Power of Money: From Mexico

Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim strengthened his grip on the title of world's richest man this week, piling up billions of additional dollars between himself and his nearest rivals Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Over the past year, the 71-year-old Slim added $20 billion to the value of his assets, making him worth $74 billion, according to Forbes.

Equivalent to 6.6 per cent of Mexico's annual economic output, Slim could in theory use his fortune to transform the lives of millions, slash public debt or wallow in boundless luxury.

Following are a few examples of what the money could buy.

* Slim could cover Mexico's entire education budget for the next decade or pay the statutory minimum wage for nearly four out of 10 Mexicans for an entire year.

* The cash could feed all of Mexico's 112 million people with 80 kilos of tortilla -- the average amount of the staple foodstuff Mexicans eat annually -- for the next 11 years.

* The $74 billion is more than double what Mexico, the world's No. 7 oil exporter, earned from crude exports last year and could entirely cover the state-run oil firm Pemex's annual tax bill, roughly a third of the Mexican government's budget.

* Slim, a widower who has been romantically linked to Queen Noor of Jordan and Spanish socialite Silvia Gomez-Cuetara, could afford 1,617 pink diamonds like the rare 24.78 carat stone sold by Sotheby's for $45.75 million last year.

* His astronomical wealth could fund the operations of U.S. space agency NASA for four years.

* The avid sports fan could pay four times the budget of Brazil's Olympics Public Authority, the agency in charge of coordinating investment for the 2016 games.

* The money could also cover eight times the $9 billion annual cost for global HIV treatments as estimated by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS.

* An art collector who earlier this month opened a 60,000+ piece museum in Mexico City, Slim could buy 528 Jackson Pollock "No. 5, 1948", which reportedly sold for $140 million -- the highest price ever paid for a painting.

Isn't it good to Wealthy???

NOKIA PLAN B

We are a group of nine young Nokia shareholders. All of us have worked with Nokia in different capacities in the past. We plan to challenge the company’s strategy and partnership with Microsoft in the next Annual General Meeting scheduled for May 3, 2011.

If you elect us to a majority in the Nokia Board of Directors we will pursue the following agenda:

Return the company to a strategy that seeks high growth and high profit margins through innovation and overwhelmingly superior products with unrivaled user experience.
Maintain ownership and control of the software layer of the Nokia products. Software is where innovation, differentiation and shareholder value can most easily be created.
Revamp hiring strategy to target the top young software talent from around the world. Only if Nokia is able to attract and keep the best talent in the industry it will be able to generate the level of innovation that is needed to achieve sustained growth and consistently high profit margins.
Dramatically increase efficiency by eliminating outdated and bureaucratic R&D practices like geographically distributed software development and outsourcing.
Avoid at all cost becoming a poorly differentiated OEM with only low margin, commodity products that is unable to attract top software talent and cannot create shareholder value though innovation.
.

If you elect us to a majority in the Nokia Board of Directors we will take the following concrete actions:

Immediate discharge of Stephen Elop from his duties as President and CEO of the company. Appointment of a new CEO with an international mobile industry background. The new CEO will be committed to carry on the rest of the actions listed below.
Restructure alliance with Microsoft as a tactical exercise focused primarily at the North American market. Release one or two Windows Phone devices under a Nokia sub-brand. Only if carrier acceptance, sales volumes and profit margins are satisfactory, consider releasing more WP devices and make them available in Europe. Windows Phone will not be the primary development platform for Nokia. The Nokia phones with Windows Phone operating system will simply take advantage of the existing developer tools and application ecosystem already put in place by Microsoft.
MeeGo will be Nokia’s primary smartphone platform. This is where the bulk of the innovation will happen. If MeeGo does not bring great devices to market at an accelerated pace, this strategy will not work. MeeGo smartphones and tablet devices will offer overwhelmingly superior experiences and applications than iOS and Android based competitor products. To reduce time to market, all MeeGo R&D will be done in-house and in a single geographical location. If necessary, suspend cooperation with Intel and concentrate resources on innovation and releasing new Nokia MeeGo devices to market faster.
Increase the lifespan of Symbian to a minimum of 5 years. Reap the profits of the existing market share and consumer preference that Symbian already enjoys in Europe and Asia. Increasingly use Symbian to target mid-tier and feature phone segments. Up-sell existing Symbian users to MeeGo. Focus Symbian efforts in specific countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America where Nokia and Symbian enjoy a high level of consumer goodwill and can be sold at healthy margins.
Developer strategy based on Qt with primary focus on MeeGo, but providing a credible developer story for Symbian. Enable developers to make money by targeting the huge Symbian installed based while simultaneously offering their best user experience on the MeeGo platform. All this with a common developer ecosystem that allows writing and releasing software for both Meego and Symbian with minimal interoperability work.
End of distributed R&D. Transition to an R&D setup where 90% of all Nokia R&D takes place in only two geographical locations. One of them will be in Finland and the other will be defined later. There will be no more R&D projects with resources in multiple cities and different time zones. Only small tactical software projects will be allowed to take place outside two main R&D locations.
End of R&D outsourcing. Bring all core software and hardware development in-house. Immediate end to outsourcing structures where there are multiple layers of Nokia project managers and subcontractor project managers between product managers and the software developers (in some cases up to 90% of the team is management overhead). This action implies substantial personnel layoffs in Finland and other R&D locations worldwide as well as hiring of key external talent and possibly tactical company acquisitions.
Leadership team shakeup. Immediate discharge of Tero Ojänpera, Niklas Savander and Mary McDowell from all their duties with the company. Other members of the Nokia Leadership Team may be discharged pending individual reviews with the Board of Directors. Discharged members of the Nokia Leadership team to be replaced with internal and external talent.
Aggressively recruit young software talent from top universities. Nokia Recruiting to actively visit top universities worldwide to screen and and invite top students for interviews in Nokia R&D locations. Establish a credible and rewarding technical career progression path in Nokia (to avoid the best talent leaving the company or becoming management overhead). Offer internationally competitive salaries to new talent (if necessary, significantly above local market salaries). Establish Nokia as a company where the best and the brightest want to work.
Specific further actions related to the S40 platform, the Ovi services and the company’s marketing activities will be determined at a later stage.
.

We will update this website with more specific information about this Plan B and about ourselves in the near future. We will also provide specific instructions on how you can support us and make sure this Plan B is approved during the next Nokia Annual General Meeting.

For now, if you are a Nokia shareholder or institutional investor and support this plan, please get in touch with us at investors (at) NokiaPlanB.com

An Letter From Nokia to Nokia

Hi all,

I read a mail from Stephen Elop, the CEO of Nokia sent to all the Nokia employees. I found it very interesting so thought i should post it.


Hello there,

There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform's edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.

As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a "burning platform," and he needed to make a choice.

He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times - his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a "burning platform" caused a radical change in his behaviour.

We too, are standing on a "burning platform," and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.

Over the past few months, I've shared with you what I've heard from our shareholders, operators, developers, suppliers and from you. Today, I'm going to share what I've learned and what I have come to believe.

I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.

And, we have more than one explosion - we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.

For example, there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem.

In 2008, Apple's market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.

And then, there is Android. In about two years, Android created a platform that attracts application developers, service providers and hardware manufacturers. Android came in at the high-end, they are now winning the mid-range, and quickly they are going downstream to phones under €100. Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry's innovation to its core.

Let's not forget about the low-end price range. In 2008, MediaTek supplied complete reference designs for phone chipsets, which enabled manufacturers in the Shenzhen region of China to produce phones at an unbelievable pace. By some accounts, this ecosystem now produces more than one third of the phones sold globally - taking share from us in emerging markets.

While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.

The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.

We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.

At the midrange, we have Symbian. It has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets like North America. Additionally, Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development and also creating a disadvantage when we seek to take advantage of new hardware platforms. As a result, if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind, while our competitors advance further and further ahead.

At the lower-end price range, Chinese OEMs are cranking out a device much faster than, as one Nokia employee said only partially in jest, "the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation." They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us.

And the truly perplexing aspect is that we're not even fighting with the right weapons. We are still too often trying to approach each price range on a device-to-device basis.

The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we're going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.

This is one of the decisions we need to make. In the meantime, we've lost market share, we've lost mind share and we've lost time.

On Tuesday, Standard & Poor's informed that they will put our A long term and A-1 short term ratings on negative credit watch. This is a similar rating action to the one that Moody's took last week. Basically it means that during the next few weeks they will make an analysis of Nokia, and decide on a possible credit rating downgrade. Why are these credit agencies contemplating these changes? Because they are concerned about our competitiveness.

Consumer preference for Nokia declined worldwide. In the UK, our brand preference has slipped to 20 percent, which is 8 percent lower than last year. That means only 1 out of 5 people in the UK prefer Nokia to other brands. It's also down in the other markets, which are traditionally our strongholds: Russia, Germany, Indonesia, UAE, and on and on and on.

How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved?

This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Nokia. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven't been delivering innovation fast enough. We're not collaborating internally.

Nokia, our platform is burning.

We are working on a path forward -- a path to rebuild our market leadership. When we share the new strategy on February 11, it will be a huge effort to transform our company. But, I believe that together, we can face the challenges ahead of us. Together, we can choose to define our future.

The burning platform, upon which the man found himself, caused the man to shift his behaviour, and take a bold and brave step into an uncertain future. He was able to tell his story. Now, we have a great opportunity to do the same.

Stephen.

Worlds most expensive beer made from Antarctic ice

Australian beer maker Nail Brewing revealed the secret behind its latest ale, which set a new record for the most expensive beer ever produced when it was sold at auction last month. The new limited edition brew, which was produced and sold for charity, was made from melted Antarctic ice.

Dubbed Antarctic Nail Ale, the beer first went on the auction block to raise money for the Sea Sheperd Conservation Society, an organization dedicated to protecting whales and other sealife around the globe. On November 3, a single bottle sold for an amazing $800 AUD (roughly $780), setting the new record for the worlds most expensive beer in the process. That auction was just the warm-up however, as another bottle went up for sale on November 19, smashing the new record. That second bottle sold for a whopping $1850 AUD ($1805)!

The beer was created by John Stallwood, the owner of Nail Brewing. Stallwood's brother-in-law is part of the crew on board a Sea Sheperd ship, and recently visited an iceberg floating in the waters off Antarctica. He collected some of the ice there and flew it back to Tasmania, where it was melted and then passed on to Stallwood to use in the beer.

I've had some expensive beer before, but $1850 for a single bottle? I'd have to nurse that one for a really long time.

Wiki Leaks it again....

Hello everyone! Once again wiki leaks the whistle blower website has made some astonishing revelations. For all those who do not read News, here's a quick snap shot of the truth that was never meant to be told.



A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables from the past three years, released by WikiLeaks on Sunday despite a hacking attack on its website, provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world and brutally candid views of foreign leaders.

The documents show Saudi donors remain chief financiers of militant groups like al-Qaida and that Chinese government operatives have waged a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage, targeting the US and its allies, according to a review of the WikiLeaks documents published in the New York Times.

One of the revelations was a dangerous stand-off with Pakistan over nuclear fuel. Since 2007, US has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, "if the local media got word of the fuel removal, 'they would portray it as the US taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons,' he argued."

The White House condemned WikiLeaks' "reckless action" in releasing classified diplomatic cables, repeating its charge that the leak endangered lives and risked hurting relations with allies.

Here are just some of the startling revelations that have emerged from the new WikiLeaks release:

* American and South Korean officials discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North's economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. South Korea was even willing to offer economic incentives to China.

* China's Politburo directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems in the country, as part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government.

* The Yemeni government has sought to cover up US role in missile strikes against the local branch of Qaida. At a January meeting, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh tells Gen David Petraeus: "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours".

* When Afghanistan's vice president visited the UAE last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money "a significant amount" that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, "was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money's origin or destination" (Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan).

* American diplomats in Rome reported in 2009 on what their Italian contacts described as an extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir Putin and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian PM, including "lavish gifts", lucrative energy contracts and a "shadowy" Russian-speaking Italian go-between. They wrote that Berlusconi "appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin" in Europe.

The 251,287 cables, first acquired by WikiLeaks, were provided to NYT by an intermediary. Many are unclassified, and none are marked "top secret," the government's most secure communications status. But some 11,000 are classified "secret," 9,000 are labelled "noforn," too delicate to be shared with any foreign government.

Yanara Rascala...! MIND IT!

Could not help it. I just had to post this


1. Rajinikanth killed the Dead Sea.

2. When Rajinikanth does push-ups, he isn't lifting himself up. He is pushing the earth down.

3. There is no such thing as evolution, it's just a list of creatures that Rajinikanth allowed to live.

4. Rajinikanth gave Mona Lisa that smile.

5 .Rajnikanth can divide by zero.

6. Rajinikanth can judge a book by it's cover.

7. Rajinikanth can drown a fish.

8. Rajinikanth can delete the Recycle Bin.

9. Rajinikanth once got into a fight with a VCR player. Now it plays DVDs.

10. Rajinikanth can slam a revolving door.

11. Rajinikanth once kicked a horse in the chin. Its descendants are today called giraffes.

12. Rajinikanth once ordered a plate of idli in McDonald's, and got it.

13. Rajinikanth can win at Solitaire with only 18 cards.

14. The Bermuda Triangle used to be the Bermuda Square, until Rajinikanth kicked one of the corners off.

15. Rajinikanth can build a snowman out of rain.

16. Rajinikanth can strangle you with a cordless phone.

17. Rajinikanth can make onions cry.

18. Rajinikanth destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.

19. Rajinikanth can watch the show 60 minutes in 20 minutes.

20. Rajinikanth has counted to infinity, twice.

21. Rajinikanth will attain separate statehood in 2013.

22. Rajinikanth did in fact, build Rome in a day.

23. Rajinikanth once got into a knife-fight. The knife lost.

24. Rajinikanth can play the violin with a piano.

25. Rajinikanth never wet his bed as a child. The bed wet itself in fear.

26. The only man who ever outsmarted Rajinikanth was Stephen Hawking, and he got what he deserved.

27. Rajinikanth can talk about Fight Club.

28. Rajinikanth doesn't breathe. Air hides in his lungs for protection.

29. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Rajinikanth lives in Chennai.

30. Rajinikanth kills Harry Potter in the eighth book.

31. Rajinikanth does not own a stove, oven, or microwave, because revenge is a dish best served cold.

32. Rajinikanth has already been to Mars, that's why there are no signs of life there.

33. Rajinikanth doesn't move at the speed of light. Light moves at the speed of Rajinikanth.

34. Rajinikanth knows Victoria's secret.
35. Water boils faster when Rajinikanth stares at it.

36. Rajinikanth can throw the Thackerays out of Mumbai.

37. Rajinikanth kills two stones with one bird.

38. Google won't find Rajinikanth because you don't find Rajinikanth; Rajinikanth finds you.

39. Rajinikanth gave the Joker those scars.

40. Rajinikanth leaves messages before the beep.

41. Rajinikanth once warned a young girl to be good "or else". The result? Mother Teresa.

42. Rajinikant electrocuted Iron Man.

43. Rajinikanth killed Spiderman using Baygon Anti Bug Spray.

44. Rajinikanth can make PCs better than the Mac.

45. Rajinikanth puts the 'laughter' in manslaughter.

46. Rajinikanth goes to court and sentences the judge.

47. Rajinikanth can handle the truth.

48. Rajinikanth can speak Braille.

49. Rajinikanth can dodge Chuck Norris' roundhouse kicks.

50. Rajinikanth can teach an old dog new tricks.

51. Rajinikanth calls Voldemort by his name.

52. Who do you think taught Voldemort Parseltongue? Rajinikanth did.

53. Chuck Norris once met Rajinikanth. The result - He was reduced to a joke on the internet.

54. Rajinikanth got small pox when he was a kid. As a result small pox is now eradicated.

55. Rajinikanth’s calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd, no one fools Rajanikanth.


56. Rajinikanth grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.

57. The last time Rajinikanth killed someone, he slapped himself to do it. The other guy just disintegrated. Resonance.

58. Rajinikanth once had a heart attack. His heart lost.

59. Rajinikant is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.

60. Rajinikanth can run at speed of light around a tree and screw himself.

61.Rajinikant can lick his elbows.

62. Rajinikant once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink.

63. Rajinikant does not get frostbite. Rajnikant bites frost.

64. Rajinikant doesn’t wear a watch. He decides what time it is.

65. Rajinikant got his drivers license at the age of 16 seconds.

66. When you say “no one is perfect”, Rajinikant takes this as a personal insult.

67. In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Rajinikanth could use to kill you, including the room itself.

68. Words like awesomeness, brilliance, legendary etc. were added to the dictionary in the year 1949. That was the year Rajinikanth was born.

69. The statement "nobody can cheat death", is a personal insult to Rajnikanth. Rajni cheats and fools death everyday.

70. When Rajnikanth is asked to kill some one he doesn't know, he shoots the bullet and directs it the day he finds out.

71. Rajinikant can give pain to Painkillers and headache to Anacin.

72. Rajinikanth knows what women really want.


73. Time and tide wait for Rajinikanth.

74. Rajinikanth sneezed only once in his entire life, that's when the tsunami occurred in the Indian ocean.

75. As a child when Rajinikanth had dyslexia, he simply re-scripted the alphabet.

76. Rajinikanth collects Honey from his private Moon - HoneyMoon.

77. Rajinikanth can answer a missed call.

78. Rajinikanth doesn't need a visa to travel abroad, he just jumps from the tallest building in Chennai and holds himself in the air while the earth rotates.

79. Rajinikanth's brain works faster than Chacha Chaudhury's.

80. Rajinikanth doesn't shower. He only takes blood baths.

81. To be or not to be? That is the question. The answer? Rajinikanth.

82. The quickest way to a man's heart is with Rajinikanth's fist.

83. Where there is a will, there is a way. Where there is Rajinikanth, there is no other way.

84. Rajinikanth's every step creates a mini whirlwind. Hurricane Katrina was the result of a morning jog.

85. Rajinikant doesn’t bowl strikes, he just knocks down one pin and the other nine faint out of fear.

86. Archaeologists unearthed an old English dictionary dating back to the year 1236. It defined “victim” as “one who has encountered Rajinikant”.

87. There is no such thing as global warming. Rajinikanth was feeling cold, so brought the sun closer to heat the earth up.

88. Once a cobra bit Rajinikanth' leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.

89. Rajinikanth is a champion in the game "Hide n' seek", as no one can hide from Rajinikanth.
90. Rajinikant proves Newton wrong all the time. Every time he performs an action, he simply eliminates anything and everything that can provide the reaction.

91. Rajinikant is a weapon created by God to use on doomsday to end the world.

92. Aliens do indeed exist. They just know better than to visit a planet that Rajinikanth is on.

93. We live in an expanding universe. All of it is trying to get away from Rajinikanth.

94. If at first you don't succeed, you're not Rajinikanth.

95. Rajinikanth's first job was as a bus conductor. There were no survivors.

96. Rajinikanth does not style his hair. It lays perfectly in place out of sheer terror.

97. When Rajinikanth plays Monopoly, it affects the actual world economy.

98. Rajinikanth is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis.

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

He was walking on the pavement along the main road, talking to his mom. This was just another routine call that Rajeev made every weekend as he was free on the weekends. Weekdays were occupied with a lot of work, hence giving him the perfect excuse to not call his parents every day.

His parents lived in a different city. Or to put it correctly, Rajeev lived far from his parents. After finishing his engineering, he landed a lucrative job with a leading MNC. Work took him away from home. But Rajeev wasn’t complaining. In fact he was enjoying his new found freedom with élan. He stayed with two other college friends, who also worked in the same company. The money was good for a bachelor’s needs and they were spending it, rather blowing it away for a higher cause. Their motto was that they as consumers were doing good to the country’s economy by spending everything that they earned and so the economy was bettering because of their hard earned money.

But Rajeev was not happy. He did not find happiness in materialistic things like shopping for himself, buying fancy gadgets or splurging on food in expensive restaurants. He did try that, though, because his roommates were happy doing that. But a few unhappy times later, he realized that this did not do the trick for him. And soon enough he found his solace in the arms of alcohol and drugs. He was not a drug addict, but lately he had taken a great liking to be stoned on Saturday night and getting up on Monday morning to go to office. This way he did not suffer from his insecurities, loneliness and his unending quest for peace and happiness on his free days.

Rajeev felt very detached from the world. Initially when he stayed with his parents, he did not like them interfering with any and every activity that he decided to involve himself in. Being an only child had its own shortcomings. Slowly and steadily, through the rebellious teenage years, he grew apart from his parents and much to their dislike kept to himself. He did not share any part of his life with them. He thought they would not understand.
And he was proved right. Alone, and away from home, he grew closer to Rachita, who was an office colleague. Rachita was a caring girl who was very concerned for Rajeev and took care of him in every possible way. She did not like the way he spoke about his parents and thought that might be, Rajeev had had a troubled childhood. Rajeev’s lonely heart had found its soul mate. But when Rajeev’s parents came to know of this, they minced no words in telling Rajeev that she was NOT the girl they ever intended to bring to their house. After all, she was a girl who earned almost as much as their son, was a working professional and so would not take care of the household. To put an end to this ugly chapter, Rachita soon left the company and went out of Rajeev’s life. Forever. Initially he tried every possible thing to bring her back. But once he was sure she would never come back, there was no turning back for him too. He completely immersed himself in the pleasures of Lord Shiva’s drink and it was all a sweet poetic justice for him.

Rajeev had nobody to turn to. He was completely alone. He blamed his parents for loosing Rachita. And the pain of losing the most prized possession of his life, his love, he lost semblance of his mind. His performance remarkably degraded in office and after a few times, everyone began to mind their own work. After all it was one rat less to defeat in the rat –race.

He was walking on the pavement along the main road, talking to his mom. The couple coming towards him from the opposite direction gave him a sheepish stare. He came to his senses. He realized he was mumbling to himself. He had yet to place the call. He dialed the number and waited for his mother to pick the call. When his mother picked up the call a few rings later, he spoke with her nicely. He suddenly realized that the two girls walking in front of him were walking too fast. In fact they were running away from him. He was puzzled. He looked at his phone. It was the stapler that he had bought 15 minutes back from the shop. He grew frightened of himself. And suddenly he threw the stapler on the road and shouted, “Mom, call me later. I can’t talk without my ear phones.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~END~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~