The Electric Chair

2011-12-20T23:40:00.001-08:00

Ill enough to not want to go to office
But not ill enough to not feel guilty about it

2011-12-20T08:50:00.002-08:00

When can we retire?

Why are we working?

Only for money...

Isnt that a big flaw in gods grand scheme of creation?

That he gave us life..

But took it away at the same time?

Lets talk about the weather - no, really, I do respect myself!

2010-12-27T04:54:00.000-08:00

Fog is water vapour with their woolies on.

It may not sound very impressive to several million people living in New York, London or even Delhi that there one can actually see fog in Mumbai because these people are accustomed to fog, snow, blizzards and tornadoes as a matter of course. While for most poeple, talking about the weather has become a sure-shot sign of being a loser - this because everyone keeps doing so, which in turn is because the weather actually changes allowing one to do so - in Mumbai, we consider the weather as a refreshing topic of discussion. Because if someone is talking about the weather, it most likely means that there is something noteworthy about it, which in itself can be a source of great joy to a mumbaikar.

The Mumbaikar is least worried about living a life of decadence because he is not afraid of going to hell. Hell, when he reaches there, will just remind him of the weather at home: hot and humid. That is almost a constant in Mumbai. Seasons are out of fashion here. If at all you were to name seasons in Mumbai, I'd say it is 10 months of summer and 2 months of mild summer (as opposed to say Bangalore which is 2 months of winter and 10 months of mild winter, the best). Hence when the mercury goes below 20 in Mumbai, we talk about it. We revel in it. We are ecstatic.

And when something like fog happens, it becomes worthy of mention. But what is fog? Mumbai is humid all the year round.... so why isnt there fog all the year round? Fog is some form of water i assume. One simple theory is the one at the beginning of the note: Fog is water vapour with their woolies on. The other theory is this: Like the people of Mumbai, water vapour is too apathetic to its neighbours. Maybe it doesn't get along. The spirit of Christmas and the coming new year however makes it reflect at leisure and makes the water vapour come together like people do, thereby causing fog.

This festive season, may you come close to your near and dear ones, just like water vapour does. Wish you a Merry Chirstmas and a Very Happy New Year!

Value of a nut

2010-06-29T07:30:00.001-07:00

Any organisation is like a machine. Good organisations are like well oiled, perfectly running machines. Not so good organisations try to improve themselves sometimes by taking parts from the good machine. In a perfectly running machine, each part has great value. For example, that machine could not work for long in the same efficient manner even if one screw, bolt or nut were missing.

What the not-so-good organisation does not realise is that if that nut is removed from the well oiled machine and hired by the not-so-good organisation, he remains just that - a nut! In absence of the running machine, the nut has no value.

The good organisation however, does not feel the loss of the nut. Because it can hire another nut and put him in the same place, and the machine is running fine again.

Great organisations are not just the sum total of great individuals, its the result of how these individuals work together. I will not deign to give the oft repeated jargon of "culture, systems and processes" because its something more than that. There is an X factor which is difficult to quantify.

Its like football teams. Over 30 years all the players and coaches in Brazil have changed. There is no evidence to suggest that Brazil has a genetic pool suited better to football. Organisations are something similar - and what makes good organisations tick is equally difficult to quantify.

You know you are on a diet when...

2009-06-28T04:35:00.000-07:00

1. You wish you had bought a larger fridge

2. You start haggling with your weighing scale

3. You reason that your weight is more because it includes the weight of the clothes you are wearing...and you actually validate this theory (try this only at home!)

4. You wonder why you have a cook since you call her in the evening and tell her "kal mat aana, khana hai" a bit too often

AND last but not the least

5. You start having bowel movements only alternate days

2009-04-04T12:35:00.001-07:00

“And the Lord said unto John: "Come forth, and receive eternal life.", but John came fifth and won a toaster.”

US diaries

2009-04-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

Well, this is long overdue... but somehow I just cant find the motivation to blog... my yahoo messenger lists me as one of my contacts.. so I had the following conversation
me: hi
me: hi
me: kya chal raha hai
me: kya chal raha hai
me: gaand mara
me: gaand mara
such was my inertia. Having exhausted all possible avenues of postponement, having checked all my mails, orkut, blog, messergers etc and still not wanting to go to sleep, I am but forced to blog.

I had to go to the US from London.... I had the option of spending the weekend in London or NY... not being the one to do touristy things alone, it doesnt make much of a difference and I left London on a saturday. I almost missed the flight as my alarm did not go off.. luckily I had also asked the reception for a wake up call.. then i figured that my blackberry has an option that alarm is off on the weekends...phew! Well I reached NY and took the taxi to my hotel and guess what... i left my BB in the cab! my other phone is not on roaming so i am practically cut off. I call seema from the hotel and she helps me figure out contacts etc... The place I was put up was quite a shocking place... literally... the doorknobs and lift buttons gave out a small electric shocked... I was anyways shocked at the loss of my phone, so such small shocks did not matter much. This was not really a business hotel.. more of a hotel frequented by the fashion industry.. tho did not see any models. The hotel had just one restaurant.. a japanese restaurant called Koi which was quite good. This country works only on tips and poeple almost demand it - there is nothing gratituous about it... I also know now that there is no competition for Indian hotels... service culture just doesnt exist elsewhere as it does in India. I just slept off the weekend in my room btw.

On Monday and Tuesday I had meetings in NY - the days were pretty light with just 3-4 meetings a day. On Wed I had to go to Boston where i had a decent 5 meetings. There was a twist in the tale however, with Chicago (which was not in the inital plan) also getting included... for just one meeting... I was like what the hell lets get this cancelled... but all my efforts at doing this were at naught and I was really wanting to get back home by then. Boston was good.... liked the place a lot... the hotel they put me in was great and the city is good too.

Flew to chicago on Wed night and they put me up in a really shitty place... u cud make out the moment u alighted outiside the hotel from the cab. The main dinner stops by 9.45 and the night menu did not start till 10.45.. i waited for an hour to get one sandwich.. plus several other things... I ended up having 2 meetings on Thurs in Chicago and went to meet a family friend in the afternoon in Elmhurst one of chicago's suburbs. In the evening I had a flight to Mumbai via Munich. A buxom blond girl came to sit next to me but was with another girl who was sitting somehere else and went to join her, sending a professor in Russian studies who had a flight to St Petersburg in her lieu next to me. I have absolutely no luck on airline flights... or for that matter anywhere else. Crap!

Anyways was very glad to get back home after almost 2 weeks... had a horrible jet lag afterwards for 4-5 days... still dont seem to have recovered fully althought its been more than a week.

London Diaries - III (very dunk)

2009-03-19T13:34:00.000-07:00

3 pints of beer, 1 margarita, one long island, 3 large whiskeys

too drunk to wite in full sentences (xcuse the spelling mistakes too)
Was in edinburgh yesterday. At the airport they have quotes from famous ppl about endinburgh... one of them says "edinburgh is a city which makes you think what a city is" or something like that.. this reminded me of murali's famous quote which gave great mirth to hari "when pundalik reads, he reads". Jokes aside, kaafi pyara sheher hai.... quait and lovable... I would not mind tho making a profession of writing quotes about different cities. For example i would write about delhi "Delhi is a city which is very hot in summer and very cold in winter"... i am dissolving in uncontrollable laughter now... So i had 3 meetings in edinburgh... walked around the city a bit...

Today I had 5 meetings... bit tiring but no jet lag... Ever since ive been here, ive been jet lagged.. its quite deceptive.. on monday i didnt feel much jet lagged... on tuesday it intensified greatly... on wed since i had to catch a early monring flight to edinburg dont know if it was jet lag of plain lack of sleep... today is the first day i actually felt alert and myself .... in the evening we went out for a drink with our sales guy arjun who bears an uncanny resemblance to george costanza.... especially from the back... hes a nice guy tho.... i'm rambling and waiting for room serivice of grilled salmon with poached egg and spinach... btw the butter here is out of the world.. u dont realise in india that butter can actually be so drastically better...

There was some confusion about my US trip... the schedule of meetings looked very thin... so i raised a stink saying is it worth going... this was because i was homesick... but then the head of sales in US got back saying that he would get meetings.. so i have to go now... so i have to decide whether to go on saturday or on sunday... will decide tomorrow morning... anyways, my dinner shud me coming any time now, so more later...

London Diaries - II

2009-03-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

Had a light day today with just 3 meetings. Went to the office at 3.30 and met up with the team. At 5 me and Arjun went to a nearby pub for a drink. We were joined by a collegue... the pub was quite full even at that time on a tuesday evening and by the time we left at around 7, there was local train type of rush. Where is the slowdown i asked? The labour class is badly affected, you are looking at a wrong sample, I was told. We were standing outside with our beers and after 10 mins it was cold inspite of my suit and an overcoat - i wore my cap and looked quite silly being the only one out there wearing a cap but I didnt care. Took a cab back to the hotel - there was a lot of traffic and the cabbie had to keep changing the route to avoid it as today was St Patricks Day - god knows what that is. Just had dinner of roast salmon fillet with poached egg and spinach.. it was quite good. yahan koi bhi meal ke saath butter aur bread de dete hai.. both the butter and the bread/bun are quite delicious.. can make a meal out of just that.... Anyways, tomorrow I have 3 meetings in Edinburgh and have a flight to catch at 7 am... which means I have to wake up at about 5 am - will be back tomorrow evening itself. Till then, ciao.

London diaries - I

2009-03-16T11:14:00.000-07:00

This piece of strawberry cheesecake is just not getting over. Instead of the usually slim and trim triangle that they serve you in India, I have in front of me a hatta katta triangle which boasts of being a brick. I'm having coffee in between to make this manageable, but I shall have to give up soon.

My company has to my utter surprise decided to send me off on a week's trip to the UK and possibly another week in the US right after. The weather at this time of the year is quite nice - its cold but not numbingly cold... I went out without my overcoat today in just my suit, but felt a bit chilly and may take the overcoat afterall. I've been told not to trust the wine, women and weather here. Women and weather i understand, but wine?... I'm going to be having 5-6 meetings of an hour each everyday and am going to be saying much the same stuff in each meeting. Its quite boring stuff, but I aint complaining because sitting in office working is also quite boring.

I'm not the type who can roam about a new city on my own hence regret not having any kind of company here. Am hopefully going out with some office guys tomorrow evening. The hotel guys have offered me a pick of one free item of laundry a day or 50% discount on F&B or free internet. You know which one i've picked.

I'm in love with the london cabs like ive not been in love with any car before. They are so cute and rugged at the same time. And the're so huge (legroom double that of an omni) yet they dont seem intimidating at all.

This city is so expensive. Yesterday i ordered a spiced sea bass - it cost me 25 pounds and it fit in my left molar with space to spare! I had to order a sandwich to fill my stomach. Chalo enuf for now - will post something equally mundane tomorrow.

Post from the blast

2008-11-30T22:24:00.000-08:00

Everyone's writing about the recent terror attack in Mumbai and how its different from earlier incidents. We all agree its different, me too, but no one really explains why or how its different. For me, its different because somewhere in the back of my mind, I admire them. Not for what they actually did (dastartly, i think is the official adjective, though I prefer despicable. Dastardly is defined as "characterized by underhandedness or treachery" - which is correct when someone leaves a bomb somewhere with a timer and disappeares, not when one is present there for over two days shooting and drawing fire) but for their daring and courage. That someone who doesnt even know you wants to kill you and is ready to die if necessary doing that is both scary and awe-inspiring.

For my part, it does cause a certain amount of guilt and shame feeling some admiration albeit in the limited scope mentioned above for these young boys who are undoubtedly terrorists and have done the most despicable things possible. This mixed feeling of hatred and grudging respect is what is different this time. This incident is different from the earlier ones because unlike earlier when terrorists were not directly exposed at the time of the incident, this time, these 10 guys were there ready to take on the full brunt of India's combined armed forces. And while we all commend the efforts by NSG, Marcos, ATS and other defense arms, and grieve for the dead and injured, we cannot but think about the misplaced bravery of the perpetrators of this pain, and for acknowledging that, if only in our hearts, we are both scared and ashamed. Thats what is different this time.

Not writing anything, posting quizzzz!!!!!!

2008-05-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.
An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.
You are also good at remembering information and convincing someone of your point of view.
A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.

You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What'>http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofintelligencedoyouhavequiz/">What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

How to kill a mosquito (or Su-cide)

2008-01-06T06:10:00.000-08:00

Theres this website which computes the level of education needed to read/understand a blog. Well, I entered my url and it turns out the answer is "Elementary School". So keeping in mind this level, I make this post.

Whats the most wierd way that you've killed a mosquito? Well this happened to me yestarday. I was peeing, and a mosquito flies into the stream.

Yes. Thats all I have to say.

Kuch naya... kuch acha!

2007-09-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

Farwell thee...

And welcome to you!

Mysteries that Mystify Bollywood

2007-02-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

The only similarity that this post has with the one below that today is also a strike.

If Aishwariya Rai had breast augmentation done would that be called 'Rai ka pahad banana'?

If Ramgopal Verma made a porn film would it be called 'Karna Zaroori Hai'?

Is Sunil Shetty Shilpa Shetty's Big Brother?

Thats all for now folks. Moving to Bombay soon. Are there any bloggers in Bombay?

Coming Soon: The script for Karna Zaroori Hai

This strike beats me!

2006-10-03T12:45:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is a strike. If you dont keep your shop / office closed someone may come and beat you and your office up (the word IS afterall strike!). If this happens, do you have any legal recourse? Or to put it the other way, is it illegal to keep your office open when a bandh is declared? Can someone take you to court for keeping your office open on a bandh? AC tells me that there is a government approved bandh and if someone keeps his office open on such a bandh then it is illegal.

Is that really so? Has anyone - even one person been taken to court for keeping his office open on a bandh day? If not, then how can it be illegal? If there is no legal recourse against an act, it cant be an illegal act. If there is a legal recourse, what is it? Is there a fine? Is there imprisonment? Is there both? What is that act which specifies all this? How come a mention of whether a ban is govt approved or not is never mentioned? How come it is never mentioned that contravention of this ban can attract the following penalties?

If the bandh is govt approved, who approves these bans? Is there a special ministry/department which does this work? Is there some laid down criteria which helps the ministry decide whether to approve this bandh or not? Do they have to even record their reasons anywhere? Is there a maximum number of days that can be declared bandh per year? If so, how many? If not, can I locate the concerned person/ministry who approves this to declare frequent bandhs? Is it actually possible? Well it may be possible if I was rich enough if I could afford the expectably expensive bribes. But then if I was that rich, I wouldnt be working, and then why would I want more bandhs?

Cha!

Two straws would be sufficient, I think

2006-09-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

Marriage has severly restricted my career options. Becoming a porn star is effectively ruled out. Shucks!

Maybe I can crack porn jokes instead. What did the guy who married the triple breasted whore of eroticon six do? He became a juggler.

Well, this one sucks too.

Would you also like a straw?

2006-09-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

Why dont all those people who keep saying "life sucks" attach their life to their dicks?

I tried that once a long time back and realised that it in fact didnt suck. Which left me absolutely confused whether I should be happy or sad.

All those who think that this post sucks, you know what to do.

Welcome to Alaska

2006-09-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

From the plane.. flight via cairo... dont ask me where this is!!

Sound and light show at the pyramids...

Pyramids by daytime... arent they huge? Square base of 230 meters side, and height of 147 meters (about 45 stories). It has 2.3 million blocks of stone and each one weighs an average of 2.5 tons (with the heaviest ones upto 15 tons).. And this was built before the wheel was invented, so they did not use pulleys to hoist the stones. Interesting fact: There is enough stone in the pyramid of Cheops to build a wall around France!!

The Sphinx.. A huge monolith carved out of the bedrock..

Nile Cruiseeeee

Belly dancing... very erm... satisfying :D

Ceiling of a mosque in the Citadel of old Cairo. The carpet on the floor here is the original 200 year old one and is still in use.. and doesnt look like its that old!

The obelisk at Karnak Temple, Luxor

Hypostyle hall of Karnak temple.needs to be seen to be believed. It is 5000sqm area and has 134 pillars each of about 18 meters height. Look closely and you will see a person standing in the distance to give you an idea of scale... need I say more?

Sunset en route Nubian village, Aswan.. great scenes from the mototboat.. too many to post

Nubian people breed crocodiles in their homes!!

Sound and light show at Philae Temple... extremely beautiful

Pompey's pillar in Alexandria - 27 meters tall

Alexandria library... the main hall is really really huge. Its really difficult to get the hugeness in the photo

Sunset on Alexandria beach. Personally my favourite photo.

At the end of the journey.. light at the end of the tunnel...

Folks am back from my honeymoon in Egypt. In case you were wondering about the title, it derives from a wierd ass egyptian shopkeeper who said "Where you from? India? Very nice people.. India, welcome to Alaska" We have no clue whether this was Egyptian humour or he has a screw dheela.

It was a 10 day package and we visited Cairo, Aswan, Luxor and Alexandria. In terms of shghtseeing and historical interest, Cairo I liked the most (of course as a single site I would say Karnak temple is most amazing, and also the pyramids if you consider the era in which they were built) but as a city to stay in Alexandria is difficult to beat. Cool and not humid (inspite of being a costal town) while some parts of Egypt were experiencing Delhi summer.

We also did a 4 day Nile Cruise and the scenic beauty is awesome. River, green valley and undulating dunes of the desert can be seen one behind the other and makes one wonder how such incredibly fertile land and incredibly barren land can be so close beside one another.

Recommended place to visit, definitely.. but try go when its a bit cooler.. October onwards would be a good idea.

Settled down, therefore running

2006-08-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

As a teenager I used to always wonder at this phenomenon of people (both men and women) gaining weight after settling down. At times I used to thing that it was bullshit, but then the evidence was right there in front of me. It still is. In the mirror, to be precise.

Its was quite baffling, this weight gain. I lived the same sedantary lifestyle. I ate the same (or sometimes less, since I have someone to share with) food. Yet, inexplicably, the pounds started piling up. And although I had a vague feeling that I was gaining weight, I ignored subtle signs such as pants feeling tighter by deciding to give the fabric the benefit of doubt - shrinkage was after all a thing that science could adequately explain. However, I was rudely jolted out of gentle subconscious awareness of the matter of my obesity and forced to confront harsh reality one day as I on a whim tried out a roadside weighing maching. 81.5 kgs, it proclaimed. I could not even hide behind the alibi of a faulty scale because Seema's weight came out perfect.

Since then I have come up with a theory for post settling down obesity. I dont know if this theory will stand up to scientific testing, but after considering everything and eliminating what didnt fit, this is the only option I have. Being in the settled down state reduces your BMR (basic metabolic rate). And when I say settled down, I should define that state. This has to be past the inital phases of new love. Settled down means knowing that you are going to spend the rest of your life together, knowing each other well enough to drop all pretenses, and generally being able to fart with impunity in each others presense. On a more serious note, i think I have come out with this profound test of whether someone is in "settled down" love or not. When your girl/boy friend says 'I love you' and you dont feel uncomfortable not saying back 'I love you too'. Thats it.

Being in that kind of a state reduces your BMR. I mean, think about it - it substantially reduces existantial angst if not get rid of it completely, you have company around the house so you dont sit around weaving complex mindgames with yourself. You just dont burn that many calories any more.

Anyways, after seeing my weight that day, I said, thats it, and I started out on a serious regimen of exercise (and heres when the humor ends, smart asses, I really did): Weight training and running on alternate days. Thats when it struck me that there was more wrong with my body other than my weight. There was a very slight, but definite pain in my knees, caused most probably by running on tarred surfaces.

On a slight diversion here, I should tell my readers that all my friends share a love - hate relationship with my sports shoes. They love to hate them. For some reason, they just dont like them, and according to my friends, they should be in some junk bin, not on my feet. The main reason for this I think is that the shoes are not washed since ages, and the rubber at the tip of the toe has come out slightly. Now I've been intending to get the rubber fixed and the shoes washed since a long time, but havent got around to doing this. This added to the slight knee pain pushed me into finally relenting and saying Ok ok I'll get the damn new shoes! The fact that it was going to be a gift from my future mother in law also helped.

So we go into the Nike showroom and after half an hour come out with the Airmax 360. Friends, let me tell you that they are really awesome! The price is a bit embarassing to quote tho. What the hell I figured! Its better to spend on shoes rather than an orthopedic treatement. So here I am .. fat, old, and the proud owner of what is arguably the best shoe in the world. Quite a lot to have achieved before getting married, I say! Now I can die... erm..get married a peaceful man! Since this realisation has struck me, I have decided to do that very thing. This weekend. May God have mercy upon my soul! Amen...

What Drug Is Your Personality Like?

2006-07-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

Your Personality Is Like Marijuana

You're laid back and easy going, so much so that taking a shower is often too much trouble for you!Nevertheless, you're quite popular, and many people enjoy your company. You're rarely turned down.You're prone to giggle fits, paranoia, and forgetting where you are exactly.

What'>http://www.blogthings.com/whatdrugisyourpersonalitylikequiz/">What Drug Is Your Personality Like?

Hiiiyaaa dhishum ... ouch, tu ne meri aankh maari?! Hiiiyaaa dhishum dhishum!!!

2006-07-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

Black was not such a great movie. It showed a blind girl struggling so much to do so little. One must take inspiration from action movies. Even the most unobservant viewer will tell you that in the final fight the hero may get beaten, kicked thrashed to death; but if one makes the mistake of blinding the hero in some way he will recall a part of his training where he was taught to fight blindfolded and then beat the bad guys with supreme ease... with his eyes closed, literally. It is still a mystery why he remembers that blindfolded fighting lesson so well when it is apparent that he has forgotten all others. Next time in a fight, never make the mistake of poking your opponent in the eye. Its like scoring a self goal. You may as well take a gun and shoot yourself.

PS: Will someone please tell me how Superman solved the new landmass problem. The thing that he is shown lifting and hurling into outerspace is but a very small part of the total new landmass.

PPS: Will someone please tell the makers of MI3 that the ending was way way lame? Couldnt they even make up some story about what rabbit's foot was supposed to be?

Taking stock

2006-06-04T13:26:00.000-07:00

About one and a half years back, I'd made a post on some resolutions. Lets see how I've fared...

1. I shall substantially cut down on the number of phone calls I make. Whoever wants to talk to me can call.

Achieved completely. My cell bills have gone down about 3 times.

2. If I really want anything done right and on time I shall do it myself. I have realized that most people I know are foolish, inefficient or utterly irresponsible .. or all of these

A very good resolution in the first place. And yes, have more or less stuck to it.

3. All the answers lie within me. I shall therefore not seek any advise.

Of course this is not meant to be taken very literally. But yes, have adhered to the spirit of the resolution.

4. To those who are nice to me, I shall be ten times nicer, and to those who are rude, ten times as rude. This is subject to certain considerations.

Correct. Everyone gets as they deserve.

5. I shall learn how to cook and shall have at least one meal a week which is made by me.

Umm.. i did manage to make a complete meal all by myself.. but only once! Anyways, the context has changed now. I am now assistant to a more able cook :)

6. I shall read at least one book every month.

Noo... not happening... but am striving.. will do this. Its not at all a difficult target.

7. I shall know the girl I’m going to get married to by Dec 2005.

Need I say I told you so? ;)

8. Contrary to whatever else anyone says, girls fall for smooth talking uncaring bastards fully aware of what they are. Well, whatever the customer wants

Not applicable for evalution now due to obvious reasons.

9. I shall go to office on time.

Hah, you wish! Actually I've shifted jobs and now its sort of flexitiming, so not relevant

10. I shall go to the gym regularly

Serious failure here. Remains on my resolution list as pending.

11. I shall minimize procrastination of all kind, especially that relating to domestic/other chores.

Slight improvement here, but leaves a lot to be desired.

Hey not bad overall. Well done! I'm off. Shall now go and treat myself on some raisin nutties.

Morning Fog

2006-06-02T23:13:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favourite photos.

It was taken en route Yercaud on a foggy morning. The reflection in the lake and dark outline of bushes give it an ethereal charm.

Political Compass

2006-06-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

Taking from Zap's blog, heres where I stand

Try it out at http://www.politicalcompass.org/

They forgot to show where Laloo stands. In the tabela I think. Speaking of which, read this! http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1601155.cms

Fun with Figures

2006-05-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

Ok so everyone has heard jokes like 'whats a somalian with 12-11-12 figure? (model) or with 11-12-11 figure (pregnant) but the below converstion takes the cake

me: Whats the sequel of 69?

khat_mal: What?

me: 96. Its 'back'!

khat_mal: 1st year its 69. 10 years later its 96.

me: Pray why?

khat_mal: its a sociological/psycoloical question

khat_mal: marriages 'turn' out like that

Cheers!

Confucious says

2006-05-07T08:53:00.000-07:00

Brushing teeth with left hand feel as wierd as cleaning backside with right hand

Death of a local dignitary

2006-04-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

I know its late for this post, but I dont want stuff to remain unsaid, so better late than never. This post is about Rajkumar's death and people's reaction to it.

Let me start off by saying that not having seen a single of his movies and understanding his place in people's hearts through a rational and not emotional point of view, my understanding of the entire situation may not completely attuned to the finer aspects. But reacting to a particular situation is the logical consequence of being in the midst of it, and therefore I'd like to share my reactions with my readers and find out how many of you feel alike.

The most striking realisation inspired from this episode is that Bangalore is so different from the image that non Bangaloreans (which includes people who've been in Bangalore since a few years, but not born and brought up here) have in their minds. Events such as these make poeple look at this city in a different light. And this could mean several things: In the corporate perspective it could tilt the balance against Bangalore as an investment destination; for a college student somewhere in Nagpur, it could make Bangalore look decidedly uncool.

Also, the violence was really baffling. Here is a man, who is of ripe age and dies of natural causes. If he was 45, and had died in police custody, the buring of tyres would have made some sense. Will the same kind of reaction greet the death of Rajnikant or Amitabh Bachchan? Is it justificaiton that the public have immense love and adoration for him? In that case why dont they behave in a similar fashion when their father dies?

The day of Rajkumar's funeral I went happened to see TV for a while. Majority of the people looked as if they were in some mela. There was scant grief apparent. Some were laughing. Some looked drunk. The death of a dignitary seems to be an excuse to act irresponsibly. This is really pathetic, as I think that one should at least have the balls to behave irresponsibly without any excuse. What is more pathetic though is people acting like heros in these circumstances. There is no bravery in venturing into troubled areas and subjecting yourself to the vagaries of a mob. Unless of course you dont mind dying a painful death. Unfortuantely, I had to go drop Seema to the airport that day, since none of the cabs were operating. I stuck a photo of rajkumar (downloaded and printed from the net). I know of people who refused to take this simple safety measure solely on some arcane moralistic (or maybe egoistic) high ground. The upside is that I did the trip back from the airport to office in under 18 minutes (and its about 18 kms). And also appreciation due to the CM... the roads are almost awesome now!

Its time Bangalore started behaving its age.

George W. Bush Quotes

2006-04-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

All quotes 100% authentic, and courtesey of George W. Bush.
"I think we can agree. The past is over."
"I have learned from mistakes I may or may not have made."
"It was just inebreating what the Midlands was all about then." (A slip on exhillerating)
"It's clearly the budget. It has a lot of numbers on it."
"The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case."
"Will highways on the internet become more few?"
"Like your neighbor just like you like to be liked yourself."
"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning? Laura and I really don't realize just how bright our children is."
"I was raised in the West. The West of Texas. It's pretty close to California. More so than Washington, D.C. is close to California."
"I propose that every city have a telephone number 119 -- for dyslexics who have an emergency."
"There ought to be limits to freedom." Said about parody websites of him.
"I believe that we are on an irreversible trent toward democracy and more freedom- but that could change."
"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared.'"
"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."
"I have made good judgements in the past. I have made good judgements in the future."
"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the poles."
"Illegitimacy is something we should talk about, in terms of not having it."
"We are ready for any unseen event that may or may not occur."
"For NASA, space is still a high priority."
"We have a firm committment to NATO; we are a part of NATO. We have a firm committment to Europe; we are a part of Europe."
"Who is to blame for riots? The rioters are to blame."
"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century."
"Quite frankly, teachers are the only proffession that teach our children."
"It isn't pollution that's ruining the environment; it's all the impurities in the air and water that's doing it."
"It's time the human race entered the solar system."

Long time no post

2006-03-11T12:45:00.000-08:00

And I have nothing much to write now either. Just leaving you with this amazing video of the Hayabusa wheelie. Mind blowing. I cant believe u can get this for just ten grand in the US!

Leaving you with a Woody Allen quote which I know from personal experience to be true:

"Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday"

The Original Story...

2006-02-14T09:35:00.000-08:00

Heres the true story of the origin of Valentines Day.

Nothwithstanding what nonsense you've been told about a priest, the truth is that valentines day originated in India, and to top it in BIHAR!!

Interested? Read further.

Well, it is well known what the people in Bihar are like, especially the menfolk. It is a known fact that they didnt treat the opposite sex with the respect some of the firebrand members of the opposite sex thought they deserved. One brave lady, (her name is thankfully lost in oblivion) one fine day (certainly not for her husband) had enuf of atyachars perpetrated on her and rebelled by beating her husband up with a belan...Yeah the same belan with which she made chappatis for him everyday, only this time, instead of the dough, it was the husband who was flattened like a chappati, albeit an oblong one. This was a momentous occasion for all the women in Bihar and a revolt soon spread with several housewives beating up their husbands with belans and there was an outburst of moaning chappatis all over Patna. This was a long time, around 400 years ago.

The menfolk learnt their lesson and behaved a bit better with their partners. However, there was no putting down the burgeoning feminist spirit of the times, and each year that day the womenfolk, if only gingerly and lovingly, as a token gesture beat up their husbands to commemorate that eventful day, which had contributed substantially to better their lot. The menfolk also submitted to this, in good humour, since they didnt really get beaten up anyways. The entire ritual soon became a caring and loving affair, with wives having the satisfaction of beating up their husbands, their husbands cringing in mock fear and pain, and the guys having the supreme joy of submitting to the whims of the women they loved. This ritual was more often than not followed by another well known one in bed, the details of which are out of scope of this mail.

This custom continued for many years, even when the British occupied India. As Bihar fell more and more under the influence of western culture and language, some of the more fashionable and educated women, sometimes wearing leather boots and clothes (this even created a fad for leather belans for a short time, but it soon passed, as they could not use them to make chappatis) on that day appeared with a belan in hand, and called out to their husbands "Belan time"! before starting off.

This was noticed by the British, and they were quite amused and endeared by the peculiar ritual. They also saw it for what it really was, i.e. a manifestation of love, not of hate. The ritual soon spread to Britan and many other countries, especially the catch words "belan time!" Of course in their foreign mouths it was bastardised to velan time and then to velantine. And from that day onwards, 14th of february, since it was indeed that day that 400 years ago an irate Bihari housewife nearly commited man-slaughter, came to be known as Valentine's Day. The custom of hitting with Belans died a natural death, but 14th of Feb still stands as a symbol of undying and universal love.

HAPPY BELANTIME'S DAY TO ALL OF YOU!!

Aaj ka naya PJ

2006-02-09T07:11:00.000-08:00

Best one i've heard in a long time

"She told me 'We feel that you have the the polish and maturity that this job requires'. Maybe she was referring to my new shoes"

Sindoor

2006-01-22T10:56:00.000-08:00

Saw a woman the other day with an orange top. No surprises there. The surprise was that she was wearing orange coloured Sindoor. Is this the latest trend in fashion I thought? If she were wearing a blue top, would she wear blue sindoor? Is blue sindoor available? Maybe somewhere there is a visionary who saw an unexploited idea, seized the opportunity and is set to make millions. Maybe the biggies should buy him over while he's at this nascent stage and get onto the "multicoloured sindoor bandwaggon" with a first mover advantage. The idea is so new that it could actually be patented.

This got me thinking about the origins of the name "sindoor". After extensive research I've found out that it is called so because of the change that marriage causes in the woman's life. You see, marriage is a cleansing act. She stops having premarital sex, and extramarital sex is an absolute no-no. Sin-door is therefore symbolic of the woman leaving her wicked ways behind.

Now that I had derived the origins of the word, I did some research on the use. Someone knowledgeable told me that "sindoor has a cooling effect". Immediately I understood. "Ahh the bride is all hot and she needs something to cool her down eh?" I said with a wink. I was told that I had a one track mind. I plan to upgrade to a 32 track system immediately.

Aaj ka naya PJ - If we are all in a b(ee)-school, are our professors drone-aacharyas? (Copyright Gautam)

2006-01-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Seema and chrys!

Seema and chrys can pollinate up to six times more efficiently than the honeybee.
Seema and chrys are the only bird that can swim but not fly.
Seema and chrys cannot burp - there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomach.
All of the roles in Shakespeare's plays - including the female roles - were originally played by seema and chrys.
Scientists have discovered that seema and chrys can smell the presence of autism in children.
Contrary to popular belief, seema and chrys are not successful at sobering up a drunk person, and in many cases they may actually increase the adverse effects of alcohol.
The first seema and chrys were made in 1853, and had no pedals!
Seema and chrys are actually a mammal, not a fish.
A bride should wear something old, something new, something borrowed, and seema and chrys.
Seema and chrys were banned from Finland because of not wearing pants.

Mysteries that mystify language

2006-01-15T08:16:00.000-08:00

Why isn't melodrama ever mellow?
What is the feminine gender of bastard

Bas abhi itna hi. Will post more when i can think of them. In the meanwhile u r free to point out some more mysteries that mystify language in the comments section.

Meanwhile listen to this

Life's a killer!

2006-01-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

Ok. What is life? One of the answers offered (and a good one at that) is that life is a magazine. Human curiosity is not however satisfied having gone only thus far. It clamours for the whole truth, and begs the question "If life is a magazine, it is so for which rifle?"

Having given this thought consideration for a considerable amount of time, I have come to the conclusion that creation, so to say, is that rifle. The universe is the rifle, and we are just magazines which are loaded into this rifle, used and then thrown away. Life is nothing but magazine fodder to keep the universal rifle firing away. This is the universe's way of getting even. The first and the largest shot fired, the big bang, gave life, and to balance things out now, life is fed back into the universe piece by piece. When enough magazines are consumed and the rifle is no longer useable, it will probably be replaced by another big first shot and another rifle.

Each magazine is made up of several bullets. These are nothing but parts of your life. Your girlfriend is for example a bullet - hopefully, a mind blowing one. Your job is another bullet, mind blowing in a completely different kind of way. Your bike may or may not be a bullet.

Now that we have life figured out, what do u think about time?

Century

2006-01-04T12:36:00.000-08:00

Ok so this is my 100th post. So I wonder, is my blog worth anything. And it was a mighty coincidence that i just now came across this. What i've long suspected has now been confirmed. Its priceless :)

Dishonour and Prejudice

2006-01-02T11:46:00.000-08:00

And so, the topic was people and cultures. Cities and security. Sensibilities to dissimilarities.

"Marwaris and Punjabis - these two people, really know how to make money"

"And Gujaratis also"

"Yes of course, Gujaratis"

"Marwaris genuinely have business sense, but Punjabis are out to make money just by fooling and cheating"

"Actually Marwaris really make money by doing some innovation or the other"

"No no,l Gujaratis are masters in that"

"You have to be very careful with Punjabis. If you are slightly careless, or innocent, God help you"

"Actually thats not entirely true. You are talking about Delhi. If you go to the heartland of Punjab, its a different story"

"Thats correct. You know, in any village of Punjab, you go to any house at random, and ask for food, they will feed you like a king. Even though they never met you before."

Murmurs of approval. Two polarized points of view expressed. Both agreed and accepted. A final observation to put everything in place.

"You know, the majority of Punjabis in Delhi are immigrants from Pakistan. They are not the same as the Punjabis of the villages"

Ahh... that explains everything.

Sometimes, prejudice manifests itself in subtle ways.

2005-12-21T11:41:00.000-08:00

Lesbians' barter system is all about teat for twat

2005-12-20T13:43:00.000-08:00

I firmly believe that the world should revolve around you. Not just me; everyone. Before i met you I firmly believed that the world should revolve around me.

Bike Trip to Bheemeshwari

2005-12-12T07:56:00.000-08:00

So, finally did a bike trip. Seema and I left off pretty late on a Saturday morning with meagre preparations which consisted of buying two trekking bags and one topi. We tied the bags to the bike, put the topi on Seema's hair (to protect it from some ultra sensitive ultra expensive hairdo she'd gotten done recently), set the trip counter to zero and set off. It would not be totally wrong to say that the trip was not a bikers' delight. The roads were bad; not bad enough to prevent anyone from biking down, but bad enough to steal the pleasure. We reached Bheemeshwari in about 2 hours 45 mins from point to point covering 95 kms at an average speed of only 35 kms per hour, although we managed to touch a max speed of 107. The stretch of about 15-20 kms just before Bheemeshwari is a pleasure. Its a narrow and slightly winding road, and feels like playing a videogame.

Bheemeshwari is a place with nothing to do. Thats a good thing, btw. Its quite scenic, bang on the banks of the Cauvery, and turned out to be warmer than Bangalore. Our warm jackets remained unused. We reached around 2PM, and had good food and a beer. Rested for a while and then in the evening we went on a coracle ride which is something like a big kadhai in water. Good fun tho. We decided to go on a short bike trip just before sunset, for about half an hour. Later there was more beer and food near a bonfire. The next morning there was a nature trek, for an hour which culminated in the watch tower, giving an amazing view of the Cauvery below.

The weather on the way back was just awesome - cool and cloudy. About 35 kms from Bangalore it started raining a bit. We kept riding with our jackets on, as it wasnt a heavy downpour and it stopped in 10-15 minutes. Took about the same time to get back. Nice trip, all the more nicer for the company.

Random Ramblings

2005-12-04T08:48:00.000-08:00

Some words in the English lexicon fascinate me. They inspire me to make some additions to the existing uselessly abundant two million words in the English language (most people know around 10-15K)For example, ‘forte’. It is supposed to mean a niche area at which one is good at. Each person should have something he can call his forte. But often the best laid plans fall flat on their backs. One should therefore have a backup plan, which henceforth be called ‘fort b’.

How long does it take to know someone well? It varies. In some cases six months may not be enough, and in others six weeks may be sufficient. I often hear the phrases ‘take it slowly’, ‘go step by step’ and ‘get to know each other first’ a bit too often for my liking. Your concern is appreciated. Thanks but no thanks.

New job is ok. The people around are very nice, and I have an office social life which is not mandatory, yet I have it. The work is not too good yet, but I expect it to improve soon. Anyways, I’d rather have a not bad work life and an awesome love life than a lousy love life and an awesome work life ;p

2005-11-27T07:26:00.001-08:00

I'm in love... and I love you :)

Cha Men!

2005-11-22T10:31:00.000-08:00

So. Finally. 25 comments!!

Yes. Thats all i have to say. Yes a truly disappointing post. Yes, that too after so long.

Wah Wah!

2005-11-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

We used to have some essay type questions as part of the entrance procedure. Here are some of the answers received. Needless to say, they did not make it.

· On a question about family values – “To top it all being human is the most important” Yes. Well said. We have a strict no dogs policy.
· On aims and ambitions – “I want to reach the segmented markets across borders as no company has attempted before” I know. They wanted to leave something for you.
· On developmental aspirations – “I would like to develop at least one positive trait in me.” Ahh sir, what lofty and succinct ambitions you have!
· On career goals – “Let me introduce myself to you. At the age of 23 I am married, well settled, honorably employed and a proud father.” Umm an off-beat career, but you sure are the CEO of whatever it is!
· On family values – “My perception of the mankind as the creation of the almighty menat to live in peace, bound by love, destined for prosperity, abound by mutual trust, respect, affection, care, concern and understanding of each other, my family is a prototype of what the kingdom of God is all about” Where? Where is the Nobel prize?
· On weaknesses – “Sometimes I react when water is at alarming height and it can be termed as a mild form of procrastination” Ya mild. In the same way that Mount Everest is high.
· “As the saying goes, Rome was not conquered (blank space)" Its ok. We all have ‘gaps’ in our education.
· “As for the goal in my life, I wish to go where no man has ever gone before.” Too much star-trek, eh?
· “What is the vital characteristics required in a team? Inclination to work together physically” And which activity were you involved in did u say again?
· On family values – “Under the bludgeonings of time my head is bloody but unbowed” A staunch Kshatriya family, I presume?
· “I’m interested in watching cartoons, which has developed a sense of humour” Oh dear… sorry to hear that..
· Career goals – “My ultimate goal is to become the head of a corporate house engaged in production of things ranging from a mere pin to bulky ships and planes” And transport the pins in the ships and planes? What a brilliant idea!
· “Family values are like the bouquet of flowers which contains each and every kind of flowers and has the capacity of satisfying every human being” And it is no wonder that everyone in your family has taken ikebana classes.
· “I took in my hand the task of preventing collision of trains in my hands as part of my pre-engineering project” That’s simple. Just keep your hands apart.
· For passing 12th standard – “It was really a hard nutshell for me to crack” Even harder than cracking this joke?
· On prizes or achievements won, sole entry – “Stood third in the singing competition in my school in 1984.” Sorry we cant take you; you will give others inferiority complex
And this one takes the cake:
· On what would you like to change about yourself – “I have noticed that while moving very fast I tend to become unstable and I wish I had a tail because that would give me balance” No comments!!!!

God bless me!!

2005-10-31T11:34:00.000-08:00

When recently I was down with sore throat, fever, cold etc, I felt like cutting off my throat from both ends (i.e. the end which ended in the head, and the end with ended in the torso), throwing it away, and putting my head on my shoulders. This, I thought, would kill two birds with one stone. It would get rid of my sore throat, and also make me more mature and responsible.

I also had a very bad lower back ache, so I considered cutting off my hips at both ends (i.e. the end that ended in the torso and the end that ended in the legs) but rejected the idea, because that would kill one bird and two stones.

I have come to realize that there are two types of laryngitis. The first one is caused by staying at high altitudes, and the medical term for this branch of laryngitis is soar throat. The second one is cause in the monsoon due to exposure to moisture laden breeze. There is no medical name for this branch of laryngitis but the basic idea is embodied in the famous song “Sawan ka mahina, pawan kare sore”

It seems that both these types of laryngitis are spreading rapidly in the country and the situation now is that Gale gale me sore hai.

Request the readers of my blog to consider this warning enuf. Pasand nahi aaya to soar-y.

Quizzzz again!

2005-10-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

Ok i think some of you didnt understand the previous post. Some others i'm sure were pissed off at being made a fool :) For those of you who didnt understand - no nothing of the sort actually happened and there is no news report of the same. Its just a joke! The link is ullu_banaya.com which means fooled you :)) Enjoy! Heres a quiz i liked

Cheese Pizza

Traditional and comforting.You focus on living a quality life.You're not easily impressed with novelty.Yet, you easily impress others.

What's" Your Pizza Personality?

OMFG I dont believe this!

2005-10-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

It does not require me to draw your attention to the fact that English is a wired language. There have been tomes written on the subject of the idiosyncracies of the language in the form of puns and other assorted jokes. One of these oddities is that of irregular tense forms. A seemingly funny situation resulted in domestic violence in a household in East Kandivalli, Bombay when a 4th standard kid returning from school told his mother "Mummy master bate me"

Read the whole story here.

Oh God!

2005-10-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

Ok i'd read this some time back. It had come as a forward. All I ask is:

If cold is absence of heat, darkness is absence of light, evil is absence of good, and Satan is absence of God, whom do i hold responsible for this mass absentism?

The problem I have with such forwards is that they over-simplify everything. It sure wud be bathos at its extreme best if centuries of debate could be explained away in one forwarded email. Coming to a mailbox near you - the answer to life, universe and everything.

PS: No offence meant to Pulse, believers in general or Albert Einstein.

2005-10-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

I think Pink Floyd is the most over-rated band of all time

Nothing in loo (sorry i mean lieu) of partitions!

2005-10-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how more means less? Like more fashion means less clothes? This is true in the case of loos also. In real posh places such as five star hotels or multiplexes the stand-and-pee loos have no partitions between stalls. I really fail to understand the reason. Is this how loos are in the more developed countries and this is just the usual emulation of the west? Even if this were so, what is the fundamental reason behind this? Maybe these places think it’s a treat to offer its clientele surreptitious glances at others genitalia. Maybe that’s how really kewl people fraternize. Hey hows it hanging? Smile. I’m doing fine buddy. Zip up. Smile again. Cya.

In any other normal social setting they make a big deal about ‘personal space’. In queues you are supposed to keep a gap between the person at the counter and the person behind him. But in the loo two people can stand hardly one foot apart with their privates hanging out of their zippers and that’s ok. I just don’t get it. I just go over to the cabin.

Bullet Points

2005-10-17T03:37:00.000-07:00

In the multiple choice questions of life, option 'e' is written in invisible ink
I read only fiction; everything else is a bunch of lies
Damn! Late again!

House! House!! Yippie!!!!

2005-10-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

So finally, found a flat. Very reasonable rent with 'full amnities'. Moving on Tuesday. So that ends the house saga. I hope!

Damn!

2005-10-12T02:27:00.000-07:00

The shit has hit the roof. Before I went to hyde, i had finalised the house (or so I thought). Only the paperwork was left, which anyway would take time coz the documents would have to go abroad, the landlord being there. Now suddenly I am told that that house is not on rent for another 2 months (for reasons I'm lazy to write here). So I am without a house now, as I have to vacate my current place by this saturday! Am back tomorrow morning, and will have to figure out. Hope everything is alright...

Off to Hyde!

2005-10-08T03:39:00.000-07:00

Heh. On a lark. Flight in a couple of hours. Be back to Bangalore around wed/thurs. Hyderabad bloggers here I come!

Last day

2005-10-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hey people. A personal update. Leaving my current job. Today is my last day. My new job starts 31st Oct. Will be busy in the meanwhile finding a new apartment and travelling. Blogging will be infrequent, but will keep checking your blogs. Will be back soon!

Sixth Sense?

2005-10-05T04:53:00.000-07:00

Your soul purpose on this Earth is to develop your
6th sense. You were most likely a psychic
trainee or shrugged off your special gift in a
past life. And that is why you are back today,
to fully develop your skills. Pay close
attention to your dreams and coincidences in
your life, they make a big difference when
developing spiritually. For once in your life,
listen to what your intuition has to say, not
your mind. Although the brain is one of the
most important guidances in developing, you
must be careful because the mind can often fool
you into thinking that things like psychic
energy is all just a figment of your
imagination. As long as you take these
suggestions, developing shouldn't be nearly as
difficult as it was before. You trully are a
special person, don't let anyone make you think
otherwise.

~What Is Your Soul Purpose On This Earth?~ (Another quiz with more amazing anime pics)
brought to you by Quizilla

God knows if this is true. My parents and grandparents tell me that when I was a kid, about 2 and a half years old, I was very interested in music. We had a record player and it was something that could stack a number of records.. when one would get over, the other would automatically drop on top. Before it started playing I would name which record it was. Everyone was surprised as I didnt even know how to read, and the records all looked similar. They called some psychiatrist and he spread out some 30 records on the bed and asked me to get me one of them, which i did with utmost ease. Even he was perplexed. Of course, I dont remember much of this.. And no, I cant do it now either.

Russian Salad - IV (ok its another meal now!)

2005-10-04T02:58:00.000-07:00

Also see
Russian Salad

Russian Salad - Second Helping

Russian Salad - Thrid Helping (These Russians have large appetites)

Ok. Story till now. Once upon a time in Russia, lived two goons: Sergi Putin and Vladimir Kastev. Vladimir was fat and intelligent, Sergi was philosophical. Now it might seem a bit wierd to the reader that a criminal can be philosophical, but its not that abnormal either. Infact, if the reader were to imagine, say Shamsher Shera, bollywood villian character played by Amrish Puri with long hair and bead necklace, instead of Sergi, the incredulity levels will register a substantial drop. Its not infrequently that we are introduced to such characters to whom their work is their way of life. Afterall, who is better acquainted with the issue of life and death than someone who makes these decisions for others on a routine basis. It is no wonder that some of them become philosophical, and even when the situation is strictly business, such as a Mexican standoff, spout philosophical lines while others are trying to count the number of guns and the number of people. Sergi was something like that. But Sergi was in a much more advanced state of philosophical enlightnment, perhaps exceeded only by the philosophy embodied in the line 'Tera kya hoga Kaalia' He had dedicated an entire way of living to a hunch, and accordingly had indulged in an unbridled spree of acquiring space. Now his space was stolen, and Vladimir was the prime suspect. Vladimir was a techno-gunda. You know, the kinds they show in movies, where four or five experts gang up to form a deadly criminal organisation and one of them is a geek whos punching random keys on his laptop at mind-boggling speed? Vladimir would make that geek look like a gwbasic programmer. His skills exceeded the bounds of computing; they sprung from the pure sciences itself and he excelled at application of pure science in hitherto never explored areas. He was Albert Einstein of the new world.

And now it is time to introduce a couple of new characters in this narrative - the wives of Vladimir and Sergi. Vladimir's wife was called Serena. She had long hair and a short nose. She was originally from South Carolina, with dark coloured skin like ripe chickoos. Everyone who set eyes on her wanted her. She was very bored with her husband's scientific exploits, except for the 'bio-perfumer'. It was an injection which worked by affecting the endocrine system, which in turn changed the phermones emitted by the subject. The effect lasted fifteen days. There were separate injections for rose, lavender and such usual fragrances as also some unusual ones like coffee, freshly baked bread and lawn. Serena like coffee a lot and it went well with her coffee coloured skin too. One day she by mistake injected herself with an experimental sample, and had a narrow escape from six street dogs. The other inventions such as the remaninderizer bored her and she therefore, very predictably, started looking for sexual release outside marriage. Vladimir was very fat, as you might recall, and the missionary position felt like being flattened by a bulldozer (and if Vladimir fell asleep as he sometimes did immediately after the act, bull dozer) and the woman on top position felt like sitting on a camel with a rather pointed hump. We shouldnt therefore judge her harshly for her adultery. She harboured a secret desire for Sergi. She liked him for his diminutive manner and worldly wiseness. But he being her husband's arch rival she knew he was out of reach. So she did not do anything to get intimate with him. Yet.

Sergi's wife was Vivian (original name Vin-Chooi-May) and she hailed from the land of the rising sun. She had long, straight, silky hair and features that made her look like a very cute puppy. Her skin was fair, soft and smooth like shade number T-019 from the formica shade card of my next door furniture-wala. Everyone who set eyes on her worshipped her. She, coming from a male dominated country wanted to break off the shackles of the old world, and wanted progress. Her husband's retrograde stance in philosophy, and that too a-logical philosophy irked her. She loved her husband, but she was getting increasingly irritated with his non sensical behaviour. She started sleeping around a bit to vent off some of this irritation and to sort of get back at her husband. She wished he would be more like Vladimir, often fantacised about him and his amazing intelligence, but snapped herself out of it, as it was idle thinking. It would never happen.. or wouldnt it?

What neither of them knew in the beginning was that Serena and Vivian knew each other. Indeed, were classmates in college and close friends. Both of them had studied at Harvard. Vivian was there to study environment science and Serena studied poetry. They were together in the mandatory language class. After Harvard, they went their separate ways and lost contact for some years.

Vivian then went to Russia to do her thesis paper. There she met Sergi at a shopping mall. He was the discerning shopper to the core. What she liked was his sensuous nature. When Sergi was selecting fabric for his suit, he rubbed it gently against his cheek. Then he smelled it. She totally fell for a man who was so open with his feelings. Nowadays everyone selects suits as if they were purchasing computers, she thought. Here is a man in touch with himself. She caught herself meandering into idle though 'What if he is buying lingerie for his girlfriend? Will he apply the same technique', realised what she was thinking, blushed furiously and corrected herself. She pretended to be the salesperson (which of course she later revealed she was not) and they fell in love. In a few days, Sergi was in a situation he did not know how to get out of. Not that he did not like Vivian; physically she was just stunning. But she irked him. She was always very polite and docile, but somehow he was doing things she wanted, not the other way round. Take for example her anti litter campaign. Ok, so she was an environmental science student, and for her he could drop the icecream cup in the dust bin and not on the road. But what about empty cartridges falling out from his AK-47? She insisted that he and his gang pick them up as and when the machine gun ejects them. When he explained that this was not possible because in a street-fight the important thing is to kill the guy, and if they waited to pick up the cartridges, the guy would escape. She nodded her pretty head in understanding and came along with them on their next mission, picking up the empty shells along the way. When they came back to base camp in the evening she smiled sweetly and showed them 53 empty shells she had picked up. Well, thought Sergi, now at least we can laugh at the news reports in which they say 51 rounds were fired in a shootout in central Vladivostok today. Hey sucker, not 51, we fired 53 rounds, 53!' How DO they figure out how many rounds were fired? Do they count the empty shells? If so, maybe they wont air the news at all. Wouldnt it be really wired to announce, "In a shootout in central Vladivostok today, three people died and seven were injured, in which.. ummm... zero rounds were fired. We are frankly foxed how this happened, and our special reporter Habart Ruslan will be back as soon as he figures this out". So Vivian says "I so glad to help you out Sergi to keep the environment clean. Killing people important, but mother earth not to be suffering because of this. So next time also, you take me along with you, ok?" Sergi turned red for being in this situation, that too in front of Gustav, Mikhail and Qveton, all hardened criminals, who thought nothing of drinking a litre of vodka between two breaths. But what could he do?!??

But if Sergi was having a hard time, Vladimir was no better off. Vladimir met Serena in a park. She was sitting there for inspiration for her poetry and found it immediately in Vladimir and his goons, as they were negotiating a deal with a rival party. The deal went sour and there was a shoot out in which Vladimir kicked ass. Serena wrote a poetry about it:

I sat in the wilderness, the grass a tease,
And there I saw a gallant knight obese.
Taciturn in his ways he seemed at first,
But insatiable for power was his thirst.

And so on for about 3 more stanzas. She decided that she would marry Vladimir. Vladimir of course could not resist her charms. All was well the first few weeks. But then Vladimir discovered that she was a poet. Which was only slightly better than being a philosopher. She accompanied him and his gang on all their missions. At crucial moments she broke into spontaneous poetry. For example, when they had captured a rival gang member and were asking him for information on pain of death, she said:

There you are, villian, caught and captured
And my lover is asking you questions enraptured
He beats and punches you, and each time you sigh
Now reveal the information or else you will die!

To which the captured gang member actually told Vladimir "I was going to tell you everything, but now i wont!"

I suddenly dont like Bangalore so much

2005-10-04T01:44:00.000-07:00

Got this mail as a forward. Am posting it here in the hope that the message spreads far and wide and someone who reads this can help him out.

------

This was posted in one of our B School groups. Have spoken to this guy and its true.

Forwarding this to all as its in everyone's best interest to be aware
---------
Hi!
I would like to bring to notice a certain injustice that I have subjected to at the Bangalore Railway Station (Majestic). On September 30 (Friday), 2005, I had been to the station to see off my fiance and her mother. They took the Karnataka Express (Train #2627) to Jhansi at 6:30 pm.

On my way out I was asked to present my platform ticket by a railway official. On producing the same, the TT turned around and told me "What if I say that you haven't given me the ticket?" Before I could react, he along with his colleague pushed me into the adjacent enquiry cabin and physically manhandled me. I was slapped several times, my spectacles were grabbed and deliberately crushed by foot, and my phone was flung away from me. The RPF comprising of one RPF and four constables, appeared on the scene. The surrounding public was whisked away. None of the railway police officials cared to listen to me and they started hitting me indiscriminately with lathis. They dragged me out, and all the 4 constables continued hitting me with lathis from Platform 1 to Platform 3/5, till we reached the station master's cabin. Racist abuses and threats were made on the way. At the station master's cabin, I was told that I have been charged with a non- bailable offence and would be behind bars for 15 days.

Not for a single moment was I allowed to speak. All of a sudden a stranger came to the scene and he claimed that he was there to help me. Having lost all my physical strength and mental senses, I was happy to see some sort of help. He, claiming to be V Srinivas from Infosys , talked to the officials and the railway police in Kannada. He told me that the only way I was to get out was if I was willing to pay my way through. Being in no state to make a rational choice, I gave him my ATM card and pin. He took one of the RPF chaps along with him and said he would clear the matter. He returned some time later saying that everything was okay now.

I was asked to sign a statement which said that I hit the police and TT in a drunken state. I refused. Finally, they pressurized me to write that I did not produce a platform ticket when asked. I wrote the same and then V Srinivas took me out of the station. He joined me in an auto and took me to the ICICI ATM at Anand Rao circle. He withdrew Rs. 15000 from my ATM and got back. he took the cash under the pretext that while helping me he had left his wallet in the train he had left behind and that he would return the same through his ICICI Internet account. Having broken down mentally I did not realise that I was being cheated. He then took me to a Samsung showroom and tried purchasing a cellphone worth Rs. 18500 with my card. It was only then that I realised what was happening. I grabbed my card back, caught him by the collar, snatched my cash that lay in his pocket, and got into a running auto.

I have now realized that all of this was a plan. There is a strong nexus between the railway officials, the railway police and the fraudster. The railway officials identify a victim who they think is well-to-do, the RPF beat that individual till he has no physical or mental well-being. Then this fraud chap comes on to the scene, takes advantage of the situation, and takes all your cash away. Also, this series of events generally occurs on the last day of the month as they know that the salary gets credited on this day. (This strikes me now because the self-proclaimed Infy employee, V Srinivas, clearly asked me whether I had received my salary. He said that he just wanted to find out if there was cash enough to tackle the case.)

Now three days hence, I have tried to run from pillar to post. I have been forced to miss office hours in my effort to get justice. But I don't want to give up the fight midway. If any of you are in the media, or have friends/relatives who are in the industry, I'd like to speak with them about this in greater detail. I can be reached on 09886179319 or 08030933067. I believe it would catalyze my efforts.

Also, please pass this email to all the people who reside in Bangalore , so that they don't fall into the same trap

Mooh me pair - II

2005-10-03T00:40:00.000-07:00

Can also be titled: Aaj ka naya PJ

Also see Mooh me pair

Ok so we all know what 'foot in the mouth' means But whats both swollen feet in the mouth while talking? Thats a pregnant paws in the conversation.

Bike trip anyone?

2005-09-30T05:02:00.000-07:00

Between jobs. Have time. Want to do a bike trip. Maybe a week or so. Open to short (a day or two) trips also. Destination/route to be decided. Need good company. Age / gender no bar. Bike preferable, but not necessary (I have a Karizma, and can take one pillion). Might gang up with Non Sensi and team if convenient. Comments from interested parties awaited.

Restaurant out of this unieverse

2005-09-28T05:41:00.000-07:00

As Douglas Adams said, restaurants are complex places. One really does not understand why or how certain things happen there. Even naming conventions in restaurants are confusing. Why is the guy who is serving me called ‘waiter’? I come in the restaurant and wait for someone to notice my arrival. I wait for my soup to come. I wait for my main course to come. I wait for my bill to come. I really don’t understand why I should be doing all the waiting, when there is a designated person (or so it seems) for the job! Alternatively, I should be called waiter and he should be called waitee. I think I’d enjoy my food much better with this anomaly corrected.

Have you ever noticed how your table is cluttered with items which you may not even need? Its all there. You have Tabasco sauce, chilly sauce, soya sauce, vinegar, tomato ketchup, you have salt and pepper, probably a container holding tissue papers, and another holding forks and spoons. But for some reason, they never include a menu. Menus are precious items. Why they are precious, I really haven’t figured out, but I have a couple of theories. One is that maybe there is a band of international criminals using menus to pass along encrypted information, and they really don’t want anyone to have a menu for any longer than strictly necessary lest some non-criminal figures out the cipher. This theory was bullshitted by many of my friends, telling me I was in advanced state of paranoia and a victim of the conspiracy theory. So I came out with another theory: The venture capitalists did not approve the budget for enough menus, and the restaurant owner was constrained to rotate the menus much like playing musical chairs. The over qualified venture capitalists, using queuing theory which states that inter-arrival time follows Poisson distribution and assuming an average waiting time of 5 minutes worked out the number of menus needed, thereby reducing the initial investment, which in turn increased the return on investment, meaning an enhancement of shareholder value.

But seriously, apart from these two theories, I really haven’t figured out why they cannot keep the fucking menu on the fucking table. Why is it that every time you want to order for a new starter, you have to call the waitee (who incidentally will come without the menu and you will have to first ask them to bring the menu. This they will and immediately go off without taking your order.) Seriously, in all the things that anyone would want to flick from a restaurant (that nice painting on the wall, the cute pair of salt n pepper shakers, miscellaneous cutlery etc) the menu comes way down on the list!!

And whats with the waiters.. I mean waitees. I’m sure you’ve come across some specimens who are extremely weird. First there is the ‘know-it-all’ class. They will give you extremely confident advise on what to order and if you end up ordering something else I’ve known of a case where one actually said ‘Arrey, I’m telling you no…’ Then there is the ‘smiley’ class, who always smiles. And its not a polite smile either. It’s a continuous smile, and theres actual mirth in it; not fake. Its more like ‘Sir you’ve forgotten to zip your pants but I don’t know whether I should tell you’ or ‘I know you really need to get laid, I can arrange a prostitute for you’ or worse still ‘Sir I think you are really attractive and I am gay. What say? ;) ’ Everytime he comes to serve you, you put the conversation you are having with others on the table on autopilot and focus all your mental energies on figuring out the rationale behind the smile, but alas to no avail! Thirdly, there’s the ‘stoned’ class. You tell him something and there is such a lack of response on his part that you are compelled to repeat the instructions again, but the effect is the same. You spend the next 15 minutes in trepidation, wondering whether you will be served something quite different from what you had ordered, and in many cases the fear is fully justified.

I’ve now stopped trying to figure out these mysteries. I know it is beyond my capacities to make any sense of this. But then, if the food is good, and the company is cheerful, these idiosyncrasies provide a couple of laughs, and material for a post like this.

Ten Posts I love

2005-09-28T03:10:00.000-07:00

So everyone puts up links to blogs they like. But are we supposed to wade thru the entire blog to find the gems? Apparently yes. So I having a bit of free time right now, am doing a lil social service of putting up ten posts which I think are quite good. You of course, understand that these are not the ten best posts accordingly to me. This is a very insane idea. Even more insane would be to rank them. Therefore suffice to say that these are in random order and are of (what i think) good quality. You can safely go ahead and read them without worrying that you might have to abandon them halfway. There may be several posts which I've read, which may be even better than these, but then culling out the 'best' 10 out of the 15 odd blogs I read (and each blog having hunderds of posts) would be insanely difficult

1. Distort Precinct - Those pants….are they going to fall off or what!

2. Uncessant Drivel - The death of conversation

3. Where am I – Sookha an asinine blog story (read all parts)

4. Zap - Self evict convicts

5. Sassycapri - Unnamed poetry

6. Labyrinths - Unnamed post

7. Spiritual Orgasm - Ode Type Verbiage

8. Head Start - spider story on 9th april

9. Premature articulation – Interview with MS

10. Iceochromatic - Unnamed story

Am hesitant to tag people on this one, because it does require some time to come up with this, even with the randomness, and I'll understand if you cant do it. Am tagging Where am I, Spiritual Orgasm, Premature Articulation, Succubus, and Finch.

Here are some more

2005-09-27T01:22:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer - (or rather, claimer): All the below is totally original material and copyrighted. This is for your safety against mental trauma cases which people may slap on you in case you repeat these. Don't worry about me; I've already filed for bankruptcy

*****

John - Hey wake up its already 6:30, we are waiting for you on the golf course
Jake (in bed with wife) – Umm… no I think I’ll pass today
John – but why?
Jake – Haven’t you heard that saying John? ‘A hand in the bush is better than a birdie in two’

*****

Jesus entered into partnership with a guy called Los. At the end of the year they held a gathering and told people about how their business had fared. This started the tradition of firms reporting annually how they had performed in the business. Infact the document which does this derives its name from the speech made by Jesus and his partner some 2000 years ago. Its called "The Statement of Prophet and Los"

*****

And finally…
If your testicles dont descend, oh worry!

Aaj ka naya PJ

2005-09-26T04:03:00.000-07:00

Med Student 1: Hey theres a special lecture by Dr.Monga on 'Causes and Treatement of Chronic Diarrhea' at 4.30 today. You coming?

Med Student 2: No you carry on. I don't give a shit.

Breaking News

2005-09-26T02:35:00.000-07:00

In an unprecedented event on Saturday, Bangalore witnessed its first non – alcoholic bloggers meet at Java City, Lavelle Road. Present were Spiritual orgasm, Arcane Crapper, Finch Scout, Wabbster and yours truly. A couple of non bloggers were also present, the group having a very tolerant attitude to this class. Conspicuous by his absence was Premature Articulation, who as misfortune would have it had a ‘working weekend’ and therefore could not make it.

This being a ‘Page 3’ kind of event, should have been posted as a collection of 3-4 photos (with particular care that none of them are of the same size) with taglines such as ‘Arcane Crapper and friend’ or ‘Finch Scout: Stirring her iced tea’. However, due to the absence of any photos, and the complete ineptitude of the author of this post as a Page 3 Journalist, readers will have to make do with this pathetic account.

The goal was to do the unthinkable – have a blog meet without any alcohol whatsoever. This insane idea was proposed by Finch Scout a few days back, and I agreed to try it out for nothing but a perverse interest in the morbid – something like trying to figure out how long a fish can stay out of water without dying. Can it stay for 2 whole minutes, (which in fish time scale is about 3-4 human hours) on dry land along with 4-5 other fish, suffering in equal measure and egging each other on to jump into the fishbowl? After an initial resistance (I think it was more incredulity) especially by Arcane Crapper, it was agreed that Java city would be it. Coffee would have to substitute for alcohol. Quite a feat, considering that coffee and alcohol are opposites (one being a stimulant and the other a depressant). I will spare the readers the suspense, and tell them right away that we actually succeeded.

I really don’t want to make this post boring by describing in which order we all arrived, what we talked about and where we ate etc coz I am feeling bored just thinking about writing all that out. This should of course not be construed to mean that we did not have an awesome, rocking time, which we did.

Now I know that there are more bloggers out here in Bangalore, and I’ve forgotten to invite quite a few (and of others maybe I’m unaware). So next time, lets have some new members please. Those in Bangalore, and want to meet up, pls leave a comment on this post; I’ll buzz you whenever we are meeting up next. And the usual suspects, ciao till next time!

Utter Nonsense

2005-09-23T03:30:00.000-07:00

Ok.. when most people proudly say that they post nonsense on their blogs, they really havent had opportunity to contend with b-school students let loose on internal messaging systems (exception to this is if the nonsense is in poetry form I totally surrender). Below is an exerpt of a conversation of me and a friend. The part in italics is me.

----------

=====================================
To: ...and mickey lived happily ever after ! [PGP-00-083] (pgp00/BH-037/172.16.30.37)
at Sun Jul 22 05:04:55 2001
-------------------------------------
g`mrning
:-)
goodnite
crashing
statement or question?
lifes full of q
well, 5 mins
class at 0900
class at 830
quiz at 0900
what quiz
test @ 0900
what test
ops
spilts rum?
??
ops
??
oops
blah
shhh
yes and no
unequivocably ambiguous
contemporary insanity.
blaberingly coherent
pushing my luck
off the cliff.....and landing on soft sands 33 inches below...
Lottery...survive r not
perishing against all odds
Quantum Mechanics
jumping high over beetles to land saftely on the other side
scared half to death.......twice.....u r dead
its zero degrees inside and twice as cold outside
i loose...u win ??
nite
i never lie except when i'm not telling the truth
the fum never ends in this college, except when it does
myth: The sun rises in the east
fact: the direction in which the sun rises is called east
that only proves that u r biodegradable
that proves that biology is a very dynamic science
but then there may be a error in reading of thoughts
thoughts are but an illusion that people think....u only think that u think, but how the hell do u think u can tell whether u actually think or that u only think that u think and despite what u think, actually u dont think?
to sum up : All generalizations are false
and if everything is false, then nothing is true...and if nothing is true, false cant exist.....that proves that everything is true.....but then if everything is true nothing is false, truth cant exist.....so neither truth nor false exist and they are only figments of ur imagination
honest : isnt it a Psychic conversation
and as we r just insane and not weird...shouldn`t we quit now ??
ok...i'm feeling sleepy.....but sleep is also an illusion.....i have a documented ip on that subject, already sent out....but that is another story to be told another day......for now, gnite
over and out
I'm SANE I tell you!
nite

Revenge!!!

2005-09-22T04:17:00.000-07:00

Ok - for all those people who have killed me with inexplicable poetry, I say: Revenge is mine!!! Anyone who can make sense of what is written below should get him/her self mentally checked up!
------
Dinner is ready - your goose is cooked,
Wash your hands and come to the table.
The table is laid - havent you looked,
Eat your fill: till more you are unable.

The goose has been marinated with spices galore,
And has been bought form the best butcher shop.
Little did it know a few hours ago what it had in store,
When the knife came upon its throat and made its heart stop.

One man's poison is another man's goose,
If I had wings, would I want to cut them off?
And often on a silent night like this i muse,
Did the goose ever consider its life and scoff?

Alcohol Mathematics - Seriously looking for answers

2005-09-21T03:30:00.000-07:00

This is a question bothering me since a really long time - ever since I started drinking and because of some asinine reason read the labels on the bottles.

Now there are two main factors affecting the high induced by alcohol
1. The quantity
2. The concentration

Now let me put forth two cases:

Case A - a quarter of vodka (180 ml)
The alcohol content in vodka is approx 33%, thus the alcohol content in 180 ml of vodka is about 60 ml. A quarter makes 3 pegs. Lets say they are mixed with water, and thus total volume being about 600-700 ml.

Case B - a bottle of strong beer (650 ml)
The alcohol content in a strong beer being about 9%, i.e. about 60 ml in a bottle of beer of 650 ml.

Therefore in both cases:
1. Quantity of alcohol - approx 60 ml
2. Total volume - 650 ml.

Both quantity as well as concentration being the same, why is it that 3 large vodkas give a stronger kick that one bottle of strong beer? (Australopethicus, this is especially for you)

Wild life?

2005-09-20T02:45:00.000-07:00

I remember, when I was a kid, very rarely doordarshan would show some amazing program, probably from National Geographic or some other foreign channel about wildlife. There would be lions and tigers, deer and bears. The high point of these programs would be the chase. The cheetah would slowly stalk the deer and when close enough would break into a run the way only a cheetah can. There would be not much visible what with the camera trying to keep pace with the dance of death and mud flying all over the place. Then another camera angle in slow motion would show the chase much more clearly. The cheetah running; its spine becoming convex when it brought its fore and hind legs together and concave when they were apart. The final lunge where the cheetah places its fore legs on the butt of the deer and brings it down. The coup-de-grace when the cheetah sinks its canines into the throat of the deer. This was adrenalin-pumping stuff. Family members used to urgently call each other in front of the TV when programs such as these were being aired.

Then came cable TV, with channels like Discovery, Animal Planet and National Geographic. Programs such as the above could be viewed everyday if one wanted to. The thrill of yesteryear was deadened by the ubiquity of these telecasts. We became blasé to the chase, so to speak. Nowadays I change the channel if I see this stuff on TV. I still however know people who watch these programs avidly. This has never failed to intrigue and amuse me. ‘Dude, whats so fascinating? Never seen a lion kill a deer before? After all, it is an act of violence that you are witnessing. I can understand, the first few times in spite of oneself, it is very difficult to tear one’s eyes away from the scene. I remember once I had gone to the zoo, and was at the snakes’ glass enclosure, about 4 feet long, 3 feet deep and 3 feet wide. It was feeding time for the snakes and so a live rat was put into the glass enclosure. There were two snakes in the cage. The rat sat on one of the branches (some artificial environment created) in the enclosure, literally frozen immobile with fear. One of the snakes slowly approached the rat. The rat just did not move. Then the other snake held the first one by biting into its midsection. No the teeth didn’t penetrate, just held the snake back. Somehow the first snake manages to reach the rat, and swallows it. Very slowly. Very very slowly. The time taken for the rat from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail to go down the snake’s mouth would have been, without any exaggeration, five minutes. For a whole minute the tail of the rat could be seen out from the snake’s mouth moving slowly from side to side, once in a while. I was just transfixed. I could not move away from that enclosure. I recon I was there about 15 minutes in total. It was the first time I had seen such a thing, and I really didn’t see it again anytime. Agreed, that a lion chasing a deer isn’t so gruesomely graphic, but doesn’t wanting to see it again and again imply some kind of wantonness in the viewer? Fine, if this line of reasoning seems a bit far fetched, what about the sheer monotony of it all? How many times would you want to see the same thing again and again?’

This time, I was browsing channels, and saw a variation on the theme. It was nighttime, and a leopard had killed a boar or some animal of that sort, and was beginning to eat it. A crocodile then shows up and thinks the meal is delicious. There is a fight between the crocodile and the leopard, which reminded me of the climax fight between Salman Khan and Shakti Kapoor in Andaaz Apna Apna. Neither the crocodile nor the leopard actually touches each other. Then one more leopard arrives on the scene. And then one more crocodile and so on till there were three leopards and three crocodiles pulling the carcass in their respective directions in furtive attempts to lay claim to the booty. The scene was really funny and my mind went off on a tangent, imagining what it would be if men were the animals (which they frequently are) and there would be a roast turkey on the table (maybe it would be thanksgiving day) and people are making grunting, snarling noises and pulling the turkey in different directions saying in guttural voices ‘yeh meri turkey hai’, ‘mujhe turkey de de’ etc.

I sincerely find it amazing that humans find it so interesting to study the habits of animals and film them and actually send them out as radio waves so that people can see it on TV screens. Would other animals be equally curious about us? What if the panthers were secretly videotaping some of us at this very moment and having viewing sessions with some panther-technology that we are not aware of? What would they show? Guy getting up, going to office? Working amidst office politics and bagging big deals? Going in the evening and trying to pataofy his girlfriend? Having a quarrel in the family? Would the panthers really find it amazing and fantastic viewing material as some of us (god knows why?!) find watching panthers? And then I realized – we don’t need panthers to do this. We are already doing it. TV is full of soap operas showing exactly this. And people watch this as much if not more than they watch the lives of animals.

So the wildlife enthusiasts have the last word. Heres what they would say to me: If you think that wildlife television sucks, what do you have to say about the rest?

Off to Bombay

2005-09-15T02:16:00.000-07:00

Today evening's flight. Back monday morning. Dont you people dare have a bloggers meet while i'm gone!

And talking about Vikram Vetaal, read this.

Pure nostalgia

2005-09-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

Received a forward that really rang very true.. amazing how so many of these things we've forgotten till reading this one.

------
When gulli-danda and kanche (marbles) were more popular than cricket ...
When we always had friends to play aais-paais (I Spy), chhepan-chhepai and pitthoo anytime ...
When we desperately waited for 'yeh jo hai jindagi'
When chitrahaar, vikram-baitaal, dada daadi ki kahaniyaan were so fulfilling ...
When there was just one TV in every five houses and
When bisleris were not sold in the trains and we were worrying if papas will get back into the train in time or not when they were getting down at stations to fill up the water bottle..
When we were going to bed by 9.00pm sharp except for the 'yeh jo hai jindagi' day ..
When Holis & Diwalis meant mostly hand-made pakwaans and sweets and moms seeking our help while preparing them..
When Maths teachers were not worried of our mummys and papas while slapping/beating us ...
When we were exchanging comics and stamps and chacha-chaudaris and billus were our heroes ...
When we were in nanihaals every summer and loved flying kites and plucking and eating unripe mangoes and leechis ..
When one movie every Sunday evening on television was more than one asked for and 'ek do teen chaar' and 'Rajni' inspired us ..
When 50 paisa meant at least 10 toffees ..
When left over pages of the last years notebooks were used for rough work or even fair work ..
When 'chelpark' and 'natraaj' were encouraged against 'reynolds and family' ..
When the first rain meant getting drenched and playing in water and mud and making 'kaagaj ki kishtis' ..
When there were no phones to tell friends that we will be at their homes at six in the evening ..
When our parents always had 15 paise blue colored 'antardesis' and 5 paise machli wale stamps at home ...
When we remembered tens of jokes and were not finding 'ice-cream and papa' type jokes foolish enough to stop us from laughing ..
When we were not seeing patakhes on Diwalis and gulaals on Holis as air and noise polluting or allergic agents ...

the list can be endless ...

on the serious note I would like to summarise with ..
When we were using our hearts more than our brains, even forscientifically brainy activities like 'thinking' and 'deciding' ..
When we were crying and laughing more often, more openly and more sincerily ..
When we were enjoying our present more than worrying about our future ..
When being emotional was not synonymous to being weak ...
When sharing worries and happinesses didnt mean getting vulnerable to the listener ..
When blacks and whites were the favourite colors instead of greys ..
When journeys also were important and not just the destinations ...
When life was a passenger's sleeper giving enough time and opportunity to enjoy the sceneries from its open and transparent glass windows instead of some superfast's second ac with its curtained, closed and dark windows ..
I really miss .. do u?, if u do then please send this to all your friends
and loved ones, including me.

Russian Salad - Third Helping (These Russians have large appetites..)

2005-09-12T04:26:00.000-07:00

For those who have no idea what this is all about:
Russian Salad
Russian Salad – Second helping
--------

Ahhh..... so the plot thickens!

No sooner had I written the above line than I was inundated by calls from Ketchup makers from all over from India and other SAARC countries clamouring for this amazing secret ingredient 'plot'. They had done extensive consumer research and the unanimous verdict was that consumers wanted their tomato ketchup thick. After analysing this insight for six months they got rid of all their marketing guys who had interpreted this in a slightly wrong manner and were "laying it on thick" and instead agreed with the disappointingly straightforward interpretation that the viscoisity of the product needed to be higher. I was offered high prices for 'plot'; so high infact that I could have easily left my job and pranced around naked with garland (and solely garland) clad girls on Honolulu. It was with a heavy heart that I had to explain to them that plot was nothing but a construct, a story. I'm going to recite Jack and the Beanstalk to work-in-progress Ketchup next Friday.

Do not interpret this as the daftness of corporate India. They know as well as you do that this is not going to work. But they are willing to take a shot at ANYthing. What goes? A thousand rupees an hour which they will pay me? Pittance! And if, IF by some miracle, the ketchup does turn out thicker, then they have millions to gain. It was with this kind of reasoning that Vladimir stole Sergi's space. It did not cost him much to steal it. But if, just IF Sergi was doing what Vladimir thought he was doing, then this would strike a mightly blow to Sergi.

And now readers, you might be thinking: What is it that Vladimir thought Sergi was thinking? What do u mean by 'stealing' space. Theres no such thing! And if there is, how can it be done? And I say to my readers: All in good time... all in good time. Because right now I have to introduce to you, Vladimir's amazing invention - "Remainderizer"

Vladimir took keen interest in the stock market and the corporate world. He used to read books like "Barbarians at the Gate" in which he read about Mike Milken and such other people who used to buy out a company, break it into divisions and sell them piecemeal, thereby getting more than what the company was worth as a whole. He decided to put this into practice and bought a company, broke it up and sold it piecemeal. He almost went bankrupt. He broke up the company storey-wise. Simple execution. No relocation costs. Why cut the cake when I can buy pastries? Basement was company A, first floor was company B, second floor was company C, and thrid floor was company D (which was bought by Randeep Hooda, who had no experience in running corporates but never for a second wavered in his belief that "Is dhandhe me experience ki nahi, daring ki zaroorat hai). The problem as you might have already guessed is that people were seated on different floors roughly on an 'as available' basis, and no floor could really function independently.

Although the attempt was a total failure, Vladimir came out of it (as many of the stories in Tinkle comics ended) 'a sadder but wiser man'. (I mean what kind of a sick world is this? Does it always have to be the horns of the dilemma? Whats the use of being wise if you are sad? But you know whats the really bad part? You have to be wise AND sad. You cant even choose. Because as usual life is full of catch 22 situations. You see, you really need to be wise to understand that happiness is the ultimate aim in life. As soon as one realises this, one becomes a wise and therefore sad man. The only way therefore, one could be happy is through serendipity. Dont strive to be happy; its a meaningless exercise.) He thought about it. You divide something and the sum of the parts is more than the whole? What if you divide 50 by 5 and the multiplication of the divisor and the quotient was more than 50? How is this simply possible? It isnt... unless... unless there is a remainder created in this process! Something like alcohol in cough syrups! Generated by the dynamics of creation of the subject matter. Now some circumstances / processes / situations result in generation of remainders. However, if there was a process to generate remainders itself, rather than remainders being a by-product of some other process, then...Vladimir did not even dare think of the implications of this. It would be his largest invention ever.

It is pointless to go into the details of the modus operandi of his invention, as otherwise this piece will cease to be literature (yeah shut up!) and will look like a thesis paper on calculus and quantum mechanics. Suffice to say that the remainderizer was invented, and it worked too. There was one hitch though. The remainder wasnt something REAL. You know, when the companies were split and the value increased, the increase was nothing but an increase in its stock value. Share prices are nothing but perception of the market. Oh well, it was real in the sense that you would go and make an real cash profit if you sold the shares. But that is in the construct of a share market. The basic principle of the Remainderizer was that it would generate a remainder which only had a percieved value. The percieved value may or may not be real depending on the construct from case to case.

2005-09-12T02:16:00.000-07:00

Your Brain is 46.67% Female, 53.33% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female
You are both sensitive and savvy
Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed
But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve

What'>http://www.blogthings.com/genderbrainquiz/">What Gender Is Your Brain?

Socho, socho...

2005-09-08T04:31:00.000-07:00

Girl power! Would you say that..
-A prostitute who does it for free is a cervix to society?
- Your opening line to a girl with a very big ass but otherwise perfectly proportioned would be 'whats a place like this doing on a girl like you?'

Andd... Its just not cricket!!
- If Tendulkar is on strike how can he be the opening batsman?
- Since Tendulkar has only one bat at any given point of time shouldn't we drop the 's' and call him Batman instead.
- Shouldnt Robin Singh then be called boy wonder?
- And shouldn't people who think that the movie 'The Wall' has Rahul Dravid in it be shot dead?

The above and other such moral dilemmas abound the world of blogging today. Very soon I would be presenting you new mysteries in the realms of science fiction (Was '2001 A Space Odissi' a dance festival?) censorship (since Mahabharata starred Krishna can the popular TV series be labelled as a 'blue' film) and history (Why wasn't I invited to the Boston Tea party anyways!?). Coming soon to a blog near you.

What Gender is your Blog?

2005-09-05T04:10:00.000-07:00

Let me begin with the Caveat “All generalizations are wrong”. Which is a paradox. Plural of paradox is paradise. Pair-o-dice is what takes gamblers to paradise. What a coincidence! When I was least expecting it.. But then if I were expecting it, it wouldn’t be a coincidence right? Another paradox. And coupled with the previous one, Paradise. Ahem.. before you get bored and run away, let me get back to the point.

In this post, I’m going to tell you how to differentiate between guy blogs and girl blogs. You see, many bloggers don’t make their profile public, or don’t mention their gender on their blogs. This post is a guide (mind you, merely a guide) to figure out from the blog whether the blog is written by a girl or by a guy.

The Guy blog
There is no one typical guy blog. But there are some signature traits which will point to the blog being a guy.
1. The blog will be replete with jokes (mostly thought up by the blogger himself and more often than not, good)
2. The blog will deal with ‘issues’ (and more often than not the issues will be commercial / business issues) and will express opinions on a vast range of subjects such as outsourcing, foreign policy and economic policies of the ruling government.
3. The posts will be deceptively self deprecating (read modest) carved out in a way that will urge the readers to compensate for the writer’s modesty
4. There will be allusions to his lack of sex life in different posts (though no particular post will be dedicated to this topic)

The Girl blog
The Girl blog is actually easier to recognize than the guy blog. Pointers:
1. Poetry. Especially poetry which does not rhyme. Also, poetry which will not make sense (or which will require intense study to understand) especially to guys.
2. Short posts (couple of sentences maybe) which are completely out of context and will not make any sense – especially to guys.
3. Copy paste of conversations (either in person or on phone or on the net) had with a close friend… The content of this conversation more often than not is the guy telling the girl that she’s mad. The girl will think this cute and post the conv on her blog.
4. Frequent ‘introspection’ posts, the content of which will be that the blogger is good for nothing and she has lost all confidence in herself and there is no hope for her. These posts attract a lot of comments especially from guys because they think that extending a cyber shoulder to a damsel in distress will win her over. Sometimes it actually works.
5. There will be some or the other post, when she is having trouble with her boyfriend which will be in a very indirect and roundabout manner making her problem a macrocosm of the world and the people in it.

These are nothing but modern day manifestations of the atavistic man. The male was the bread-winner, the hunter, who interacted / fought with the world to achieve his goals. He therefore had an ‘external’ point of view. Whatever he did was keeping in mind his interaction with the world at large. This results in him projecting a favourable picture of himself to the world either by sounding intelligent about issues or cracking jokes and making people laugh. Female bloggers also write issue based posts but the issues are more ‘social issues’ such as gay rights or eve teasing. Female bloggers will also write about incidents/events that happened to them or they witnessed but unlike the male blogger, who will externalize the incident (what the incident was about, what were the effects etc) the female bloggers it will internalize it (what the writer felt / what it meant to her). The male incidents will tend to be funny whereas the female version will be insightfully amusing. Both male and female bloggers will at some point attempt a short story on their blog which barring a few exceptions will be quite bad.

Each person is a bit of both. Yin and Yang. Therefore blogs will also be a combination of male and female characteristics. Some female bloggers might have male blogs and vice versa. It’s a question of proportion. 70% - 30% or 50% - 50% or anything else. And this is where the title of the post comes in. What gender is your blog? I’m also tagging the following – Sita, Manu, AC - link this to your blog so that you can come to know what people think about the gender of your blog. You in turn tag three other people. My comments section is open and would be interesting to receive your feedback!!

Statutory warning: In some cases, reading this post could cause urges to lynch / castrate the writer of this post. The writer therefore says "Pehele se maafi mai-baap" and requests his readers to take this post with a pinch of salt, and pepper to taste.

VIP

2005-08-31T03:43:00.000-07:00

Some people carry a lot of baggage, it is said. In some cases this is literally so. And I am never reminded about this fact more strongly than when I meet G.

I still remember that day more than a year ago when the new bag was proudly displayed to me. “For eight fifty bucks only. I’ll get one for you if you want me to.” I responded with appropriate awe while G showed me the salient features of his bag. It was an off-white, trendy, laptop bag. You could hold it like a handbag, or you could sling it over your shoulder, or you could even sling it over both shoulders, like a schoolbag. G was mighty pleased with it, and put on display the various compartments so thoughtfully yet simply ensembled that I could not but help pay silent homage to the designer of this magical bag.

Of course, this new bag meant farewell to its predecessor and I am sure it was a tearful farewell on G’s part. In my mind’s eye, I imagine G and his bag together for the last time. G removing stuff from his bag. Sorting out stuff which will be destroyed, stuff which will be transferred to his new bag and stuff which will be put elsewhere. A last tender touch. Straightening out the creases. Gently folding it. Mumbling half to himself and half to the bag “Acha, bag… tumne bahut acha kaam kiya hai hamaare liye… bahut acha service diye ho… abhi tum aaram karo.” And with that the bag was tenderly put into one of the lower shelves of his cupboard. He wiped away a tear as he remembered the sentimental moments he had with his bag.. how he had carried it to A’s wedding.. how he had carried it to R’s house in which he had carried home-made sweets for R… But hey! He had a new bag!

And so, like Mary’s little lamb, wherever that G went, the bag was sure to go. Now G used to carry his laptop plus assorted stuff in this bag. But then G got a desktop, yet the bag remained with him. It was a topic of great interest and amusement to all his friends as to what the fuck did G carry in his bag. And G knew the extreme sense of exasperation this caused in his friends, and so he obliged by displaying slowly and deliberately the contents of his bag.

Opening the main compartment – “Oh these are just some papers and some office stuff here…” and then a sheepish grin as he wordlessly shows a packet of parle biscuits. (here I will not go into how the spectators of this deliciously weird striptease react to each revelation – these are on predictable lines like “Oh fuck! Biscuits?!!!” or “G, you are mad!”) “Here are a few floppies/CDs” (maybe a porn CD, if he is doing a good deed by carrying it to give it to someone). The shirt is off now. Start with the pants. Opening another compartment of the bag “Medicines” he says with childish glee, while he shows you half a strip of Digene or Anacin. Probably a book of some sort which both G and the spectators dismiss as uninteresting stuff. The pants are down now. Start with the bikini.

Opens some ultra small compartment in the bag. A cellotape! Another teensy compartment. A very small stapler (but it works!) And now the panties are coming off.. take a deep breath.. A full pack of stapler pins!!! At this point most of the spectators swoon and lose consciousness.

G – I gotta tell you this. This would have been much less weird if you were a girl. Slightly odd to carry such a huge purse, but then it would just be a question of “how much” rather than “what?!!?!”

Nonetheless, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Your bag has everything. It truly is a ‘jaadu ka pitara’ – you just have to make a wish and put your hand in the bag and lo behold! Whatever you wished for will be in your hands There are times when I feel closer to your bag than I do to you, G. If and when you buy a new bag, please do call me… to see off your current one.

2004-12-19T11:34:00.000-08:00

This blog is shut down.

2004-12-16T11:51:00.000-08:00

She was sitting on the sofa in the front room. She didnt recognise me. Her eyesight has become very poor. She is frail and hard of hearing. Who is it, she asked me. I told her. Her hand instinctively went for my french beard. Yes, its you. The radiance in her voice was unmistakable. Though there was a tremor in her voice, the tremor was happy.

She asks me, how do i look? Better, or same, or worse? She looks old. Older than last time. Thinner, more wrinkles. Veins showing like cables under the back of her palm. Same, you look the same. And how does grandpa look? He looks the same too. And your aunt? She looks the same too. Haha, all are same.

And then, remniscing about my childhood. How I we used to play 'engine engine' and how did the tiger roar, what all do u get at natraj... games played over and over so many times that they've become legends in the family.

And then she tells me to sing.

Sing? I dont know how to sing, I protest. Sing any song, just one song she says. Oh i dont know the words of any. We used to sing so many songs, she argues. Sing jaane kahan gaye yeh din, or sing aa jaa sanam... or sing the woodpecker song. You used to sing so well.. in school u always used to take part in singing competitions. But I dont sing.

Sing one song for grandma says grandpa. Instead we get the casio and me and grandma both play several songs, but I dont sing....

Backward forward

2004-12-06T08:17:00.000-08:00

I like forwards. Most forwards. Funny forwards, jokes, even those forwards which say "send this to 50 people else your dick will fall off" I dont mind. But i cant stand sappy forwards. Those which say that the world is a wonderful place and ridiculously simplify everything. One such forward ended with the moral "Give the best to the world and the best will come to you :-) " Which really ticked me off.....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Give the best to the world and the best will come to you :-) "

Why not just eliminate the middlemen and be nice to yourself? Yeahhhhhh....I will now turn this into some biblical statement or something that reads like something from The Prophet: "And Jesus asked the Lord 'What is thine foremost preaching? What is that all must follow, failing which they shall be desecrating your name?' and the Lord said: 'U dolt! if u dont understand this much, i made a damn mistake nominating u! Man, its common sense...even that blond in "Friends" knows that! Arnold Swaznegger takes it to ridiculous lengths. I can go on pontifying thus, but i'm really fed up with u!! The foremost teaching is, be nice to yourself man!!! Fuck all ur "fellowmen" business....I mean, if u keep subjecting yourself to terrors and hardships, u'll really be in fine condition to show consideration to ur fellowmen!!!!

I mean, if u dont have sense, learn from me!! Aint I nice to myself? Dont I live in this wonderful holiday resort they call heaven....and am i not surrounded by beautiful winged chicks (I gave them wings so that they could finish housework faster and have more time for me) which they call angels? I am happy, supremely happy, and that is why the hardships of ppl strike me, make an impression on me, grieve me...and so i am motivated to help them. Now if I were in rags, starved for 12 years like that Valmiki in the anthill, hadnt ever wanked off after the age of 15, and if someone came to me with a petition of a salary hike to me, do u think i'd be inclined to help him? I'd like Doc Daneeka say: U think u have problems? What about me??

And all u prophets have disappointed me. U are supposed to be my followers, but u do everything opposite from what I do. You go off to jungles and eat berries and leaves for 12 years, sit under trees and make them famous, assume postures which would give contortonists a run for their money, keep chanting in voices more monotonous than Prita George's and generally browbeat your wonderful, charismatic personalities into some schizophonic, psycopathic, convoluted world view...and your body isnt doing well, with the
hardships and starvation either....and thus after several years of raping and pillaging your bodies and minds, it is of absolutely no surprise to me that due to the degradation it is subjected to, added with your supreme desire to have a vision, u do actually hallucinate and claim to have seen me and talked to me.

(Idiots! u dont know that i dont ever communicate except through email. Check your email properly.....especially the forwards...there might be a divine message woven into it) And in that hallucination u obviously see me telling u things YOU have always wanted to hear...the world explained by me, as YOU want it explained.....and then you go and tell happless ppl about it in my name!!! Bastards, name droppers!! Claiming your stupid theories as mine!! anyways, i've said too much already. I must have some mystery surrounding me...otherwise everyone will want those winged chicks of mine for themselves...oops i shouldnt have said this....oops i shouldnt have said i shouldnt have said this....and so on.

Be nice to yourself

For Old Times Sake...

2004-11-28T00:06:00.000-08:00

Agar Pandavo ke baap ka naam Pandu tha, to Gandharvo ke baap ka naam kya hoga?

And only few people will remember how this is to be spoken (Shaking forearm with index finger extended a la Papaji. Man... will the good ol' days ever stop reminding themselves!)

2004-11-27T10:26:00.000-08:00

Sent out an sms to may ppl: hello? so where u partying tonight

Each reply i got made me look more and more uncool. some one at i-bar, someone at friend's place, someone at a house warming party... and they'd in turn ask: where r u? and i'd have to say i'm at home. I mean, i got 5 replies and no one was at home... maybe ppl at home didnt reply... only ppl having a good time replied. Nowadays nothing affects me tho. Even pain is blunt. Not that i am paining right now. In fact, am in quite a good mood :)

2004-11-27T06:48:00.001-08:00

Accedintally, you will find them, in the last place
you would expect, may be they are near you
right now and you don't know, you love to have
a good time that is why the chances that you
and them be friends first than get in a
romantic relationship is very high, so open
your eyes and think, it might be so close.

Where will you find love?
brought to you by Quizilla

Strike me up, strike me down! - Add to the list!

2004-11-23T00:04:00.000-08:00

The Manicurist's Union has its hands full making certain its members get paid any time they lift a finger.
The Realtor's Union had a lot on its mind because its members believed in deeds, not words.
The Upholsterer's Union failed at first because they were tackless in asking for fringe benefits, but they have now fully recovered.
The Cobbler's Union demanded they have sole music while they worked.
The Accountants found organizing very taxing.
It is rumored that the Tennis Pros Union has quite a racket going.
The Geologists took their union for granite.
The algebric union was the addition at all its members at an intersection
The geometric union is also an abgebric union if seen from a different angle.
However, an arithmetic union is not an algebric union. U cant just add 2 and 2 together like that
Compared to these, the trigonometric union, was at quite a tangent
Its 'characteristic' that the logarithmic union was a combination of all these, 'bar one'.
The actuary union could not be formed for want of quorum. They believed in the law of large numbers.
The quantum physics union was not very successful, it suffered from family (relatives) problems
The union between the gravity union and the relativity union couldnt take place because of a stubbed TOE
The laboratory union wasnt successful either. The members lacked chemistry
The cement manufacturer's union wasnt successful coz its members thought in silos
The microbiology union was the only union juvenile enuf to have discussions solely about jeans
The tortoise's union hardly had any meetings as its members were always in their own shells.
The Newtons' union did no activity. It suffered from inertia.
The oxygen union never indulged in unethical acts. It was very Priestly.
Kelvin's was the coolest union. But it was not very bright. In their tests the members scored absolute zero.
The lover's union was going steady
The archeologists union was also unearthed one fine day
The naval union was a fleet of ships but was often mistaken for the touching of belly buttons of lovers during intercourse
The hitchikers applied to the govt for forming a union, magar unko angootha dikhaya gaya
The members of the ballet union had high egos and each one was careful not to step on the other's toes
The schizophrenics formed a union too, but it soon split up.
But the best was the austoanauts union. it was out of this world!
The golfers union was fed up with the hole exercise
The cricketers union's star performer was Sachin Tendulkar...he was the first to go on strike
The prostitutes union was grappling with a sticky issue
The massager's didnt have any union and were upset that the others were rubbing it in
The pilots also tried making a union but it just didnt take off
The transporters wanted no truck with all this union stuff
The dogs formed a union so that they wouldnt have to bow-wow to other ppls demands
The bastard's union couldnt care less. Whose father what goes?

2004-11-16T23:30:00.000-08:00

Theres something that a long weekend does to you. It totally incapacitates you for office the day after. Yesterday this was validated beyond doubt. There is a great reluctance to get up from bed, making me late, and then a mad rush which involves time and motion study as well as prioritisation of jobs (omit shaving, and if possible going to the loo!). So I reach office already late, only to realise that I have clean forgotten to bring my laptop! I mean, i commute by bike, and the laptop is over my shoulder, resting on the seat behind me. I am always in physical contact with it. And for 25 minutes, i did not even realise that I've not got it. Had to go back home and get it. Reached office very, very late.

2004-11-15T03:13:00.000-08:00

Ive had enough. I'm fed up of life. Someone please murder me without warning. In return he can take my ATM / debit card from my wallet. I shall work out some way so that he can know the password. Theres lots of money. Please murder me and take it all. I'm serious. Only condition however: it must be real quick. If you give me even an inkling of what is coming, I shall fight tooth and nail to save myself.

The ten thousand second barrier

2004-11-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

2 hours 48 mins. Thats 168 mins. Thats 10080 seconds. I am sure this is a new personal record! Dont make wild guesses what i'm talking about. But it was worth the time spent.

Half Century!

2004-11-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

Well, this is my fiftieth post! What have I learnt? One of the top of the mind thoughts is: The number of comments is inversely proportional to the quality of the post. This is not an opinion, its a fact, culled out from a sample size of fifty. If you dont believe me, check it out. Well, what else up with me? Am having a bad time at work. Its a saturday and I was in office till 930. Wanted to go to a pub, but as luck wud have it, no one was available. So am watched a movie at home and kept Mr Smirinoff company. Talking about work, i'm really irritated. Either everyone is incompetent or inefficient (this applies to people under me or around me) or worse, they are intellecutally dishonest and have an amazing capacity of calling a spade not a spade (and this applies to people above me). What else? Since this is my fifth drink, and am just on a roll, I'd like to talk about different levels of intimacy. For some people, sending an sms is a more intimate form of self expression than kissing. I think she'd agree to make love to me before she'd send me an sms. In which case some of my very logical minded friends would logically point out that I dont have much to complain about! Well, sometimes, I just like to receive an sms! She says i'm completely mad. Shes not the first one to say so. Well maybe i'm just mad in a different kind of way than what the rest of the world is.

Maybe I'm just rambling.... but maybe its not just me...

Russian Salad - Second Helping

2004-10-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm true to my word! Heres it before Oct end. For the uninitiated, read Russian Salad: the very first post on my blog
------------------------------------------

This being prelude enough, we now cut to the chase. Only problem being with that is that there is no chase to cut to. Not because the circumstances arent right, but because the people arent right. The attentive reader would recall that Vladimir was very fat, and therefore it wouldnt be a very long logical leap for him/her to make that Vladimir's perambulatory skills would not be of a very high order. If Vladimir was the chaser, so to say, the chase would never start, Vladimir being fully aware of his limitations. And if Vladimir was the chasee, so to say, the chase would end almost immediately. Vladimir therefore had removed all fear of getting caught from his heart. It was a certainty. If someone wanted to catch him, he would be caught. He owed his freedom to the pathetic quality of his rivals. Sergi was so airy fairy that cockroaches in his house moved around with the air of a newly crowned king who had ascended the throne by killing his brother.

Sergi had shifted his academic leanings considerably after his graduation. He realised the futility of thought and rationality and found questions such as "If a tree fell in forest and no one was there to hear it, does it make a sound?" extremely childish and therefore irritating. "I think therefore I am" seemed to make as much sense as "I doubt therefore I might be". He realised that any philosophy that emnnated from thought was destined to be bound by the limitations of thought, and wasnt it a fact that human intellect was not the most powerful force on this planet? Coz if it was, then all mysteries would be solved. Therefore, philosophy, which was the ultimate quest for unsolved mysteries could not run on the fuel of intellect alone. Philosophy needed something more than intellect, that is what his intellect told Sergi. But could he believe the word of his intellect that told him that intellect should not be believed? If he did believe, then he would have to not believe, and if he did not believe, he would continue believing. Understandably, Sergi was thoroughly confused.

Sergi was dying a slow spiritual death. His own brain was killing him. And his brain was giving him this information that his brain was killing him. He begged his brain to stop killing. His brain told his brain to stop killing him. His brain at this point got very irriatated with itself for telling it what it was doing and telling it not to do it also. If it was telling it not to do it, why couldnt it just stop doing it?! Then it realised that if it could stop doing it, how would it come to know about that? As soon as it came to know it had stopped doing it, by definition it meant that it had not stopped doing it. Sergi was going mad. His brain was all pervasive. Whatever he thought, his brain had something to do with it. No person should brook such constant interference, even from his own brain, thought Sergi. Maybe I should just cut off my brain, he thought. And he let out a frustrated cry when he realised that it was his brain which was suggesting this course of action!

By the by, he realised the root of his problem. His conditioning. He had graduated in western philosophy, and the mother of western philosophy was logic. The problem was the way he was conditioned to think. Leniarly. Logically. Sensibly. This method of thought is the culprit, said Sergi to himself. From now on I shall let myself loose. My intellect will not monitor my thoughts. My intellect will take the backseat. Other forces will prevail. Sergi was sure (how was he sure? well he just had a hunch) that there were other forces in the making of human thought apart from intellect. No one knew what these forces were, because of environmental conditioning, they were never given enough chance to manifest themselves. I shall provide a conducive environment for these forces to flourish and make themselves known, Sergi decided. And hence Sergi never thought about what he thought. Thoughts entered his mind freely and left freely. At firstly it was very difficult not to interfere at all. AT ALL were the catch words. Thoughts about incest with his daughter entered his mind, and he caught himself monitoring them, purging them. No - I shall allow them to roam free. It was very difficult, but practice makes perfect.

Wierd thoughts would enter his mind. He thought about mountains of ice-cream melting and huge cows with gigantic tongues lapping it up and saying 'come to mama baby'. He thought about coffee powder being small organisms with telepathy ruling and controlling the world. He thought about having wood for lunch. He thought of substituting onion rings he had along with his vodka by penis rings made from his own penis. He thought of walking up to the Alps on his hands, reaching the top and doing a two and a half summersalt back-flip dive into Switzerland. He thought about sticking bullets of his AK - 47 up his nose. He thought about using cars as toilet paper. He thought about going and using the slide in the playground as a prosthesis for his horse's leg. By the by, he was able to free his thoughts from the influence of his intellect to a great extent.

Then one day, he had this thought. He had a stirring in his soul. He could feel the other forces manifesting themselves. The thought was persistent. Insistent. Like other thoughts this one would not come and go. It came and went and came again and went and came again. For all practical purposes it stayed. Sergi waited. One month. Two months. Three months. Six months. The thought did not relent. There was no denying it. It demanded action. Sergi acted. He bought houses, he bought bunglows, he bought flats. He bought godowns, he bought warehouses, he bought junkyards. He bought office complexes, he bought shopping complexes, he bought villas. He bought whole buildings. He bought factories, he bought garages, he bought tea estates. He tried to buy the Pentagon, but the US government wanted more money. He bought half of the Sahara desert. He bought chawls, he bought slums, he even bought railway platforms. In short, he bought space. Thats what the persistent, insistent thought was about. Buy space, Sergi, buy space.

Sergi did not know what all this meant. He did not dare analyse. He had left analysis long ago. He would give the other forces time to manifest themselves fully. Till then, he was not going to think about it and put years of reverse conditioning to waste. However, a small portion of his brain, where intellect still functioned, registerd some electrical activity. Of course, years of reverse conditioning ensured that this activity did not touch the thoughts or the awareness of Sergi Putin, but as author of this story (and thats the advantage of writing in the third person - I know facts that none of the characters in the story would know) it would be my pleasure to share with my audience the nature of this electrical activity. It was like this:

Space held all the physical dimensions of that existed in the universe. Let the scientists disagree how many dimensions were actually there in the universe (he had heard numbers ranging from 4 to 26) but he somehow felt that without the dimensions of length breadth and height, nothing else could make much sense. He also did not believe in this concept of parallel universes. 'Parallel' of course in this concept only mean 'that which does not meet or intersect'. Going back to high school geometry, he knew that 2 lines need not be parallel not to intersect. They can be non-parallel and lie in different planes and still not intersect. However, if the object was two dimensional, i.e. a plane, then they needed to be parallel not to intersect. But if the object was 3 dimensional geometric (extending till infinity in 3 dimensions) then non-intersection was an impossibility. Why? Because there could be only one such object. The universe. And therefore the concept of a parallel universe seemed unrealistic to him. But what about time - the 4th dimension. He was not forgetting this. But time went either backwards or forwards. Time didnt go sideways. And therefore a parallel universe in which the 4th dimension was different was no different from saying that this room is different from this room tomorrow. True, but well, so what? Similar arguments held for the 5th, 6th and 26th dimensions. He was therefore convinced that much of the mysteries of the universe are locked in 'space'. And the person who lords over space would be so much closer to the answer of these mysteries.

And therefore Sergei Putin was livid. Because his space was stolen.

Out to prove their Metal!

2004-10-30T03:33:00.000-07:00

God knows whats the thing with rock and new age metal these days. Dont misunderstand me; I'm not stuck in time. I'm not one of those old timers who think that everything was better when they were in their heyday. Music, movies, eggs, vegetables, tea - Everything. I like Evanescence and Linking parks good too, and I like Avril Lavil. But i just cant understand some of the hard core bands of recent times and their videos.

Imagine this - A skeleton against a green background. The skeleton itself is another shade of green. No its not even a skeleton - its more like a gooey skeleton - a skeleton with a thin coating of tissue on it. And this skeleton is very flexible. It bends backwards (literally, not figuratively), bends its joints the wrong way and opens and closes its eyes (or whatever is left of them). Another skeleton comes and slowly, very slowly removes a black eel-looking thing from its neck. And so on. The music is repetitive, moaning, brooding, as if someone had just died and the dead man's spirit wanted to absolutely disconcert the gathering that had come to mourn his death.

I see all this and think were these people on dope or what when they made this? And then the realisation that blew the air out of my lungs - they werent!! This wasnt an article that you could write over a couple of hours of doped stupor, or even music that can be composed in an ill lit room under the influence of speed. This was an organised, planned project. There were computer generated special effects, there were strange sound effects, there was choreography.... it was a team project with someone in charge of it, someone assigning roles and responsibilities, different people doing different jobs. This couldnt be done over an intoxicated binge. So someone was doing this purposely, deliberately. Why?? I could think of only one answer. They think that someone will like this. And I realised that they werent wrong. For on the table next to me, there were people who recognised the song and some similar ones (and sometimes even responded with an Ahhh as people do in pubs). Well, what can I say... the jokes on me i guess..... Personally I'd prefer Priest or Maiden or Satriani getting the most out of their guitars/drums!

Changing Colours: Very pale, almost faded

Changing Colours

2004-10-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

Pale orangish, brownish pink.

Yeeeeaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!

2004-10-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

Am in an extreeeemely upbeat mood right now! I feel like I can triple my work targets, seduce Aishwariya Rai and even climb Mount Everest. All three at the same time too!!!! This feeling is reeeeaaaally heady. I danced to Mr Big for 25 mins!!! And did 20 push ups!

Its really inexplicable, this sudden bolt of feel-good. I had an average day at office. Nothings changed between today and yesterday. Maybe thats why its called a mood!!! Anyways cant analyse anymore right now! Yippppiiiiieeeeeeeee!!!!!!

Changing colours: Purple with a tinge of brown blended in

Vital Stats

2004-10-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

Self made dinner:
- One packet of Knorr chicken soup (2 bowls)
- 3 scrambled egges
- 7 slices of toasted bread
- one cube of cheese
- lots of butter
- one glass of Real apple juice

Accompaniments:
- Bits and pieces of Rush Hour
- couple of phone calls

Wanted:
- home food whenever I want
- human company with dinner
(If at this point of time, someone points out that a wife will fulfil both of the above, I shall slap him/her. I refuse to get married just coz I want someone to cook food!)

Changing colours:
Purple

Changing colours

2004-10-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

Bright Red. Then Maganta.

Perfect Evening....almost...

2004-10-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

Am homeboday today. Have decided to treat myself nicely. So have ordered for a white wine (chilling right now) and some kebabs. And going to watch Chicago in the soft light of the lamp that my friends have given me. Bliss.... Someone's missing tho.. and I am missing her... Lifes like that...

Probably my first serious post...

2004-10-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

Recently I told someone "I can take whatever life dishes out to me". Well, these werent the exact words, but this is what it boiled down to. Can I, I think. Many people who know me would disagree, I think. Hah the'd say. Percy? And I'd disagree with them. I think I can pretty much take whatever life dishes out to me. Why? Whats it with me that makes me so confident, inspite of my friends thinking otherwise? Lets analyse.

I think its about living life vicariously. Its about having a sense of humour and a vivid imagination. A vivid imagination gives you the capacity of being in various situations without actually being in them, and a sense of humour prevents you from (a) scaring yourself away (b) a circuit breaker to too much of analysis. Soak it in, let your subconscious do the analysis. The other is a violent short term reaction. I react very badly to any disappointment / bad news in the short term. (This being the reason my friends probably disagreeing with my statement, they being on the receiving end of quite some whining!) In a day or two I am so fed up of feeling that way, theres no option but to cheer up. Strongly recommended, age old, threadbare advise - dont bottle it up!

Having said that, right now feeling low - my track record gives me a lot of reason to believe it wont matter. Lets hope. Haha!

PS: A dose of cockiness always helps!

Hahahahaha

2004-10-18T07:15:00.000-07:00

My office is in an area called Kundanahalli. Kundanahalli roughly translated into Mallu slang means 'what the fuck is this'. Every morning... Kundanahalli! Hahahahahaha

Sofa: So good!!

2004-10-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

Finally got my sofa! A wonderful black leatherite sofa... for a very reasonable price :) Had a bit of difficulty in the beginning. the sofa wouldnt fit into my entrance... and they had to keep it in my basement for a day... then they removed my door from the hinges, brought in the sofa and put the door back!! Now am sitting on it... and man! what a wonderful thing this is... am waiting for someone special to try it out ;) Am sure she'll love it :)

2004-10-12T10:44:00.000-07:00

I shall get back at you yet, evil sister, I shall get back!

Mooh me pair

2004-10-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

I like girls who put their foot in their mouths. I mean either they have small feet or a large mouth! ;)