A Question Mark

104. 26*

2011-11-24T01:00:00.000-08:00

Well, its been 365 days since I wrote this - 25*

Contrary to the year before, this year was more about doing the basics right. Not much in terms of exploring uncharted territories or doing different things or doing things differently. It was in more ways than one, an effort to 'settle' down ('settle' does sound cliche but am using it for the lack of being able to find a better word)

Had had a nomadic existence for the last 8 years(2003 to 2010) (not counting this one). When I say nomadic, I mean staying away from home and doing the 'lets go home' routine at regular time intervals. And apart from the usual 'home and back' travel, have also had the chance to go visit so many places with different sets of people(mostly friends & co-workers). This was a progression from nomadic existence to settlement living(following the footsteps of the 'Early man' about whom we read in our Social Studies books)

This year was more about re-discovering HYDERABAD, my hometown. Yes, I'd lived my first 15-16 years here (before leaving for my educational pilgrimage to Gujju land) but had not done as much loafing around during that time. It was all about going to school daily and studying hard and taking extra coaching classes and playing gully cricket for some respite from all the educational brouhaha. Have done a whole lot of 'in the city' travel in the last one year(8400 kms on my TVS Wego :D) and am absolutely loving every minute/kilometer of it.

It was also about shifting from a high-pressure job which promised the elusive 'career growth' to a low/no pressure one which promised a decent lifestyle from day 1.

Its also been a year when I have not had to plan my trips to home(coz I m already there). Its been a double bonanza of sorts, because I'm earning more than ever before and spending lesser on travel than ever before.

Its also been a year full of activity on the personal front. Have donated good amounts to charity, invested in cosmetics(and used 'em), caught up with a lot of old friends and relatives, investing my money(yea hav enuf of it to invest), making many new acquaintances and establishing a work-life balance by living healthy(morning walks, diets and meditation). These were things I'd forgotten about when I was a part of the 'career growth' race. I realized how dumb I was to forgo so many simple pleasures in exchange for something which I may or may not get eventually.

I would have loved to have shed a few pounds though, which I haven't been able to do. But there's always time to make a new beginning. And today seems as good a day as any other. Let the pound shedding begin(once the cake+chocolates+sweets inventory is exhausted :p)

103. Superstitions and Westernization

2011-11-19T18:23:00.001-08:00

When our forefathers(and mothers) thought and decided on a certain set of rules & regulations that have to be followed for harmonious living, they could only think within the boundaries of what they could observe. While some of the rules they made stood the test of time, the others started losing relevance(like people who don't age gracefully, rapidly lose importance, like Britney Spears) as societies progressed and people evolved(at least they think they evolved). We started calling these rules as 'superstitions'.

Now up until the prev. generation, people were all OK with following these superstitions. They kinda took it in their stride and dint find it too taxing or troublesome to ever raise a strong voice against it. And then along came 1991(just like in every other MBA presentation) and changed the way Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Next do things. Things changed rapidly. Westernization was the order of the day.

We started to ape the West in every which way possible. I remember, when the 'show the middle-finger' phenomenon was relatively new, I'd seen a few people show the 'ring' finger too (maybe they thought that they could raise any one of those three longer fingers between the thumb and the little one, two fingers which already had symbolic Indian meanings, namely 'the urge to drink water' and 'the urge to go take a piss')

While so much was going on, our superstitions remained as they were, unable to tide the 'crossover' effect. And this is where many of them took a funny turn as well. A supposedly western way of living juxtaposed with the age-old Indian way brings up many hilarious/awkward situations. Wondering how ? Here's how.

Superstition #1 Don't step on the vermillion-garnished lemon-chill-strung-together combo(meant to ward off demons) when you go out. Just walk past it without stepping on it.

Now this can be done when someone is walking at a speed of 3-4 kmph. (Walking must've been the only mode of transport when this superstition was coined. And no one likes stepping on lemon+chilly when one is walking bare foot because it burns like crazy.) Try avoiding a lemon-chilli on the road when you're in your Ducati/Pulsar/watever zipping through at a speed of 100+ kmph. You can't. You do step on it. At least I can't avoid it even on my TVS Wego (yea its got 'body balance', but still). And if you are one of those who doesn't want to take the risk of the "ire of the superstition", you will go and tell this at home. And an elaborate set of rituals and poojas(on your foot) will ensue. And your feet will never look or feel or smell the same ever again.

Superstition #2 Once you've attended a funeral, you should enter your house from behind and not from the front

This may have had relevance back in the pre-historic era where the 'well'(source of water) was generally in the backyard. But asking me to enter my flat (which only has one entrance) from behind whenever I come back after attending a funeral basically translates to asking me to do a Spider-man (enters his room from the window each time he slips out to fight crime) each time.

Superstition #3 Hang a pumpkin outside the house before you move into it for the first time.

Now, my landlord is a Roman Catholic who had fixed a cross above the entry door when he was living in that apartment. If I go ahead and hang a pumpkin in front of the cross, I'm afraid that the Christ figurine on that cross may re-use the famous dialogue from the movie 'Vennela' - "Pumpkin akka, jara pakkaki jarugutaava. Prapancham kanipistaledu" (Please move, I am not able to see the universe)

Superstition #4 Cutting/Trimming the finger nails

Well, this rage comic(my creation only) manages to capture the gist of the 'timing the nail cutting' phenomenon. (its the same for hair cutting also)

Superstition 5# If a black cat crosses your path, your task will not be completed and bad luck will befall on you

Well, it must have taken millions of black cats to cross so many people's paths with the way the economic recession has spread bad luck the world over. There's so much talk of bad lucka round nowadays. Its come to a point where if a human crosses a black cat's path, its task will not be completed coz it will be jinxed by the human (and not the other way around).

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And the list goes on and on. All contributions to this list are welcome. I am sure there are many more interesting superstitions out there which have to be captured :)

PS: Have written this on a lighter note. Please don't get offended. Just having some fun at the superstition's expense(as it has had at my expense all my life).

102. Banality

2011-11-12T02:11:00.001-08:00

When banality and triteness are the predominantly experienced feelings, then its a clear indicator that you're on the other side of life, the drearier side. Yea, ppl might come up and say "You're just 25, your whole life is ahead of you." Well to be frank, its the other way round. I'm of the firm opinion that mankind goes in pursuit of elusive things like happiness and 'true love' companionship only after it realizes that there's nothing else left to do in this lifetime. Hunting for ways and means to fill the void, all in the pursuit of the elusive emotion 'happy-ness'.

And coupled with banality and triteness comes sarcasm, their evil half-brother counterpart. Everything seems funny, albeit due to anger over the prevailing irrationality in and around you.

The urge to set things right, to scream and shake things up is long gone. There's a prevailing calm. Withdrawal from everything materialistic is the probable forecast for the near future. Naturally, this gets supplemented with an aggressive interest in religion and abstract topics like time and evolution.

ps : Just wrote what came to mind. No event trigger for this one. This aint exactly a rant either. Its more of a transient state of mind. One you get when you're nearing another b'day :s

101. The Braggable List

2011-09-29T21:03:00.000-07:00

Preparing bucket lists has become a fad nowadays (thanks partially to Jack Nicholson in the movie 'The Bucket List' and its sadly remade Hindi version as well.) I for one am not endowed with the ability to think so far and think so much either. What I do wanna do in response to these bucket lists is prepare an own list of mine. I call it the 'Braggable List'.

The idea is pretty simple. Do anything that can be bragged about in front of your friends or family or even random ppl on the street. It can range from using up an entire bottle of Iodex spray on an imaginary sprain that you thought you had(but actually did not according to the doc) to flirting with an old flame (who is married now) to wearing a different sock on each foot when u're headed to give a presentation to reusing a Domino's discount coupon for the 138th time to peeing on a Harley Davidson when the owner is not around.It can be banal, value-less and gibberish in every way. But its gotto be braggable, that's all.

When you make your Bucket List, if you intend to add a banal activity to it and you happen to tell ppl about it, you risk the chance of being perceived as shallow(coz its ur final list, one for this lifetime), which you don't want to be perceived as, so you'll strike that banal activity off your list, which you should not, coz its you frikkin list, but you will, coz you're a scared timid society-conforming creature.

The best thing about this list is you don't need to have any inhibitions when you prepare the list. You can add whatever you like to brag about. And you can have many lists. Unlike the 'Bucket List' which has to be just the one list and has to be thoughtful and full of meaning and groovy too, the 'Braggable List' is much more chilled out and does not require you to rack your brains as much. Life is too short to spend a half of it to create a thoughtful list and the other half to edit it so that it looks socially acceptable in every sense. The best thing about bragging is that anything can be made to sound cool and groovy as long as its bragged about in the right way. The people around you are as insecure about their shallow lives and as scared of death as you are, but its your brag tales that makes them think that you have it all figured out(which you have not but creating a confident impression always works.)

So people, go ahead and make your Braggable Lists and start working on them. If you change your mind on a list after sometime, make another and work on that one. Or just brag about the one you already made, coz creating this list is a braggable activity in itself :)

100. Proust questionnaire

2011-08-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

The Proust Questionnaire is a questionnaire about one's personality. Its name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses given by the French writer Marcel Proust - source Wikipedia

I figured that I'd do at 25 what Proust did at 13 and 20, which is answer this questionnaire. Not a bad way to commemorate 6 years of blogging(credit goes to a special someone who asked me to start writing in the first place)

Your most marked characteristic?
Easy-going fun lover, Clumsy and humorous

The quality you most like in a man?
Composure, sense of purpose

The quality you most like in a woman?
Effervescence, Enchantment

What do you most value in your friends?
They add greatly to my understanding of the universe.

What is your principle defect?
I build castles in the air. All planning and no execution.

What is your favorite occupation?
I like to read snippets about random anythings.

What is your dream of happiness?
Happiness for me is momentary. And I can conjure up many such moments which would be equally delightful. But in the spirit of the question, I shall say that I dream to do something substantial for underprivileged kids and dream of attaining happiness once I've done that (which I may or may not attain)

What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
Losing your loved ones.

What would you like to be?
Thin

In what country would you like to live?
From all that I've seen, I think Germany

What is your favorite color?
Turquoise. I'll fall for any girl wearing anything turquoise. Its that a brilliant color

What is your favorite flower?
Cauliflower

What is your favorite bird?
The Bat. Its such a fragile yet scary mammal

Who are your favorite prose writers?
John Grisham, Khaled Hosseini, Nicholas Nassim Taleb

Who are your favorite poets?
Kabirdas, Vemana, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Spiderman. Kudos to Stan Lee for creating an amazing character

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Abby Mcdeere from 'The Firm' and Reggie Love from 'The Client'

Who are your favorite composers?
A.R.Rahman, Hans Zimmer, Illayaraja, Eric Clapton, Rammstein

Who are your favorite painters?
Don't really follow art. But the two Karthik(s) I know are brilliant. (Karthik Talloju and PSK Kartheek)

Who are your heroes in real life?
All the lone crusaders behind lost causes - Irom Sharmila for instance

Who are your favorite heroines of history?
Golda Meir

What are your favorite names?
Recently, I've been given the name A.Raja, which is an abbreviated form for 'Anubhavinchu Raja' (a classic song title from the 70s)

What is it you most dislike?
high handedness

What historical figures do you most despise?
Aurangazeb, Cornvallis

What event in military history do you most admire?
Little Boy and Fat man

What reform do you most admire?
The RTI Act 2005

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
To never age :p I need more time to see the world

How would you like to die?
I wouldn't like it any which way

What is your present state of mind?
Pensive

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Gluttony. I eat like there's no tomorrow sometimes. I think every man should have two stomachs, one internal and one external (pluggable like an external HDD)

What is your motto?
Live within limited means

99. My vehicle, yen vandi, meri gaadi, naa bandi

2011-08-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

Riding a vehicle was always a very big deal for me. Simply because I'd never done it ever before. You may argue its not a big deal anymore since most of you would have learnt how to ride a bike when you were in high school(some even in primary school). But for me, it was. Up until high school, the APSRTC was good enuf to get me to school and back home. And after that, staying in a hostel pretty much dint require me to learn the art of driving since there were many others who knew how to. I belonged to the urban minority who dint know how to drive anything(even a bullock cart).

And our gender-bender society is such that it only expects all its men folk to have this skill. Women folk are exempted. They have their boyfriends or 'just friends' who are ever ready to take them out on their vehicles. Talk about gender equality, no equality in this case.

Anyways, Abhay Krishna did not know how to drive a vehicle, especially a 2 wheeler for the first 25 years of his existence. Nothing to be proud of, but that is how it was. A notion that I would never ever learn to ride a bike was getting deep-rooted in my head. One's inability to do something feeds on itself, grows in size in the mind until it eventually becomes so gigantic that it cannot be uprooted at all.

When I told this to my zonal head in Idea Cellular, he laughed. How was I supposed to work as a sales guy without owning a vehicle. It was insane. Well, certain things change for the better, however late. Lemme put it in question answer form to be convenient.

Q. After so many years, how did you suddenly get the motivation to learn driving ?
Ans: It was as sudden as the increase in the pressure from my zonal head, asking me to get more and more sales numbers from my territory. My boss wanted numbers. I wanted to hear lesser gaalis. This was the only way out. Sad but true.

Q. When did you learn how to drive a 2 wheeler ?
Ans: New Year's Eve. Dec 31st 2010. Wanted to start off the new year with a bang. While the whole city was busy consuming alcohol and puking all over public spaces, I for one was driving my 2 wheeler in the lanes and by lanes of a fairly quiet colony. Now I drive pretty well. Almost 6k kms done. Am a reformed man.

Q. Why TVS Wego ? Why not an Activa or a Pulsar or a Yamaha ?
Ans: Good question. Having never driven one before, I wanted to go for a more hassle free and quick to learn kind of vehicle. And I was told by my sales colleagues that scooters were better when it came to driving thru narrow lanes in villages during the sales call. The Activa was on top of my mind but that was the case with hundreds of others as well. It had a lead time of 8 months (festival season, so many bookings had been done at that time). The sales guy told me that he could only get me this vehicle in 2 weeks. And it was 9k lesser than Activa. I said yes. By the time I got my vehicle, I had quit the sales job. So that is the story in short.

Q. How was the first ride on the main road ?
Ans: Scary, downright scary. I was driving at 20-25 kmph and even cycle fellows overtook me. (I still don't go over 50 kmph :p)

Its been 8 months since I started driving the Wego. And its been 8 scary and cautious but eventful and glorious months. From not knowing how to ride a bike to getting a recent compliment from a friend that I am a safe bet when it comes to driving, I have come a long way :)

I don't leave the house 2 hours in advance to get to a far out place anymore. I don't carry change in my pocket for the bus ticket anymore. I make it to many more events now and I make it on time as well. Agreed that driving is no pleasant experience in Hyderabad, but I'm having fun. I still enjoy the cool breeze that hits my balding forehead whenever I hit the accelerator on my Wego. Little joys, I'm still a kid.

There are two morals to be imbibed from this short story (especially for those of you who are yet to learn the two wheeler)

1. Don't wait until its too late. This is true for anything in life. Its better to take the 'leap of faith' early. (Otherwise you'd have to do it under pressure later, like I had to learn the vehicle)

2. Look for motivations to complete a task(learning to drive in this case), rather than waiting for the motivation to come and look for you (the boss in my case). Hell, if someone as paranoid as me could do it, you surely can do it.

ps : That's how my vehicle looks. Nothing too fancy but it does the job. And keeps me happy :)

98. Cubicles and ogre chicks

2011-07-20T12:14:00.000-07:00

This post is an extension of the basic idea presented in an older post of mine - Cubicles and cute chicks

Well, this is my second stint in the world of cubicles. It feels good being back. The plush offices, the food courts, the pretty ppl, the carpeted floors...am loving it all. Although, there were some things that dint go well with me during my first stint in this arena (its been 4 years since). One of 'em was the constant annoyance created by the men folk who'd crowd around a semi-cute looking girl's desk(yes, she was a girl, barely a major) who happened to sit right next to me in the cubicle.

If you've read the earlier post(which I think you shud), you would know that the person I was referring to as 'Phoolan' was the semi-cute chick who used to sit to my right in the office cubicle. My current cubicle situation is not very different. I'm the only member of the stronger sex in that cube. To my right is the team lead, vastly experienced, married and has the answers to all your questions(ahem...I mean technical questions). To her right is another senior team member who is so busy coding and scheduling meetings that she hardly ever stares outside of the 14' screen in front of her. To her right(and to my immediate left) is the apple of my eye, the bump of my nose, the shit remains of my slippers: the ogre chick 'Fiona', the new joinee fresh out of college.

Now if I tell you that Phoolan was a fairy-tale version of what Fiona is, you'd think that I am exaggerating. But that is so not the case. Here are the reasons.

The male entourage

On the one hand, Phoolan did have her male entourage, but they were just a regular bunch of despo guys salivating at the sight of a semi cute chick. On the other hand, Fiona has her male posse which comprises of the retarded yo-man-i-dont-know-why-i-show-up-like-a-dick dude, the guy with the my-chest-has-to-be-1 meter-ahead-of-the-rest-of-my-body-at-all-times kind of walking style, the giggle-o who always giggles screechingly no matter what and the boil-faced fellow ogre who gives guest appearances at times. So there we have it - Retarded Dude (RD), Chest Man(CM), Giggle-o (GG) and Boil face (BF)...this is Fiona's posse. Its a noisy, filthy and uncouth collection of uncivil neanderthals. Imagine a Skeletor or a Gollum trying to flirt with a creature who is equally as bizarre(say an Ursula or a Cruella) in an even more bizarre manner. Welcome to my world :(

The chick

Phoolan was pretty, at least semi-cute. She had a rising smile and she knew how to carry herself around the salivating mongrels. And I haven't told this ever before, but she also had a sweet voice. Now Fiona is like Phoolan's mirror image(only if the mirror is dipped in dirt and taken out of Retarded Dude's ass). Ok, she's not pretty. Nowhere close to that even. She's got a pigmented face, pigmented teeth and mutant body odor. She doesn't talk, she brays. She doesn't whisper, she brays. She doesn't gesture to call someone, she brays. Her voice box is a cross between MTV's Udham Singh and Times Now's Arnab Goswami (sad that this voice box had to be given to a woman). Guys at the other end of the floor have asked me about the donkey-like brays being heard from near my cube(It's Fiona on the desk phone talking sweet-nothings to one of her entourage members). I've told them that it must be the faulty electrical wiring that's making the funny noises.(But I know sooner or later that they'll find out and make fun of my pathetic condition)

Work Load
Phoolan used to remain engrossed in her work and she knew how to use her work as a weapon to ward off unnecessary advances from the despo kings. But Fiona has no work. Nor does any of her irritating posse members. And from the looks of it, she doesn't even want any work. She seems pretty content braying on her desk phone all day picking calls from her group of followers.

The support

There used to be times when the older guys in the cube would take a harsh stand and ward off the despo guys away from Phoolan's desk. This used to happen once in a while, but it was a very important sanity check for all of us to remain normal. But over here, the other women folk of the cube have not done their bit to try and stop this animal. That is because they themselves engage in excessive low-volume banter from time to time. And I'm like the only silent sufferer bearing all this on a daily basis.

Presence of mind
At times, Phoolan would get the negative vibe from the cube and she'd then decide to shift the action to the cafeteria or any other place far away from the cube. But Fiona, being the new and un-groomed ogre that she is, is yet to learn the tricks of the trade. And we're all hoping that she learns 'em soon, so that we all can be spared of the daily harassment that she and her entourage are putting us through nowadays.

I need a raise because I am working in such exceptional work conditions :)

97. Everybody loves Advice

2011-06-18T23:28:00.000-07:00

Hi. I'm 'Advice'. Here in India, people love to give me away to anyone and everyone. Most people don't even know me for what I am. They don't even know what to do with me. So they mutilate me until they think I am sell-able in their market. Which is why, when they give me away, I cease to be what I was, when I was given birth to. And this distortion multiplies with each send-receive transaction where I get mutilated and then forwarded. Sometimes, I'm created in their idle minds, so that they can give me away to seek attention and importance.

I flicked this intro style from Everybody Loves Raymond coz it works. Its true. We Indians love giving advice. If there's one thing...no wait...if there are two things that cut across all our cultural and regional boundaries, one of 'em would be giving advice(unsolicited and ill-informed) and the other would be cutting queues.

It doesn't matter who we're giving it to, but we just wanna give advice at every possible opportunity. It could be a close friend or an ex-girlfriend or a happy neighbor or the gay stranger who winks at you in the bus. Here are a few prototypes of people who give advice.

The drunk stranger
The other day, a drunk guy(a typical 40+ aged burnt out software professional, with that tag on his neck) started giving us gyaan about how we should work hard and learn thoroughly about technologies(ERP), failing which we would be screwed by our clients/customers overseas. This was outside a dhaba as we were getting ready to head back to our homes.

A college junior(sloshed out of his wits) once came up to me and said Sirjee...you should start acting in films...you look like that villain from the movie 'Wanted'.

The concerned friend
Your friend circle will invariably have this one guy/gal who will give his/her opinion on everything you do. They'll also tell you that they are telling it for your own good, that they share their opinion with you only because you are amongst their 'best' friends. Lemme mention two such encounters.

Scenario 1 : Monday morning...7 am...getting ready for work...the friend had stayed overnight coz of the heavy rains(although I was praying for the rains to stop so that he could leave)...I pour my cereal and milk in the cereal bowl and wait for it to settle.

Friend : Why do you always eat cereal ?
Me : I find it tasty and its healthy as well
Friend: Take my advice, don't eat cereals daily. Eat normal breakfast items also sometimes
Me: Who told you that cereals are not 'normal' ?
Friend :  You should not eat the same thing everyday. Its not good for your health. I read it somewhere.
Me : Cereals have various varieties. I don't eat the same thing everyday.
Friend : Your wish. As a friend, I told you what I thought. Its up to you if you don't want to listen.
Me : Why do people piss me off on a Monday morning! ....sigh

Observation : Did I ask for his humble opinion...no...did he listen to my defense about the variety in cereals...no

Scenario 2 : Friday morning...its wear-casuals day at work...went in a basic jeans and T-shirt attire...The friend comes over

Friend: Why do you wear such loose-fit jeans ?
Me : I like 'em this way. Don't prefer skin tights.
Friend: Its so plain, got no design either.
Me : As I said, I prefer it this way.
Friend : Then why buy a jeans at all !
Me(dumbfounded) : What are you saying man ?
Friend : Jeans are supposed to be with designs and cuts and fades and are supposed to look flashy. You should also buy such jeans.
Me : But why should they be flashy ? why not plain ?
Friend : You see. I am good when it comes to design and patterns. I designed the interiors for my house.
Me : Isn't interior design very different from fabric design ?
Friend : I also have a good idea about fabrics.
Me : How ?
Friend: I keep reading about fabrics and designs in magazines.
Me : Name a few magazines.
Friend: I don't remember the names. I read them when I visit the barber for my monthly hair cut.
Me : Wow
Friend: I also recommend different designs to people.
Me : Which people ?
Friend : My family yaar.
Me : So you're basing your advice on a few barber-shop magazines and your cloth recommendations to the five members in your family. Do you understand that your observation set is very very small and that you may give advice based on half-knowledge or no knowledge at all.
Friend : As a friend, I thought I should help you out with your clothing selection. I am not saying I am an expert but that i have some idea about all this.
Me : All I'm saying is that some idea is not good enough :)
Friend : You are being such a pain and not taking my advice also. Some idiot friends always do what they want.
Me : Watever I don't wanna spoil my mood on a fine Friday.

Observation : When you ask questions that scratch the surface, all of what every1 knows seems superficial. People are so superficial, yet so opinionated.

The neighboring uncle
They are the worst kind. The ones who will assert their seniority and at the same time not respect your opinions about anything. They always think that we youngsters are brash, uncouth, always out on the roads, drinking our wits out and having meaningless sex in manholes.

Scenario : Uncle comes to our home. Calls me as I am leaving for a movie.

Uncle : Hey, you've worked in Idea right. You are the right person to ask doubts. Come and sit.
Me(hoping this ends soon) : Yes uncle, tell me.
Uncle  : What is the price of this iPhone in the market ? (holding an iphone in his hand...a US piece)
Me : starting price is 34k uncle. goes upto 40k i think.
Uncle  : How is that possible ? I got this for some $400 in the US. That means 20k. What you're saying is wrong.
Me : This is what I know. May be I am wrong. I have to leave now.
Uncle  : Take my advice. Don't keep roaming around in the hot sun. Sit at home and relax, like me and your dad.

As I leave, he starts talking about the problems with the 'young' generation with my dad.

The boss - when you join
Boss : You will need to work very hard and slog it out. Take my advice. Your pedigree is of no use in the professional arena.
What he means to say is that you will need to lick his ass until it sparkles.

The boss - when you quit
Boss : We didn't expect this from you. Take my advice, reconsider your decision. Give it a second thought and come back to me in the evening.
You imbecile, why on earth would you think that I haven't given it a second or a third or a fifty fourth thought ! Its always well thought out!

Well, this could go on and on. So many advice giving people. Would encourage the readers to mention some of their experiences too...After all, we've all been victims to unsolicited advice on many occasions rite :)

96. Dial 'M' for marriage

2011-04-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

When are you going to get married ? - my parents to me
Did you know, Mr.Sharma's daughter got married to a Spanish transvestite it seems - 'Aaj Tak' to me
We just uploaded our honeymoon pics on Facebook - the couple to every1 on fb
You've got gray hair. Its time to get married - a wicked banshee to me
Kaushik's marriage was very grand. They spent 35 lakhs on the function alone - my grandma to my ma
That Niraj asshole is married. Even he aint a virgin anymore(or so he thinks) - a jilted lover to me
What kind of girl are you looking for? Tell us son - a know-it-all uncle to me
By the time I finish my PHD, your second wife's third son would be in engineering. (ok this was a bit off the mark, but its a marriage one liner nonetheless) - a joke amongst a circle of friends
The makeovers which women go thru to start looking 'marry-able' nowadays would put Jassi to shame - me to all you readers :)

So much of banter around the 'M' word nowadays, its kinda giving me the creeps. If you have to make fun of someone, take a dig at him/her still being unmarried. If you wanna brag about your friend's uncle's status, talk about the way he conducted his daughter's marriage. Its everywhere, like a plague, a virus.

Family ties

You really hate it when ppl at home start to quiz you on marriage.
Mom : Son, when do you plan to get married ?
Me : Not for another two years at least
Mom : 2 years aaa (followed by a long pause and a contorted disappointed face expression)

Hell, they were not so upset even when I messed up my IIT-JEE entrance. You also hate it when some know-it-all-uncles and cant-talk-about-anything-else aunties pass snide remarks and try to be witty(read shitty) at your expense. And you can't care less about all the dowry talk, the money spent in conducting an arbit third degree cousin's wedding whom you've never met and don't give a shit about.

Peer pressure

Everyone, I mean absolutely everyone around you is getting married. Be it your colleague, your clg senior, your junior and even your office janitor. They've all found their 'love of their life' apparently. So much so that two friends in college who are married now hang out with their wives. Its turned into the classic - Hum do hamaare do thing.

This 'find your love' process is not for everyone...especially for those who aint rich or smart or both.
Retard : Dude, we're neither rich nor smart, how will we ever get a girl ?Even if a girl does like me...I wonder, there's gotto be something wrong with her to like a boner like me!

And when you see that one married batchmate of yours has added another married batchmate's wife on facebook, you wanna laugh until your lungs give way.

Rejections

You get to hear weird reasons for rejecting proposals, both by the men and the women folk.

He doesn't want to settle in the US

He doesn't know whether he wants to or doesn't want to settle in the US

He said he could not cook and was looking for someone who dint need his help

He looks like Prakash Raj

She has a tattoo

She hung out with the rival gang in college

She has crooked teeth

She won't be able to get enuf dowry

Beats me. If you don't wanna get married, just say it. Sometimes, there are no reasons for what we do (like we did engineering....then we did an mba too...all without reason :p)

Secret agent 007

At times, you may be given secret-agent-like assignments to find out details about people you don't know. This is a part of the background check that both the sides(the bride and the groom) indulge in, to dig deep and look out for murky details. That person may be your colleague at work or may have been your senior/junior in college or may have no connection with you watsoever. But you gotto make the connections, make it happen. Because 'they' want all the details and you are the one they are banking on for 'em(all this without the other person knowing of this).

At times, you may be asked to give opinions on people you know a little, no matter how little that is. The questions may range from the regular ones like a 'ladka/ladki ka chakkar' or a 'smoke/drink ka chakkar' to some weird ones like a 'Is there a mole on the nose?' or a 'Is that a toupee?' or a 'Does her ex-boyfriend's name start with M?'.

So much of marriage talk around, can I be blamed for writing this post centered around it :)

95. Burnt your fingers

2011-04-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

The last couple of months have been nothing short of splendid. After having had a life-scarring tenure at my previous job, I needed this welcome change real bad. Its all relativity. The things that I could/did not appreciate earlier have started meaning so much to me now.

The big guy who'd come to give the welcome address on the day of joining said (yes, this is my third job joining day, its kinda getting boring now) - 'You guys have burnt your fingers in the outside world and then come to us, the mothership. So we expect you to appreciate what we're offering and also respect it by not jumping to another job in the near future'.

Every ounce of watever he'd said made sense. Not only do I like this place, i have also started living well. When I say living well, what I mean is that I am making/finding time to get up on time, eat on time, go to work on time, read good books , goto a gym, catch up with old friends and chill at hangouts on weekends. I've learnt to balance my time, appreciate watever upar-vala (god, the cosmic truth) has given me and am trying my best to live well :)

This post is just a happy overtone. Nothing funny about it (intentional or unintentional)

94. With the hair specialist

2011-02-20T04:14:00.000-08:00

The title takes its inspiration from Stephen Leacock's 'With the photographer' in which the author conveys the hardships he faces when he goes to a photographer to get his picture taken. I've given this an MBA touch by incorporating this post into a 'buyer decision making framework' which has 5 stages apparently.

Stage 1 : Problem Recognition (Realization dawns)

One fine day, you go take a look at yourself in the mirror. You focus on the hair...your image turns black&white and you suddenly start to hear shallow echoes from the background.

(echo) you don't need a comb anymore...ha ha (/echo)
(echo) taklu uncle (/echo)
(echo) you balding balderdash (/echo)
(echo) An idea can change your life (/echo)

And then you resolve to do something about it. You don't know what or how. But you decide to be a 'self-starter' (fake MBA-jargon)

Stage 2 : Information Search (Looking for help from anywhere and everywhere)

Suddenly, you start paying attention to all the 'Before-After' ads in the TV and newspapers. You also think twice before deleting every 'hair-growth-promotion' SMS that you get from a certain homeopath(et)ic firm. You start looking for receding hair-lines in people just to get the reassurance that you aint the only one who is losing hair by the second. You also consider going to the 'baal-vaale yogi Baba' who lives in the nearby colony (this after going through a pamphlet circulated in the neighborhood in which the Baba guarantees lush green(oops black) hair within one month of praying and chewing herbs)You also let your good friends know about the hair-situation.

Stage 3 : Evaluation of alternatives (what makes more sense)

One of your friends tells you that he'd been to a hair-specialist sometime back and also that he's the best guy in town. He promises to take you to his clinic and walk you through the entire process of meeting the doc and then buying the meds from the store nearby. You realize that of all the available options, this one seems sensible(although the neighborhood Baba does seem to be an ecnomical option).

Stage 4 : Product purchase (Enter the dragon)

Its show time. You finally muster up enough courage to go to the clinic. You're surprised to see the queue of patients waiting outside. It is then that your friend calms you down saying that it gets even worse on the weekends. You're also surprised to see a lot of women folk there (not the bald ones, but ones with long and silky hair). Your doubt is addressed by the friend who says 'everyone has hair everywhere, so the problems are not just with the loss of hair'.

After having waited for about an hour, you're asked to enter the doc's room. You get the shock of your life when you see that the doc himself is completely bald. Yes, not one strand of hair on his brown shiny well-oiled scalp. You begin to wonder if this guy is any good at what he does. Then you resign to the fact that you've been ripped off and decide to just go through the motions and get over with it.

The doc pulls out a huge pipe-like gizmo which is hanging from the ceiling. He then holds your head and thrusts it into the pipe-like machine. Some bright lights flash, you're blinded for a while and the next thing you know, there are some really weird pictures in front of you. You're reminded of the pictures of the surface of the Moon which you were shown in primary school. But the doc blows your brains out when he says that those are the pictures of your head.

He then asks you a barrage of uncomfy questions like 'Are you married?', 'If so, are you straight?', 'Are you unmarried but straight and sexually active?', 'Are you married but bisexually impotent?', 'Did you steal the mints on the table when I was taking your scans?'....You try your level best to be accurate, but you invariably get stumped.

He then pulls out his prescription pad and writes out 25 lines of gibberish at the speed of light. tells you to take 6 pills and 5 tonics and apply 4 lotions to your head, 3 times a day. He also tells you to follow a diet of 2 olives for breakfast, a bowl of ruminated grass for lunch and dry fruit skins for dinner.

He then asks you to come back for a check-up after a month(if you're alive until then).

Stage 5 : Post purchase behavior (the WTF just happened stage)

You diligently take the meds and follow the diet for a month, only to find that the hair-situation is gettin worse than what it was earlier. You curse your friend for having made you burn a hole in your pocket, courtesy the bald and expensive hair-specialist. You decide to take the leap of faith and head to the neighborhood Baba as the last and final hope.

And the saga continues...

93. When you quit your job

2010-12-10T22:32:00.000-08:00

The act of 'quitting a job' has all the elements required to make a masala movie. There's action, drama and suspense, both before and after you've put down your papers.

Ideally, this is how a 'resignation' conversation should look like.

You : Sir, I am putting down my papers today.
Boss : Why ?
You : I liked something else.
Boss : Ok. Good luck with that.

--- End of story ---

But this isn't what happens at our workplaces. This movie starts out like a thriller and ends up like a romantic-comedy gone wrong.

Stage 1 : The build-up

Like any movie plot, in the build-up, you don't seem to like what you're doing at work. Your manager blames you for all the problems in office (which includes his PA's affair with the maid he likes), throwing expletives at you in all the regional languages that he knows. You're staying away from home, earning lesser than friends and enemies and your workplace is filled with ass-licking colleagues whom you can't go to and crib.

This unleashes 'The Hulk' from within, you scream in an empty room, speak to the lizards and ants nearby and decide that enough is enough. That is when you make a promise to yourself, that you will hunt relentlessly for new jobs(and to remove the air from your manager's car before leaving for home in the evening)

Stage 2 : The hunt

This is where you work like an undercover MI-6 agent, covering all your tracks and applying to every possible job opening in the country. You still keep the smiling face at work, while plotting lo leave that wretched place. You wait endlessly for an interview call. You get a few. You run out of regular reasons and so give flimsy excuses to take leave from work to go give those interviews. 'It's my fifth marriage proposal, can't mess it up after the first 4 rejects' or 'My neighbor's dog ate my life insurance papers' or 'I'm going to a hair-loss specialist' are excuses that you come up with.

Stage 3 : Controlled elation

You have converted one(or more) of the interview calls. Have been asked to join. You're elated that you're going to leave this place soon. But you're waiting for the right time(in many cases, the 1st of the next month) to put down your papers. Until then, although you're on top of the world, you continue to work with the same constipated-under-pressure look that your boss is familiar with.

Stage 4 : The moment

Butterflies in the stomach, pancreas and everywhere else. You practice your speech in front of the mirror, move all your important mails and your pay slips to a personal email id and then go see the boss. You tell him that you are quitting work. He gives you the 'Why the sudden rash decision ? think about it and let me know in the evening' routine, to which you give back the 'I have given it enough thought and I have made up my mind' routine and leave his cabin.

Stage 5 : The break-up

It feels like a relationship gone-awry when you start having the break-up-ish kind of conversations with your boss and the HR people for the next couple of days. These are a few of the standard lines they use when we employees break-up with the company.

Why are you leaving us ? (duhh...someone else is paying better)

Why did you join us if you had to leave us ? (duhh...doesn't everyone do that at some point or the other ?)

We din't expect this from you. We thought you would be loyal (wth...I aint married to you bozos, I just work where you work)

All you men are the same, pigs! (well, they dint say this, just added it in for the dramatic effect)

Stage 6 : The feel-sad time (notice period)

This is the time in a movie where both the hero and heroine lie on their beds and stare at the ceiling fan while a slow drab song plays in the background, meant to convey the sadness which the actors faces aren't able to convey. Similarly, this is the time when you take a chill pill, lie down and enjoy the last few days of work without working. Meanwhile, the HR ppl are sad, because they need to find a replacement for you, which is a whole lot of work.

Stage 7 : The patch-up

Like in all Indian movies, the lead actor and actress patch up in the end and the happily live ever after. Over here, the HRs accept your resignation letter and call you for the exit interview. Them and you have a nice chat and end things on a happy note(although both are cursing each other in their heads). And once you get your hands on the experience and relieving letter, you walk out a free bird, like Andy Dufresne does in 'Shawshank Redemption'.

And friends, that's how its done in this country. This is how we quit. Quite intriguing na :)

92. 25*

2010-11-24T10:36:00.000-08:00

Today, some of the witty one-liners that I've been subject to are as follows

Have fun on your silver-jubilee
You have moved to new exchequer
You are a certified uncle now
So you're 25...huh, get married at least this year
How does it feel after completing a quarter of a century
Go for morning walks and talk to neighbors about their kids

A friend of mine had his 25th a couple of weeks back. He said "Its been 25 yrs of existence without any achievements or accomplishments." This holds true even in my case. And I just happened to read a graduation speech by some uber-genius who says that after 25, its only downhill. Pro'ly the worst time to stumble upon such an inspiring speech.I pulled my hair in anger, only to find couple of white strands in my hand after the act of pulling :)

Apart from the occasional gain in weight and the loss of hair, the last year has been a really rollicking one.

Got a job on campus pretty quick (day 0 as they call it)

Hardly attended any lectures (was there on campus for like 20 days during the whole of the last term)

Played a whole lot of CS in the lab at nights, amazing fun. Clan matches, public server and tournaments....made a couple of good friends too, CS friends :)

Visited some gr8 places with friends and family - Rishikesh, Agra, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer etc etc

Won an event worth 40k and all I did to win it was remember a few numbers right

Was the center of our insti's own MMS scandal (MMS is a movie making event, fyi) :)

Got my degree from Mr.Kamal Nath amidst great fanfare

Bonded with old chums after a long long time

Loads of parties and movies during the idle time before joining work

Parted with two very good friends

Visited tons of i-would-never-have-gone-to-otherwise places - Anand, Rajkot, Junagadh, Surat, Vizag etc etc

Bought a two wheeler and also started learning to ride it (yes, i am 25 and i don't know how to ride a 2 wheeler yet)

Got screwed doing sales

Quit work, which was quite an experience in itself. The HRs made me feel like I was breaking up with

them

Have a couple of jobs to consider before joining, am walking on a tight rope...dunno where I'll land

Its been good, pretty good, in a different way though.

All in all, a very happening year, must say.

91. The northie - southie squabble

2010-11-19T09:08:00.000-08:00

For all the enlightened nitwits out there, lets get one thing straight. Tamil Nadu is not the only state in south-India. In case u missed your class on Geography in primary school, South India has got 4 states with people speaking different languages and having having distinctly different cultures.

I've witnessed some apalling misconceptions that normally-intelligent-looking ppl have about we ppl from down South. Thought I'd clear some over here, in an attempt to promote unity in diversity (which again is a sham. India is regional.Period. No matter how much you go denying it)

No, 'south-indian' is not a language! Neither is south-india a state, with Chennai as its capital.

No, south-indians are not decendents of Raavan. Get real ppl!!!

No, Rajnikanth is not the only actor down south.

No, all south-indian movies do not, i repeat, DO NOT have Rajnikanth-ish stunts. Its like saying that all Hindi movies have Mithun-ish stunts or hero-heroines running around trees in song sequences.

No, south-indians needn't necessarily have relatives in Sri Lanka or the US or the Gulf.

No, Telangana agitation is not a demand for a seperate country, atleast yet.

No, dont stare at a south-indian when he/she orders a Naan or a Roti at a restaurant. You needn't give him/her the "oh-my-gosh-i-thought-you-guys-are-supposed-to-only-order-and-eat-rice-everywhere" gaze.

And no, this doesn't end here. A lot more unpleasantly funny and ridiculously inedible perceptions have been formed against Indians who hail form the 4 states down south.

Need your comments on this one, if you have a thing or two to say (which you surely will, coz this is a hot-topic) ;)

90. Ambition

2010-11-07T19:30:00.000-08:00

Here's a popular quote from the movie Jackie Brown, directed by Quentin Tarantino.

Picture this. Ordell is a gun peddler while Melanie is his blonde girlfriend who does nothing all day except smoke pot.

Ordell Robbie: Goddamn girl, you gettin' high already? It's just 2 o'clock!
Melanie: [chuckling] It's that late?
Ordell Robbie: You know you smoke too much of that shit, that shit gonna rob you of your own ambition.
Melanie: Not if your ambition is to get high and watch TV...

And that was the Kodak moment for me. I studied, tried my hand at sports and extra-currics, wrote shitloads of exams, stayed at places away from home, worked away from home... I've been doing all of this alright, but why ? I don't have an ambition. Hell even Melanie has one, one of smoking pot and watching tv. I don't think I'd like that. I've been sapped out of whatever little interest I had in the few things that I was interested in. Its been a gradual transformation, one whose beginning I am unable to trace.

I never thought that I'd be saying this so soon, but i guess its time for me to fall back on religion :) You know, the pilgrimages, the long prayer sessions and the likes. Will help me keep my mind off the other horrible thoughts and things around.

89. Call troubles

2010-11-03T19:26:00.000-07:00

Have not been able to learn/understand the art of talking on a phone, even after 24 yrs of existence. I'm not kidding. I just don't know how to talk on the phone, be it the land-line or the cellphone.

To a regular person, this may seem trivial. What's the big deal in picking up a phone and talking away. But to people who think a whole lot more than necessary and thus bungle up even the simplest of things, I think i will make sense.

How to pick up calls from ppl you don't like and not leave those calls for later(which'll never come)

How to initiate a conversation - not just the hello, but the stuff that comes between the hello and the main reason behind the call

How to handle the long pauses in between - small time slices of complete silence are unpalatable, just too complicated to deal with

How to think of pleasantries that would be appropriate

How to convincingly convey those pleasantries and not sound like a recitation exercise

How to mask your voice when you've just got out of bed but aren't supposed to sound like that

How to cut short the call and say goodbye

And so the struggle continues...may be 3G may come to my rescue with stuff like video calling

88. Killer english

2010-10-30T22:32:00.000-07:00

If you ever wondered how words could kill, here's some evidence.

This was at a movie-hall near the bus-station. Pronounced as Ball-cone-y

This was taken in a mobile store. 'Avial' is a South Indian delicacy fyi. The moment i read this, i got home-sick :s

This is how we spell 'distributor' in this place

To all my juniors at IMT, this is how we fill the 'Achievements' and 'Hobbies' section in the CV

Who are these 'Outers' ? Are they anticipating an alien invasion ?

This one takes the cake. Amazing !

87. 10/10/10

2010-10-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

6 friends, all working in seperate firms, met up on the 10th of this month (ie 10-10-10). This was their first meeting since they'd graduated from college in March. And it goes like this -

Friend 1 : What a date we've finally met on. Its got a zing to it. 10/10/10. Such a pattern wont repeat until 11/11/11, this really is a special day.

Frnd 2 : Yea. We all would have either experienced or done something special today. At least I did. I got a pay hike and I will be going to Germany on an off-shore assignment. What about you guys ?

Frnd 3 : Nice. I won the 'shining star' award for the 17th time in as many weeks. Oh wait, its given once every two weeks i think.

Frnd 4 : I accidentally collided with the sexiest siren in office during b'fast and again during lunch. We exchanged numbers. I'm the king of the world.

Frnd 5 : My department has undergone some restructuring and I will be my boss' new boss from now on. This day couldn't get any better!

Frnd 6 just kept staring at the glass of water in front of him, keeping mum the whole time. All the others asked him in chorus "What happened to you today ?".

To which he said : I made my resume today...FML

86. The overseas send-off

2010-08-24T03:10:00.000-07:00

Hindu mythology says that there are only three major events in a person's lifetime. One birth, two marriage and three death. And it also says that since you are fully conscious only during one of these three events, you better celebrate it with all possible grandeur and make it memorable.

But in the life of an Indian 'ex-teen but yet-to-be-called-uncle' youth, there's one other event that's as eventful and memorable as the other three, and this one occurs when that person is fully conscious too. Wondering what I'm talking about ? Yes, its the first trip abroad/overseas for 'higher' studies. That is when you get overwhelmed by the 'Oh I'm gonna be an NRI...I'm going to the developed world....the land of many more opportunities...where the money is good and the chicks are better...where there's plenty to explore and enjoy...where the beer flows like water' feeling .

Once the Visa and the I20 are in hand, pandemonium sets in. Resigning from the work-place, throwing farewell parties, getting sentimental about leaving all your co-workers, shopping a million times for a zillion things, learning to cook, packing all the stuff, buying some more stuff, then re-packing all the stuff, meanwhile getting in touch with all friends (new and old) and letting them know of your departure date(hoping they come send you off at the airport).

You start counting the days to the departure date with a mixture of excitement, enthusiasm, confusion and a fear of what the unknown new world has in store ahead. It's pretty much like waiting for the wedding day, where you have the bride getting all elated and decorated in the last few days while the groom develops cold feet due to fear of commitment. You splurge everywhere on everything – on the necessary, the unnecessary, the unnecessary-now-but-maybe-necessary-later, the necessary-now-unnecessary-later, and the dad-thinks-its-necessary-because-Raju-uncle’s-son-took-it-along stuff. Your savings get wiped out in a jiffy, and then you begin to sport the t-shirt with the logo ‘My dad is my ATM’ and live true to the logo.

Your mom makes you go helter-skelter all over the kitchen trying to teach you to cook basic stuff. Your friends make fun of the remnants of the dried lentils and pulses that they find on your hair when you go to meet them after the disastrous cooking sessions. Your uncles and aunts ask you to go visit some specific temples to get visas, and some others to get call letters from particular universities. Dad keeps giving you career advice every time he catches you taking a break after weighing the bags and finding out that they’re all packed just right.

And then there is the climax at the airport. There’s a colossal wastage of time and resources at the airport. Twenty plus people driving in 4 to 5 cars come to send off this one guy/gal whom they have seen all this while in life ( 20 odd years). They come all the way to the airport, spending on the fuel and the food and singing all the way in cars or hired cabs. But the irony is that they don’t pay that little extra amount on the entry ticket to get into the airport. They all huddle outside, at the entry point, and keep waving like there’s no tomorrow.

It can’t get more dramatic than this. People waving, grandmas crying, moms wiping the sweat off their brows, dads sipping on coffee and scratching their heads thinking as to whether their children have taken the right decision or not. Then comes the final stretch, from the entrance to the sliding doors, the stretch that you have to take alone, the stretch where you keep looking back each second at all that you will be missing henceforth. Alas, and at last, you disappear amidst the chaos within the airport and the send-off is then deemed complete.

It’s quite an amazing, intriguing and tiring event, I must say.

This article is up on themag.in. Read this

85. Telecom sales - An endless elegy

2010-06-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

Telecom sales means

endless cups of tea
endless hours at the distributor's back office
endless number of phone calls from anyone and everyone
endless standing at crowded retail outlets waiting for the retailer
endless number of puffs and soft-drinks
endless banter thrown at you by the disgruntled retailer
endless random roaming on the streets in the hot sun
endless pouches of water
endless hunger and the want of eating something nice and heavy
endless craving for the fairer sex (sales being a no-chick job, u wont find any)
endlessly convincing the retailer to sell your product
endlessly meeting new people
endless fake smiles
endless shaking of hands with random ppl
endless parade of goats and cows everywhere u go
endless specks of chewed-paan-masala flying and hitting your face while you are the pillion rider on the masala-chewing-but-eager-to-give-gyaan TSM/TSE's bike

Some gyaan which I have been a recipient of in the last few days is as follows(gems they all are)

Customer aur maut (death) kabhi bhi aa sakthe hain, koi bharosa nahin!

Sachhe aadmi ka saath dene ka aur jhoote aadmi ka band bajaane ka!

Retailer ke yahaan chai nahi peena mathlab honeymoon pe jaake sex nahi karna! (this is the most hilarious one)

Market ki maa-behen ek karne mein jyaada time nahi lagta beta!

84. Fancy corporate post-names/titles : not so amusing anymore

2010-05-17T16:01:00.001-07:00

Just saw this on TV. It blew my mind. The WTFness-quotient of the content I saw was so high that its urged my to post it here almost asap.

It turns out that this is pretty old news, but I'm sure not many would've heard of it. Did you ppl know that the Future group has a 'Chief Belief Officer'. And they have a person, a fully-salaried employee for that post too, Dr.Devdutt Pattanaik.

Its not the post exactly, but the model he presented on CNBC that left me flabbergasted. He first says, the 3B model of management is Belief-Behavior-Business. And then he actually goes ahead and draws 3 circles on a chart and connects them linearly to show the relation. Can you believe that??? And the interviewer actually gasped as if she'd seen the Haley's comet. What horseshit ! Unbelievable !

read this - 60 seconds chief
and watch this - My work as a Chief Belief Officer

The ex-COO of the firm in which I previously worked, has been the 'Gardener' of that firm for the past few years. Another post which although sounds creative, is in a gray area with unclear responsibilities and un-quantifiable objectives.

A colleague of mine, who started off his own company handed me his card which read "Mr.XYZ, Founder". The word Founder did have a great zing to it. Much better than the regular CEO or COO or MD.

When I get into an organization, I would want a cool job title, depending on what I join as. Like say

"Awesemolyst" (analyzes awesomeness of the work being done, Barney Stintson style) or

"Head Markgeneer"(a Marketer + engineer) or

"Logisticologist" (an Ops profile for Logistics) or

"Procurement-man"(again, an Ops profile for Procurement)...has the super-hero zing to it :) or

"Chief emotions officer" (one who reads all of Paulo Coelho's books and recommends women-related policies) or

"Chief emoticons officer" (one who recommends all the emoticons that can be used in any official report or e-mail) or

"Tantri, the Pantry Mantri" (one who heads the Pantry staff)

I wouldn't mind a pay-cut for a month or two in return. The cool name is all that the outside world knows about your job. They don't see the ass-kicking nor do they see the ass-prints that your boss has left on your ass by the end of the day. When someone asks me about my designation at work, I'd rather say "Script Detectivologist" than merely saying "Bug-fixer".

83. The career path

2010-05-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

Most of us are clueless when it comes to our careers. We don't know what to do next ? Lets face it, we've never known what to do. If you belong to the minority-group of people who have it all figured out and are on-track and are all set to achieve it, I'm not talking about you(although at some stage, you'll figure out that you just can't figure out where you'll go next in your career, unless all you plan to do next is to sit at home and eat curd-rice).

Mom and pop gave us a name, we dint have a say in that. And by the time we even gained enough consciousness to think about it, they put us in a school, to keep us busy....and we kept going to school. They told us to take Math, Phys, Chem in 10+2 and prepare for JEE....and we did it, most of us not even knowing the expanded form of JEE. They told us to do engineering and we went through 4 more years of 'something we dint know why we were doing but we just had to do', coz mom and pop and 'well-wisher aunt' and 'irritating neighboring uncle' thought it would be good to do so.

There's no wonder that after like 20-plus years of little-finger-holding(career spoon feeding), when we're out in the real world searching for work(or while at work), we're at sea. We don't know what to do, where to go, whom to ask for help. All we know is that we want to do something to be something-else but we're yet to figure out what that something or that something-else is. This is a tribute to all the clueless souls, we are the ones who are endlessly in the pursuit of happyness, although our efforts are mostly random and directionless(but what the heck, we try).

82. Learning curves

2010-05-07T17:15:00.000-07:00

Was just filling up a form where I was required to fill the 'Languages you know' table. I was tempted to write C, C++, Java, Perl...but considering the fact that it was a pretty important form, went ahead and wrote the usual four.

1. English
2. Hindi
3. Tamil
4. Telugu

The question intrigued me and with all the idle time I'm having right now, all I needed was a poke, however useless the poke was. The question cannot measure the adeptness with which I used or the fluency with which I spoke those languages. I sat about thinking the various extents to which I knew each language, which one was I more comfy with and why. Now for most of the gen pop, the order of the languages one knows follows a predictable pattern. The degree of comfy-ness with the set of languages one knows most generally is as follows.

1.Mother-tongue > 2.English > 3.then by Hindi(if the mother tongue aint Hindi already) > 4. other languages known(if any)

But for me, a TamBrahm born and brought up in Hyd, followed by a 4-year stint in Gujju-land, followed by a 2 yr stint in the North of India, the order of comfy-ness has changed from time to time.

Learning a language is fun and a gradual process. Slowly I've learnt, sometimes also un-learnt the languages I know, un-learnt due to sheer lack of people around to speak that language(for long periods of time). So I thought, why not plot the learning curves of each of the languages I know and see if there's pattern.

And then, I plotted this.....

81. Facebook

2010-04-24T23:49:00.000-07:00

Nut 1 : Did you hear what 'pretty-but-shy-and-low-profile' girl has done ?

Nut 2 : Did she come out of the closet ?

Nut 1 : Nah...I'd hate to see that happen though. Can't lose the very few pretty single-and-ready-to-mingle women to lesbianism. It'd be grossly unfair for us 'Aam aadmi' Indian men.

Nut 2 : So what did she do ?

Nut 1 : She updated her relationship status on Facebook. It now reads that she's in a relationship with 'popular-but-dimwit-and-asinine' guy.

Nut 2 : Lemme guess. That update would've been followed by a 100 'likes' and another 250 'congratulations' comments.

Nut 1 : Yea. I read most of 'em, all different variants of the same word. 'congrats','congu','congo', congos','congs','grats'....

Nut 2 : Each wanting to make his/her greeting look different with an irritating overuse and abuse of dots, smileys and exclamations. Retards !

Nut 1 : Don't be so harsh. They're just expressing their emotions.

Nut 2 : Yea right ! That's the new way to show that you're hep and cool. Gone are the good old days when being cool just meant having streaked hair and walking like a punk. With the onset of Facebook, things have changed.Anyways, you seemed to have had a thing for this chick right ?

Nut 1 : Yea I did....sigh...And was quite surprised to hear that she fell for that dumbass. What do girls look for ? I'm really confused.

Nut 2 : They look for 'cool' men.

Nut 1 : I am cool !

Nut 2 : Well, lets see. How often do you update your status on FB ?

Nut 1 : eerrmm....twice a week.

Nut 2 : Way off the mark. Do you have more than 400 ppl whom you don't know as 'friends' on your Friend list ?

Nut 1 : No

Nut 2 : Do you 'Like' every other cool dude/cute chick's status message or photo upload as soon as it happens ?

Nut 1 : No

Nut 2 : Do you take amazingly random and blurry pictures and upload 'em in an album with an even more random name, making it visible and possible for everyone on FB to comment and 'Like' ?

Nut 1 : No

Nut 2 : Does your 'Religious views' column have either 'Atheist' or 'Agnostic'.

Nut 1 : No, I'm a regular run-of-the-mill religion follower.

Nut 2 : Well, that aint good enuf. You need to show that you're a 'rebel in quietism'. (The one shitty thing that the movie RDB has done is taught the phrase 'be a rebel' to the masses, but hardly any of us know how, when, why and for what to rebel.)

Nut 1 : Anything else ?

Nut 2 : Well yea. You need to join at least a 100 groups which your fellow dude-mates have joined. For instance, some have joined groups with highly intellectual names like 'Yes wind, thats fine. Mess up my hair. I didn't plan on looking good today', ' It's okay Pluto, I still think you're a planet', ' Insulting people on levels they can't comprehend.' and the likes...

Nut 1 : Wtf !!!

Nut 2 : It gets even better. Install at least 50 applications like 'Who likes you', 'How much does she like you', 'Horoscope of the day', 'Lover of the day', 'Your favorite color of the day', 'Mystic Meg', 'Psychic leg', 'I went to Winnipeg'....Whatever your actual hometown is, update it to Bombay or Delhi, coz that increases the cool quotient of your profile.

Nut 1 : staring blank

Nut 2 : And lastly, update your 'Music' column with some heavy metal and psychedelic bands. Throw in some 'Ingmar Bergman' directed movies in your 'Movies' column. Garnish your 'Books' column with an Arundhati Roy and a Paulo Coelho written-book....and voila....here we have a totally 'cool' FB profile page. Of course, you need to keep googling for intelligent status messages that you'll need to update your profile with, once every 2 hours.

Nut 1 : Balls! I'd rather not look cool that do all this crap. If I've to make a fool out of myself on FB to have a chance at a girl, I'd rather remain single. I'm alright being single. All this is coz of the demand-supply gap. Screw you Adam Smith.

Nut 2 : Why don't we encourage male-infanticide in villages. That'd be super-cool and balance the demand-supply gap!

Nut 1 : Screw you Adam Smith.....screw you Facebook....sob sob...sob sob...

80. Adjournments

2010-04-16T06:33:00.000-07:00

This is with reference to this article

Our Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha get adjourned every now and then, due to the unruly and uncouth behavior of our elected representatives. How much does it cost to conduct a session in parliament? How much does the Indian tax-payer have to pay for the harakiri that our chosen representatives carry out in both the houses of Parliament. Its a disgrace, watching them on TV, having a go at each other as if they are kids in a play-pen.Should there not be a way to gauge the efficiency and effectiveness of these sessions ? Should people not be punished for wasting time and stalling proceedings ?

Here are some instances(videos) where the house has been adjourned in the recent past.

Dec 15th '09 - Lok Sabha Adjourned as MP's spar over Telangana

Dec 16th '09 - Lok Sabha adjourned over price rise

March 11th '10 - The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day on Wednesday after Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Yadav and Lalu Prasad staged noisy protests demanding that the seven MPs suspended in the Rajya Sabha a day earlier be taken back

March 15th '10 - Opposition members force repeated adjournments on Dantewada attacks

March 16th '10 - The Tharoor-IPL issue

When will our leaders learn to have a civilized dialogue ? Is this the way its done in every other democratic country ? I don't think so. I'm sure this exclusively happens only in our very own Incredible India.

79. Law of conservation of happiness

2010-04-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

Nut 1 sees Nut 2 who is staring into nothingness, goes up to him and the following conversation ensues.

Nut 1 : What are you thinking about ?

Nut 2 : I'm confused....

Nut 1 : confused about what ?

Nut 2 : I want my parents to be happy.

Nut 1 : How noble a thought, at 2 in the morning! But, what's there to get confused about in this?

Nut 2 : Well. You see.They say that they're happy if I am happy.

Nut 1 : And your point is ?

Nut 2 : I know they may not be happy about some of the stuff I do that makes me happy. So I end up doing stuff that makes them happy and doing this doesn't make me happy. So they'll not be happy when I'm happy and they'll be happy when I'm not happy. Something's terribly wrong here.

Nut 1 : Its Murphy's Law of conservation of Happiness. Happiness can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be transferred from one body to another.

Nut 2 : Profound...

78. A computer-less vacation

2010-01-14T09:13:00.000-08:00

This has been a one-of-a-kind, in fact, the first of its kind of vacations for me. Yes, a vacation minus the computer makes Jack a dull boy. The motherboard went for a toss. And it’s yet to be repaired and tossed back to its rightful place. Picture this. A room with all the other computer peripherals, tons of DVDs(movies and sitcoms) and a dangling internet cable. And I can’t do nothin with anythin that's around me.

Without the comp, it's become so tough to pass the time now. The dynamics at home are very different from good old school days where me and my bro did the major chunk of the channel surfing on the TV. Outdoor sports like 7 stones, maar n peeti and gully cricket would consume the rest of the timepass time. Now, its only the internet and movies. I've lost all interest in TV. Hate those reality and talent-hunt shows...ugghhh...they're despicable to say the least!

A vacation has its own dynamics and a computer with internet is an integral part of it. Its the one thing that helps you effortlessly sail over all the idle-time patches during the vacation. The prelude to the vacation, I feel, is the most fun part of the entire vacation. The wait for the day to leave for home, the joy when you dust your airbags and stuff it with smelly clothes, the lure of the home-food, the excitement of meeting old pals, endless discussions about which train/flight to take and why...all this is quite exciting. But once you get there, after the initial high of coming back to the home-ground, it all dampens out a little, coz there's nothing much to do!

The weekends are when everyone else is free and you have lots of people to attend to. While the weekdays are so void of any activity that you contemplate doing things like creating spicy toothpastes(pepper, lemon and cardamom), ultra-sweet toothpastes(maple syrup, litchi essence and honey) and non-vegetarian toothpastes(sprinkled with ants and deliciously sliced cockroaches). You also try your hand at melting a 'Mint-o Fresh' candy with just your palms, use the vacuum-cleaner to quick-dry the already semi-dry just-out-of-the-washing-machine clothes, chew a morsel of food in front of the mirror and follow the movement of a particular bit until it gets totally mixed up and can’t be found and last but not the least, give yourself a manicure and a pedicure once every 3 hours.

The very fact that I'm writing such a piece of drivel shows the extent of my joblessness. Oh wait. It would've been better had I tried to write this with my left hand on a glossy chart paper using wax crayons. That would be 'uber'-lame :P

To add fuel to fire, the telecom operators could not have called for a strike at a better time (in the NCR region, where my college is). I just had 50 paise left on my prepaid thing before leaving for home, couldn't get a recharge coz of this blessed strike, hence couldn't receive incoming calls on roaming, hence dint know of the change of electives announcement, hence couldn't change mine on time and hence I'll have to "SEE the GAME!"(Rural Mngmnt), prepare case studies before each lecture (SOM) and attend horrible lectures at 8:30 AM(Strategic Leadership).

I haven't seen the sun in 3 days, haven't shampooed in 6. The Telangana bandhs and the hiked bus-fares have further lowered my already low inclinations to step out of the house. This has by far been the worst vacation in a long time. It’s yet to end but I don’t see it getting any better unless an Xbox 360 or a Gisele Bundchen drop on my lap.

Dated : Jan 13th '10

77. To and fro

2009-10-21T03:38:00.000-07:00

Lemme begin with one of Seinfeld's bits(during one of his stand-up shows)

"You know, why we’re here? To be out, this is out…and out is one of the single most enjoyable experiences of life. People…did you ever hear people talking about “We should go out”? This is what they’re talking about…this whole thing, we’re all out now, no one is home. Not one person here is home, we’re all out! There are people trying to find us, they don’t know where we are. “Did you ring?, I can’t find him.” “Where did he go?” “He didn’t tell me where he was going”. He must have gone out. You wanna go out: you get ready, you pick out the clothes, right? You take the shower, you get all ready, get the cash, get your friends, the car, the spot, the reservation…There you’re staring around, what do you do? You go: “We gotta be getting back”. Once you’re out, you wanna get back! You wanna go to sleep, you wanna get up, you wanna go out again tomorrow, right? Where ever you are in life, it’s my feeling, you’ve gotta go."

Right from the time I started going to school, school was the 'out' for me. Once I'd get back from school, the routine would be to drink some Bournvita and rush 'out' to the playground. When it'd get dark, it was time to get back home, have supper and end the day. My life comprised of many such micro-cycles of "in and out", "to and fro" everyday. Every now and then, there would be the long vacation(once or twice a year) where we'd be 'out' for a couple of days or so, and then get back to the trivialities and banalities of daily life.

Once the uniform-days got over, by some freaky twist of fate(am yet to know whether it was for the better or worse), I ended up in a university that was 'far' from my place. I mean real far. My definition of 'far' took a real big change. Until then, I'd always crib that my coaching center was 45 mins from my place, was very 'far'. But this was a different 'far' (24 hrs by train). It was a 'far' from where you couldn't return home daily. A 'far' from where your parents could not keep a tab on what you were doing, a 'far' so far that no one in your earlier "world" could see or know of the antics you were up to, unless you told them yourself.

The power was with me. I could decide what to tell, when to tell, what to do and when to do. I was 'out', and it was totally on me to decide when all to get 'back' home from the 'out'. Initially, it was thrilling, having all that decision making power. 'The power to make your own destiny' as the wise fools put it. Planning a trip back home was never easy. The challenge was to combine the holidays with the non-volatile working days so as to minimize the effect of the wraths from the profs(estimating their tantrums and surprise quizzes) and also to not miss any important event in and around college(read: cultural/fashion/rock shows).

But there was always this urge to go home, to get a hero's welcome, to meet old pals, to catch up with the trends in the city, to attend those boring functions sporting the "sheepish constipated smiley look" all through and to get recharged by eating some gr8 home food. And then, it would be time to get 'back'...Back to the 'out' which had become the new 'in'. Hostel was the new home and the original home became the 'out'. I'd get back to college, all recharged and fresh, with my airbags filled with home food, all set to take on the world. But after sometime (read: 2 months or so), I'd find myself on the losing end of the battle, all drained out and all set to get back home.

But here's the other deal. Each time that you do come back home, you notice that things have changed. And if you've come back after a reasonably long time, then you're at sea unable to cope up with what's happening around. Slowly but surely, there's an alienation of sorts. You are treated more like a guest, offered all the comforts and liberties (unlike earlier, when you'd be accountable for each and everything) and you just can't help it. I remember the time in class 12 when I was lambasted for getting back an hour (or two) later than expected. A year later (in UG), when I did something similar, the response was radically different.

I've been oscillating "to-and-fro" between home and away for the last 7 years now, still not sure as to which is the 'home' and which is the 'away'. If it depends on just the quantum of time that one spends in a physical place, then it’s evident and elementary. But it’s not so simple. If you look at it qualitatively, the one week at home (the one with the parents + siblings) can be more worthwhile and create more memories than the 2 odd months in a hostel or at a PG accommodation.

On one end, I envy those buggers who get to stay at home all their lives, or at least get a job back in their home town (or close to it) after a brief hiatus away from home (for their UG or PG). But I consider myself luckier than those few who've left their homes for distant lands across the seven seas and cannot return home as and when they want to. The fact is, in this new westernized-India, moving away has become an integral part of our lifestyle. But our cultural and homely-roots keep pulling us back with almost as much force, time and again. I’m tired of this see-sawing. Is there no way out of this? Can't things be simpler....sigh !

76. A Swine flu over my ass !

2009-08-18T07:16:00.000-07:00

If you cut the crap and look into the facts, you'll find that swine-flu has a lesser mortality/death rate than diarrhoea, pneumonia or TB. Yes, its caused mass-hysteria, but can you blame the poor virus. The media has had such a major hand in spreading exclusively the negative news related to the H1N1. Let me talk about a virus that is far deadlier and has spread beyond control in this country. Its the D.O.R(Death on Roads) virus. It has two variants : death due to driving or death due to being a pedestrian on road. Now you'll ask me as to why D.O.R is deadlier than H1N1. Lets talk some core statistics here.

a) Swine-flu
Deaths reported(till date): 26
Number of infected cases : more than 1000
Estimated loss to GDP(if it becomes an epidemic) :1 - 1.5% of GDP (as given by World Bank)

b) D.O.R

Deaths reported: more than 300 PER DAY

Number of infected cases : the whole illiterate driving population

Estimated loss to GDP(it has become an epidemic) : 3% of GDP

Now you tell me, which one is deadlier and should get more media coverage! Lets look at what the government can do about this. Regular road review programs, more number of roads, strict rules and regulations and the likes. I'll start with the driver's license test. It's a joke, a mockery, a sham. This test is a very serious affair in developed countries. Dubai's driver's test is presumed to be the toughest and the most rigorous. I've heard of people flunking the test as many as 20 times. Their test is so trusted that the same license is valid in many other countries. And what happens in our 'Shining' India ? (oh how i hate it when someone calls it that)...You needn't know to drive to get a license, you can use the license to practice 'Live' on the roads along side 'Live' people. That's the value we give to our lives(and to that of our fellow Indians).

I got mine only coz I went through a broker. I barely managed to drive a 4-wheeler for which I was bestowed with a combo license(the 2 cum 4 wheeler one)...a license to kill. But I've decided not to unleash my madness on the roads and be a danger to myself and the society at large.

All this aside, the one thing that the government can't do is to change your mindset. They've given you the road, but its upto you as to how you drive. If you as a driver choose to be illiterate, ignorant of the road rules and not valuing your own life, even Lord Ganesha(whose gonna be immersed soon this month) can't help you out. And for god's sake, don't drink and drive. Develop a road-sense if you don't already have one. Follow the rule whenever, wherever possible. Rules are meant to keep you from succumbing to D.O.R. And if not for your sake, think about the countless other fellow drivers and pedestrians that are likely to get injured coz of your callous driving. Unless you develop this superior-sense, India I'm afraid will never shine.

And before you go buy one N95 mask for the flu, buy yourself a helmet, get your vehicle insured and get it serviced(if need be). And the irritating media will still not take notice, but do your bit by educating your peers about D.O.R. You'll be saving many a lives, I assure you of that.

A small addition...here's a foreigner's view on 'driving in India' - http://www.pixelatedimage.com/blog/2009/08/driving-in-india/

75. Some awkward moments

2009-07-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer : This post is not intended to be funny. Its intended to bring the 'awkward' feeling/emotion out, and may be some chuckles in passing.
---------------------------------------------------------

Moment 1 : An abandoned rescue

The first week a.k.a the 'Orientation week' in my college is when the PDP(Personality Destruction Program) sessions are conducted all through the night right until early in the morning. I have always been totally against this whole concept of making 23/24 year-olds sit on the grass for hours, shout some stupid slogans, run around the ground, propose to ugly senior girls and similar nonsense, and all this after the freshers have been bombarded with academic sessions from 8 in the morning till 12 in the night. So I donned the role of the rescuer, the messiah, the one who sends the troubled ones back to their hostel rooms for some well-deserved sleep. If I found a junior roaming around aimlessly, unable to finish a task given to him (invariably, the task would be to find some pretty girls and send them over to the senior bunch), I'd ask him whether he wanted to sleep and if yes, would rescue him from the charade. One fine night, during the session, I found a guy just standing, looking clueless and dumbstruck. Being the messiah that I am, I went to him and asked him

Me : So....What's the task that these numbskulls have given you ? Do you have to make love with a pole or wat ?

That guy : (pats me on my shoulder and whispers in my ear) I'm a senior dude.

And then he left. Boy, that was embarrassing. Awkward and embarrassing. I dint know where to go and hide my face that instant.

Moment 2 : All that glitters is not 'Gold'

Was in Dubai doing my summers. Got a call from mom(at home) asking me to buy some gold jewelry. This was the first time that mom had asked me to buy something so huge(price-wise). Till date, mom had only sent me out to make low-value purchases, such as buying coconuts or milk from Latha aunty's store or Bournvita from the Departmental store or Kaju barfis from Halwa-ram Mithai bhandar at most. I was thrilled and also tense. I had to buy something big and the choice was in my hands. So I went the jewelry store, painfully went through all the chains and ear-ring models that they had to offer(thinking long and hard as to what kind of stuff would mom want to sport) and I made my choice. I picked up two chains, both really pretty. Was really confident that mom would like them and laud my taste for jewelry and my choice-making/decision-taking abilities. Summers got over, I went home. Bro was happy with the stuff I got for him. Went over to mom and handed over the chains. I was expecting the "Oh wow. They suit and fit me perfectly. Thank you son :)" kind of a reaction. Mom, on the other hand said "Nice chains. These are for your wife." This one-liner turned an all-smiles environment into a rather weird one. I laughed, looked puzzled, took deep breaths, blinked furiously, sneezed, coughed, but could not manage to speak. It was way too awkward. Here I was, buying something for someone whom I dint know, whom I may never know, who may be allergic to gold(ok, this is rare), or there's also a chance that I may never want any 'someone' too(for life). I wonder how someone else would have gotten outta such a fix-ey situation.

Moment 3 : The bill

Mom : Go get some coconuts from Latha aunty's store.

Me : Am outta cash mom. Gimme some money.

(The washerman/dhobi comes to collect clothes, each of us give him our dirty linen...and he's busy counting the clothes)

Mom : I gave you 2k just yesterday, where did you blow that money off ?

Me : umm....I bought some shares with it. Investment you see. I want my money to work for me.

(The dhobi interrupts)

Dhobi : Sir, this is yours(hands me a piece of paper)...It was there in your pant pocket.

Mom (takes the slip from me) : Hmm...a bill of 2K...'Langoors'....apparel store...(I grab the bill back from her)

Me : errm, I just got myself a few undergarments.

Mom : For 2k ?

Me : And 2 over-garments too....and the discussion fizzled out

It was two days later that mom found out that 'Langoors' was a female shoppe, when she asked a colleague about the same. It was very awkward. I knew that she knew, but she dint know that I knew that she knew about 'Langoors'. I had expected a flurry of questions but nothing of that sort happened. Some days later, I went out to mom with the begging bowl again asking for money. She gave me some cash, and with a devious smile said "Buy something for yourself this time!". My theft was caught (damn the dhobi, he could've washed the pant with the bill in it, for all I care) and I felt real tongue-tied even standing there trying to sheepishly smile and think of an excuse, which I eventually couldn't :s

Moment 4 : The girl classmate

You get to know that a school's classmate of yours has been selected to join a 'better known institute of management in northern India'. You feel real happy that someone from your old school's class has done real well. With no one else around to share the good news with, you goto dad with the news.

You : Dad, Serafina cracked the feline test and got through to the 'Better known Institute of Management in Northern India' (BIMNI).
Dad : Whose she ? Is she the one from your school ? The class prefect ?
You : Yea, bingo. You've got a great memory.
Dad : If I remember well, you used to get better grades than her in school rite ?
You : Yea, most of the time.(I was already sensing trouble, with the way this conversation was shaping up)
Dad : Then how is it that she has gotten into BIMNI while you're learning management from the 'Lesser known Institute of Management in the Crime-capital of India' ?
You : Awkward pause. Awkward-er smile. Feel stupid. Regret opening your mouth. Get Irritated. Angry.......Shout @$$#0!e...@$$#0!e in your head.

The transition from being happy to feeling stupid to getting angry is so swift, it feels like you're sliding down a steep spiral until you fall with a loud thud. And that's when you reach Ground-Zero(GZ...another acronym for the 'crime-capital' where I'm living right now).

74. Dubai chronicles : The Summer of '09

2009-06-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

A year back, if some astrologer or parrot holder would have told me that I'd be seeing the Burj Al Arab daily on my way to office or I'd regularly watch movies in a 1 million dirham home theater system, I'd just laugh it off . But then, reality did have something else in store for me.

Before the summer
The moment I was told by the Head HR that I'd be doing my summer internship in Dubai, I was like 'Dubai....ummm....doesn't ring a bell...where is it ?'....and its then that it struck me. An international internship would be an amazing experience, this was what I thought at that moment. When I saw the complete list of ppl selected for the company, my thoughts took a shift. I knew none of the other selected guys/gals. It is then that I realized that this internship may not be so much fun after all. Yea, 2 of them were frm my class but I'd hardly known them over the course of last year. A day before leaving for Dubai, I'd loaded my comp with movies and sit-coms so that I would not get bored on the trip.(Later did I come to know that even the rest of the junta was as apprehensive as I was) I am kinda anti-social and it takes me eons to get to know people. So I'd settled for the lame reality that I'd be going to Dubai alright, but it would be a drab and dull trip where all we'd discuss about would be work and movies and cigarettes and may be liquor.

The beginning
But the very fact that I just watched one movie on the entire trip, never worked overtime in office, spent around half my stipend on Johnnie Walker(the other half on cabs) and a whole lot more on touring, shows that this has been one of the most rollicking trips I've ever been in. The start of the trip was as mysterious as it can get. We just get a mail from the HR saying that we'll be picked up from the airport and taken to a hotel(sounds a bit like those James Bond movies where he's sent over to strange places and picked up by stranger ppl). So we get out of the airport and we wait. We wait. We roam around lookin for ppl holding banners. No luck. We wait. We smoke. We wait. As a desperate measure, we buy a caller card but don't know how and where to use it. We're just about to go all out shouting for help when we see one guy coming towards us holding the right banner. Oh what a relief. We get to the hotel, unpack our stuff and then get together to decide 'What next?'. We go to the receptionist in the anticipation that he might know about our schedule for the next day.

Me(to the receptionist) : What do we have in store for tomorrow ?
Receptionist : Breakfast starts at 7 AM sir.
Me : Did the office ppl inform you regarding any pick up from the hotel.
Rcptnst : No sir, but breakfast timings are form 7 to 10

In essence, the only thing we knew about the next day was that breakfast would be served. Nothing else. This internship was getting more mysterious by the minute. And so we slept. And we woke up the next day. We had our b'fast as instructed, not knowing what to do next. Some of us thought that we'd have a vote-out session, something like the MTV roadies do and that only the survivors would be taken to office on the next day. Some even started searching the room for clues which our company ppl might have left for us to find and figure out what to do next. Anyways, we did reach office by 10 the next day and thus began our internship.

The regular schedule
Not once did any of us take the regular office pick-up cab coz it was way too early. We'd get ready at our own sweet pace, have a sumptuous breakfast(oh how I miss that b'fast spread now) and then take a regular cab to work. On the pretext of going on 'store visits', we covered all the major malls in Dubai(yea, all of 'em).

Creek
The AM-PM mindset shift was drastic. Sitting idle in the office at 10 AM would be the most boring thing, while having hukkah at the 'Creek' at 10 PM on the same day would give you a surreal feeling. The first part of the day would sap the energy out of us(sitting idle in office all the while) while the later part would be great fun(read: awwwessome). The Creek was our regular hangout joint. One boat ride and a hukkah by the Creek side is more refreshing than even a couple of gallons of Glucon D, blv me :P

Crazy
In one word, this Dubai trip was crazy. The hindi song 'Kaise' that played during the fountain show was crazy, the prices in Buddha bar were crazy, the architecture in the malls were crazy, the size of the popcorn bucket(for 30 dhms) in the movie hall was crazy, the fines were crazy, having hukkah every other day was crazy, finishing a carton in 8 days was crazy, the lively audience at the music and dance concert were crazy, the expressions on each of our faces when we converted our whole expenditure into Indian rupees on the last day was crazy too.

Giving elaborate descriptions for the rest of the events/places will make this post a humongous one. So am just jotting down a few things that we did, a few lines that we spoke and a few things we shud not hav done :)

Malls
WAFI : Egyptian pyramid style architecture
Mall of the Emirates - Snow park and Lebanese food
Dubai Mall - Aquarium, Fountain show, the three pretty violinists, the one sad female harp player
Burjuman - was exotic
Markato - English style ka mall
Deira City Center - apna Big Bazaar type, Coldstone ice cream
Times Square Center - Subway :p
Ibn Batutta Mall - Marble Slab ice cream there was yum
Marina Mall - amazing views all over

Places
Madinat Jumeirah, JBR Walk, Open beach, Jumeirah beach, Buddha Bar, Snow Park, Desert Safari, Palm Islands, Ice lounge, Cruise dinner, Carrefour, Karama center, Starbucks (twice), Coldstone (thrice), Bananas pizza

Quotes
'Dubai ke do sabse faalthu phone apan dono ke paas hi hain' - Nitin
'Cute hai' - Nigarish
'Arey nimbu nahin, Nigarish' - Me
Tujhe patha hai, wahaan pe sharks hai yaar....it was sooo amazing - Hemali
'Wat nansense !' - Me
Davidoff 'One' health ke liye acha hai - Alok
'Main Hemali ke paas nahin baithoonga' - Nitin
'Yaar, I think we should get a camel and ride on it in the desert' - Nigarish
'Marina mein ghar saare awesssoooome hain yaar....tujhe patha hai, wahaan pe authentic arabic food miltha hai' - Hemali

'Tomorrow will be the first day of the rest of our lives' - Alok

'Ithna kharcha tho shaayad main apne honeymoon pe bhi na karoon' - Me

Somethings I'd never do otherwise
Order for water worth 1200 bucks in Buddha Bar
Pay 600 bucks for a cab to go to office(daily)
Have a bubble bath every alternate day
Activate a smoke alarm with just a steam bath
Ask a sales executive in a mall as to where the 'exit' is and she replies saying 'I don't know' (wtf !)
Poach on someone else's wi-fi from the hotel room (favee123, favee maatha ki jai ho)
Buy a carton of cigarettes
Eat prawn flavored crackers
Work in firm where not one person seems to be happy with his/her job
Do spade work for 2 other interns for their final presentation
See Burj Al Arab daily on my way to office
Make 4 others wait for a 7 seater cab(for 45 mins) after getting wet on the beach
Watch movies in a 1 million dirham home theater system
Have two bath-tub baths on the same day
Have a buffet b'fast for a whole month

After summers
All I'm left with now is a group of gr8 memories, a few new friends, a series of stories for all the people back home, and all this backed by 9 GB of pics and videos. Not bad huh...For an internship that was rumored to be shelved and even when it did start, it started in the most untoward fashion. Yes, the trip dint start too well; yes we did have an explosive feedback session with the HR on the last day; yes we did spend a hell lot more than the stipend we got; yes we got cranky during the return flight home(almost high) and yes, we all are yet to get over the Dubai hangover. But all in all, this was one very memorable trip.

73. Online protocols

2009-04-11T12:31:00.000-07:00

The rules of the game of a 'normal conversation' are different when it comes to the online versions of all the interactions we have with everyone around us. Yes, the email, the messenger, skype and other audio/video chat devices have a different set of protocols to adhere to, which may not apply(cannot be applied) to the normal person-to-person conversation.

What spurred me to write this piece is a small but irritatingly idiotic norm that has gained acceptance in a group that I have to forcibly be a part of. I'm a part of a 60 member class in a b-school. I became a member of a yahoo group that represents the class. The idea of having an online group primarily was for the CR(class rep) to mail the important announcements to the whole class at once. Some people also exercised the liberty of forwarding "important" (read : shit-piece) articles to the whole group once in a while. But idle time coupled with the ability and power to bug 60 people at once has changed the whole scenario. The people use group mails mostly to have frivolous discussions, to pull one another's leg(like it was done in primary school), to chat about liquor as if its something exotic and out of the world and to vote for the hottest slut in class(there r none btw). And now, there's an addition to the already existing chaotic nonsense. People have started wishing their classmates on their birthdays on the group mail id. Doesn't sound so bad does it. But imagine, you getting 60 mails saying the same "happy b'day XYZ" on every birthday(60 days a year).....won't that bug you ? I don't know, but it bugs the hell out of me. If its someone's birthday, wish him on his id, why do you want the whole fuckin group to know that you're wishing him/her. I've no interest whatsoever in knowing that.

Am I being anti-social here, YES. But am I being pragmatic, double YES!

But its not just this one instance. People abuse the online platform to a great deal just because its a relatively new way of talking and the rules and norms haven't been established yet(they actually have, but we just aren't aware enuf).

People type 'brb' on their messenger windows, never to return back. If a person who types 'brb' doesn't return in 2 minutes flat, 25 GB of gay porn should automatically get downloaded onto his/her PC.

People who say 'gtg' abruptly, with no care for the guy at the other end should have nightmares about having a date with Himesh Reshammiya, their 'knight in shining armor'.

The number of insane "fraandhsip" requests on orkut and facebook is a testimony to the fact that for every one non-despo, there are a million despos in this country (a blaring example for 'unity in diversity' in our country).

I realize that chatting online does reduce inhibitions, doesn't mean that you go full throttle and flirt like there's no tomorrow. I've seen break-ups happening online(in my hostel), and it isn't a pretty sight....People slamming the mouse pads, kicking the dust bins close to the table and screaming at their room-mates just coz the girl has gone offline and won't take their calls no more.

People use fake profiles on social networking sites to bug their childhood crushes and to stalk their current crushes online(voyeurs or Peeping Toms). I've seen profiles with names like 'Shakila ki maa Tequila', 'Lola kutty in my mutthi' with status messages like 'I want a hasina with pasina', 'Faad ke panty, c*** de aunty' etc etc. For the record, creating a profile with all censored pics and raunchy stuff filled in it is a very cheap and lame idea to create humor, although it works sometimes :p

People uploading their photos(standing in front of a stupid rock or just posing for the heck of it) and forcing everyone in the colony to view their online albums should be castrated, to say the least(or atleast given 100 lashes with a leather whip).

Proposing online is not a good way to go about doing it. You never really know if you're proposing to the girl or to her brother (the girl went out to buy some lipstick...the bro, with his group of friends, has been chatting with you all through your flirtatious build-up to the proposal question...how embarrassing).

The 'Busy' status message is by far the most abused one in today's messengers. When someone is 'busy', don't ping them unless your life depends on it. Seriously, its really bugging. Its almost like knocking on a door with a 'do not disturb' sign on it. And there's the other side of the coin where we find people who have the 'Busy' status msg whenever they're online. People just like to look busy, most of them are never busy. Just for the record, if you're taking time off to dig your nose or to eat your ear-wax or scratch your sweaty ass or to refresh the 'orkut' main page or to scroll up and down on your messenger list, you are NOT busy.

And when you've gotto end a conversation, just say 'bye' and end it. Don't prolong it with all those unnecessary words and abbreviations like bbbye, gn, tc, cya, ciao, haffun, gnite and gud luck, cheers, alvida, shabba khair, khuda haafis, boy boy, sheeyaa....all typed one after the other...its mighty irritating for the person at the other end to think of one other thing or to retype the same thing that you've just typed, just out of courtesy.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Most of us just don't get it. So many more protocols get formed and broken online, all it needs is some common sense to see this nonsense and go senile.

72. Of gifts and gate-crashes

2009-04-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

When all is it appropriate to gate-crash at a party or a gathering ? On the same lines, when all is it ok to not give a gift to the people whose party you've come to ? Any purist would say 'never'. But we aren't purists, are we ? We live in the real and messy world where all the boundaries are blurred. So we chalk out our own interpretations for such situations and spread them to one and all like its the gospel truth.

For instance, I'd recently been to a friend's elder brother's marriage. My friend had invited me and a couple of other school friends to the gathering. Now while we were driving to the party, I was a bit uncomfy coz we were going there empty-handed. Till a few years back, when I was a minor(in every sense of the word), I wasn't expected to bring a gift to the party. That was mom and dad's headache. I just had to be there in my best outfit and gorge on all the delicacies and ice-creams. But now, things are different. In 2 yrs, am gonna hit a quarter century (and most probably, have a quarter-life crisis too). So, its expected of me to behave as a responsible 'major' social animal and buying a gift for the bride and groom is part and parcel of this behavioral pattern.

But the rest of my gang were adamant that we need not buy a gift. They say that we need to buy a gift if it is our friend's wedding, but if its his brother's or sister's wedding, we needn't buy anything. They say that the friend should not bother about gifts & presents from us and would be happy just coz we have graced the gathering with our presence :O.....I don't seem to get the reasoning behind this social norm. I mean, I'm being invited, offered free food (and drinks) and in return, I'm expected to wish the bride and groom accompanied with a material offering. Its that simple. Whether its my friend or his brother or a complete stranger. As long as I am invited and I am present at the function, I am supposed to do the needful.

This is just one incident. It becomes worse when one is tagged along to a birthday party or a farewell or a freshers or a completely unrelated party. The place is new, no one knows you, you get a lot of "who the fuck is he ?" stares & you seem to be the only one with no gift in your hand.

A booze party is all the more tricky. Everyone is there for the liquor. And you need to be in a group to get a table to sit and drink. If you're alone, you won't enjoy the liquor and you'll get the stares from the bartender & waiters. Even a guy who's had 15 vodka shots will make out that you're a gate-crasher.

The trade-off is simple. Its the level of uncomfy-ness versus the quality of food and drink that's gonna be available. If the uncomfy-ness is on the lower side, take the risk and go gate crash, no matter how remotely you know the person whose party it is. If its a bit high, then weight the pros and cons and take the plunge :)

71. April 1st

2009-03-31T21:44:00.000-07:00

Well, its All Fools day again. For those who wanna know the reason behind this day being called so, have a look at this :
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aprilfools1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day

Just finished my 3rd term xams yesterday, which officially completes my first year of stay at this place. Its been a year.....Whoosh..... Time just flies. And I'll be flying off to Dubai in a couple of days for my summer intern. I just remembered what I was doing this time last year. Waiting for all the b-skool final results. I'd goto office, open pagalguy and browse through every minimally related thread and would do this for the whole day(with lunch and tea breaks in between...oh, and work too).

Once the group-discussion and Personal Interview stage gets over, all that an aspirant can do is wait. And the wait seems endless. So many post posts on pagalguy, where people write inane insanely repetitive, dumb and retarded stuff.
Thread name : IMT Ghaziabad results 2008-10

Dumbfuck1(Trainee pagal) : The wait is killing me.... :S
FireInMyAss (Major paagal) : I can't wait to end this wait.
MrNoSocialLife (Expert paagal): Hey puys, I talked with college authorities yesterday. They said the results would be declared soon. So chill.
nishu84 : Hi, I am nisha. I am new to PG. I got 97.8 %le and have 2 years work-ex in IBM. Will I get a seat ? When will the results be declared ? (without reading any of the previous posts in the thread)

Wandering aimlessly through PG during the months of March and April is called puy'ing I believe. I'd be reading such stuff all day, seeming busy. My manager and team lead were always at loggerheads with me for not doing my work in time. There were a couple of others too, who'd be doing the same thing. When the results get declared, its hysteria, madness. PG has provided so many kinds of smileys that people make use of each one of them in that one post. There's nothing short of fireworks. Ahh....It all seems to have happened so long back now.

70. Because I'm that bored

2009-03-12T01:13:00.000-07:00

Because I'm *that* bored.

Name: Abhay Krishna
Nickname(s): chris,A.K,A.B.K,abdul,chachi,420, bai babu(i hated this one)

Single or Taken? : ummm....not taken
Sex: Male
Birthday: Nov 24th, every year.
Blood group: O +
Sign: Saggi
Siblings: a brother whoz a bass guitarist
Hair color: Black
Eye color: Brown
Shoe size: 7/8/9....I dunno, somewhere in that range
What are you wearing right now? A striped shirt and a dockers trouser
Where do you live? Hyderabad.
Have You Ever:-given anyone a bath? : nooooooooooooo....(as russell peters says)
bungee jumped? : want to, not yet.
broken the law? : yea, luv it :)
made yourself throw-up? : bad question
gone skinny dipping? : Nope
been in the opposite sex's bathroom? : ummm....hmmm :)
eaten a dog biscuit? : wat !
put your tongue on a frozen pole? : done worse, put it on a hot plate
broken a bone? : Yep...bone, tendon,cartilage,muscle
played truth or dare? : Yes, but always dared
been in a physical fight? : Show me one guy who hasn't been in one
been in a police car? : Took a lift once :P
been on a plane? : Yea...wanna be on a copter
been in a hot tub? : Yep
swam in the ocean? : No way.....i only swim in pools
fallen asleep in college? : I find it hard to sleep in awkward postures....i get very jealous when i see my feloow ppl happily dozing away while the prof pours all that verbal diarrhoea on the class.
Cried when someone died? : No
Flashed someone? : Nah
Lied? : Nope. Dammit, did it again.
Laughed so hard you fell off your chair? : Yea. have fallen off every piece of furniture at least once.
Sat by the phone all night waiting for a call? : Yes....waiting for an sms in fact.
Saved e-mails? : totally
wished you were someone else? : hmm, we all do that.....I wanted to be number 23 (MJ)
wished you were a member of the opposite sex? : Nah
Been rejected? : hmmm
used someone? : hmmm
been cheated on? : Not that I know of.
Done something you regret? : Lots of stuff. I blabber too much.....hav caused a stir or two many-a-times

First Thing That Comes to Mind:-
Yellow: Sun
Blue: Robin blue
Happy: the song 'Egire Egire' (frm the movie KIKK)
Autumn: leaves.....doesnt ring a bell otherwise
Cow: Moooo.....RSS trying to sell cow urine as the new coke

Have you ever had:-

chicken pox? Yes
sore throat? Yes....am having one now
cold? Yea
stitches? Yea
bloody nose? Yea
sex? that's a good build up for this question

Do you:-

believe in love at first sight? : Yea, u're still in love with your mom nd dad rite :P
enjoy parks? : Not quite
like picnics? : Nah....picnics used to be good back in school
ike school? : totally....missin skool like hell
hate anyone? : I'd be damned if i say i don't.

Who:-

is the last person that called you? : Swaroop
makes you laugh the most? : quite a few....off late, its been Mr.OK
can make you feel better no matter what? : Hmmm, that's bit too personal
was the last person you touched? : Bro
you hugged? : Don't quite remember
you yelled at? : Bro
told you they loved you? : Mum

Do You/Are You:-

like yourself? : No :)
dye your hair? : Nope
have piercings below the waist? : eww....gross
stolen anything over $50? : not in cash, but in kind....stole optical mice frm the comp lab.
like ice cream? : wat kind of a question is that ?
Flavor : bavarian chocolate, Place : Softy den
like cold coffee? too expensive
Smoke? uhhhhh.
have beer? : yea
obsessive? : ummm....yeah.
Compulsive? : yea....i hope i get points for all this 'yea' answers
Depressed? : Not quite
suicidal? : Not in the recent past

Random:-

Prized possession: lost it just recently....was in my wallet which got stolen :(
Last thing you said? : hey bro, what's the spelling of 'bass' as in a bass guitar ?
"What is beside you? : a guitar, some dvds, lots of orbit chewing gum(un-used), a dictionary, a novel, a pen drive, guitar stubs, playing cards on the floor....man, this place is a mess
Last thing you ate? : murukulu..yumm
Are you right handed or lefty? Right
Favourite song: I can see clearly now - Johnny Nash
Worst thing that has happened to you this year: Losing my wallet...had lots of good stuff, lucky charms in it :(

Time started: 12:44 pm
Time finished: 1:13 pm

To share my boredom, am tagging ppl hu r equally bored.

Ginny
Satish
Puneet

69. b-skool cartoon strip - 3

2009-03-08T05:08:00.000-07:00

Frequency mis-match

Lateral thinking

Room-mates

68. A guest's dilemma

2009-03-06T09:45:00.000-08:00

I was a guest at 5 more places on my 3-city trip....Nowhere did I feel as out of place. When you're a guest at someone's place, you expect that certain someone to stay by your side(for a major chunk of the time) during the short stint(of time) that you are there(in this case, 4hrs)....Isn't this the norm, the way things are supposed to be in the civilized world. But what I saw there was something different. The host, who stayed along with two others(and had two regular visitors then at their place then....and I knew none of them before hand) expected me to like gel in with the group on my own. Reluctant to do something that I'm not used to doing, I kept mum for most of the time, keeping meaningless chatter to the minimal and just watched the television for most of the time(yea, they had a TV with cable :D). Yea, the host had to divide attention amongst the two other visitors and me, but the division dint exactly work in my favour.

Was it expected of me to open-up to the whole bunch there and do instant-socializing? Is this the new norm? Have I missed a few decades of evolution here? Has there been a progressive shift in the train of social thought? I have been living in urban India all my life, so I guess I should have caught up with any trend that has started. For instance, no one uses email anymore, its all orkut and facebook. Its all debit and credit cards, no more cheques and DDs and plain cash.Its all DVDs and blue-rays, no more CDs and floppies.....I've managed to keep up with most of the trends. I wonder how I missed this one.hmmm....May be I'm just crazy.

67. b-skool cartoon strip - 2

2009-02-13T11:54:00.001-08:00

I thought I'd start V-day on a rebellious note. So posting some more of my insane cartoon strips.

Class Birthday Fund

Dare to think !

The ideal b-skool interview

A life

Priceless

66. Survival versus Morality

2009-02-05T07:48:00.000-08:00

A scene from the movie 'My fair lady'.

Mr.Dolittle is Eliza's father(a labourer who is seldom able to make both ends meet), while Colonel Pickering is the one(along with Higgins) who wants to give Eliza lessons in phonetics so that she can live like a lady and commands respect. In this respect, he wants to keep Eliza in his home for 6 months, and is having a conversation with her father regarding this issue.

Mr.Dolittle : If you want the girl, I ain't so set on 'avin' her home again.......but what I might be open to is an arrangement. All I ask is my rights as a father.You're the last man alive to expect me to let her go for nothing. I can see you'rea straight sort, Governor. So...what's a five pound note to you? An' what's Eliza to me?

Mr.Pickering : I think you should know, Doolittle...that Mr. Higgins' intentions are entirely honorable.

Mr.Dolittle : Of course they are, Governor.If I thought they wasn't, I'd ask for 50.

Mr.Pickering : You mean, you'd sell your daughter for pounds? Have you no morals, man?

Mr.Dolittle : No, I can't afford 'em, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me.Not that I mean any 'arm, but......if Eliza is gonna have a bit out o' this, why not me, too? Why not? Look at it my way. What am l?I ask ya, what am l? I'm one o' the undeserving poor, that's what I am. Think what that means to a man. It means he's up against middle-class morality for all the time.If there's anything goin' an' I ask for a bit of it, it's always the same story: '"You're undeservin', so you can't have it.'" But my needs is as great as the most deservin' widows that ever got money......out of six different charities in one week for the death o' the same 'usband. I don't need less than a deservin' man, I need more. I don't eat less 'earty than he does and I drink...a lot more.I'm playin' straight with you. I ain't pretendin' to be deservin'. No, I'm undeservin'......and I mean to go on bein' undeservin'.I like it an' that's the truth. But will you take advantage of a man's nature......do him out of the price of his own daughter, what he's brought up......fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow......till she's growed big enough to be interestin' to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable, I put it to you? And I leave it to you.

This tells us a lot about morality and survival. The poor cant afford to have morals. Survival is their basic instinct.I particularly found this issue interesting coz I am having a course on ethics right now, and I am always at a fix while deciding what is right and what is not. But this case makes it clear cut. Survival is the biggest driving force, ethics and morality have to take a back seat. Hell, we procreate so that our gene survives even after we expire. Te miracle of life is meant to be celebrated. But if we are in no position to continue living, then being ethical and dying is not the answer. Be smart, greedy, selfish, stealthy. Or as James Bond once said, 'Live today, to die another day'.

65. Women

2009-01-23T21:23:00.000-08:00

A stand-up bit done by Jerry. Hilarious to say the least.

JERRY(at the night-club) : I swear, I have absolutely no idea what women are thinking. I don't get it, OK? I, I, I admit, I, I'm not getting the signals. I am not getting it! Women, they're so subtle, their little...everything they do is subtle...men are not subtle, we are obvious. Women know what men want, men know what men want, what do we want? We want women, that's it!...It's the only thing we know for sure, it really is: we want women. How do we get them? Oh, we don't know 'bout that, we don't know. The next step after that we have no idea. This is why you see men honking car-horns, yelling from construction sites. These are the best ideas we've had so far.

The car-horn-honk, is that a beauty? Have you seen men doing this? What is this? The man is in the car, the woman walks by the front of the car, he honks: [imitates horn] e-eeehh, eehhh, eehhh, this man is out of ideas. How does it...? [imitates horn again] e-e-e-eeeehhhh, "I don't think she likes me"

The amazing thing is, that we still get women, don't we. Men, I mean, men are with women. You see men with women. How are men getting women, many people wonder. Let me tell you a little bit about our organization. "Where ever women are?", we have a man working on the situation right now. Now, he may not be our best man, OK, we have a lot of areas to cover, but someone from our staff is on the scene...That's why, I think, men get frustrated, when we see women reading articles, like: "Where to meet men?". We're here, we are everywhere. We're honking our horns to serve you better.

64. Investment

2009-01-23T21:02:00.000-08:00

This is something Jerry Seinfeld said in 1990, which in the wake of this liquidity crisis seems so true and common-sensical.

JERRY: I'm not an investor. People always tell me, you should have your money working for you. I've decided I'll do the work. I'm gonna let the money relax. You know what I mean? 'Cause you send your money out there - working for you - a lot of times, it gets fired. You go back there, "What happened? I had my money. It was here, it was working for me." "Yeah, I remember your money. Showing up late. Taking time off. We had to let him go."

63. The un-said

2009-01-17T13:20:00.000-08:00

What's left unsaid stays in the mind and haunts us from time to time. And as more and more things are left unsaid, the clutter builds up, increasing the levels of mental unrest.

This gyaan from a movie called 'Little Manhattan', a really cute little story about a 10-year old new yorker's first love.

Come to think of it, there is always a lot that's left unsaid. Unless everything goes right, we do tend to not say the intended, as it is bound to sound out of place. Sometimes, the unsaid gets said, under unforseen circumstances. Lets look at some ways in which the unsaid somehow gets said (atleast in the movies).

Alcohol
The reason why alcohol probably is a major success world-over, is coz it helps you to get over your inhibitions and say the unsaid. Most daring of confessions happen after a few large pegs of whisky sink in.

Time
Time kills, Time heals, Time keeps ticking away. Lack of time puts one in a position to reveal or say something that could have waited for a wee bit longer otherwise. Time is a tricky thing, people make promises without taking into account, it's unpredictable nature. When the girl is gonna be gone for a while, the guy gets very limited time, so he feels that he needs to change to the 'fast-forward' mode so as to take the relationship to the next stage.

Family
The most influential social group, these people can at times also be the ones who push you to your limits, which makes you say things which you'd always wanted to but never intended to.

Messengers/Letters
What cant be said is sometimes written or typed. Letters are a much safer option, since its one-sided. Saying the unsaid on the messengers can create quite a weird situation. Suppose the unsaid is said, then there'll be some discussion on the topic. One person may be more eager than the other for an answer, building up anxiety and frustration. Typing speeds are never good when complicated issues are handled. So the sender takes his/her own sweet time thinking of the right words while the reciever waits at the other end staring at the 'sender123 is typing...' message on top of the sender's chat window. What messes up the situation further is if one of the two get disconnected due to a network failure or a power failure, which in our country is a daily occurence.

Ok, so much for the reasons. Why do we have things left unsaid ? The right place and the right time always elude the right dialogue. We later ponder over the timing and the content of the dialogue that had to be delivered. We evaluate the merit of not having said a thing with the consequences if we had said it. Psychologists make a living out of hearing the unsaid. What we cant tell to the rest of the world, we tell to our shrink. The shrink is a 'you' outside yourself. They wont tell you what's right or wrong, rather, they'll help you weigh your options and take better decisions. If the mind is stable enough, one can assume the shrink's role oneself, cant one ?

Ok, this one's gone haywire, lets just leave the rest of the clutter in my mind for the time being. Some things have to be unsaid right :)

This article is put up on - www.themag.in

62. Slumdog Millionaire

2009-01-05T06:01:00.000-08:00

The movie starts off with Jamal(Dev Patel, our slumdog err protagonist) being tortured in a jail cell. The belief is that this young chai-wallah cheats on 'Who wants to be a Millionaire'(hosted by Anil Kapoor) and answers all the quesitons right, which makes him a slumdog millionaire overnight. The lives and hardships in the slums of Bombay have been captured in some great sequences, as we run through Jamal's childhood in the flashback (for those of you who dint know this, Dharavi is Asia's biggest slum). How Jamal gets to know of the answers for the questions is cleverly intertwined while describing his past. He gets on the show not to win the millions, but to get a chance to be seen by his long-lost childhood love Lathika(played by Freida Pinto).

The child protagonists (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Ayush Mahesh Khedekar) are splendidly natural, the first quarter of the movie is by-far the most gripping. The movie has those distinct 'Danny Boyle trademark' moments and they hit the bullseye each time. The plot does have some holes, and gets a bit too Bollywoodish at times. The ten year olds start speaking about destiny, join mob gangs rather effortlessly and also manage to find and pull Lathika(Freida) out of the red-light area with great ease. Anil Kapoor does a great job playing the smug show host. He brings with him an air of sophistication, pomp and snobbery to the show.

The mellifluous background scores splendidly blend in with the screenplay, cant believe that Subhash Ghai rejected the 'O Sara' OST for his Yuvraj(I can spell it only this way, am sorry, i dont type extra unnecessary alphabets). The Danny Boyle - John Hodge pair would have handled this subject better and made it more impactful than it already is. Its high time they re-join as a team and bring to us another marvel like 'The Beach'. Trainspotting still is Danny Boyle's best movie till date. Slumdog comes a close third, after "The Beach'.

This article is put up on - www.themag.in

61. The New Year

2008-12-31T07:57:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-26T05:02:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-01T06:13:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-16T12:21:00.001-08:00

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

2008-10-06T01:05:00.001-07:00

Some gyan :

Two b-school guys talkin nonsense is the essence.

'Passions' is IMT's cult cum b-fest.

Read on.

56. Video games

2008-09-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

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 !

2008-08-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-07-29T01:43:00.000-07:00

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.,

2008-07-22T11:03:00.001-07:00

'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

2008-07-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-01T03:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-21T03:13:00.000-07:00

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 :)

49. Fag-a-holics

2008-05-19T01:35:00.001-07:00

This is a sect of ppl who will conjure up the most dumb-fuck reason in the world to light up a fag and have a smoke.

Disclaimer : Fag1 and Fag2 are just two real numbnuts who could have studied in the same college, could have stayed in the same hostel or have worked in the same place. Resemblance to any real world characters is inevitable.

Scene 1 :
At the food court .
Fag1 - It was very a heavy lunch.
Fag2 - Yea. I feel so full, lets go for a fag.

Scene 2 :
Fag1 (to Fag2 in the hostel at 3 AM)
Fag1 - Not able to sleep macha. Having a slight headache.
Fag2 - Lets go to the 'galla' near Fun world. It opens at 4. We'll have chai and fags, will make you feel better.
Fag1 - Okie. But you got one fag on you now ?
Fag2 - Yea, but its a Kings. You only smoke Milds na.
Fag1 - At 3 AM, any fag is godly :)

Scene 3 :
While watching an Edward Norton movie on the comp at home.
(Fag1 thinks) Wow, Norton surely knows how to take a puff. Lemme try and do the same.

Scene 4 :
A month before the CAT examination.
Fag1 - I am very tensed about the exam. I am sure i'll screw it up.
Fag2 - Haan yaar, me too. My vocab is very weak.
Fag1 - Chal, lets forget about all this and go have a fag.
Fag2 - Nice.

Scene 5 :
A month after the CAT examination.
Fag1 - I am very tensed about the results. I think i haven't done well enough.
Fag2 - Haan yaar, me too. My vocab section dint go that well.
Fag1 - Chal, lets forget about all this and go have a fag.
Fag2 - Nice.

Scene 6 :
One fine Friday morning.
Fag1(calls up Fag2) - Hey. I am having a party tonite at my place. You should come.
Fag2 - Who else have you called ?
Fag1 - Why? You want me to 'not' call someone.
Fag2 - Precisely. Lets discuss it over a couple of fags and tea this evening.
Fag1 - Bingo.

Scene 7 :
Fag2 comes Fag1's place.
Fag2 - Got any smokes.
Fag1 - I quit.
Fag2 - You're kidding me. Lets buy off and smoke off bey.
Fag1 - Alrite. I'll go buy us one pack. Milds right ?
Fag2 - Righto.

Scene 8 :
Outside a restaurant .
Fag1 - Now this is what i like about this place. Every good restaurant should have a very good pan-shop close by. I love to have a Davidoff after a meal.
Fag2 - Have never tried a Davidoff.
Fag1 - It's just bliss...Feels like drops of honey, its so smooth.You should try.
Fag2 - I just had one Milds. But what the heck, gimme one.

Scene 9 :
Outside the office building(while having a drag)
Fag1 - We had a fag just an hour back. Looks like you have no work.
Fag2 - There's no work these days yaar. And when you don't have work na, you tend to smoke more. I have to reduce the frequency somehow.

Scene 10 :
Fag1 and Fag2 are waiting in a huge line at the railway reservation counter.
Fag1 - I am very hungry bey. Cant wait in this queue for even a second more. I need to eat something proper now.
Fag2 - Go have a fag and come back. It suppresses appetite well.
Fag1 - Does it ?
Fag2 - Try it once and then you'll know.
Fag1 - Ok. You hold my place in the queue, i'll be right back after a fag.

Scene 11 :
One fine morning, Fag1 and Fag2 have a bet.
Fag1 - I bet you that you cant quit.
Fag2 - Alrite. Lets bet a 100 bucks ok. You should give me 5 chances, not one more. In my attempt to quit, I may have 5 more fags in the near future. Agreed!
Fag1 - As yo want it. Take the 5 chances. But if you take one fag more, you lose the bet.
Fag2 - Ok. Its a deal.
The same evening, Fag2 calls Fag1.
Fag2 - Hi da. Can I have 5 more chances ?
Fag1 - hahahahahahahahaaaaaaa

48. The tale of a troubled phone 'callee'

2008-04-25T23:26:00.000-07:00

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'

2008-02-23T20:43:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-23T04:02:00.000-08:00

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)

45. 'I dont have'

2007-12-22T12:46:00.000-08:00

After two months of being in a new job in a new city, I was gonna have my first break. Was on my way to the bus station to board an APSRTC 'Hi-tech' semi-sleeper to goto Hyd(home sweet home). I made a brief halt at a stall outside the bus station to buy some mineral water and snacks for the trip. The moment i turned around to head for my bus, a beggar stood in my way. He had his palms stretched out and gave me the 'I am a poor guy, give me something' look.

In a hurry, I just told him - "Sorry, mere paas dene ke liye kuch nahin hai".("Sorry, I have nothing to give").To which he replied - "Kya saab, khaane ke liye khaana hai, peene ke liye paani hai, aur aap bolthe ho ki kuch nahin hai".("You have food to eat and water to drink, and you go on to tell me that you have nothing"). For a moment, I was stunned, but dint react and headed for the bus stop.

A few friends from another software company(read:Lynch-fosys) who were boarding another bus in the same station came to meet me.

Friend1 (f1) - You've not just put on weight, you've put on volume dude !
Me- Yea, one of the many plus points of being in a software job.
Friend 2 (f2) - Hows your job?
Me - Training just got over. They're screwing us so much and paying us so little.
f1 - Same here da. I am neck deep in debts.
Me - What did you do to get yourself into this mess.
f1 - Well, bought an iPod. A digi-cam for my sis, an MP3 player for my cousin and finally bought a bike for 60K.
f2 - Even I'm thinking of getting a Blackberry and a lappy soon.
Me - Oh my. and you say you're getting paid less.
f1 - Dont tell me that you dont have any such plans.
Me - Well yes. Have to fulfill a big wishlist that's waiting for me at home.
f1 - And you say you have 'very little'.

Even though that friend told the last line in passing, it really did ring a bell. Why did i crib about not getting paid well? Why could'nt i see the comforts that the new job had provided me with, the purchasing power that it gave me(I mean, it is after all,a 5 figure salary, even if its on the lower half of the lower side, it still is reasonable).

I get to Hyd, take an auto from the bus station. The afternoon traffic being on the high side, the auto had to move at a snail's pace for a long time. There was a huge traffic jam at a place, the reason for the jam was the installation of digital meters for all the autos in the city.

Me - Is there only one place in the city where this installation is being done?
Auto Driver (AD) - Hau saab. Look at the number of autos that are parked in and around the area. It took me two days to get a meter for my auto.
Me - That's very wrong. But its good in a way that proper digital meters are there in all autos.
AD - Kya saab. how much will an auto fellow cheat a customer with a tampered meter. 'Ek rupiye pe bees paise bhi nahin bantha saab'.
Me - At least you ppl speak of meters here. There in bangalore, its all flat rates. they charge such high rates and they wont take a customer if he's goin for a short distance.
AD - Wahi saab. Auto driving has become very cheap in people's eyes nowadays. Think of it from our perspective once. We never eat on time, we dont get to spend any time with our families, stand in queues all night at the gas filling stations. With the soaring petrol and gas prices, what will we get from the fare that you pay us by the meter. How do you think we should live without getting that little extra. And once I drop you off, you think i'll immediately get a customer. I'll surely have to go another 2-3 kilometers without a customer. How do you think we people should run families with lives like this saab....

These small conversations made me a have new perspective on what all 'I have' and have taken for granted thus far.

Reminds me of a line from a Phil Collins song - "Oh think twice. It's just another day for you and me in paradise."

44. A nick-flashback - 2

2007-11-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

Well, this post is to prove that my creativity/sanity is still in place, that the assimilation programme(read: brainwashing) at my office has'nt corrupted my grey cells. Yes, it wont be as funny as the last one, coz of the absence of Jj's and Sj's, But it'll be worth the while. Lemme start off in a pious fashion, by giving another small tidbit about our very own Pope. This is what someone wrote abt him, picked it up from orkut.

Pope -

Good Thing : He's the only person who has no good thing abt him. So in a way, that's unique.

Bad Thing : Ok Guys the list is going to be a long one. ya i knw topic was abt only one bad thing but this guy sucks like hell.
1.) I mean for god sake's, Moorthy's post is above him and he replies with a post for Abhay Krishna. How GAY Is tht?
2.) This guy had something going with his last roomie Anil Mohan too, that's cheating ..having two partners ...right..
3.) Can't understand a damn word of wtf language he speaks. Can't understand his HIndi, engish or telegu. Where r u frm Praveen. Not from this planet at least.
4.) Biggest farter in the Coll. I mean guys are shiftin their room due to him.
5.) I dont think he has taken a bath since this year Techfest.
Chalo thts enough for now..

...........Nice way to begin a post na :)

Don - 'vasakolla', 'bengagaandu', 'academic representative', 'kanakam', 'konda naluka kostha', 'Naveen Francis'.......He hails from 'the Lands of Rahul sharma alias Java alias eamcet 79'. Easily the most famous personality among the telugu gang in coll. The last update i got was that he was sent back from TI to Mindtree for having an illicit affair with a 60-year old guy who cleans the floors there.

Pepe - No, he dint get his name coz of his Pepe jeans. 'Pepe' when expanded was meant to be read as 'porno people'. Its a race of ppl who shoot mallu porn using hidden cams. We r proud to say that our Pepe was the inspiration for the blossoming of a hugenumber of bright young enthusiastic mallu porn movie makers. We found out about his hidden occupation through a sting operation of our own. How it all started is a story which goes like this (this was back in sem 1).

pandu - arey pepe, what do u do all day? you never come out to play.
pepe - nothing yaar. i just sit in the room, do nothing.
pandu - hey, why dont u shoot pron with a cam?
pepe - wow, cool idea :D

..........And the rest is history.

Miss 'pointed' - Swear to god, i overheard prateek say this once. 'Arey yaar, woh bahut ajeeb si dikhti hai. uski naak pointed, uske boobs pointed, sab kuch pointed pointed hai'...roflol

Sam - movies ante Sam . songs ante Sam. AWP ante Sam. dope ante Sam. Club 8 ante Sam :) We're die-hard snakey fans. I'd dance madly to the tune of 'keechurallu' , a song that always played in his room.

Laggie - Picture this. A guy who looks at the monitor(comp screen) with the same intensity, be it an embedded systems lecture, or a 'Charmy' picture, or a video file from the folder 'Bhaktha Prahalad'.......would you believe that the same guy dozed off in the middle of a sizzling 'aria giovanni' video ! Well, that's laggie for you. sleeps while watching pron, watches pron in his sleep. His 'shoban babu ring' pic is still the highest rated pic in 'Dobbudu gang'.

Bongu - The tallest, the loudest,the unluckiest....many superlatives get attached to this fellow. He's got the shortest roommate too :P The both of us have just completed a 6-month course on 'how to sustain and survive prolonged assrape and molestation', taken by a beloved psycho prof whoz got a daughter who happens to be a 'tooth fairy'.

Potti - Has got the tallest roommate :P This guy couldnt tell orange from yellow after getting a high. Very well known are his angry outbursts. Karthik oops Creek god used to say "I've stopped telling him jokes. Coz the moment i do, he'd ask me questions,logical doubts about the joke." Guru clan dint win a single match when he was the leader :P

Cheeni meeni - Everyone loves to hate her. She and bongu were a killer combo. She'd start of every sentence with 'Hey Manoharrrrr'..... She'd speak to him in rhymes. Here's one rhyme i heard her say.

Cheeni meeni miney moe,
Oh bongu, come near, i'll give u a hot blow.

Tarak-ovski - 'Taradov', 'taraka-LAM', 'COP-ratna','Tiki-pedia','kama tarara' ...the list is endless. He'd speak his mind always, which, in the case of an average man is very good. But when taraka speaks his mind, its Apocalypse now. When someone asked him 'How do we get medicine from the net?' , he replied - 'Take the LAN wire and shove it up your ass. You'll get the medicine.' He'd get multiple orgasms after solving physics problems from Irodov . Potu would remember the instance where 'Tiki' started laughing out loud and yelling "mee SEN project dengipoyindhi...hoo hoo...hoo". The room was full of ppl and everyone burst out laughing.

Guess who - Lets call him 'stud' for the time being. Here are some of his conversations. (the material below is totally authentic, no fabrication whatsoever).

Palkol - 'How did you get to the exam center so early, Did you know the route before hand?'
Stud - I used 'Wiki-maps' to get here.

Sagar - I think i need to learn a musical instrument.
Bongu - good idea.
(stud enters the room)
Sagar - May be i should learn the keyboard.
Stud - 'enti raa, neeku typing raadha ?'

psr - Your room gets a good amount of breeze mama.
Stud - that is because its located in such a direction that we get the north-easterly winds.

Taradov - babu bai, nuvvu tamilian kadha.
Me - avunu.
Stud - ela cheppesaavu raa vaadu tamilian ani. naaku theliyaledhu asalu. Tamilians oka area lo unnara leraa ani thelusukovadaaniki oka 'tamilian sensor' thayaaru cheyali ra.

(Stunning silence followed each of the above conversations)

Redeye - "Who is this Akshay morrthy? He sends me an e-mail saying 'the redeye is watching'. Call him here. I'll change the color of his eyes, make it black or blue."...said Baba. And this is how he got one of the most famous nicks in our college's history. He's at his best when he's having a head-on with Pope. To one of Pope's frivolous meaningless arguments, he replied by saying 'What a waste of protoplasm!'. Boy, that was a killer comment :)

Santa - Let me end this post by giving to all of you, Santa. He coached our batch's women's cricket team. He guided them to their first victory, for which he was showered with bumps from Miss Doubtfire and co. Urvashi almost planted a kiss on his cheek, but he escaped by sliding through her legs.

'Redeye' was peacefully playing his CS when Santa started to bug him, calling him names like 'Lundeye' and stuff like that....Redeye just turned around and said 'Cuntosh' and Santa zipped his lip. Here's how redeye completed his revenge. He wrote this -

santa [henceforth to be referred to as TBCEC - the biggest chut ever conceived] started playing cs here with the name .player

TBCEC played for 2 weeks...he was the worst player i hv ever seen...EVER...ppl made fn of him, but TBCEC dint care

TBCEC being the despo that he is started a server and asked 2 girls [lets call the jane and eyre] to join...the map was awp india...TBCEC pro doesnt know how to zoom with awp...TBCEC got assraped by jane and eyre...awped MULTIPLE times, before he quit the server citing "finger strain"

the very next day...thirsting for revenge, TBCEC challenged jane...who is NOT catwoman to a 1 on 1 in fy_pool_day

it was a very close match...TBCEC used his l337 aim to kill her with shotguns and smgs...poor jane desperately tried to learn the game, beign generously helped on by TBCEC haters club consisting of pretty much every1 other than TBCEC

a couple of rounds into the match, things were getting intense...TBCEC got excited and started looking at the toilets in fy_pool_day....Jane saw this and KNIFED TBCEC...

And this my friends is why all girls at DAKC got motivation to play cs...my best efforts at preventing this and keeping some form of sanctity in the servers failed...and this might well be an unstoppable force unleashed by the dumb prick otherwise known as TBCEC.

--------End of this part-------------

This is where i sign off for now----------comments are mandatory this time :)

43. A nick-flashback

2007-10-25T03:34:00.000-07:00

Well, two weeks in a new city has certainly taken its toll on me. Wearing formals sucks balls. Reporting at 9:10 AM for 5 days a week sucks bats, bails and even the stump microphones :P
Anyways, this heaven to prison transition which my office ppl refer to as 'college to corporate' transition only makes me look back at my 'happy days' in college. Call this an 'insider-post' if u might, but i just thought of bringing together a few really popular/creative nick names which i came across during coll. You'll also find a small description about the person with the nick next to the nick. One very prominent source for nick names was the very popular Counter-strike(CS) . So, lemme start off with a couple of CS nicks.

Tyro and Catwoman - This couple set the whole of DAKC on fire with their 'on-CS-screen' romance. They could just not be kept apart. Even when they were in opposite teams, they'd rush to meet at "mid" and would furiously exchange chat messages, oblivous to all the violence around them. Nowadays, Tyro has a new gal, calls her 'cell-woman'.

Bareily - Great guy. Still calls me 'roomie'. Still combs his hair for hours and hours. Still remembers many of my irritating gestures/mannerisms and faalthu dialogues...Miss u ex-roomie :(

Pulsar - Definitely male ! Back in sem 1,this female had a nice well etched moustache and goatee. Had she not removed them through electrolysis, she'd have surely given Aamir(from DCH) and Edward Norton(Fight club) a run for their money. Nowadays, she's going steady with 'Kaala', who got this nick for obvious reasons.

The G-man - With his intrinsic ability of telling mind-boggling jokes(which were spread far and wide by his alter-ego), he was the reason many a ppl had nerve blocks and temporary brain haemorrages from time to time.

Omg Haxx - "Omg Haxx! Haxx is Saxx"...used to be the chant in every CS server from the moment Haxx would join it. He was a terror with the AK-47. 'smilingdeepu2003' is his yahoo IM. "CAT-rapathi" as he is also called, will forever be remembered for his stellar dialogue "Aaan...pichha kottudu kodatha!".

Pope - Our messaiah. He's touched,or should i say, smudged each one of us at some point or the other during our 4 year stint in college. So many owe him for he was the one to expose them to pron. Started the pron 'brotherhood', gave himself the title of 'pope', took immense unwanted pride in being a bangalore-ian and always thought it fashionable to be late to class(of the very few that he actually attended). My guess is atleast a hundred of us have heard this sentence from him - "What is it that's bothering you, tell me your problem and I'll solve it for you."....'Pope is voodoo....no no...Voodoo is pope', used to be one very popular catch-phrase among CS players. His uninhibited desire to be a part of MIT is known to one and all. the bugger still owes me 200 bucks :x

S.P.A.N.K - 'Sexy Porn Actresses do Nude Kings', is the way Jeevan expanded this acronym. It actually stands for a five-girl group, all of whom tied rakhis to Kumar Raja and another numbskull from Palkol.

Java - You can write an epic on this guy (Java-bharatam).Right from his lund dialogues like "yeh kya chutiyaap hai yaar", to his supporting Congress during rural intern, to his 'cocks...i mean shuttle cocks' fiasco, to his idiotic yahoo IM (rahulsharma1985200), this guy was the butt of umpteen jokes.But he did take it very sportingly.Can recollect one of his geeky jokes. Our Java was walking along the roadside with jeevan when it started raining heavily. Then it came down to a drizzle and finally stopped. To this, Java says "Arey...varsham enti raa, random number generate chesi padipothundhi".

Palkol - This guy used to tell astounding tales about his hometown(which is why , he got this name). He'd say stuff like "In my town, carrots and potatoes are sold at Rs.2 per kg.In my town, condoms fall out of coconut trees.In my town, ppl eat pig rectum to fight impotency." Many a times, I used to wonder whether such a place did exist on earth.

Snakey - coldblood, cayman, ghoul, whitesnake, paganist, Baudrillard, Ponk, snakey....that's his nick name journey. We always loved to bug him, whether he was coldblood or whitesnake or some snake. His high-pitch car-ignition-type sounding laughter was so loud that it used to make ppl from other wings come running to our wing to see what the hell had happened. Creator of the famous phrases like 'a perfect circle' and 'macaroni marlboro', his dot filled orkut scraps, his theories on parallel universes and perpendicular realities are 'beyond-god-like'.

Simply - simply lund, simply jumpy.......This guy thought that life was pretty simple. That is when Miss err Mrs.005 came along and made things smokingly complicated. In agony, heartbroken,he then wrote the masterpiece "Love : It's truth and reality". He used to get a hagnover even before going to sleep(ask LC), I wonder how. One simply joke that comes to mind.

Arun: potta baaga perigindhi neeku....pregnant ayyavaa?
Simply : avunu raa...nee pellam ni dengi pregnant ayyanu !

Potu - If you all dint know, 'Chicken Run' is based on a true life story of a chicken that tries to escape from Potu's farm but fails. From what I hear, the news about 'bird flu' hitting india was actually a scam he planned. He did this to lower the rates of the broiler chicken in South India, so that he could stock up his house with tonnes of farm-fresh chicken.

---------------------The end of this part-----------------comments plz-------------

42. loafer meets cute girl

2007-10-07T22:39:00.001-07:00

cute girl and loafer are good friends. They meet up at a coffee shop one day.

Cute girl - Hey, you’ve put on weight.

loafer - Yea, must be from all the beer I guzzled last night at Lolita’s party. So, how have u been?

Cute girl - (with a glowing smile) I got a job in ‘lynch-fosys’.

loafer - Yeyy, party.

Cute girl - for u, its always a party. Have u ever footed a single bill !

loafer - what to do re. I am jobless na :( And dad has stopped giving me pocket money. Says “you’re 22 now, go earn your own money”.

Cute girl - Alright then. This time, its on me…..anyways, what else is new, mister 22 ?

loafer - Nothing baap. Just loafing around. Hey, let me ask you something. I just got an ugly stare from a girl while I was on my way here.

Cute girl - Did you ogle at her?

loafer - I took just as much as peek at her and then changed direction to look at the traffic signal.

Cute girl - Are you sure you dint give her a prolonged look.

loafer - Alrite. Yes, I did look for more than a second or two. But it was’nt that gulshan grover’s ‘bad man’ look or the prem chopra’s ‘aaja chamiya’ look either. It was an innocent appreciation of nature’s beauty in human form.

Cute girl - Aahh…see there you go.

loafer - What? … are’nt guys allowed take as much as an innocuous look at cute females. She looked really pretty in that black salwar with the make up and the jewels. Had I been in the same situation in a telugu film (me being the hero with my sidekick nearby), I’d have said to him “She’s the one. I am in love”. But its so sad that we’re stuck in reality where the pretty girl gives you a ‘you useless fellow’ stare and walks away.

Cute girl - You deserved it. Why should you even fix a look on a stranger!

loafer - Why? Why cant guys look at girls whom they think are pretty. Why do women then take all the trouble? They sport such immaculate dresses and adorn kilos of make up even when they’ve to goto the supermarket to buy rat-poison.

Cute girl - You see…you’re right in a way. We do dress up and look all pretty so that we are looked at. But we want to be looked at only by those guys whom we want to notice us. We don’t want any and every guy to go around staring at us. Who would want that, tell me.

loafer - Let me get this clear. You want to be looked at, but not by the entire guy-community. You want to be looked at by those select few smart n handsome guys only. It is only their attention that you want to attract.

Cute girl - Exactly. That’s what we want.

loafer - Why how is that possible.

Cute girl - That’s what na. but we manage to get what we want. we use our icy stares and glares to avoid stupid gazes from every ram, karthik and chary.

loafer - My god…..no wonder that no one knows what you ppl want….am far from it….I am gonna start wearing sunglasses from now on, so that I don’t get those icy stares anymore.

Cute girl - Good for you :)

41. Two simple questions

2007-09-17T00:17:00.001-07:00

I am a cheerful and instinctive guy, go by my gut feeling more often than not coz I don’t like to stress the only nerve that’s there in my brain, with too much thinking. Am a bit easy going, happy go lucky and to put it in typical hyd-ie lingo, I ‘take lite’. Boletho, I tend to take things as they come(move on with life) and that I don’t get angry/disappointed/down easily. No, this is’nt an Orkut profile’s ‘about me’ section that I am trying to fill up here. But there surely are two questions which whenever asked make my only nerve swell to twenty four times its normal size! I’ve been troubled by these two questions all thru my life so far, its like they’re two living entities brought into this world to torment me wherever I go. Well, the two questions are

1.What are you doing now ?

2.What are you going to do next/after this ?

Let me see how I answered/should have answered these questions at different stages of my 21 year life thus far.

Primary school

1. What are you doing now son/beta?
This question used to have a ready answer back then. Just tell them that you’re in school and that was all. Generally, no further second line of questioning would ensue, apart from the occasional ‘Did you stand first in class?’ or ‘Are you still scoring a centum in math?’

2.What are you going to do after this?
Well, this seemed a fascinating question back in those days. These were my usual answers
“Am gonna save lots of my pocket money, buy a truck and become a truck driver.”
“Am thinking of robbing Sharma uncle’s Master-card, taking a flight to Sweden and buying the world’s biggest chocolate.”
“Am gonna watch DD-8 all evening everyday, learn about fertilizers and become a farmer.”

I got a lot of attention coz of my innocent yet quirky answers, which I did like to a certain degree.

Secondary school
1. What are you doing now?
Still the same answer. It worked wonders.

2. What are you going to do after this?
The same answers dint seem to work in the same way :( People began to give stares, glares and told me to get serious. Was told to get an ambition, to have a goal, a vision, a Nintendo Game-boy (oops no, but I did think of getting one for myself :) ). Anyways, then began my search for that elusive ambition, that one quirky and intelligent answer which would get me back the attention I used to get. Those were testing times. Any answer I gave, always followed with it, a complicated second line of questions which I never had any clue about. I used to just nod when the very people who used to ask those questions gave the answers and asked me to think a little more. Well, lets be fair, I was still a kid. I loved playing my video games, my gully cricket and watching my cartoons on tv. I loved quizzing but that was all. I dint have any ambition. But I was too apprehensive to tell this to anyone. Always stuck to the same “I wanna be an architect” or “I wanna be an air-host” crap whenever asked.

Before professional college
After school, I was made to choose the science stream, but I had no qualms. Anything was ok with me. Was made to prepare for the barrage of engineering entrance examinations (I dint know why I was doing what I was doing) and finally, I managed to enter the engineering stream.

1. What are you doing now?
“Well, I have just completed my intermediate (+2). I dint get thru to IIT. Wrote another exam for a certain DA-IICT in gandhinagar and will take admission there.”

This used to be followed by so many irritating comments. “Oh! Dhirubhai Ambani institute ehh. You’re future is secure with Reliance now.”...... “That old man has created a fantastic empire!”...... “Will you be able to study in gandhinagar? I mean, its so far away, how will you go?”

Irrespective of the comment, I used to nod my head and give a rising smile which usually made the other person think that I actually applauded/approved of his comment and he/she used to stop pestering me further.

2. What are you going to do next?
By this time, even though I’d realized that it was no longer possible to be a farmer or a truck driver, I also realized that I dint know what I wanted to do next (and that was kinda perplexing at times). So I thought of doing what we as Indians do best – ‘follow the crowd’. Yea, I wanted to be a software engineer now, like every other gult and tam in town. I was gonna top in all my engineering courses, become a deadly programmer and own Microsoft by the age of 30. Somehow, this answer seemed to please many of my admirers.

After professional college
Realization dawns that I aint fit to be an engineer, but somehow have graduated to become a farzi-neer. Somehow managed to get a first class and get out of that hell hole alive.

1. What are you doing now?
“You remember the long breaks one has between major jumps during one’s student life, the after-10th grade holidays, the after-12^th grade holidays? I am having a similar massive 4 month holiday now. Am doing nothing, absolutely nothing and I am loving every minute of it.” Well, this hasn’t gone down very well with many. All they say is “how is it that you are not doing anything? People are flying off to the U.S, joining jobs, opening brothels…but they’re doing something!”
Oh yeah. I’m doing something alrite. I’m taking car-driving lessons. Even though I’ve almost driven the test vehicle into an open drain twice till now, my instructor is dead sure that I will get my license to kill by next Monday. Also, I’ve created an aromatic oil. Some of my coconut oil fell into an open pineapple jam jar accidentally and the rest is history. It’s a got a refreshing smell. You shud try it.

2. What are you going to do next?
Have a job to join in a month now. And yea, I am still following the crowd. No. I am not rushing off to the U.S coz its become more like India than India itself. Am being made to write all these management institute entrance exams coz my well-wishers think I am brainy. My current answer to this question is “I am thinking of doing an MBA from a top b-skool” - which again seems to go well with the people.

But actually, I still don’t know what to do. I don’t have an ambition. Is it a curse? I’ve done reasonably well so far without one. Is it a blessing in disguise?

40. 'Chak de' Chakvetadze

2007-09-08T02:33:00.000-07:00

Is'nt she pretty.....wats more, she's a die-hard AC Milan fan :)

39. Shame on the media

2007-08-27T21:03:00.000-07:00

Thought I should also contribute to this effort by sharing this piece.

A MUST READ.......
Dear Editors of HT, TOI, Indian Express and The Hindu, I got the mail below from a friend of mine and following the unwritten code of conduct, I am forwarding it to my friends but all efforts of people who have been forwarding this mail would go waste if this mail doesn't reach YOU......

Something to think about..!!

Shame on Indian Media??? Really what a shame...

By the time u guys read this news, the body of Major Manish Pitambare, who was shot dead at Anantnag, would have been cremated with full military honors.

On Tuesday, this news swept across all the news channels 'Sanjay Dutt relieved by court'. 'Sirf Munna not a bhai' '13 saal ka vanvaas khatam' 'although found guilty for possession of armory, Sanjay can breath sigh of relief as all the TADA charges against him are withdrawn' Then many personalities like Salman Khan said 'He is a good person. We knew he will come out clean'. Mr Big B said "Dutt's family and our family have relations for years he's a good kid. He is like elder brother to Abhishek". His sister Priya Dutt said "we can sleep well tonight. It's a great relief"

In other news, Parliament was mad at Indian team for performing bad; Greg Chappell said something; Shah Rukh Khan replaces Amitabh in KBC and other such stuff. But most of the emphasis was given on Sanjay Dutt's "phoenix like" comeback from the ashes of terrorist charges. Surfing through the channels, one news on BBC startled me. It read "Hisbul Mujahidin's most wanted terrorist 'Sohel Faisal' killed in Anantnag , India .. Indian Major leading the operation lost his life in the process. Four others are injured.

It was past midnight , I started visiting the stupid Indian channels, but Sanjay Dutt was still ruling. They were telling how Sanjay pleaded to the court saying 'I'm the sole bread earner for my family', 'I have a daughter who is studying in US' and so on. Then they showed how Sanjay was not wearing his lucky blue shirt while he was hearing the verdict and also how he went to every temple and prayed for the last few months. A suspect in Mumbai bomb blasts, convicted under armory act...was being transformed into a hero.

Sure Sanjay Dutt has a daughter; Sure he did not do any terrorist activity. Possessing an AK47 is considered too elementary in terrorist community and also one who possesses an AK47 has a right to possess a pistol so that again is not such a big crime; Sure Sanjay Dutt went to all the temples;
Sure he did a lot of Gandhigiri but then........ ...

Major Manish H Pitambare (who is from our very own city Thane,was residing near makhmali talao,who was just like one of us some years ago a former student of maharashtra Vidyalay,Thane) got the information from his sources about the terrorists' whereabouts. Wasting no time he attacked the camp, killed Hisbul Mujahidin's supremo and in the process lost his life to the bullets fired from an AK47. He is survived by a wife and daughter (just like Sanjay Dutt) who's only 18 months old.

Major Manish never said 'I have a daughter' before he took the decision to attack the terrorists in the darkest of nights. He never thought about having a family and he being the bread earner. No news channel covered this since they were too busy hyping a former drug addict, a suspect who's linked to bomb blasts which killed hundreds. Their aim was to show how he defied the TADA charges and they were so successful that his conviction in possession of armory had no meaning. They also concluded that his parents in heaven must be happy and proud of him.

Parents of Major Manish are still living and they have to live rest of their lives without their beloved son. His daughter won't ever see her daddy again. Finally Major Manish, to my generation is a greater hero, someone who laid his life in the name of this great nation.

So guys, please forward this message around so that the media knows which news to give importance, as it is a shame for us since this Army Major's death news was given by a foreign TV channel!!!

If you believe in it, don't feel shy in sharing it.

38. Minglish

2007-08-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I have this habit of switching languages during a conversation. One sentence will be in English, the other in hindi, the next in telugu and the very next in the hyderabadi ‘kaiku’ slang lang. I can’t help it, it’s become a habit. I’ve grown up in an extremely cosmopolitan surrounding and this lang-switch is one of the prominent observed side-effects. A college friend of mine (a purist in many ways), once heard me have a multi-lango conversation with my brother on the phone and was astonished to say the least. “You never stuck to one single language. You kept changing it every sentence. Your bro must be having a tough time understanding whatever u had to say. Wait till I tell this to everyone in the group, they’ll pull your leg till you leave college” (which they apparently did, but its only now when I’ve left college that I realize how much I miss the fun of all those leg-pulling sessions).

Anyways, I’ve come to observe another very prevalent speaking pattern amongst different age groups, which is much more harmful and harder to understand when compared to my multi-lango syndrome. It’s the use of ‘Minglish’. Well, this is a term I’ve coined, and its gonna take some time defining it completely. But here’s a short description of what Minglish is. You see, there are some ppl who involuntarily think in regional languages(mostly their mother tongues) and translate their thought out in English while speaking. Now the problem is that not many of them take the trouble to semantically transform the thought into English before giving it out, they just take the thought in the regional language, replace each word with the closest possible match in English and then blurt it out. The result is a hotch-potch lingo which gets very hard to digest for any purist or a lover of the language. Some use it because they feel speaking in English enhances their position in a group (I call them bloody dumb fuck wannabes). There are others who are forced to speak English as a part of protocol( in offices, schools etc – my sympathies with them). And there are these others who just speak English for the heck of it. People of all ages are using Minglish inadvertently. I hear it wherever I go. It’s hilarious most of times.

Let me give you a few examples of Minglish and how prevalent it is (in hyd atleast) -->

- Was on my way to a temple in a bus when I observed two college going guys talking to each other.
First guy : hey, when does the matinee show in Tivoli theater start ?
Second guy : Now only rey !! We’ll have to go quickly. ( the thought : In hindi – ‘abb heeech shuru hora rey’)

- Was in a restaurant, was waiting for my order to be served. It had already been a half an hour and I was getting impatient. I called the waiter and said -
Me : Excuse me. Have you forgotten my order.
Waiter : No saaaaab. For such a biiiig order, it takes some time no. If you cant wait for that much time also, then what I can do, tell me! ( the thought : In hindi – “nahin sahib. Bade order ke liye thoda waqt lagtha naa. Uthna bhi sabar nahin kar sakthe aap toh main kya kar saktha hoon aap hi boliye !” )

- A 22+ female who has just reached the US writes this scrap to her brother who is back here in India. – “Hey bro, take my number. It is 0091-xxxx…. And I tried so much to call your phone. You dint pick up only!!!”. ( the thought : In hindi – “kitna try kiya, tumne uthaaya hi nahin !” )

- Was dropping my cousin sister off to school (she’s a fourth grader) when we had this small conversation.
Me : Hey, look at that girl there. You should have long hair like her.
Sis : Whyyyyie ?? My hair is not big aaaa ? (the word she thought in her thought : telugu word – ‘kadha’ or the tamil word – ‘illaya’ )

- The movie ‘The Angrez’ has this character called lakshmi who talks pure Minglish. Here’s one of her dialogues.
Lakshmi : “Arey smitha, don’t go even near those NRI boys. When I went to their room no, they were doing something something!” ( the thought : In telugu – “arey smitha, aa NRI poragalla deggara kuda vellaku. Valla room ki vellanu kadha, appudu vallu yememoo chestunnaru !” or as we popularly say in hyd – “woh logaan kya kya ki kar rahe the udhar !!” )

- Me and my frens from college use the ‘–off ’ language a lot.
Come off rey ! (the thought : In hindi – “aaja rey” ) - the word ‘off’ is used just to fill the blank space in the thought.
Lets smoke some fags off rey!
Is that switch on? Off it off rey!

- I call my bro up to tell him to tell mom that I’d be watching a movie and eating outside in the night. He responds in this way - “Arey kaka. Don’t do langa works like this. Come home straight !!”. ( the thought : In telugu – “arey kaka, ilaanti langa panulu emi cheyyaku. seedha intiki raa” )

- A school teacher, while checking homework books said this. “hey boy. Quickly, open your this one and show me your that one !!!”. (the intention – “open your bag and show me your homework book” :D )

- A telugu movie called “Aaha” has this sequence where Chandra Mohan talks to a deaf old chap during a death ceremony.
Old guy : do you know how she died ?
Ch Mhn : ya, she died of heart attack it seems. ( the thought : In telugu – “heart attack vachhi poyindhi anta” )
Old guy (hasnt heard the previous sentence) : There must be some reason for such a sudden death. Do you know the reason ?
ChMhn : ‘That reason only’ i am trying to tell you sir!!! ( the thought : In telugu – “adhe reason cheppadaaniki prayathnam chestunna sir” )

A new dictionary needs to come out with well defined meanings for the “now only”s,“that only”s, “come off”s,“this one”s and “that one”s. I, myself might have used some Minglish while writing this post, if I have, please do forgive me. I do tend to get a bit involved while writing. After all, even writing is a translation of thought into form, and it isn’t always that we think in English, do we ;)

37. The photo

2007-07-04T14:10:00.001-07:00

When it found him,
it was all dusty and drab.
Was going through his archives,
when he stumbled upon it.

It had a certain shine about it,
there was this certain gleam, an unexplainable glitter.
As he wiped the dust off it,
a whiff of numbness ensued.

It put him to wonder,
was this the same person ?
had it been so long?
could things have changed so fast?
‘Time heals’, was what he had firm belief in,
but all that seemed so trivial,
with this dark flash of memory.

Such a beautiful creation of nature;
he had wished she were his to be.
Composure eluded him for a moment,
and it was only a little later;
he realized why he had kept the photo,
in the place where it had been kept.
Never could he possibly fathom,
that just a picture could wreak such mindly havoc.

There was’nt a need to remember the good times,
the bad times outweighed them hands down.
There wasn’t a need to remember,
that she wasn’t here with him,
that things could have turned for the better,
that he could have taken the first step,
that she could have tried to understand
what his animated eyes had to say,
that….it really seemed endless.

Then came a voice from within
‘you’re yet to get over her. This will just make it harder’.

And so he put it back,
in the place where it so rightly belonged,
amidst the cobwebs and moth shells,
with the thought of never looking at it again.

36. The Tooth Fairy

2007-05-04T00:43:00.000-07:00

On a moonlit night, Chris was walking through the dense shrubbery within the confines of his college campus. He dint know why he was walking, where he was walking, for how long he had walked. He dint want the day to end, it had been so smooth and good all through. He had just finished eating a delicious sizzler at brajwashi’s. He had seen ‘Before sunrise’ and ‘Before sunset’ back to back, and it had felt real good. He had found his precious ‘Real Madrid’ football jersey (he thought he’d lost it) while cleaning his room. His Btech project mentor was happy with the progress he had made. His mom had called up in the morning to tell him that they had planned a trip to Goa in another three weeks time, as soon as he got back home. She had also told him that another 5 K had been deposited in his Syndicate bank account. Now that his college days were coming to an end (just left with 2 weeks that’s all), he was all thrilled about the various ways in which he could spend so much money in such little time. He had 14 days. The already existing 2K plus another 5K in the bank. He was beside himself with joy. Shoes, liquor, hard disk, novels…..blah, the list was endless. He could do whatever he wanted. Finally, he was going to become an engineer. After 4 years of college, it was all going to get over just in a flash. Life at DA-IICT was fun. He began to think of all the golden moments, a few embarrassing ones did come to mind instantly.

As he wandered through the bushes, he wondered how he’d miss college so much. Lost in thought, he said aloud “I wish these days in college would never end”. Unaware of the water pipe in front, he tripped on it and fell to the ground with a big thud. He got up only to find that he’d lost a tooth. As he got up and regained his composure, a very very pretty girl was standing in front of him. She had wings on her back, had a wand in her hand a velvety conical hat to top it all off. It seemed as though she’d just returned from a fancy dress competition or a fashion parade. Chris was smitten by her beauty but there was this one part of him that wanted to laugh the hell out. There was also this one other part that was still writhing in pain, he’d lost a canine tooth and had chipped another pre-molar.

Chris – hi. Who are you ?
Very very pretty girl – I am a fairy.
Chris (rubs his eyes, pinches his thighs, screws his ears) – what ???
Fairy – Yes. I’m a fairy. Why, is it so hard to believe ? doesn’t my attire give it out ?
Chris(still writhing in pain and astounded) – cool. But what makes you appear in front of me at this godforsaken hour?
Fairy (smiles) – I am not just any ordinary fairy. I’m the ‘tooth fairy’ :) . ‘Holy Godmother’ has given me the job of collecting teeth from the Gandhinagar area for this week. You lost an important tooth and I happened to be flying nearby.
Chris – I’m sorry, but I cant help you find it. It’s too dark here.
Tooth Fairy – Don’t worry, I already have it in my pocket.
Chris - But is that it! You came here coz of the tooth ? What a lame job for such a pretty girl.
Tooth Fairy – Yeah! But there’s something in it for you. Now that you’ve lost a tooth, I’m gonna grant one wish of yours.
Chris – wait wait. lemme think. I don’t want to waste it. can I have some time to think.
Tooth Fairy – No no. you’ve already asked for a wish.
Chris – When did I wish for anything ?
Tooth Fairy – You made a wish just before you tripped and broke your tooth.
Chris(thinks for a few seconds) – aaaah! Yes, I did !!! I really wish these days would never end. It may seem a tough wish to fulfill, but you’re a tooth fairy, you can manage it right !

Tooth Fairy (***devilish smile***) – Certainly… You wish these days not to end. They never will.

All of a sudden, the pretty girl turned into a two winged, four legged, five ass-ed monster and started to laugh at Chris. It said “you’re dead meat, punk ! This wish is gonna hurt you real bad”. Saying this it flew away and disappeared in a jiffy. Chris was just plain dumbstruck. He got back to the hostel, dint think much about what had happened and just went to sleep.

He woke up the next morning with a slight headache, the chipped tooth still ached. With the brush in hand, he left his room in search of the elusive toothpaste tube (sometimes its tough to even find a single paste filled tube in one whole hostel wing). Just then, his Btech project partner Mandy came running down the corridor all panting.

Chris – what’s the matter ? why do u look so perplexed ?
Mandy – Idiot ! today was the last day to submit the project report. I couldn’t wake you up so went to our mentor all by myself.
Chris – My presence wouldn’t have mattered much. Anyway, you did submit the report right ?
Mandy – Uhhhh..not exactly. Our mentor dint accept it. All of a sudden , he’s turned into a psycho kinda guy. Don’t know what’s happened to him over-night ! He's started telling that the work we’ve done is hardly enough. Says that we have to stay here for the entire summer, that means another 3 months !!!
Chris – wtf???? Let me go talk to him once.
Mandy – I am not going there again. Have had enough for one day.

Chris marched to his professor’s office, with a whole lot of questions in mind. He entered the room and saw that the prof was looking at some photo album.

Chris – Good morning err..afternoon sir. Is that your family album ?
Professor – Yes.
Chris – Sir, about the project…..
Professor – I’ve already talked about it with Mandy. I wont entertain any more questions.
You’re staying here for the summer. That’s final !!!!

Saying this, he slammed the album in his hand onto the table which was between the both of them. Chris managed to have a good look at one of the pictures. He had seen the female in the photo sometime before, but wasn’t able to recollect. Since he could ask no questions about the project, he went ahead and asked

Chris - Sir, whose the girl in this photo?
Professor (gives him a stare) – That’s my daughter. She’s studying abroad.

They talked for a while, but Chris wasn’t able to get out of doing an extra 3 months in college. He stormed out of the prof’s office. He was angry. Suddenly he dint start to like his college that much. The professors and their massive California-sized ego’s, the military like discipline system, the sheer autocracy of the profs with no authority above to dictate to them, the stupid water pipe which chipped his tooth. , all of them started to get to him. He wished his stint at college would end soon and he’d get out of this place. Then he sat back and thought, why did all this happen?

In a flash, he remembered. That girl whom he’d seen in the photo album was none other than the Tooth Fairy. HOLY FCUK !!! It all came back to him. The wish that he had made. The devilish grin of the fairy and then her turning into a monster. It ran in their family. He could see the same smile all the mouths in that pic.He clenched his fist, and hit his own right thigh real hard saying “I knew it !!! I've been tricked. Why at all did I make such a wish ??”. Only after he had hit his thigh did he realize that he’d broken the ATM card that was in the right pocket. Now he’d have to goto Sector-16 each time he’d have to withdraw money. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He screamed in agony “ When will these days end ??? I wanna get out of here.” Then came a sound from the background “NEVER NEVER NEVER !!! hahahahahaaaaa”.

35. Veggie drinkers

2007-04-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

If the title gives you an impression that I may be referring to people who drink vegetable and fruit juices, then you’re really uber-creative and are using 99% of the right side of your brain. I am trying to point out the section of boozers/drinkers who happen to be vegetarians. Yeah, may be this is a very small sized sect amidst the vast number of flesh-gobbling alcoholics. But that doesn’t mean that they be treated any differently from the majority. Why is it so weird when someone hears that you consume alcohol but not meat. I happen to belong to this puny group of veggie drinkers and have had a few strange experiences. Two very recent instances come to mind. I had been to Goa for a week, went along with a huge group of college fellas, not all friends, but bearable people on the whole(with the one exception of the G-man :P ).

The day we landed, a couple of us decided to hit a bar close to our abode. It looked a pretty shady place, with benches like the ones we are used to seeing in Classes 4 and 5 in our schools. The liquor was damn cheap, which is what made us stay and have a booze session there. Started off with a couple of Peter Scot Scotch pegs and then came the time when the appetizers had to be ordered. I happened to ask the bar guy in Hindi

Me : Bhaiya, appetizers mein kya milega ?

Bar guy : hain ??? looks all puzzled

Me : khaane ke liye dry items kya hai ?

Bar guy : sab kuch milega. Mutton, chicken, fish…tum ko kya mangtha hai ?

Me : kuch vegetarian nahin hai kya ?

Bar guy : nahin bhaiya, kuch nahin. Sirf ‘lehar kurkure’ packets hain.

While the others were busy giving their fleshy orders, the fish being the popular choice; I was just plain sad. Why did have to be a veggie :( So, just went ahead and ordered 2 packs of kurkure. Yeah, the liquor was cool, but it would have been so much better had I had something more decent to eat !

On the last day, we happened to dine at a place close to Kolva beach ( apparently its called the ‘White sand’ beach, but duhh….The sand was as wheatish as any of the other beaches I’d been to). Well, the restaurant had a roof-top dining place which was purely vegetarian along with a fully air-conditioned bar cum non-vegetarian hall right below the roof-top joint. I wanted to scoff some Fosters beer, so joined the gang that went downstairs to the non-veg hall coz it had the bar. The waiter took the order from our table and it took him two sheets to jot down all the prawns, chicken and mutton we ordered. When it was my turn to order –

Me : Ek Veg.Hyderabadi biriyani, aur ek Fosters beer bhi add kar deejiye.

Waiter : Sir, vegetarian items upar ke floor mein milenge, yahan pe sirf non-veg hai !

Me : Yeh kya hai, mere ko beer peene ke liye phir neeche aana padega kya ?

Waiter : haan sir.

I was just plain dumbstruck. This was blasphemy, this was madness. I visualized the waiter telling me “This isn’t madness, this is GOA !!!”. Well, I did somehow manage to get my order downstairs, but was made fun of by all ma group guys. “Why cant you eat chicken like the rest of us bey…You don’t reach the top of the food chain to eat leaves and grass. Devour animals dude, that’s the fad !” – was the mock-comment of the day. It surely put me thinking, may be booze and meat do go together. Do I give up being a veggie, or do I give up booze. Nah, cant leave booze, but being a supposed Brahmin, cant give up being a vegetarian too. May be one day, I’ll set up a bar cum restaurant which is purely vegetarian ! But that’s a long way away. For the time being, I need to be content with being the odd man out in our alco-outings :( ‘O lord god, hope thou art listening’ :D

34. 'First' of all

2007-03-28T01:35:00.000-07:00

Well, this is a test for my memory than anything else. Am gonna try and list a few ‘lesser noticed first’s’ (which’ve been equally memorable) tht I’ve had.

First time I got angry with God -
When the cable connection at home stopped working and I thought it was god’s way of punishing me for watching too much TV. Stopped praying for a week, then all was normal again :D

First solid punch -
Class 4, gave the guy a black eye, he cud’nt open it for two days straight !

First video game cassette -
76 – in – One (was just awesome )

First road accident -
Class 6. Rammed my bicycle into a 50+ woman, got a tight slap and was told to go home.

First ‘Girl next door’ -
Anu

First toffee I gave to this girl -
Melody

First public apology -
Class 7, was made to apologize to a bunch of girls in front of the entire class, for givin them terrible nick-names.

First five wicket haul in a gully cricket match -
Vasavi nagar colony versus Jupiter colony
Got a 5 for 32 in 6 overs :)

First time I touched meat (I’m a baapan, so it’s a rare event) -
Took a piece of pork out of a friend’s lunch box and threw it on a girl’s lap…the rest was history ! Got major bangings :)

First website -
cafe-flesh.com ;)

First website with dad sitting by my side -
espnstar.com :P

First major punishment -
Was made to wear a marigold frock for a day ! :((

First ‘girl gifted’ book -
Catch – 22 – Joseph heller

First ‘gifted to girl’ book -
The World Atlas – Orient Longman

First alcoholic beverage -
Knock-out beer

First cigarette -
Insignia

First match box used to light that cigarette -
AIM matches

First game to have ruined my acads (and may be the last) -
No prizes guessing…..Counter Strike

First major scolding by the entire family -
Was 10 I think. Was at my cousin’s wedding, put the wedding ring in my pocket and dint give it back until everyone got into the ‘frantically searching’ mode !

Well, got bored- a product of an idle mind. Can think of many more, but dint want this post to be too lengthy :P

33. 'Well-left'

2007-03-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

The minute I read the title, what comes to my mind first is the classic “well-left” that Rahul Dravid showcases when he faces a ball that pitches outside off-stump and swings away. Kya technique hai baap; the way he leaves the ball, enviable to say the least. Guess this is’nt a good time to remind anyone about Indian cricket, with the huge world cup debacle (where the Pepsi Ad slogan “Hoo haa India!!!” became “Ghar jaa India!!!” even before most of the Indian supporters could reach the Carribean :D).

Losing to B’desh ! How can you?? These bloody cricketers are swimming in money, advertising for every new shampoo, hair oil, battery, biscuit, chocolate, bust-cream and Vibrator in town. And the media is no big help, keeping our cricketers at such a high pedestal ! What made me go nuts was a comment from Navjot Sidhu just before the “Ind vs Sri Lanka” match. He went on air (may be on NDTV, am not sure) saying “An optimist is one who thinks that bullshit is fertilizer”. Lets dissect this comment literally first. He equates the current Indian position to bullshit [ roflol =)) , I personally had a huge laugh, coz I’m sort-of anti-India] and then asks them to use it as a fertilizer. Yes, these fellas should be sent to rural internships like we were sent to (back in first year); and be made to plough lands and spread dung all over the fields(their faces too, if possible) with their bare hands. Ok, even if we do take the figurative meaning of the comment which asks the Indian team to be positive, that they will win over Sri Lanka; how in the hell can that happen. You cant lose to a bunch of Horlicks drinking school kids and club players in one match; and expect yourself to be supremely confident of winning over a side with pro’ly one of the best bowling attacks of this World Cup; and that too in the same week (within a span of 5 days)!!!

Anyways, this isn’t the main intent behind this post. Just got carried away coz of the unbelievable un-understandable cricket mania/hysteria which just doesn’t seem to die in this country, despite the repeated failures. Can safely say that our Indian team is consistently inconsistent (God I love saying this whenever India loses; and all at home can do nothing but give me an icy stare). It’s high-time we ppl “well left”-ed this sport for some other one, or for some other goddamn activity. I’d suggest a good doze of Basketball. Man! It’s one exhilarating sport, awesssomely fast paced and one where the team coach actually does matter (is pivotal in fact!). Soccer comes next on my suggestion list. Anything’s ok, but for the sake of God/Christ/Buddha/Mahavira/Allah , just do something to divert your attention and money from Cricket. Pull these assholes down to earth, from the seventh heavens where they’re happily nestling and displaying their endorsed shampoos, kesh-kala hair creams and blah…

A point should come where the cricketers realize, that either they’ll have to “well-left” their ad campaigns and play gr8 cricket, or the faithful Indian supporter will just “well-left” watching Indian cricket ( in such a way that even Dravid will admire the “well-left” ) . Yea, they can do as many revenue generating antics as they want, as long as they dont forget that it is playing classy cricket that has gotten them to this stage, and that they should continue to do so !

“Desamuduru”, an exceedingly irritating gult movie seems to have benefited greatly by the Indian debacle at the WC. Apparently, it’s hit the second all-time high collections at the B.O :P. This is just the beginning. We must, MUST ignore the cricketers until they perform to our expectations. The ignorance and rejection should be such that there should come a time when ppl like Dhoni and Agarkar start running behind children pleading them to take their autographs and the children have a gala time not giving their autograph books to these fellas. Kinda surprising that none of the senior fellows announced their retirements, taking the cue from Inzamam who totally took the blame of Pak’s bad performance on himself and raised his bat declaring that he’s “well-left” international cricket.

Well, it seems that I’ve successfully managed to complete a post without even mentioning the central idea /theme till now, guess I’ve “well-left”-ed it, will write on it soon :D “Well-Left – 2” will be right around the corner, but do post ur comments on this one, puhleeez.

32. At the coffee shop

2007-02-11T00:09:00.000-08:00

At present

He – a student

She – a student

Time : 10:00 AM (on the phone)

He : Hi re, lets meet up ? wat say ?

She : Ok…I am not sure if I should bunk today.

He : hey come on, a cold frappe is the best way to start the day !

She : hehe, yeah.

He : So, it’s a date then :)

She (Smiles) : I guess !

Time : 11:00 AM

At the coffee shop

He – hey, looking damn pretty today !

She just blushes.

She – You smell funny !

He – ya, it’s a mix of ‘Axe’ deo and that stupid anti-dandruff herbal hair oil !

She – You’re weird you know…I like weirdos !

He – You smile a lot you know….I sometimes wonder if it’s because of me….Anyways, wats the plan today ? Wanna watch “Dhoom 2” ?

She – anything’s ok.

He- And before I forget, here are your chocolates…

She (all blushes) – Thank you…and I wont be sharing them !

He – Chalega.

He – And what abt your customary “Blue lagoon” mocktail, when do you plan to have that? before the movie or after ?

She – After! This fellow is so sweet, never forgets to ask me this. I wonder if he’s the one. Why dint I know him a lot earlier? Btw, stop calling at my place with weird aliases like ‘Ace Ventura’ and ‘Laddoo ram’…My mom’s getting suspicious!

He (laughs) – I simply love doin that…. So, looks like I’ve saved you from your ‘Monday blues’ this time…

She – Ya! My friends are all really mad at me, coz you’re making me bunk college all the time ! I’ve missed every Monday this semester you know.

He - Is it !

She – And I am running out of excuses for getting late at home. It’s for you damn it !!!

He – that u’ll manage I know, you’re one evil genius.

She – How rude! Never call a girl evil ok…you can call me an angel you know :) what’s he waiting for? Aint I clear enough !

He – Oh I see ! Devil’s angel :P … Anyways, for today’s excuse, you can say that you helped out a friend who dint know how to spend his money :P

She – Yeah right ! Was I wrong ?

He – Arey serious, I’ve never loved spending so much before you know ! And start bunking Tuesdays too :P

She – hahaha….That’s it ! He’s going to tell me what I am expecting next.

He – And I almost got into a fight today. On my way to meet you, I went up to a guy next to an auto, thought that he was the driver and said “Minerva coffee shop”. He began to give me directions to the place, which puzzled me. I said “Ohh, yeh auto aapka nahin hai kya ?” He took offence to it, saying “main tereko auto wala dikhroon kya re b***** m**** c*** !” and almost gathered a group to beat me up. Thankfully, a bus came close by and I jumped into it.

She (smiling all along) – Only you can do stuff like this ! Btw, look at this pic, me and my baby cousin…doesn’t she look cute.

He – I am not able to decide whose the cute-er of the two :)

She – Is he flirting again? Why is he still hopping around the bushes? Haaa, my cuz of course!…lets go watch the movie.

He- As you say boss.

She – I know he’s shy. He’ll never come out….Should I tell it to him now or not ? I’ve waited for a long time already….. OR….

Time passed, they kept in touch, mainly through the phone coz she had to move out to a different city.

3 years later

At the coffee shop

11:00 AM

He – a manager

She - an artist

She – Hey Hero, you’re looking a l’il off today, what’s the matter ?

He – Nothing re. Just having a cold, that’s all.

She –: Moron ! Stop lying ok ! I can see it in your face that something’s bothering you. Spill it out.

He – Arey. What zabardasti ! I’m telling you that I’m having a cold naa… damn, I guess I am not that good of a cover-up artist after all

She – hmmmph …! He’s never looked so nervy before.

He – We’ve met like after four months and have started off with a quarrel.

She – ok ok ! When did you get here from your place ?

He – Got here just today morning.

She – And came to see me right away ?

He – You said you wanted to meet so I came off…

She – You could have said that u had just come na, u must be tired !

He – forget about that, tell me what was it that you wanted to talk about ?

She whispers something in his ears.

He - What ! You had feelings for me ! When ? Where ? How dint I know ???

She – I was giving you signals all the time, and you never seemed to pick ‘em up. Then came a time when realization dawned on me; that you’re just too innocent and still this jovial little kid… So I stopped, felt we’d be better of as friends.

And it wasn’t just me, even you used to flirt aimlessly, just that you dint know that you were flirting.

He – I always have had this strange belief “Lucky with food, unlucky with love” and it proves right all the time :(

You know , even I liked you a lot. Just that, I dint feel it was proper to rush into things, coz you had just come out of a break-up and I dint want to be the rebound guy. I always felt that the time would come later, so just waited…and time flew…and here we are.

She – Moron ! He hasn’t changed one bit !

At first, I used to see traces of him in you, then I began seeing you in him. That’s why I decided to break up.

He – Ho…my wretched luck. Guess I misunderstood whatever u said, in fact dint understand at all…. And that’s what I intended to tell you now. I felt that too much time had passed and I had to take the first step. Can we start afresh ?

She – I think you’re luck’s gonna change, you’ll have bad food from now on I guess ;)

He – Doesn’t matter, too much of good food is also bad na :P

She (laughs) – Silly fellow !

He – Listen, I’ve directly come from the airport. Need to get home and show my face to mom ‘n dad…My bags are out in the car.

She – What ! Go home right away moron! But I wish you could stay longer.

He – Yea…So, when next ? tomorrow, same place at 5 ?

He – It’s a date then :) Oh god, let this work well this time

She (smiles) – I guess :D…….

31. A brush with the supernatural

2007-01-31T20:23:00.000-08:00

Why in the hell is the male being so numbskullishly eager to get noticed by the cute female, who is in the next cubicle of the 3^rd AC compartment (of the Lok shakti express) ? I mean, what does he expect ? that she’ll turn towards him, give a rising smile (may be even wink) and follow it up with a “Hi handsome ! lets go out on a date sometime.” :P

The male hears a voice out of nowhere, looks in the direction from where he hears the voice, but doesn’t find anyone. He’s kinda puzzled, then he’s told by the voice to just look up and listen, so he does that obediently. The voice begins it’s narrative:

“ Don’t u ever forget that cute girls can never fall in love at first sight with ppl who have a waist line of 38 and an eyesight of –0.25 in both the eye balls!

Don’t u ever forget that u are a tamil Brahmin, that u are gonna have an arranged marriage with a female of preferably the same sub-sub-sub sect !

And how did u forget that u’re this huuuuge miser who tries to bargain even in brand showrooms like reebok, u haven’t even bought any clothes for urself in the last 3 years.So, how in the hell will u get the willingness to spend money in such a free flowing way.

Also, should’nt u be considering the fact that even if u get smitten by the gal and somehow do get the urge to splurge, that u don’t have any cash, tht u’re dead broke !

Lets hypothetically consider that despite all this, she does agree to go out on a date with u; how are u gonna pick her up from her place? have u forgotten that despite staying in a city like hyderabad for 21 years, u haven’t learnt how to drive !!! ”

The male interrupts…. “Enuf enuf enuf ! Yes, I guess I am a misfit for the cute female category,but should’nt I have a minute chance, considering that ‘love is blind’!”

“My dear, love may be blind, but it definitely is’nt mentally or physically challenged ok ! So wipe out such possibilities, spread the bedsheet on your side-upper berth and goto sleep.”

Alas ! the luckless male rests in peace, rather in pieces (heartbroken :( )