61. The New Year

May it turn out the way you want it to.

Lets try to be better people.
Lets indulge in acts of random kindness.
Lets play safe.
Lets be a bit more positive.
Lets bring a change in the world around.

Amen.

60. A Prisoner's dilemma

Lets just say that there's this prisoner, lets call him Pappu. Now, our Pappu serves a two-year sentence in a  dingy, over-crowded  facility called the 'Innovative Molesters and Torturers' demented center,where the in-mates are a bunch of frustrated criminals. They've all been put in for crimes ranging from petty stuff like 'following the crowd', 'excessive drinking before the day of crime' to major ones like kidnaps and molestation. The general pop. there vent out their anger by howling (from their cells)at night, stealing each others' belongings and even exercising the pleasure of sodomizing a few weak members of their brethren(whenever time permits).

Amidst these hysterical crackpots, there are a few sensible heads who got caught in the line of fire and so were arrested and thrown into this facility. Pappu initially has a hard time adjusting to the new prison. As time passes, he makes friends with a few of the good people over there, which makes the ordeal a bit less painful.

But here's the deal. The times that were the hardest are the ones that one remembers the most. Pappu wants to forget that these two years ever happened to him. He just wants to wake up and find himself out of prison again. But since it is here that he has been screwed the most, he isn't able to erase these memories so easily. Moreover, when he thinks of the few good times he has had in prison, of the few goodfellas he hung around with, that 'good' feel gets engulfed by the hatred for the facility, which makes the whole 'memory-recollection process' dole out a pretty twisted emotion. Pappu wants to retain the good memories but not at the expense of retaining the traumatic ones. That's his dilemma.

59. I knew it

Now, 6 days after the Mumbai massacre, everyone who is anyone seems to have known or have had some information about the occurrence of such an attack for months !

We get to read that Maharashtra's deputy CM knew about it 4 months back, the Navy knew about it, IB knew about it, RAW knew about it, the fishermen's union knew about it, the turtles on the beach knew about it, even Bejan Daruwala claims to have known that such an incident would occur: this he inferred by looking at the stars, moons, comets and the cows in the by-lanes. 

My only question: if so many people knew about it, then why wasn't anything done? It seems like only you and me are the ignorant ones in the country; everyone else seems to have known that such a thing would happen. Like expecting a movie release, or a solar eclipse. And all these people are calling the leaders 'toothless', 'careless' while they could themselves have helped to make these people look toothed and careful, by helping them out with information.

Be it as it may be, two things seem clear - either people knew about it and wished to remain quiet, or this was a genuine intelligence failure where no one knew pretty much anything. If its the latter(which I think it is), then the govt can draw a new intelligence strategy and beef it up with the technologies and minds required. But if it's the former, then our country is in grave danger. The mindset of the people is in question then. Whoever knew about it and helped this dirty cause, or even let it carry on without reporting it to the authorities, has traded his/her country off for some material benefit. It can be for a new boat, a promotion, obscene amounts of money, an oil-well or a Russian blonde. 

The mindset of the people has to change, that is the only true way in which we can shield ourselves from any attack ever. This can only be done through education. Look at our country's literacy rate. It is still down there, and a lot needs to be done to improve it. But why don't politicians do anything about it ? 

It is not difficult to realise why - It's because the more intelligent a voter gets, the tougher it is for a party to get his vote. An illiterate will vote for you if you give him a mere bottle of liquor, and a pack of biryani. If he learns more, he will bargain for better, won't he? If he is poor and uneducated, he will remain poor, his next generation will also remain poor. He will continue to believe in the false promises each political party makes, not being able to understand what's actually going on. 

Look at countries which started at par with us when we got independence...Just see where they are now. Its only after a country has achieved development at the grass-root levels, that it makes sense to send stuff to the Moon or Mars or Krypton. Wouldn't you agree? 

But, not doing what we always do, let us, ourselves, start paying close attention to what is going on around us.Let us be sensitized to our environments; let us be aware. If we get the hint of anyone being involved in something shady, let us not ignore it? And as for ourselves getting involved in something shady, think again - is it worth putting our country in jeopardy for a few more shillings.

This article has been put up on http://themag.in/

58. Don't call me a weirdo now

Ok. Here's the deal. I wake up late, start to rush to the class when I remember that taking the 'Marketing' text book is mandatory. So I start searching for mine. I take a quick look into my pile of books, clothes and rubbish but I cant find it. I find my room-mate's 'Marketing' text book lying right on his table, waiting for me to take it to class, which I eventually do. We have 4 class sessions for the day. After 3 classes, I go out for a fag during the break. But by the time I return from my fag-break, I am late by 10 minutes for the next lecture. And it so happens that the prof bolts the classroom from inside for that very lecture(she hasn't done that ever). So I go back to my room, message one guy who's in the class to get my textbook(my roomie's actually) from class and keep it safe. Time passes and I forget about collecting that book from him.

Mid term exams are around the corner, people start to crib about the syllabus and the toppers who always study - all that stuff.  A week passes. Mid term exams are on. It so happens that the 'Marketing Management' exam is an open-book exam. My room-mate looks for his text book all around and doesn't find it. He asks me and I say that I am unaware of the wherabouts of that book. So he gets a 'Marketing' book from a guy in the senior batch(last year's edition). It so happens thatin the 20-mark paper there's a 5-mark question that deals with a concept that's there only in the new edition. My roomie is real angry that he had to miss that question coz of the idiot who misplaced his book. 

One week  after the mid terms are over, the guy whom I had given my roomie's book to, reminds me to take it from his room. Now here's the dilemma. Do I give it back to my roomie ? I mean I want to. But I also dont want to earn his ire for this one innocuous mistake of mine. I want him to have his book back, coz if the final exam is an open-book again, he stands to lose some marks again(if the nitwit prof chooses topics which aren't there in the previous edition). If I tell him directly and give the book back, he'll give me the "You fuckin asshole, you ruined my Marketing paper" look, which I dont want to be the recipient of.  So I am thinking of keeping it in a remote corner of the room, where he may not have looked while searching for the book before. But if he had looked in that place on that day, then he would know that I had planted it there now, which would make me look more idiotic and stupid than in the case where I tell him directly about it. On the contrary, I think placing it just on his table or his bed would do the trick. He may feel that someone who had his book has come and dropped it on the bed. But then, he'd ask me who was the guy who had dropped it on the bed ? (we are 2 persons per room actually). Thinking of so many difficult solutions makes me fall back on the easiest solution, doing nothing about it. Sometimes, it is better not to do anything, coz doing anything may only do more damage to the already bad situation in hand. But then, doing the right thing is what people so easily do in the movies and TV serials. What's the maximum punishment an actor can get? His character may be killed, that's all na. He'll find some new roles to do, life would go on. But this is real life. I can lose my life for real if my roomie, out of frust, pulls out a sub-machine and carries out another 'Virginia tech' shootout in our hostel lobby. So that brings me to the question again - What do I do? Am still thinking......

57. B-school cartoon strip

Some gyan :

Two b-school guys talkin nonsense is the essence.

'Passions' is IMT's cult cum b-fest. 

Read on.

56. Video games

Technology has taken the video-game to unbelievable heights. The gaming consoles have a million controls and give real-time vibrations which are in-sync with the game that you're playing. Each game has so many stages and once you're done, you can complete the same game at 10 or more different difficulty-levels(ranging from 'easy' to 'hard' to 'insane' to 'beyond-god-like' to 'out of this f'kin universe'). Every game is slotted into a genre, may be action(Tomb raider) or Arcade(Tekken) or adventure(GTA) or military operations(Commando, IGI) or animation(Lion king). There's so much attention to detail.

But lets do a rewind. Lets go back ten,fifteen years in time. When the video-game was a relatively new concept, when gully cricket was still the most popular urban-colony pass-time. First came the hand-held or pocket video games(called hand-video game or the brick game back then). Kids used to endlessly play games like Tetris, 101 Dalmations, SkaterBoy and GunMan. They'd take so much pride in getting a 'high score' that they'd share their moment of joy with all the kids in the neighborhood. Kids who were good at video-games used to don the 'cool-dude' image in the neighbourhood. There'd be large video-game gossip sessions.

You know, Adren went upto level 12 in 101 Dalmations.
Ahh, big deal. I crossed Skaterboy the very first time I played it.
In Tetris, I scored 99,000 at level 8, beat that.
Tetris is a lame game, who plays Tetris nowadays !
Arey, I heard that when you goto level 13 na, you get some magic potion.
I was just about to cross level 12, but my batteries went down and so I lost that game.

Then came the TV video game era, which took every urban household by storm. Kids, teens, parents, grandparents, servants....in short, everyone was hooked onto them. When they were'nt playing, they were watching others in the house play. It was an addiction that had taken the nation by storm. Dads fought with their kids for some video-game time, moms used to watch in despair as grandpa's used to cry like babies trying to snatch the joysticks from the kids. Kids used to pester the hell outta their parents till they got themselves one game console. The one set that was popular then was the 'Terminator' video-game console, the 'Media Game-Boy' was also in vogue.

Once the console and settings in place, the first game which everyone invariably played was 'Super Mario'. Then, once you'd get bored of 'Mario' and gun-games like 'Wild Gunman' and 'Duck Hunt', you'd wait for the next new video-game cassette to hit the market. The '64-in one' era was succeeded by the '76-in one' era which was followed by the '8-in one' era. By the late 90's, the video-game fever had spread far and wide. It was a natural stress buster, people played Mario and Contra for hours after coming back from work.

Siblings settled scores by playing against each other and see who played better. The wife and husband would sit together and play the typical non-violent 2-player games, whereas the older junta mostly preferred the easier ones. All this while, the servant maids would just observe and try to make sense of reason behind the animated faces staring at the TV screens while pushing buttons randomly on a joystick.


Some of these games have really left an indelible impression in my head. It is these games which I cherished playing, more than the other hi-fi ones. Here are some.

Super Mario - Needless to say, this game was synonymous with the term video-game back then. Easily the most popular game a very likeable one.

Spartan X - Nice action game, the audio track being superb. Mr.X's sinister laugh at the end of each level still rings in my ears.

Contra - Contra, Super Contra, Super Contra-2, Super Contra Force, New Contra....have played 5 versions of this game. I just loved the background scores for each level, the different guns (the 'S' power, the 'F' power) and the gawky lookin enemies.

Wild GunMan - Shoot the bad cowboy....The only game ever which required you to use that gun instead of the game pads or joysticks.

Islander - Pretty much similar to Mario, but the only likeable thing about this game was that our hero is a rolly-polly fatso who throws hammers at birds :)

Mappy - The rat in a maze game....simply brilliant

DJ boy - Really tough game, our hero gets to move on skates throughout the game. The level of description on each level of the game still amazes me.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Turtles, whether on the TV screen or the video-game console, were always my favourites.

Street Fighter - The first ever arcade game that had some intricacy in it.

Elevator Action - Very few must've played this, but I was really thrilled the concept of killing enemies while you're in an elevator, get 30 floors down and run away in a car.


This article has been put up on - http://themag.in/

55. Tinda !

I had to write a post on this one. Was heading for the mess hall in clg for lunch. Reached, saw that the subji for the day was 'Tinda'(or the Indian round gourd). A friend behind, looked as disgusted as me. I just turned around to him nd said, "Wtf is this man !" To this he replied "You dont know what this is? This is 'Tinda' my friend, 'gay'ziabad's exotic vegetable 'tinda'. Come on, lets dig in and tingle our taste buds."

Oh how much i laughed :)

54. Hey teachers! leave them kids alone!

This is the worst class that I have ever taught !
This is the n'th time that I am scolding your class and I feel very bad everytime do it.
This should be the last time that I scold your class for being noisy and indisciplined !
Please be a little serious in the class !
I will not get affected if some of you do not listen to my lecture. It is you who will suffer. It is your career at stake !
This is the most indisciplined bunch of students that I have ever taught !

Are they kidding us ? Do they still believe that this works. Telling us that we're the worst class is like the oldest trick in the book. Come on teachers and professors. Cant you come up with something more innovative. Just updating the curriculum and the courses which you forcibly spoon feed to us hapless students is not enough. Come up with a better way to hold the attention of the class. Its only coz of your inability to hold our attention in the conventional way that you people take to using these kinds of dialogues which have 'emotional blackmail' written all over their faces. If I really was so consistently indisciplined right from kindergarten till my post-graduation, I surely would have become a criminal somewhere down the line. The very fact that I've reached a post-grad college proves otherwise. So why? Why is it that you people are hell bent upon labelling me and a bunch of my peers as indisciplined, worthless, ignorant imbeciles.

I protest !
We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

53. Snakey - The blue enigma.,

'Dasavataram' is a real life story inspired by Snakey's avatars. His avatars are as follows.
1) German sniper M. (an 18th century assasin)
2) Nai'X (50 B.C Greek mythological God who fought the Shadow fiend)
3) Mojo (Mojo is rising.)
4) Rimbaud like Snakey (26th century poet)
5) CoLdbLood (Vachesthunnaru vachesthunnaru vachesthunnaru....)
6) lavanyA. (Snakey loves himself so much that he reincarnated in the female form and married himself)
7) Jew (A 1930's snake charmer who danced with the angels to celebrate the holocaust)
8) S4 (Surrealist Snakey's Secret Society 's founder and the only member)
9) Tyler Durden (Snakey's alter ego)
10) Phani Shashank (Jack's broken dream)

- Snakey lives in parallel universes traversing through alternate timelines.

- Snakey has one girlfriend in every continent of the world, per universe.

- Snakey believes that sporting 'kaajal' on his eyelashes will give him a good score on the Counter-Strike(CS) server.

- Snakey always updates his 'about me' the moment he wakes up from his sleep, and he sleeps three times a day.

- When Snakey uploads a photo in his album, it gets blurred automatically.

- Snakey has been molested more number of times than anyone else, except Rahul Sharma.

- Snakey once laugh-farted continously for 5 minutes. Now a laugh-fart is a combo of human body responses where air gets exhorted from one's mouth first and from the ass thereafter, with each response sounding more like the other.

- Snakey ate a Frankie with Prankie in front of a monkey.

- Snakey can transform into a night-stalker just by wearing a 2K rupee night-pant, even during the day.

- Snakey once shared a 'Macaroni Marlboro' with the Naix after THEIR victory over the blood-thirsty cannibals under the pyramids of Mount Olympia.

- Snakey thought he could reach the 'Red oblivion' by dyeing his hair(only his sidelocks) red.

- If every sentence of yours ends with 'man', you are allowed to sleep on or below Snakey's bed.

- In every typed message of yours, only if commas and full stops exceeds the number of words, will it appear on Snakey's scrapbook.

- Snakey is spelt as S.hNa.KeY, (dont forget the space after the comma).

- Snakey loves Ingrid Bergman.

- Snakey discusses Existentialism and Objectivism at bed time with the 'man' and the dog who sleep under his bed.

- Snakey's poems are more encrypted than a regular SSL secure connection.

- Google crashed when Snakey searched for "M. + GerMAny + SArtRe + surreaLism + shlokie".

This is a joint effort from me and Potu. Please comment :)

52. An outburst

Alrite.Am gonna sound a bit patronizing but since this is an 'outburst' post, I dont care. People tell us that we need to have goals, ambitions and aspirations. Look at what you want to be, say 5 years from now or 10 years from now. Then model your way of thinking to attain that goal. They go to the extent of telling that a goal-less man/woman is bound to fail in life. He/She will definitely go wayward. And when i be honest and tell them that I really dont have any such ambition till now, they go ahead and tell me that i need to be responsible and take stock of my life.

Isn't this bullshit fed into our minds from day 1, from the day we learnt to understand what a human mouth could convey. All I wanna ask you people is, do you know what's going to happen tomorrow ? or the day after ? No, you dont. Then do you know what's gonna happen to YOU tomorrow, or the day after ? Do you even bloody realise that death is the only truth in life ! And you people are conveniently avoiding to face it day in and day out, building dreams and what not. You may not exist for long. You may become impotent or go blind or win a whore-house in a lottery or die due to constipation. Anything's possible. Then how is it that you can be so sure of being an investment banker or a CEO of a company in 10 years from now? Ok, if you arent so sure of that, you atleast seem pretty sure that you will be living until then. What gives you that confidence? And what audacity you have to come tell me or anyone else that if I dont have a long term goal, I will suffer in life, struggle in life !

Life's one big journey people. You never know when it'll end. All you know is that you've got the chance to live this moment and so go ahead and live it, embrace it, enjoy it. In this way, when life does end, you dont look back at it and say that I was running all along the journey and never had time to stop at the pitstops and look at the world around. Dont compromise on the present for the future, coz you never know if you do have one. And if you really dont have an ambition as of now and people are forcing you to get one, show them the midde finger and move on. Or better yet, laugh at their ignorance.

51. The Open tap

I see the public tap left open when i walk on the road which leads to my place. I realise that illiterate people may not understand the complete picture, that they may not posess the comprehendable capacity to know the implications of their actions or rather inactions. Water is getting wasted. I go close the tap and walk along.

I stop at an Irani cafe for some chai and biscuits. I goto wash my hands and the washroom tap is half open. I just close it and leave the cafe.

(Sometime back)

I used to stay at a PG (paying guest) accomodation where we people (all 22-25 year old software professionals) had to make do with common bathrooms and a common TV. I used to see the washroom tap being left open from time to time. Educated people these guys were. They were a young, responsible part of the corporate world, doing hi-fi techie work and earning a lot of money. Then how could they not understand the profoundity of the impact of the plunder of this natural resource we call water. I used to shrug and then go close the tap.

I used to work in a software firm, where ach employee having a certain degree of civility and awareness is paramount. The taps in the washrooms would be left open. Now here were not just well educated but highly experienced people. People who had seen a lot in life, had 'experience' in every sense of the word. And yet this apathy. Why ? I used to ask myself the same question so many times. Why ? And never was there an effort from the organization's side to create awareness about the wastage of sucha precious resource. Yes, there used to messages hung near the urinals asking us to pee on target and not to go haywire. But never a conscious attempt to spread the 'conserve water' message.

I have shifted base now. Have quit the software firm and have joined a b-school. The place is filled with ambitious people in their mid and late twenties. People who wanna learn about business, get into high profile jobs and earn obscene amounts of money. Also, there are faculty/professors who have innumerable qualifications; qualifications which any average individual would take five life-times to obtain. But here again, be it the canteen, be it the library, be it the faculty block or be it the mess, I see that the water taps are left open time and again.

Its apalling. Now I am sure of one thing. Being aware of your surroundings and being sensitive to it is not dependant on one's level of education or intellect. But now, that complicates the problem even further. If education cant create awareness in the right sense of the word, then what can? How is it possible for ppl to realise their ecological footprint can and should be minimised. Just give it a thought.

50. My 50th post : The First first

My name is Anthony Gonzalves...no(hiccup)...its(bah its the rum talking now)....Abhay krishna.



Yea, I look like a villain dont I. I've always aspired to be a Bollywood villain, a Gulshan grover types(Bad man)....Alrite. 50th post. Applause applause. And I thought this post should be about 'me'. So here goes.

Being first feels good. No two ways about it.You work hard, earn your top position in this competitive world and that certainly does give you an achievement to cherish and get a high. But what if you get to the first/top place in the list without doing anything yourself. No, I am not talking about the intelligent snobs who get the grades, the top positions at work and say that they never studied or did any work to get there. Such snobs are just scared to admit that they did work(in many cases, worked a lot) to get to where they have got. May be their ego gets in the way, they are afraid that their image will go for a toss. Or may be they have plans to patao-fy some dumb blondes,who want brainy guys by their side to get them through all their tough times(read : learn for exams or complete project tasks or baby-sit the neighbour's kid or buy under-garments for the boyfriend).

I ain't talking about the existing reservation system either,although it has, and will keep putting ordinary performers on top of merit lists for a long time to come. No, this is a different issue. When it comes to having an order in a large list of names to be stored , in many such cases, they are ordered lexicographically. Which is where the problem begins. Yours truly has a name that beats most (in many cases all) names when it comes to alphabetical ordering. I mean, unless you have an Aakashwani or an Aakash(generally spelled Akash, but watever) or an Aashirwad or an Aadimaanav in your list, my name generally comes first. This is true for your mobile phones or even your messengers(google, yahoo when arranged alphabetically) or your MS outlook search finder or on social networking sites(orkut, facebook and the likes).

This 'being the first on a list' curse has been haunting me since childhood. In school, I was always roll number 1 in class. And having the roll number 1 meant many rituals used to start with me. Be it a homework check or an assignment submission check or the teacher giving a unit test paper's answer sheet (and whacking me for helping another fella) or a 'shoe polish and clean nails' check. I used to be the scapegoat when the teachers would'nt find targets to shoot at. The computer madam used to sit near the entrance of the computer lab and me being number 1, used to sit on a comp right next to her. I used to dread the moments when there would be a lot of ruckus in the lab. She'd be so lazy that she'd never get up and very conveniently would hit me with the stick as only I was within her hittable range. And in the Hindi language class, it was always - "Roll number 1, tu dusht baalak, sadha badmaashi kartha hai. Class se tumhe barkhaasth kar doongi main".The maths prof would go like - "Number 1, character is very important. You may study well, but improve your character first."(And all this lecturing because i stole all the chalk pieces from the chalk-box and our group played 'maar-an-peeti' with the chalks during lunch hour).

Note : 'maar-an-peeti' is a brutal game where the one with the chalk in his/her hand tries hitting the ppl in the opposite team with all force, so much so that some have dislocated shoulders after hurling the chalks :)

The school principal would come to each class to give the grade cards after each test. He'd give lengthy monologues to the first 10-15 and then realize that he's wasted a lot of time and so quickly give away the rest of the cards and walk off. I used to bear the brunt of so much of his verbal diarrhoea, bahh, real painful it used to be. One eccentric lazy prof, so lazy that he'd always find excuses for not having corrected our homeworks and assignments. He'd just look at mine, and if I had'nt done well, he'd go like -"Roll number 1 has done so badly, that i dint even feel like looking at the rest of the papers", and then he'd gimme a thwack on the head with my own pencil box.


That was school, and once it got over, I thought the curse would fade away. But no. Every other day, I get a stray sms on my mobile. Messages not intended for me, and some which are definitely not intended for anyone other than the intended person coz of the censored content. People forget to lock their phone keypads and keep the cell in their pockets. The result of this small error is that I get called or I get blank messages or the message which they would have composed for the previous sender. Lemme tell you how this happens. Take a standard nokia phone. Unlock ur keypad, press the top left button once, u get the 'main menu', press again and u goto 'messages', then press it again, u goto 'create message' and press it once more and u get to the address list where my name is inevitably the first one on the list. The record is 64. Yea, have received 64 blank STD sms's from one guy at one go. Some have hit the 35 mark, some used to stop after 20.

I get so cheesed off that I call them up and tell them that their keypads are unlocked and that their phones are clinging close to their butts. Have got very many supposedly 'private' content containing msgs(intended not for me: just a clarification) , sometimes feels like I am a secret agent or a TV 9 channel reporter looking out for sleaze. And they don't even realize that I have this info, which makes the situation all the more weird. I'd get msgs like "I love you lots. Got a gift for you. Lets meet at 'coffee day' at 7 today love." And when I'd ask this same guy who sent the msg to a certain 'her' and to me(accidentally) about where he was the last evening, he'd say that he had to visit his relatives for some pooja. I would just chuckle quietly, not knowing what else to do(coz i certainly cant tell him that i knew). And its not just the guys, even the girls are just as careless. They've made me peek into places where they dare not allow even the bestest of frens(and blv me, those places are so so...... secret heh)

Its the 'pursuing the girl during the break-up' and the 'make-up after a break-up' messages that piss me off the most.
"Ohh i like you so much. I will do anything for you. I will never smoke ever again. God promise. Can we talk. Please pick up my calls".
"I am so glad its all over. Its so nice to be with my darlo again. Sweetie, i know god is there, because we are back together."
"Without you, life seems so empty...so empty, that if I fill it with water, I can have a nice swimming pool."(Ok , I made this one up :P)

Ok, these messages are supposed to be mushy and nice and all that un-understandable crap, but why am i getting them? why me :( Now, you may wonder how do I get misdirected unwanted calls? The top-left button and the one right below it, when kept pressed, in some permutation/combination will lead to me receiving a call coz of my 'first' curse. I've heard some really interesting conversations, ppl flirting with their girl friends, fighting with their parents, buying contraceptives at the medical store and the works. Its almost like having a secret power, like Mel Gibson had in 'What women want' or Jim Carey in 'Bruce Almighty'. But I dont want this power. Please take it away. Because with great power comes great responsibility(spidey style) and i am not good at being responsible in any sense of the word.

A friend, I call him langa-man, always bugs me. "Whenever I open my phone book, you're there. Even when I search for a friend on orkut, your profile pic is right there on the top left of the screen. Have to read your name whether I like it or not. Abhay...why dont you change your name to langa ? or how about 'gareeb khan' ?". I tell him "rather than asking me to go for a name change, why don't you add a garbage entry in your phone before mine. That'll save you the trouble of looking at my name and even I will be at peace without the accidental calls and msgs from you."

*NEW ADDITION*

In the b-school that i am currently studying(or rather whiling away my time)in, my roll number is again #1. And because of this, no one is ready to give a proxy attendance in a lecture for me. They say that every professor would recognize the first roll number and so giving a proxy for me would be very risky. But they expect me to give proxies for them ! Why me ? :(

ps : whoosh, this 50th post surely was long, but was not the 'first' to be so :)

48. The tale of a troubled phone 'callee'

What is the one important tangible thing that makes you happy after it rings or vibrates the way you want it to? Yes, I am talking about the cell-phone, also called the mobile. A smile springs up on your face the moment you get a call from a loved one. A funny sms cracks us up. We tend to re-read these msgs when we're down. We call the ppl we care for. We switch on to our favourite radio station when we're on our way to office.

We take pictures and videos, mostly non-scandalous ones, to capture moments and create memories. We're very proud when we show to others that our mobile has a certain GPRS or PQRS or Blue-tooth or Red-dick super-duper mumbo-jumbo technology. We take it to heart when someone says that our mobile model isnt worth its money, that there are better sleeker models. In essence, we all love our mobiles. They keep us connected with our world and we do agree that they are an inseparable part of our bodies err... lives.

However, there's a problem. Since the mobile is always with you, its a sort of a tracking device, a sensor embedded in your lower pant pocket. We can live with this if only the ppl who care for you, call you, as they are concerned about your whereabouts. But it is when the boss calls you up at midnight or your team mate calls you during a suspense movie to show up at work or a pest who thinks you're his only friend calls during lunch hour that you go mad. Then there are the choosaks(read : suckers. ppl who call only when the want something from you) whom you cant avoid no matter what. You want be left alone with yourself without any one bothering you for long, but that never happens.This is precisely why doctors in the US use beepers instead of phones. Coz its one-way. You need'nt reply. You can reply when u want to. You can reply if the message merits a reply.However, these ppl are still bearable.

What pisses you off even more is when you get calls from banks,credit card and insurance companies,lotteries, hallo ween costume sellers and Dawood Ibrahim(oops). These are ppl who have never seen you, will never ever want to see you, but want the money that you have.(As I write this, my manager at work just got a call from an insurance company....lolz). And not so surprisingly, all these callers are women, women who have tried their level best to cover up their butler-english with some better english. And my god they speak so fast. I dont blame them. I blame the ppl who have stolen our numbers, stolen our right to solitude from us. When you begin to earn 10 bucks, there are 200 ppl who want you to invest/spend your 10 bucks on them. Here are a few sad conversations I've had in the recent past.

Conversation 1 :
She(at light speed) : gud evening sir. I am talking from Nitwit Bank. We are offering you personal loans sir. Its got a very small premium...blah blab blah....
Me : stop stop. I am not interested. Thank you.

Conversation 2:
Another 'She'(again at light speed) - gud evening sir. I am talking from H-SHIT. We want you to know about our credit card. We will come to your door step and give it. It is free of cost. You can get discounts on purchasing pencils from any stationary store in the world. Would you want to take our credit card?
Me : No.
She : Why sir ?
I hang up. Now they even want to know why we dont want to take their credit cards !!

Conversation 3:
Yet another 'She' (at normal speed) : Sir, can i have 5 minutes of your time.
Me : No.(And i hang up)

Conversation 4:
He(surprising) : Gud morning sir. You have been chosen from a lucky draw to be a recipient of our offer. A free trip to Bangkok and Thailand for 2, provided you buy 10 vaccum cleaners from us.
Me : (start sobbing) Why me ? This early in the morning, why only me ?

Conversation 5:
She : Sir you are working for Mindtree right?
Me : Yes.
She : And you have experience in .NET right ?
Me : You're creeping me out. How did you know that ?
She : We are a job-finding company and want to let you know that there are openings in 3 companies which sit your profile.
Me : Can you call me like this ? How did you get my number ?
She : I know which project you are working for. How satisfied are you with your job ? Do you want a shift ?
Me : Hmmmmm....I dont know.
She : Take my number. Give me a call when you are sure enuf about leaving your job. (And she hung up)

I was dazed and confused.

Conversation 6 :
He (surprising again) : Hi Abhay. I am your senior from college. Want you to know that we have started a business and would want you to join it. Come to Koramangala this weekend, we'll give you a presentation about our product.
Me : Ok. What would i have to do in the business?
He : For starters, invest 30,000 bucks and buy our product. And then market it.
Me : err....I'll get back to you later.

Turned out, he's another one of those Am-way suppliers and wanted me to join the bandwagon. I showed him the thumbs down and he never called. Have been troubled by Amway and GoldQuest irritants till now, and have had enough of this in your face product advertising for life.

Sometimes, I feel i should've been living in the 50's or 60's, way before this traumatizing cellphone revolution took our country by storm.Now, Vodafone charges a call-block service for Rs.90/month whereas it should be doing that for free. Coz I feel its a part of the service that they are offering. We have the right to speak to whoever we want to. Not with every other jerk/jerkess in town. And if this wasnt bugging enough, talk about the spam SMS messages that we get. Numerous. Infinitely countable. Infinitely irritating.

Message 1:
Dear Customer, If you pay your phone bill within the next 10 days, you will be a part of a lucky draw with prizes worth lakhs of rupees (to be eventually distributed among crores of subscribers.)

Message 2:
If you are calling someone and like their caller-tune, just press * and it gets set as your tune. How easy!!! @ Rs.45/ song (Yea right. How easy it is to rip ppl off!! You press the * by accident and oops, 45 bucks down the drain.)

Message 3:
Participate in this breath-taking, exciting, shit-farting contest, send us an sms and get a chance to win free IPL tickets to see the unchargable Deccan chargers lose again. Rs.9/sms

Message 4:
Interested in cars? Listen to all the popular car sounds right here. Dial 51555 and listen to your favurite car ignition sounds @ Rs.6/minute.

Message 5:
Get tips on how to make your love life interesting with Romance alerts. Dial *123*85# to activate @ Rs.30/minute and bring out the romantic side in you.

Message 6:
Struggling hard to impress a girl and understand her ? Get tips from girls on what they like and what not.SMS GIRL to 51515. Rs.3/sms.

And if that is not bad enough, I get the same sms(the last one) twice on the same day. I mean, I know that I cant impress girls coz that's me, cant change that trait no matter what. But is it necessary for these numb-nuts to remind me of that once in every 12 hours !In this country, where there is no dearth of 'single-and-ready-to-mingle despos', i'd prefer if these idiots wouldnt make attempts to get me added to that list.

Such messages are precisely the reason I gave the idea of developing a message(sms or mms or wateva) blocker. People laughed at me when i gave this idea for my summer intern(4 years back) at Reliance, DAKC, Mumbai. Ppl said that messages are costly and that no one would waste their money by spamming to your cell-phone. Now have a look. So much c-spam(cell phone spam) around. Right from unwanted information about matrimonials to car-ignition sounds to condom-hurling coconut trees, we get all kinds of crappy messages. In hindsight, an idea could have saved so much hardship for so many of us.

47. The 'Young Uncles'

Our subconscious mind can be very perceptive at times. On some days - from the moment you wake up - you somehow get this feeling that this just isn’t going to be your day. Well, this Valentine's day happened to be one such day. You wake up to find your toothpaste tube mutilated, twisted and squeezed beyond recognition. You feel a little sad for it, and don’t wanna put it through any more torture. So, you drop it off in the trash can, and head for the nearby grocery store to get a new one. Needless to say, the store is out of stock; not a single tube of paste left.

So, you get to begin your day with a fist full of “Dabur-laal danthmanjan” (for first timers, it tastes really weird). Well, if this wasn’t a sign enough about the things to follow, your cell-phone charger stops working.

But, as they say, the show must go on, and so must the day. So, you take your soap-dish with 3 soaps (one half used ‘RIN’ bar, one fully used ‘Pears’ bar and one brand new ‘Dove’ bar) and head to the bathroom (a PG bathroom which happens to have two pots, one western and the other Indian, facing each other). On any normal day, you would come out fresh after having undergone the ritual of a nice hot shower. But, it is when you trip while entering the bathroom, causing the ‘Dove’ bar to fall into the western loo and the ‘Pears’ bar to fall into the Indian loo, that you realise that you are left with the semi-used ‘Rin’ bar to have your bath with; it is then that you know for sure that it isn’t one of your days.

You perform a simple no-soap face wash, and then look up into the mirror. You admire your french beard for a while (maintaining one is no mean feat), and it is then that you notice that there is some glittering thing on your head, in your image. You think it's some shiny glitter material, and move your hand across your hair to remove it. To your absolute and utter dismay, it’s a white hair. Yes! a white hair - the first of its kind that reared its ugly head, on your head. You resist the temptation to pluck it (after all, don't they say: pull out one white hair, and ten will come up in it's place) and just wonder how worse the day can get. Then, you head to a friend’s place. You send him an SMS letting him know that you’re waiting for him outside his house. A few kids playing street cricket close to his house grab your attention, and you start watching the match with some interest. It is then that something happens, which completely rocks you off your balance.

A kid hits the ball in your direction. It comes and stops right in front of you. Another kid - the fielder - comes near you, and yells “Uncle, ball please”. It is then that lightning strikes, reality dawns. Uncle???

It wasn’t long ago when you used to call people "Uncle". "Maybe it is the french beard?" you think, "...or perhaps the formal dress?", "...it could be that single strand of white hair." You take a brief de-tour down the memory lane. 10 years rewind, back in class 8, when the cricket matches in the street outside your house were the talk of the neighbourhood. It was you who used to address people as "uncle" and "aunty", whenever the ball fell in their backyards. Then you’d started using the terms ‘bhaiyya’ and ‘behen ji’ which were a little less harsh, and a bit more welcome by all and sundry. The question that pricks you the most is how was it that you fell from 'caller' side (the guy who used to call others 'uncles') to the 'callee' side (read: the guy who began to be called an uncle) in such a short span of time.

Reminds you of the character of 'Pooja' from the TV sitcom "Hum Paanch" which used to be aired on Zee TV in the late 90's. Everyone on the show would call her 'Pooja aunty' (she's in her early twenties in the show) to which she'd get mighty offended and depressed. Her stereotypical response would be : "Aunty math kaho naaaaaaaaaa....." (Don't call me Aunty). You picture yourself in her position, reflecting how sad it would be to go around asking kids not call you an uncle. Go to every kid who has ever called you an uncle and say 'Uncle math kaho naa.....' You then actually wonder whether drowning yourself in a fistful of water would be a better option than to say those utterly ego-destroying words.

You come back to the not-so-pleasant present; a present where you've been branded as the 'uncle of the day'. Being in your early twenties is a big pain in itself. But now that you are an 'uncle' you can’t throw that devil-may-care 'cool-dude' attitude, and those teenager tantrums, and get away with them. You can’t play street games like 'seven stones' and 'gilly danda' without getting stared at by everyone in the colony. You can’t play snooker for long hours because your software job has already wrecked havoc with your backbone. By this time, you are aware of the fact that you no longer can be called a kid or an innocent child to cover up for all your blunders. You also become aware of the fact that your dream of being the biggest and the 'deadliest' programmer in the world and owning Microsoft by the age of 30 is not going to come true. The term 'girlfriend' doesn’t mean someone who'll smile at every joke of yours, ask for your help in her record-writing work, and who comes with you to a movie when you ask her to bunk classes. You realize that you got to be prepared for heavy words like : 'commitment', 'dedication', and heavier phrases like: 'Tell me why you like me', 'If you love me, prove it'.

Amidst all this chaos, if you get the 'young uncle' brand label all of a sudden, your already disturbed disturbances get so much more disturbed that no matter what happens henceforth, they can’t be disturbed anymore. There's just one small consolation that you're yet to be called 'grandpa'. Your friend, who has a bit more of white hair than a usual 22 year old, comes out of his house to greet you. Again, a kid who is batting hits the ball close where we are standing. Another fielder kid comes close, and says 'Thaatha, ball ivvu'(Grandpa, ball please). He gets furious, takes the kid aside, and tells him - "Hey...call me 'bhaiyya' or even 'uncle' if you want to. Please don’t call me 'Thaatha', please".

You burst out laughing, right in the middle of the road, and then overhear some kid saying, “Hey, just look how that uncle is laughing.”

We are the ‘young uncles’, we are here to stay, and we are going to rock the world.

This article has been put up on http://themag.in , do chk it out.

46. Convocation '07 : The last tango

Dated : 20th Jan '08
DA-IICT.

Seldom do I really feel sad. Its over. College is over. There is no going back now. Will i ever meet the friends i made here again? I may have seen some people for the last time in my life yesterday. Why do good things have to end? Why is life like this? You take time to get attached to a certain something/someone and by the time you do get attached, its time to move on and get detached. Why the fuck. What the fuck.

I owe it all to this place. Have changed so much as a person over the last four years. Was a frog in the proverbial well before I came here. Its made me wiser, stronger and open minded. The cliched phrases like 'enjoyed like hell','we had amazing fun','totally awesome','that was excellent dude','oh god, this is heaven'; started to make sense to me only after i entered this place. Its made me what i am today. The things i did here will forever be etched in my memory.
Just goes on to remind me of the lyrics from a song 'Graduation' by Vitamin C.

As we go on
We remember
All the times we
Had together

And as our lives change
Come whatever
We will still be
Friends Forever

I never thought I’d miss this place, dint feel so even after taking the degree from the hands of the 'Anil Ambani' replacement. But its only when I got into the train today that it all sunk in. This was 'the last tango'. People would go ahead on their own paths from now on, paths which would seldom intersect.

I look at my degree certificate and the first thing my mind wants to say is - "Yes! finally achieved something. Spent the last four years of my life to get this."....But that's not the complete picture. Its not just the destination but also the journey that matters. The things i learnt, the games i played, the friends i made, the fun we had, the profs who loved to screw us, the joints we used to hang out at - ' galla, SP, Haveli, Trupti', the jokes we cracked, the movies we saw, the exam tension we shared on the night before the exam, the nick names we had for one another, the music we listened to, the night-outs we had, the 1'o clock Maggi and the 5 o'clock poha, the toothpastes that we'd steal daily, the innumerable crushes and failed love stories, missing a pop-quiz coz u overslept that day, the ever dependable 'Daddu' and his son who always had PMS, the library books that we never returned on time, the proxies during attendance(there was one during the convo too), the 'Innovation center' foundation stone which has been there for more time than most of us, the stinky sprinklers which kept us from lying down on the lawns, the irritating gandhinagar government officials - be it the railway office or the passport office, the 'oh gandhinagarrrrr...' type chants from he jeep drivers on the highway, the lengthy train rides back home whenever a vacation would start....all these and many more. So many memories attached with this place, can’t just simply get detached and move on so easily.

This convo was like a refresher of sorts. After being out in the 'real' world for the last 6-8 months, it was so gud to get back to coll, revisit old times, times when things were simpler, when people around used to think the same way that you did, when the jokes you cracked were laughed at, when you dint have to adjust and compromise as much. But I guess it had to end some day. I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles. There's a saying that goes like this - "Life is'nt easy, live it." So what I need to do is pick up the pieces, move ahead with happy memories from this place, being grateful to that supernatural force for giving me the chance of spending years in this place.

I think there should be more of such reunions. There should be a "Home-coming" sort of an event(coming back to the alma mater) held every year during a particular time, so that everyone, whose there at any place can make plans and make time to attend the reunion. Some good colleges do have this sort of an event on a regular basis, its high time we started one for our college.

This trip to attend the convocation just reminds me of this one cool and meaningful song, title song for the sitcom "Cheers". The lyrics go like this....

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?(pause)

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.

You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name.

I end this post on a jerky note(cant write much more, am on the verge of getting teary, which I dun like....so I end this here)