on their profiles. It's amazing! My first solo trip IS going to be a workaway. Let me be honest, I do have a good amount of savings from my measly stipend, but all that is tucked away for other endeavours. My first solo trip sometime in September/October 2015! (Yeah, my 2014 trip has already been planned with my family, there's no turning back on that! All you lucky dogs, I'll be down South :P)

3. I have this HUGE, MAJOR and LUSTING crush on Jeff Lieberman. Jeff Lieberman? The guy who hosts Time Warp on Discovery Science? How can you not want that? I mean, him. And just how can someone who holds two B.S. degrees, two M.S. degrees and is currently pursuing a PhD and is also a cool science show host be Oh-So-Hot! And the show if fuck awesome!

 4. I am exercising diligently. I cannot say that I am able to control what I stuff myself with. But, yes, I do exercise regularly, even if I am bored. Twice a day for a total of 2 hours. Happy. Happy. Happy. :) And obsessing over my figure. :(

5. I am thoroughly enjoying reruns of F.R.I.E.N.D.S on my computer. It is such a great show. So good. I don't think any show can ever beat it. Not even The Big Bang Theory or Suits or Two and a Half Men, especially since Charlie's been dead. Nope. And Chandler Bing, I love that guy :D Hooked!

 6. I read this book "Me Before You" that deals Dignitas. Well, deal as in, it's a chic lit book wherein Dignitas has been weaved into the story. Suffice to say, I read the first 70-80 pages, found it immensely depressing since I could confidently guess the ending, so, I read the last 3 pages. This got me thinking about suicide. No. No. Not what you think. As in, why people commit suicide. I'm not referring to Dignitas here. If you are physically or mentally ill, there is no chance of recovery and it is terminal, by all means, you have should have the right to put an end to your own suffering. Others have no say in it. I'm talking about people committing suicide for awful reasons like bad score, getting dumped, getting fired, having fights, not having anyone to lean on. What shit? I'm not saying you don't have a problem, you do, but deal with it instead of taking an easy way out. Come on, life ain't that bad. You have bad times now, you've had better times earlier, you've had great times too! At the end of the day, just hope that your parting words are "Life is beautiful" much like The Godfather. (Really, read that book. The movie is crap, in my opinion)

7. I am addicted to the TV and ShowBiz section of http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html. I don't know, it's just a nice soothing feeling to watch celebs go about their daily lives. Come on. i read the TOI for real news. Not that there's much.

Okay, I'm done. I'll be enjoying point 7 for a few minutes and return to studies. Happy Auditing to me. :(

Comments are most welcome!!