Koi Mil Gaya :)

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2.55 AM (Saturday late night or can say Sunday early morning)

My cell phone woke up by another cell phone thousand of miles away. So now it decided to wake me up for the company. That was the time I didn’t like my set ring tone and just tried to find it on my bed with closed eyes.
Oh god, its Sankalp and its almost 3 in the morning… what this guy is up to… did Vodka kicked in so late? Even the Batman must be feeling dizzy in Gotham. I just killed the sound of ring and put the cell over my bedtime read.
It rang second time, oh… Not again. I should have kept this Samsung piece silent before going to bed.
Damn you Sankalp… cant you imagine I am in the same time zone.
Ok… now I am sure he is full high over Vodka or may be JD. So now its my turn to make myself prepare before picking the cell to listen… I love you Bhai… Mujhe tum sab ki bahoooot yaad aa rahi hai. Rest you can guess …. Anyway I picked the cell. Till now I was sure night is over for me.
……………………………………….
Hello…

Bhai, H@#$& mil gayi.
(He is not drunk)

Kaun H@#$&?

Abe wahi jo college main mili thi. Genesis main.

Kya baat kar raha hai… kab? Kahan? Kaise?
(Fuck you Sankalp… asshole if you get her then why are you saying me this auspicious time, just go and talk to her, may be this time you can manage to have some good conversation with her better than that Medical Canteen talk)

Abe maine uska bloga padha hai. Uski pic bhi hai. Are you online? I am sending you the link. Check it.

(are you kidding, I am online? Its 3am man.) YES. I can check it. But Alok is on my laptop right now watching Two and Half Man, I guess I will get my laptop in 10-15 min.

Sale jaldi check kar. Abhi dekh.

Ok. Ok. I am opening my Gtalk.
……………………………………………………

By this time even I became excited to see her pic, as it was more than 7 years since I have been listening to this H@#$& crap from this guy whenever he gets high. I have also seen one pic of him at Aligadh beach writing her name with stick in sand (correct me if I am wrong).

Well, here Alok was watching this two and half man like chain smoker. I guess he had seen more than ten episodes one after other and his count was still on. No worry, I asked him that I might need the laptop for a while and he agreed. And now I was sitting on my laptop and looking for one of the biggest crush (Crash) of his majesty Mr. Sankalp. First I opened her blog… Jesus, is this girl do anything but to write blog… hundreds of blogs.

(Anyone interested in her blog, contact Sankalp, Nitya or me seperately)

From videos to songs, from dialogues to some crippy technical stuffs. Book review was also there. And she was looking pretty Ok in her pic (not that fantabulous kind. Sorry Sankalp). Ok means may be I had a lot of expectations considering her physical appearance after listening about her infinite number of times. Well there was another picture of her eating some gross looking meal with her friend in pink and white t shirt. I liked her better, may be because I have affinity towards those specks. Eventually I learned her name is A@&#%. Well, I felt comfortable that Sankalp and I have different favorite. H@#$& for him, and I like A@&#% better. Remember similar case of that super hot Amrita and her un-named not so hot Sister.

Well, now its time to explore so many things about her and after loosing my sleep, I was on for it.

This event suddenly remind me the very first year of my engineering college. Time was almost same. Sankalp and I were chatting useless stuffs and here comes Buntu, coming from his room, eyes full red (may be he was not able to sleep but was in bed), looking a bit lost and serious, very unlike Buntu. I still remember his first line, Maddy… mujhe lagta hai mujhe Pyaar ho gaya hai. Man, can you imagine it? It was so amusing but we (Sankalp and I) manage to maintain our serious and concerned look. It was like we just won a lottery and Buntu is the prize money.
“Who is She?”
“Bhatiya… Sangita Bhatiya” (James bond kind of introduction)

Believe me, we were as sure of this name as was Buntu. But to encourage the conversation and take your poor friend in confidence such kind of dumb question is required. Friends can be (sorry no can be, they are) the best sucker when it comes some emotional situation. They will kill your rational you very easily. And we love them for screwing it up. Anyway, that whole night we spent making plans, convincing him, encouraging him for what we might never had dared, teasing him and off course supporting him that we will always stand by his side. Rest is the history which most of us already know. But I truly admit, Buntu is real cute. (most of girls will definitely agree with me at this point, well some guys too.)

So, now here is this night. History repeats itself with slightly change in characters. After listening from Sankalp, “H@#$& mil gayi” I was sure where this night is heading. Only difference was that time I had a company of Sankalp and today I am alone. Well, my wish granted and Sanklap got Nitya and I on a conference call after several effort. Before that I had several short-long discussion about her, her blogs, her pics,…with him. So here we are…
Sankalp from Mumbai, I from Bangalore and Nitya from Florida we three talking on a conference call about H@#$& from Pune. Can there be any better example of globalization? I am on for a bet.

We talked for almost an hour. Memories of good old times when we used to talk for whole night over any damn thing were back. We talked about this arduous task that Sankalp has found her information. We motivated him as we did with Buntu. We talked, laughed, made some serious comments and laughed again. Wow, it was real fun. I loved every bit of it. Meanwhile, we also talked about the current situations on our personal fronts. I played safe and Nitya did the best while making any comments over these issues. When we had enough of our long lost fun talk and Sankalp was done with two pegs of JD, we decided to call it off. Meanwhile I am damn sure I must have screwed up Bipin and Alok sleep. Sorry guys, but I was really excited.
I was totally out of my sleep and off course I had to go morning dance class, so decided to remain awake.

When asked by Sankalp, what is this coincidence that I got her information after almost 7 years. I may say, it’s a real life, not a story of K2H2, where SRK finds Kajole after 7-8 years and manages to get her in his life. Well, if she is still single, take your chance. But before that just make your mind clear that is that all you want or its just some subjective physical attractiveness or some weird attitude that you like about her and you may like it for a long run. If you have the answers of all what and why, then you know what to do without any doubt…but yes, its always better to try for next item in wish list than writing Shayri and poems in your message status for the lost one. And, yes this girl has Rocky Balboa as the fev movie. And the punch line of this movie is, its not over till its over. So move to your next wish list item, and don’t throw the towel till you believe you have done all that should have been done. And play honest, no blame game. I know, you already practice it, but for the sake of saying, saying.
If you wanna something, go get it. Period.
You know from where this line has come. You like it too, isn’t?

So it was one hell of a night. I enjoyed and will remember every bit of it. I was not very sure, I will write a blog on it. But you know, its Sunday, and after playing badminton, I have nothing to do and as usual didn’t get any phone call (I guess my cell is just for credit card company use not for friends) so why not write it on my blog. Since from tomorrow onward I would be a bit busy with some new short term project for some short period of time, so next blog may take some time.

Just for information sharing from my side:
Santa-Banta are dead. But Chantu-Buntu are doing fine. and I got dart board for my leisure time. And last I might be in Mumbai for my year’s last holiday.

Anyways folks, hope you all having good times in your kitty. Must be busy with official and non official activities. But if you think you have any suggestion for Mr. Sankalp over this issue, feel free to contact him. After all why are friends for? ;)

Cheers.


P.S. I tried to keep some names under cover, but I guess you may guess.

Opel: Deal or No Deal

　

It was never the first choice for GM to sell off its European hand Opel to Fiat or Magna or to anyone for that matter. Last few months GM has witnessed its one of the worst crisis ever which has not only almost claimed its existence but also in this period it made GM sold its iconic brand Hummer and Saab to almost unknown companies for the price of peanuts. When the economic hurricane has subsidized a bit, till then GM has lost its crown which was intact for more than three quarter of the century and became certainly a leaner if not a meaner organization.

GM sold its one European brand Saab to a tiny company Koenigsegg, a Luxury sports car manufacturer who has the presence in the Top 10 list of world’s fastest cars.
Well, another European unit Opel accounts for significant GM Share in EU market. If GM would have sold its share in Opel, definitely it would have been almost whipped from EU, not so pleasant situation for the automaker.


No doubt it was not the move which has been received warmly by everyone but with this decision GM has faced lots of criticism not from the industry but also from the government of Germany and Russia. But again, its business, where ethics always throws towel whenever it faces profit and greed heads on. This whole deal took a long time while seeing many ups and downs. Now even after GM declared not to sell Opel, condition of Opel has not become any clearer, in fact became a bit uncertain. Where Magna plan was not in the favor of laying off workers more than 2600 and without shutting down any of its plant, GM doesn’t make any such kind of promise. No doubt Magna was also German’s choice for this reason. So very obviously after turning its back from the deal GM management has been told to return the bridge loan of 1.5 billion Euro till the end of this month. Hopefully GM may manage to return it since it is now become Government Motors and it has the support of the US treasury, if they justify their move. Meanwhile Russian Prime Minister Mr Putin didn’t say much about the situation but his disappointment was pretty evident from his statement that he has learned his lesson from this deal. One can only hope that the economical relation between Cold war rivals is going to be unaffected with this U-turn. GM CEO Henderson already made an apologizing statement but sure it’s not going to sooth their temper any sooner.

　
Well, these all were the situations considering the bidder side in the Opel deal, Magna and Sperbank. Now lets see GM’s stand. Only future will say this step was good or bad but one thing for sure in this economic turmoil situation GM was not in the drivers seat while making the deal. GM has already sold its muscular Hummer to a Chinese heavy machinery company for some $200m odd value, which was even less than half of expected value. Surely GM has to improve its fuel economic image and while Hummer was not a profiting hand, it has to go. Another was Saab which was hardly ever profitable since it has been acquired by GM. So its deal also didn’t hurt much to GM. But Opel story is completely different. Opel captures a significant percentage of European market share and has some very good model in its kitty. Also, build on the Volt platform Ampera is supposed to launch in coming year as an Electric vehicle. Here was one of the major concerns for GM with this deal, loosing its grip over its intellectual property which not only accounts for numerous patents and technologies but also they overlap significantly with GM’s core technology these days. No wonder GM management was not able to digest this and also they were not finding any suitable way out of this issue.

After the elimination of Fiat from the bidding, it was taking way too long for Magna to close the deal and meanwhile economy and Auto sector has started to see the light in the tunnel. Cash for clunkers, stimulus packages, and massive cost cuttings have shown some positive signs and almost all Auto manufacturers and major Auto markets data saw north after long time. Ford has already posted its long awaited billion dollar quarterly profit followed by Toyota, performing way better than wall street prediction of losses. GM was also not left behind in riding the wave of change as it has reported after long the growth in the sell percentage of its car in North America whereas it continues breaking all self made previous records in China, world’s latest largest Auto market.

Seeing these positive signs GM has changed its mind to sell Opel. Off course it has shattered the dream of Magna to enter the auto sector as OEM. But well again, win for some is the loss for some.

Now as GM has retained Opel, this is the easy part. Now hard part comes which is to restructure the company and making it profitable unit. After breaking the trust of the government and the employee, it’s not going to be an easy task for the management. No doubt GM has put its veteran Bob Lutz to come up with a plan. Also, the most successful GM employee in current time Nick Reilly, president of GMIO is going to handle GM European operation replacing Carl Forster from the Opel top position who is supposedly moving to manage Jaguar Land Rover owned by Nano famed Tata Motors. Well this addition and subtraction at top slot in not a Herculean task for the company but the company will have acid test when it will come to manage at lower level considering workers layoff and huge cost cutting is inevitable with chances of some plant closure. In addition to this workers and government are already unhappy. But considering the success story of Nick Reilly its going to be interesting to see how they make their plan viable.

Well the outcome of the whole drama may get clear after some time but lets just hope for a while it will come positive for the former world Auto champion. The whole Opel case may turn around as sweet for some or sour for some but for sure its going to be a hell of a case study in Auto Sector.