Archive of memories

A tribute to Delhi

2011-07-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

More than a year ago, some months after my relocation to Delhi, I had come up with a blog about the place. This can be considered as the Part II of that blog. But this one I type, sitting in Bangalore.

When my best friends here used to tease me and say that "J, you've become a pukka Delhite da".... I used to laugh it off and rubbish such claims. I am a Bangalorean and always will be... or that is what I thought....

Its been 3 weeks now since I left the NCR region. And I miss the place already.

If anyone asks me what I miss so much, I'd be stumped - I have the same freedom here - get out of the house at any time, come back whenever; Badminton/Cricket Tennis whenever I want; Access to much better watering holes here than back in the Capitol; mobility in the form of my DL-3C vehicle; the same independence that I have been enjoying for the last 11 years or so; the list goes on really...But there is something missing... Lets just call it the "X" factor

Despite all these truths, I feel sudden pangs of nostalgia when the following things happen

1) I walk into any place that is playing loungish-technoish-slow sensual beaty-Indy-pop with a lot of husky "Aye hayes and rubbas"in the lyrics....

2) I see 2 people showing each other their respective fingers and abusing loudly at traffic signals....

3) When I see a wide road!!!! (rare in Bangalore)

4) When I see a Sardarji!

5) When I see these 40+ aunties who think they just celebrated their 16th Birthday 2 days ago, who apply lots of make up-shake up.

6) When I meet people who always add that redundant second part to certain words to make it cool - Beer-sheer, make up-shake up, daaru-shaaru, paneer-vaneer, wire-shire etc

7) When I walk into Subway and misread TERIYAKI CHICKEN on the menu...

6) Whenever I see my number plate - DL3CW 8291

And so on...

One possible hypothesis explaining the "X"factor is that Delhi accepted me warmly -unlike any of the other places I've been to outside Bangalore. Yes there was a lot of friendly anti-regional statements that I encountered initially, but people there always knew how to take one in return... So "You bloody Bihari" (this to a Punjabi who has lived all his life in Delhi) always worked against "You bloody Madraasi" (To any person who hails from anywhere south of any place which shares the same Latitude as Bombay) and this was greeted with a lot of laughs and back slapping.

Contrary to popular belief, the people of Delhi are a warm and friendly lot. I had been made to believe the stereotype - "Delhites are rude, loud, pompous, irritating and arrogant people who only believe in making life miserable for anyone who is not a Delhite".

After staying there for 2 years, I realised how misinformed people were.

As I sit here, listening to that DK Bose number on an endless loop, I cant help reminiscing about the good times Ive had... So I end this piece with a partial list....

BINGING at Karims and Khan Chachas, driving to India gate at 2 in the morning, 4S with friends, Saket mall (the only mall I agree to step into!) , beer @ Rs. 20 a pint, car-o-bar sessions, playing music at sound levels which would deafen even Britney Spears while driving to 4S, Bhangra-shangra, driving to Gurgaon to meet up with friends, arguing with auto drivers over 5 rupees on his meter fare and then going and spending 250 bucks on a beer, terrace parties, lawyer parties (with some wonderful people I know), farewell parties, random road trips without planning whatsoever, parathas behind office @ Vikrams (best in the world), Connought Place Keventers and Wengers, Lajpat Nagar haggling, Govindpuri haggling, Gorging on momos, Samosa and Jalebi for breakfast, Burra Kebabs, Lutyens Delhi (Sigh), 10 lane highways in the middle of the city, oogling at hotties (and praying at the same time that they don't open their mouths), deliberately mimicking Jats, Dinners on the highway which resulted in drives to Jaipur ......................................................................... Arrrrrrrrrgh.. this is a limitless list.

Thank you Delhi. I'm not done with you.

Life......

2010-05-24T06:09:00.001-07:00

I turned 29 ... (SHRIEKS LIKE A CHICK WHO'S JUST SEEN TWO 500 POUND GORILLAS MATING........ RUNS AROUND THE ROOM BANGING HIS HEAD ON THE WALL.... )...

Hysterics and the fact that I haven't grown up aside, I have learnt a couple of things along the way. Here they are....

1) There is no such thing as a PERFECT job profile - Though "Luxury bed tester"and "playboy"are still some very enviable professions going around, these are hardly classic LinkedIn material! - I dont claim to have job hopped so much as to make such a learned claim, but if I look around, there aren't too many people around who are too kicked about going to work on a Monday morning. The trade off of having a great job (definition: You like going to work on a Monday) is that you'll either be placed in South Western Zambia as those profiles rake in the Gandhis (or the equivalent of a Gandhi in Zambia) or it pays so less that you think twice before buying peanuts from the friendly neighborhood peanut vendor...

2) Management degrees are highly over-rated - ok.. this point is in here primarily because of the disastrous placement season I went through in 2009 (if you can even call it a "placement"season - Left to me, I would have described it as a "High level, corporate Potato Sale") Recession apart, I feel that the much sought after "M.B.A." is a very overrated experience. It might be your fast track into the management echelons but you'd get there anyway if you just put your head down and slogged when you got out of college. In fact, having relevant experience in the field of your Undergraduation degree, takes you to a much better place than someone who is trying to get there post a hot shot Management degree. Some of the chaps/lasses who I know through my first job at Infosys, who rejected any "MBA" ideas incepted into their cranial cavities by peers, parents, other sources are today in really good positions. They will take a bit longer to get to the much hyped "management cadre" but when they get there, they'd be so grounded that noone will be able to push them around.

3) Its better to be a GREAT team player than a star - very cliched statement - but hey, this is my blog and this is what I've learnt! Álso, this doesn't mean that I don't have ambitions of being a CEO some day - but I hope this ride to the top will be in a luxury bus rather than in a 1-seater sports coupe prototype... (evidently, I'm getting very sucky at analogies). There will be a lot of people who will beg to differ here, Mark Zuckerberg being right in front of this line - but be it good times or bad, its always been a solid team that has gotten me through shit (Lets try to quietly avoid the fact that I perhaps dont have what it takes to be a maverick... so shhhhh)

4) Potatoes are evil beings with minds of their own - Refer to this for more....

5) Life is short - Dont hold back too much for a rainy day - This surprisingly coming from a South Indian Brahmin like me! Being in Delhi for the last 2 years has given me an insight on how Delhites love to live it up. Of course I will still maintain that the average Delhite spends more than he can afford, but what I like a lot is the fact that they know how to have FUN. They don't hold back on something just because it might effect something else (which we sometimes do when the second something is very very trivial indeed). Life is short and we earn so that we can have a good time. - So again, this doesnt mean that you go and blow up your salary by the 5th because then you'll have to live on potatoes for the rest of the month! In the last 2 years, I have saved enough for tax saving instruments and minor mutual fund investments. At the same time, Ive also managed to scrape in a decent down payment for a car (a decision which led me to forgo a London trip). This has been done on a very very modest pay package indeed. What was left, a majority of which would have been saved in ideal (read: if I was in Bangalore) situations was "invested" in "having a good time"!

6) Location is everything - Most people who know me well, would know that I did time in Kolkata. Those who don't know me, please don't be alarmed. It wasn't jail or anything - at least not officially. It is there were I learnt that your location is of utmost importance. Those 4-5 months is Kolkata were the worst 4-5 months of my life. Having said this, I don't boast of a fantastic lifestyle outside Kolkata, but it was BAD. This might sound like sour grapes, but I don't think I would have been too happy to be posted in a Patna or a Barabanki or a Ajmer on a 3 year sales assignment even if it was by a PnG or a HLL.... (again, this is debatable!)

7) Mandy Moore was right - (Some) Girls just wanna have fun! - Well.. no comments!

8) Never get bogged down by boastful people. Chances are, they're as miserable as you are - There were times in the past when I would really get depressed when random people told me how cool they were and what cool jobs they had and what cool things they were doing etc. Most of these random people weren't even ASKED what they were up to.. so there were no pleasantries or "wassups"exchanged and they would just start by sayin "Oh btw..... " This happened a lot post MBA when everyone around was trying to justify opportunity costs of leaving their jobs for the course. This is when I realised Point #1 - there is no such thing as a perfect job... Also, I realised that in most of these cases, the bragger in question was just trying to convince (herself)himself that (s)he had a good thing going for (her)him by relaying it rather loudly and getting pats on (her)his back. My mom always said that this was the "Oldest trick in the book" and that I fell for it with alarming consistency.

9) Help people when in need - I will never go down in history to be known as a philanthropist but after a personal experience where I was shown a phenomenal amount of generosity when I was really in need, I will try to emulate the act some day. When I was without a job for 2 months, I had nowhere to go. Home was not an option as I wanted to continue the job hunt in Delhi. At this point, I was welcomed with both hands wide open into my friend's house where she took care of me, fed me(with AWESOME food) and at one point, even clothed me(her quest to get me a new wardrobe!!!!). She was a great friend so this act could still be fathomable (very difficult given the scale of generosity - but STILL remotely fathomable). Who I am very grateful to (apart from this friend) is her husband who was equally welcoming. Before this, yes, we had met at parties, hung out a bit, had a good time. But this was a completely different ball game. At no point in my stay at their house was a made to feel unwanted... Or like a burden... or even like an irritant. The both of them went out of the way to make me feel wanted (at that time, it seemed that no company wanted me!)

At the end of 2 months when I finally got that job, I couldn't help but think of what would have been my situation/condition if they weren't there to help me when I needed someone the most. With this I learnt a huge lesson - it was a lesson in giving - Generosity 101. I hope at some time in my life, I would be able to help someone else out like this.

And with this I run out of things I have learnt in the 29 years of my (miserable) life. Ofcourse there have been a lot of other things Ive learnt too ( like

1) Never ask for a Pepsi when you are on a business lunch with a client who works at Coke

2) Never go "Ohhh... cute dawwggieee ooogliii wooogliiii..."with Dobermans...

3) Never take a vegetarian on a dinner date to Mohammad Ali Road... Chances are you'll have bigger things to worry about apart from puke.

4) NEVER...repeat.. NEVER chase Vodka with beer....

5) to be continued when I'm really jobless next..... :D

... but most of these things must be learnt the hard way! :D

With this I stop here... Hope all those young people out there reading this blog, pay heed to whatever I have said. Else Santa will not be happy on the 25th!.. Adios!

If you got it, use it

2010-03-22T22:04:00.000-07:00

I start my first blog of this new year on a rather serious note - with a question to god.

"Dear god, when you created me, why the EFF was I not given some unique skill which when coupled with my burning desire to excel, would make me successful early in life?WHY? WHY? WHY?"

(Ok.. that was 4 questions!...sue me!)

The reason behind this line of questioning is based broadly on the 2 kinds of people that I have met so far in life.

1) A lot of people I know, are VERY content with where they are and what they have achieved, even though they have all the skill sets to achieve something which is unachievable for a common man - However, they do not have the ambition to utilise these tools and reach the pinnacle of society.

2) the less unfortunate ones who have a burning hunger - a desire - almost an obsession to excel. But who sadly lack those above mentioned tools to do so.

At the outset, let me just say that I fall SLAM in the middle of the second category.

People have always asked me why I was so pessimistic and cynical in my outlook. Anything I say or do, is based on something negative that has been preemptively factored in by me (sometimes subliminally) - Its the way I have been wired I guess.

Anyhow, I have never been able to answer them simply because I have never thought about it before.

Today, in one of my introspection sessions (which are becoming quite frequent fyi) I might have figured out an answer to their question.

Brace yourselves, here I come.

I realised today, that in these 27 miserable years of my existence, I have always been in category 2 - (lets call it "Hungry but deficient") - In isolation, its fine. There are a million others like me. However, if you couple this with the fact that EVERYONE ELSE around me has been in the first category, things kind of fall into place. I positively hate people who come in that category.

Take my dad for instance - Brilliant at whatever he does - Super gift of the gab, extremely high IQ, Super duper big picture viewing capabilities.... He retires at 43.....

I mean.. FUCK....

The contentment just bugs me. Why would anyone with such talent, throw it all away to chill out at 43? If I were him, I would have used the talent... It hurts even as I type this out. (evidently, this blog has started falling on its face!)

What triggered this thought is that for the first time, in a long time, I met someone the other day, who fell somewhere in the middle of these 2 categories - forming a niche for himself. But then I thought about it further, and realised that I was mistaken indeed. There were 3 categories. Not 2. It wasnt a niche he was in. Category 3 has all the go-getters in life. All your modern day CEOs would ideally reside here. People who were firm believers that god has given them their talents for a reason. It is this category that I want to go into.

Sadly, I am yet to identify that one thing that I am good at, which will take me there. If I for a minute become optimistic, I would probably be happy that I am in category 2 rather than 1, simply because what drives me at this moment is the hunger. Thats about it. The hunger.

Delhi Blues...

2009-12-29T23:03:00.000-08:00

Its been 8 months since I came to Delhi - and BOY am I loving it (P.S. - just became a fan of "I love New Delhi" on Facebook now!)

I have semi-permanently stayed in many places apart from Bangalore in the last decade - Lets see.. mm..Manipal, Madras(Shudders), Hyderabad, Mysore, Bombay.... A long list by any standard- but I have never come across a place like this! So like many blogs before this, let me try and list down the things which were like super strange for me (Read: Hairy Black Dosa eating Madraasi in the local context) when I came here for the first time. Some of these points are positive, and some negative. But all of them add to the flavour and make Delhi, DELHI- unique and likeable

1) Delhi is probably the ONLY place in the world where one can abuse someones mother AND sister in the SAME sentence and get away with it. Maa-Ben Gaalis are HILARIOUS for people like me. Some guys are SO abusive that BenC is usually used in place of commas (a breather, a pause) before finally landing the final maternal punch... this several times in a normal conversation!

2) People here have Dosa and Idli for DINNER!!!! - I promised that I would treat my colleague to a good South Indian breakfast of Idlis, Dosas and so on.... Before I could finish the sentence, a sort of a disgusted look had come on her face... And she was like " YOU HAVE DOSA AND IDLI FOR BREAKFAST???".... Huh... We South Indians dont now anything. Needless to say, these people have Jalebi for breakfast!!!! HOW!

3) FENTABULOUS infrastructure - Part of the reason why I love Delhi so much, I think, is because of the infrastructure that it boasts of. I have always been the sorts who got turned on by wide roads, long flyovers, well lit street corners, metros, subways and so on... Agreed, Delhi is like Del-gaon compared to Shanghai or Del-halli when compared to a Moscow or a New York... But hey, in India, it ROCKS on this front. (And maybe.. just maybe... (Bombayites can close their eyes now)... this fact is magnified because ive come from a city like Bombay where the infrastructure cant support even half the present population!)

4) THE CHICKS... ok.... maybe I can reserve this point for another blog... or a book maybe

5) Traffic sense - NEGATIVE! On my first day here, I was at the company guest house in this place called New Friends Colony. A B-school friend of mine (Bhuvan) who lives in Gurgaon was on my side of town.(Read: South Delhi) So he asked me to come to Defence Colony to meet him. So I set out on an auto. The route that this guy took, saw us on this 10-lane road, 5 on each side (NOT exaggerating here - some sort of ring road - refer to point no. 3!) where we were cruising along at an alarming speed. (65-70 kmph for a vehicle that was not designed for speeds more than 35 kmph). Now imagine this... We were on the middle lane with 2 lanes on each side. Something BIG and BLACK overtakes us from the left... ZOOOOOM... at the lights, I realised that it was one of those BMW SUVs but thats not the point im trying to make. This same Beemer gentleman is on the left most lane now, AND HE TAKE A RIGHT TURN... AND HOW! This might not sound very odd in India, but if we consider the width of the road, the time of the day (around 7 in the evening, peak hour), the size of that junction, the speed at which he accelerated from 0 to atleast 60kmph, and so on..... You can imagine how incredible a sight it must have been!...

6) THE FOOD - Sigh. Delhi is any foodie's mecca - PERIOD. The most brilliant food I have ever had in my life. Kebabs, Tikkas, Parathas, Pooris, Daals, MAKKKHHUN...this list of cardiac arrest inducing, mouth watering items are never ending really.

7) SHOWSHAA - This is something a Bangalorean like me has never come across - atleast not in this magnitude no... We South Indians have always been on the conservative side.

Let me see I can bring the difference out between what happens in the South and here, making use of 2 hypothetical father-son pairs (one from say Madras, and the other from Delhi)

SI Daddy: "Son, if you earn 1 rupee, then spend 25 paise on housing, 25 paise on food, invest 25 paise.. and save the rest" (This btw being one of those hep-SI daddies... who save only 25% of their income - operative word here being "only")

NI Daddy: "Son, if you earn 1 rupee, then I insist that you spend 1 rupee on the car, 3 rupees on eating out and 5 rupees on everything else" (Boy am I gonna get SO beaten up for this)

This, ladies and gentleman, is what I define as showshaa!... Everyone MUST know that you are living a good life - Keeping up with the Joneses can now be rephrased to "arrey, Keep up with the Bhatias da puttar!!" - The asian paints "Golf Links Ilaakha" wala ad hits the nail on the head really.

8) SPORTS FACILITIES - Another reason why I love this place so much. If you throw one stone, you hit 4 sports complexes - Playing a sport here is really affordable! For instance, in summers, I was playing tennis everyday @ 500 bucks a month - this with a coach on a cement court! (Then ofcourse, you have courts where you need to book a month in advance and then pay 1200 bucks and hour - but thats for people in point no. 7!). There are cricket grounds everywhere. It is of little wonder that the Delhi Ranji team has risen in the last few years. The opportunities available are tremendous. (Let me not start talking about Siri Fort people - I will LOSE it if I do - maybe some other day, some other blog.)

9) 20 bucks for a bottle of beer - CHEEEERSH.. ... burp - I think the differential between retail prices and the rates at a pub will be the largest in the country. So a bottle of beer that can be procured for Rs. 20 in a "THEKKA", can go as high as 300 Bald Gandhis in some pubs!

10) BANGRA POP! - Though Im not much of a clubbing sort of a person, I have been to quite a few since I have landed here. (I would just like to re-establish the fact that I have 2 left feet before a beer or two and that I am John Travolta's daddy after 4). So this is how it goes in a club. Till around 7:30 in the evening, its a normal pub - i.e. they'll play AWESOME music (not very different from what you get in Pecos, Bangalore)- So there will be a little bit of Zepplin, a little bit of Floyd, the Beatles and sometimes if you're lucky, even some Morrison. Till then, it is (what is a huge concept here) "Happy hours" -Alcohol at HALF the rate. Even then, the establishment's neon lit fly killing machine is at its buzzy loudest - More flies than people. Then at 7:30, the waiter comes around for the last Happy hour order. At this point, they music shifts from being AWESOME to "GHASTLY" - and by this I mean some crazy "House" music and techno. If you look around at this time, you will notice a lot more number of heads, most of which would be bobbing up and down, enjoying their music. This is also around the time by which I have drunk myself numb - so that the music is slightly more bearable.By 9:00, Exit remotely-something like-but-not-exactly-music , Enter BANGRA POP. The establishment COMES ALIVE. Sheesh.. UNHEARABLE music sung in the vilest language known at decibel levels which would crack concrete. (Makes Tamil rock sound like a lullaby) - People just LOSE it then. They are ALL over the place. Hands, legs, beer bottles, turbans, duppattas. etc etc.

These are just SOME of the things which make Delhi, DELHI.If I live for a while longer, I shall sit sometime, and complete this blog. Having said so much, I might be killed before the new year!

For now, I shall go back to work!

Signing off for the last time this year - BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Barabankied!

2009-10-16T03:06:00.000-07:00

As we walk into the 2nd decade of of the 21st century, a lot of India is still how it used to be a 100 years ago.

Very recently, I got a chance to see interior India! I was sent to do a market research in this place called Barabanki which happens to be 30 km away from the UP State capital of Lucknow. The reason why I was sent there is immaterial to this blog. I did my work like I had planned to but what stood out was the fact that being only 30 km from a city like Lucknow, Barabanki doesnt seem to have progressed much.

I reached the place at 11 in the morning and to my shock I was told that the market had "just opened" for the day. So I kept quiet and started off with my research immediately. At around 1 in the afternoon, I decided to check into a Hotel. To my dismay, I was told that Barabanki didnt have hotels! So I set out to find a certain "Tourist Lodge" - a name I had come across on the web while I was researching about the place.

On reaching Tourist Lodge, I realised that it was a small 2 storey building (semi pukka construction) which had never seen a coat of paint. On inquiring whether the establishment owned an AC, I was told that they had "a" fan but the power supply was very erratic. I know I had asked a stupid question in the first place but at 48 degrees in the sun, an AC was all that I could think of. (Actually, fleeting images of a cool swimming pool with a Long Island ice tea waiting for me at the pool side also crossed my mind but I was a little pessimistic considering the surroundings)

I asked the proprietor(an obese unshaven bloke with red paan stained teeth) where I could find an AC with a room attached. After 3-4 seconds of deep thought and chewing and sucking to juices out of that paan in his mouth, I was asked to try "The Reshidancy Laaj". Hmmmm... That sounded nicer didnt it?

So I took a U-turn and headed in the general direction of the Residency Lodge. On reaching the location I was relieved to find out that it was a proper pukka building. (Never thought I would be so happy seeing a normal house). So I checked into their "best" room which the owner claimed, had an AC. Sure it did - Brand new 1956 model - oh and it worked too. Hallelujah

And in all this excitement I had forgotten that all electrical devices had one thing in common - they ran on ELECTRICITY!

The biggest mistake I made was taking an AC room simply because the fan wasnt working and there was no electricity for 18 hours that day! So one can only imagine the misery I went through!

It is then when it struck me that we take so many things for granted in cities. Yes, we curse and abuse the government when we have 1 hour powercuts, we crib when our electricity bills are so high - what we dont realise is, WE HAVE ELECTRICITY!

On the Second day of my trip, with 2 and half hours of sleep behind me, we went on a market visit around Barabanki. Boy... And I thought I had seen it all (or a lot more than what I actually have!!!)...For starters, lets just say that Barabanki was like Beverly Hills compared to its surrounding areas. Moving on, I know now, how girls in Delhi feel. LETCHED AT! For some reason, everywhere we went, I was getting stared at. I got so conscious, that I finally sat in front with the driver. (Let me just add that the staring didnt stop).

To think that we see a lot of poverty at traffic lights in cities would be huge misconception as I have never seen such poor people in my life. Funnily, they have all accepted the fact and live each day as it comes. Electricity or the lack of it doesnt bother them. What they fear most is that they might not get their only meal in the day. Village after village, nothing changed. I stopped frequently, to enquire about people's "thanda tel" application habits(The subject of my research) and everywhere, the answer was the same - "Humare paas khaane ke liye paisa nahi hai bhai sahib. Thanda tel jab kharidte hai, hum ye soch ke kharidte hai ki isse lagate lagate humaare din ki pareshaaniyaan bhool jayenge. Chaine ki neend soyenge" This might be great news for "Thanda tel" manufacturers but this really moved me.

Another thing I learnt almost immediately was the value of ONE rupee. Gosh does it go far or what. At one point, I felt hungry. So we stopped the car at this decent looking place (Read: it was covered, they had plastic cups and the onion pakodas were smelling good). I ordered 2-3 plates of pakodas and tea for the driver and myself. Soon as we had tucked into the savories and finished our tea, the owner suggested that we try his Samosas as well. He said he would fry a fresh batch just for us. I was hungry (I repeat) so I agreed to his proposition. The samosas there must have been small because between the driver and myself, we finished 9 of them. They were heavenly.

Then came the time where I had to settle the bill - A princely 19 Rupees!!!..A buck each for those samosas and 4 for a plate of pakodas with the tea on the house..... I was shocked into silence. I slipped that man 3 ten rupee notes and asked him to keep the change and I could almost see the tears in his eyes.

When we drove away, I asked the driver why the man had given us the tea (in those mutka containers) on the house as he could have easily charged for them as well. To this, he joked that perhaps the owner believed that anyone who got so much money into his house was a lucky charm - a guest of honour - and to charge for tea would be like an insult.

He laughed after that... but I didnt... How can such poor people be so generous? Why do we relatively rich people crib so much? Why is it that we are unhappy when most of the people who I saw that day seemed content? is it because they dont show it on their faces? Why do we waste food? why dont we value money? ......

These were some of the questions that haunted me all the way back to Lucknow and on my flight back to Delhi... I was going to find it difficult to sleep that night so as soon as I got out of the airport and got into a taxi, I stopped at the nearest paan waala

Yes - I bought a one rupee Sachet of "Thanda tel" - And boy did it give me a "chaine ka neend" that night!

2009-06-12T00:58:00.000-07:00

A little more about me......General gas...

2009-03-22T04:34:00.001-07:00

Anyone who knows me well enough will definitely know that food, Hollywood and sport constitute a large part of my life. So here is a blog about some of the things that people might not normally know about me.....

1) All roads lead to............Ro...errr......a restaurant: It has been established on numerous occasions in the past, that food is an integral part of my life (as clearly mentioned in the first line)... But I take this fact a little too far. I have a friend by the name of Deepa, who always makes fun of the way I give directions... She says that ALL LANDMARKS that I give are invariably restaurants and coffee shops or some institution connected directly or indirectly to food! So if a normal person would say "go straight down MG road and take a right at the huge rounder....", I would say "Get on to MG road... You'll pass Tandoor and BBQ nation on the way. Keep going till you see Wimpy's on the left... then take a right...If you get to Coffee Day, you've gone too far"........!!!

2) Another thing that is very characteristic of me is the way I beat around the bush. If anything can be said directly, I will keep going on and on... like the Energiser Bunny on a tangent. Which is why, during the 2 years of my MBA course, whenever we needed to stretch a presentation, that was left to me!... I would talk about anything and everything and buy time....Especially subjects like CSR and Consumer Behaviour where we had difficult teachers who would have clauses like "each group has to give a presentation for AT LEAST half an hour"... this when the essence of the presentation could be delivered in 3 and a half minutes - that too by eloquent chaps like Atal Bihari Vajpayee in his element who could tranquilise a virile ox in half a minute...

3) Oh... Since I have given such an elaborate analogy, it would be appropriate to mention here that I am FAMOUS for giving such analogies. I guess this is something that someone who is a regular reader of my blog would figure out.. But none the less, this is for the benefit of someone who has chanced it for the first time.

4) Procrastination is another of my favorite pastimes.... Trust me when I say that I started this blog 2 weeks ago!!!. I couldn't seem to be able to complete it (as it is about me you see!!) so I kept pushing it further behind without completing it... This trait has got me into trouble MANY a times. Submissions, household chores, haircut Sundays, duty visits to relatives... oh the LIST goes on..

5) Talking about lists... A majority of things that I say are heavily embedded with a whole lot of shit that normal people don't bother looking up - Trivia. I wont say I'm a quizzer. In fact, I'm far from a quizzer. But if someone were to ask me to give them a list of the 5 most feared people in the history of humanity, I would rattle the top5 in an instant. Lists have been things that have always got me to sit up and think. The List of people with the highest recorded (or estimated) IQs (which btw, is headed by an English chiropractor who's name I don't recollect followed by 2 of the greatest musicians - Mozart and Beethoven - known to mankind in the top 10), or List of the countries that could blow up the World in 1975, 1985... and so on...or List of the most famous gangsters known to mankind...List of sporting events with the highest TRPs......AAAAAAAARGH .....The lists go on and I cant get enough of them... The reason for this, I guess, is attributed to the way my father (probably one of the most glib talkers I have ever seen - a personification of the phrase "gift of the gab") speaks - Comparisons and lists.... A normal conversation about a seemingly harmless topic like say...mmm.. Tennis.... would invariably see you hearing him say something like "Mc Enroe had the greatest game followed by Borg, Cash and Connors in that order..."...This with an air of such confidence that even Jimmy Connors would believe that he was inferior to Bjorn Borg or John Mc Enroe.... whoa.. come on man.. I didn't ask for that.... Well.. that's what people think when I talk!!!

6) What else...mmmmmm... aaah... yes....Punctuality.... Its pretty ironic, but for a serial procrastinator, I follow German standard time when it comes to punctuality. I'm usually NEVER late.. as a result I HATE waiting....... There is a famous joke/saying which goes like this

"People who come in last(read: L.A.T.E) for a get together often have the MOST amount of fun".................... Very true shit...

7) Another one of my favorites apart from the usual suspects (i.e. Food, cricket and Hollywood) is music. Yes yes... I have written a blog about my favorite 10 bands (a LIST again folks)... But something that even people who know me surely cannot fathom is the fact that I am absolutely infatuated by Western Classical music. Actually, I can even go as far as saying that I love good Indian classical music or better still fusion music(or PURE music... in the form unadulterated by a squeaky voice) . Though I wouldn't be able to name even ONE Indian artist to save my life, its the pure music which gives me high. Among the Western artists, my all time favorites are Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Vivaldi (in that order)... sue me if I am boring you with another list! This form of music just calms me when I'm pissed off in/with life :D... There have been a numerous occasions when I shout/bang doors/abuse using family references/break things in a fit of rage (etc) and just calm down in a jiffy after a 20 minute session with the masters!....

8) I am superstitious to the bloody core. If it has been said that one must NOT break mirrors or cross the path of a black cat or walk under a ladder balanced against a wall (etcetra etcetra and the other Spanish girls).... I wont. Oh.. Believe me, there have been times when I have sat in the same god-damned position on a bloody sofa just because Sachin Tendulkar hit a boundary in a cricket match.

9) And finally, this blog would be incomplete if I do no mention that I am a born PESSIMIST. That too of the highest order (if there are orders of pessimism that is). "The bottle is HALF EMPTY".. is an attitude that I have always carried off with seemless ease. A simple explanation for this is that I believe that it is better to not hope for too much in life simply because if it doesn't match up to what you wished for, you will be disappointed. For instance, right from the beginning, I don't believe that too many people will read this blog even though it will make me happy if a lot of people read it. But when a lot of people message/mail/scrap/comment about it, it makes me happy simply because I wasn't expecting too much of a response.

On that happy note, I shall sign off for the night. I hope I have not bored you people with too much of gas. But hey, this is what has been taught to us in the last 2 years!

Good night...

Hurray by Toutatis....

2009-03-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

Ive been writing blogs (note: I DIDN'T start with "I've been blogging") for a 2-3 years now so its pretty strange that I have not written anything about one of my favorite pastimes - ASTERIX. I am so fond of this comic that if I recollect correctly, it was the first thing I ever read in my life. It so happens that my Dad too, happens to be a huge fan of the series. So my dear Mother (very far sighted woman) bought him 20 of the then 27 published books for the first of my Dad's birthdays after their marriage. ( The purchase happened around June 1983 - The original series was completed by co-author Uderzo sometime in 1983!!)

She bought the first set of books at Rs. 18 per copy!!!!!!!!! When she bought the rest of the books(i.e. till Book No. 27 - "Asterix and Son") 2 years later, they were going at Rs. 25/copy so if we consider that the paper back edition goes at Rs. 400/copy today, we're sitting on a mini fortune! Today, we are the proud owners of every Asterix comic in print. Here I say "we" because the last 5-6 books were bought by me - Whenever I happened to spot a new book, paperback or hardbound Id grab hold of it (Though they stopped being as hilarious post "Asterix and the Magic Carpet" - Nevertheless, one must complete a collection once started) - So much so, I'm guessing my mother and I have spent almost the same amount in getting the entire collection!(without getting time value of money into the picure)

My mother's favorite story (that she narrates to anyone who cares to listen) is how at one point, the men of her life would sit on opposite sides of the Sofa in the drawing room, each with a copy of Asterix in their hands, and guffaw/giggle/bellow in laughter/snicker at what they read.

Moving on from the trivial details, Asterix is one of the most entertaining pieces of work/art that ANYONE could ever get their hands on. Personally, I believe that it takes the pants of any other comic ever created (Including Mr. Bill Waterson's brainchild... I hope I don't get killed for saying this though!). If an English language translation (from French in which it is originally written) can be SO hilarious, I can only imagine what it must be like in French!

Seen in the figure on the left, Asterix is the little guy in the winged helmet. He is with his inseparable friend Obelix (P.S. MY CHILDHOOD HERO) - the thin guy in the blue and white vertical stripes (He's NOT fat.....His chest has slipped a bit you see!)... They are the inhabitants of a little Gaulish Village in Armorica (Part of ancient Gaul a small strip near the Brittany peninsula) which is filled with these FEARLESS Gauls who's only fear is that the sky might some day, fall on their heads!

I wont waste too much time on giving a synopsis of the comic (as Wikipedia has done an exceptional job). However, it must be said that my knowledge about the Roman empire (around the time of Julius Caesar - i.e. Circa 50BC) is above average. According to a very old Hindu newspaper article (written around 1990), people who are well-versed and familiar with the comic strip are said to have a better idea of that Roman period than students of History who have studied about Rome! This is understandable as almost every book of the series has some tiny yet witty little reference to Julius Caesar's empire - for instance, in Asterix and Son, when Brutus's evil ploy is uncovered, JC says the immortal line "E tu Brutus..?" - Pure genius!

I recently finished watching an HBO series on this period by the name of ROME. Though this is not a comedy by any stretch of imagination, it is perhaps the best serial I have ever seen (and believe me when I say that I have watched MANY MANY serials in my stay at Mumbai). Having read the Asterix collection (over 300 times each... at least) it made watching Rome all the more enjoyable as I was able to relate the above mentioned "witty" snippets found in the comic to what is actually shown in the serial (and which in fact, actually happened 2000 odd years ago!)

The funniest part of the Asterix comic book set is the NAMES of all the characters. A separate blog can be written on the names alone as they will make anyone with a decent sense of humour, CRY with laughter. On this note, I shall stop by naming some of the Gauls (that I can remember off hand) and hope that this blog makes anyone who hasn't read the comic , READ IT!

Asterix - The main character. All the comics are centered around his adventures along with...

Obelix- The Menhir delivery man! (already introduced as my childhood hero). Would it be reduntant if I mentioned that he loves eating?

Dogmatix - Obelix's tiny little dog

Getafix - The village druid who brews the famous Magic potion which makes these fearless warriors invincible

Cacofonix - The village bard...Has the ability to make milk curdle with his voice..... when its still in the cow!!!

Geriatrix - The oldest man in the village!

Fullyautomatix - The village blacksmith

Unhygienix - the village fishmonger. These 2 are always BASHING each other up. A very common scene in an Asterix comic shows Unhygienix thumping Fullyautomatix with a rotten fish as the blacksmith gives it back with his famous hammer!

Chief Vitalstatistix - The brave Gaulish chief of the village (perched high on the shield of Vercingentorix)

Note: these are only a few of the characters. (as seen in the picture above)

If anyone hasn't read this series yet - WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR????

YUM BEE AYE....

2009-03-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

All good things come to an end.... Or that is what they all say.

And like everything else, my MBA course at NMIMS, too, has come to an end. Unlike the Engineering course that I completed from MIT Manipal, I leave NMIMS with a heavy heart. These 2 years have been a life saver - simply magical - for a whole lot of reasons, the biggest being that had it not been for NM, I would have surely committed suicide!!! Most people who know me would know that I wasn't exactly the happiest bloke before taking up this course. (Note: already been extensively blogged about). It is only after one gets a little bit of work experience does one value "studying" again. I had heard about how difficult it was to get back to studies after money came into ones hands - all bunkum. Not only is it easy, its also more valued!

This being said, the course has also taught me a lot. Having an Engineering degree and a "science background", a whole lot of things that were taught as part of the course were new to me. My friends here who have a commerce background or have done courses like BBM, have already had an exposure to a lot of Marketing/HR/Finance models and basics. So to them, this course might not have been too much of a value add (for some, not more than the value of the paper on which our degree will be printed). Even simple terms/common marketing jargon like "Positioning", "targeting"and "segmenting" (which by the way, form the core of our marketing course) were new to me. So in a way, even though I haven't been placed yet, I can truthfully say that I am now better equipped to face the world.

On the social front, I have made a lot of friends and acquainted myself with a lot of people who I would have ordinarily not known. Due to the diverse background of my class, I have met people from all walks of life from most of the States in India (this is something I didn't get even in an institution like Infosys).

And finally, I have had an opportunity to stay in one of the most famous places in the World (more so, post Slumdog millionaire) This is the first time that I have actually had hard core exposure to proper "city" life. Bombay can easily be the mascot for Citibank as I truly believe that this city, NEVER sleeps. I wouldn't go so far as saying I like the city (I DON'T!)... but it sure has taught me a lot - given me a sneak-preview of life and how hard and unfair it can get.

With this, I stop. I am tired...Very tired. With another chapter of my life done, I hope the future has good things in store for me.

SC/ST??? You lucky bum

2009-02-25T22:54:00.000-08:00

Probably the most unfair thing about our education system, and much debated as well, is the reservation of seats for "Special Category" students (i.e. SC/ST students) in Government institutions. (I'd like to think of SC as "Special Category" rather than "Scheduled Caste" so sue me if you don't like it)

Sadly, whether we like it or not, the best higher education institutes in the country are undoubtedly the ones that are run by the Government - An irony by itself because I distinctly remember my dear mother threatening me several years ago when I was in half pants, with "If you carry on like this, I'll enroll you into a bloody Government run municipal school...."...I wish she would say that now. Because if she could have enrolled me into a Government run (B) school, I would have been the most mischevious bloke alive so that she could keep her promise!!

Why I brought up this topic is as follows.

When I was in school, I had this friend.... or let me say acquaintance (I will not name him). He used to live next to my house so we would board the school van together. He was a smart bloke no doubt.. but all of us in school had been trained to be smart! (ahem ahem).

So as the years passed by, we would make the usual "in-van-polite-chitchat" everyday. Once we had outgrown the school van, we would make the usual "in-public-transport-polite-chitchat" to pass time. Other than that, I would have no social contact with him (In school or at home). Soon, it was time to give our boards (10th Standard) after which I continued to do my 11th and 12th in School while he disappeared (I later found out that he did his +2 in St. Josephs...A decent PUC college in Bangalore) So I lost touch with him.

When I finished giving my 12th standard boards and the Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission into engineering colleges in Karnataka, I managed a rank of 2300 odd and this got me admission into the Mechanical Engineering Branch at MIT Manipal. It is then when I met this chap again. It was in a bus, so it is norm that you do "in-public-transport-polite-chitchat"to pass time.

Here is how our conversation went.

Me: "Hey dude, wassup? How did you do in the CET?"

Bloke: "Hey, pretty ok man. I got a 1500 rank..." (No "what about you?" mind you...Seriously, did this guy even study in FAPS?)

Me (Burning a little.. I thought I was better than this guy) : " Oh.. cool man. Good for you... So you must have got Mechanical or Electrical in an average college in Banagalore only right?" (This because I thought he wanted to stay in Bangalore)

Bloke: " No dude, I got KREC -Tronics"

*very long pause... My jaw has hit the ground by now*

Me: "WHAAAAAAT... HOW THE....?"

Bloke (very proudly at that): "I come under SC/ST quota man"....

Ok... Now for a little background. KREC-Tronics refers to Electronics and Communication Engineering (EnC) at the Karnataka Regional Engineering College (KREC, now NIT-K) which is probably one of the best institutes in the country to pursue an engineering degree (On par with the IITs and BITS Pilani). It is the best of the RECs (or NITs) and arguably as good as any IIT. During my time, one could get admission into KREC giving CET. Through CET, if one needed to get into KREC EnC, the person's rank should have been better than 30. (I know a friend who had a rank of 33, who was on the waitlist but eventually converted the seat). To give you a perspective, the year I gave CET, all the "decent" branches (i.e. EnC, Comps, Mech, Electrical and Civil) filled up by Rank 550.Our man had a 1500 odd rank and he had waltzed into the place!!!!...

He was proud of it. Thats what bugged me the most.

We, i.e. those who have been brought up in FAPS (Frank Anthony Public School) believe that all are equal irrespective of our backgrounds. You may come walking to school or may be chauffered to school in a Benz; you might be a Mallu from Kerala, a Gult from Andhra, a Konde-mama from Punjab or a Kannadiga localite; You could be fair, dark, white, black blue or (in some cases) yellow.......... But once you enter the gate, you are no different from the next chap. Hence.. the uniform! Now THAT is something to be proud of. Which is one of the reasons why I love my school so much. Nobody cares whether you were in the "General Category" or a SC or ST. The only time you had an edge while getting admissions was if you were an Anglo Indian. That too only a small teeney-weeney edge. But hey, its a private institute and believe me, THEY ARE GENUINELY MINORITIES (and class acts at that). Besides, once you were in, you would caned if you did anything wrong irrespective of your caste, creed or sex. (Gosh.. I miss school :(... )

But this is STILL not the reason for my writing this article. The other day, when I was joblessly orkutting (yes, its a verb now!), I chanced upon this above mentioned acquaintance's profile. When I saw the pictures in his album, my heart sank. He was now in IIM A (I know I'm being a bit unfair to him by not giving him enough credit... After all, he might have got in by merit right?.....!!!!!)

It is a sad thing this caste system. If only my fore father's fore fathers had not indulged in bullying people of allegedly lower castes, I might not have blogged today...

Pool of drool....

2009-02-18T01:57:00.000-08:00

The concept of tagging is pretty new to me so Rach, I hope I do this one justice!

I guess it would be appropriate to start by saying, FOOD is probably one of my BIGGEST loves. Sure I love Brit comedy, Hollywood, Good music, cricket and cars... But food is waaaaay there on top of this list so when I saw Rachana's blog, apart from drooling, I got down to answering those questions in my mind.

Here they are in writing

1) One dish you can crave for any given time of the day/ night/ situation?

I'll have to say GFP (Golden fried prawns) from this small little joint near my place in Bangalore (Called Chung's). These are by far the most delicious objects known to mankind. These little beauties (not really little coming to think of it) are CRISP on the outside, mushy on the inside and need to be dipped in a combo of chilly paste and hot garlic sauce...

Gosh.. theres a pool of drool forming here...Oh.... thats a nice title of this blog.. Here goes ... (changes the title of the blog from "Tagged" to "pool of drool")

2) One dish you'd never had and would love to regardless of the expense?

Mmmmm.... I'd like to try Roast camel...Ive heard its a delicacy in Africa. The meat, I'm told is tough. But with a little bit of spice, even rubber tastes passably nice...

I chose this only cos its so exclusive.

3) Most expensive dish you've ever had?

Lobster Thermidor..... (gulp)......3 grand a portion.. and the portion wasnt enough for the skin of my back teeth..... Thats the kind of meal where one must eat BEFORE and AFTER if he/she wants to feel good. Luckily, this was a treat. I love rich uncles.

4) Most bizarre dish you've ever seen or tasted? Like totally blown your socks off! Makes you gag every single time your lay your eyes on it. (Hope you've got the point by now: P)

Boiled veal in mint sauce.... (pukes).. NEVER AGAIN....

5. Your poison?

Good ol' Budweiser... !!!!!(burp)

6. One a lonely rainy day, your sitting cozily on your sofa, you'd crave for?

KFC........................... (God bless the Colonel)... (sniff)....

7. First forbidden savory you'd crave for while you've been sick?

Creamy chilled portion of Rasmalia...

8. Your all time favorite TV snack:

Cliched` but POP CORN!!!... Im a huge fan of Popcorn.. Cant see a movie without having popcorn even if the movie is seen after dinner...!

9. On your first ever kitchen experience you prepared:

Egg Bhurji and toast... that took me approximately I and a half hours to make (thats 1 hour for cutting 2 onions and a small tomato and half an hour cooking time)

P.S. It was good....

10. After a tiring day at work/ college/shopping/loitering you'd loved to come home to?

Aloo Gobi, 4 chapattis, a small bowl of Curd, a small bowl of some nice Northie daal and a LARGE mug of Thumbs up...

11. A cuisine your most comfortable with:

Chineeeeeese.... (i.e. Indian Chinese)... Always loved chilly chicken in ANY form (close second to GFP in question number 1)

12. A snack which you loved A LOT back when you were a kid and still love it till date?

Hot Dogs..... (with Mustard Sauce ONLY)

13. A dish which your mum makes/ used to which you simply adore?

Cook Upkari...... All time favorite... In the GFP category for veg food

14. Most expensive dish you ever had?

Is this a psychometry test of some sort? are questions being asked to trip the respondant?

15. What you're eating RIGHT NOW? or had immediately before?

Two eggs, Sunny side up, with 4 slices of toast, 2 slices of Salami and Tomato Chilly sauce (Maggi's).

This was washed down with a cup of South Indian Filter Coffee (aka Kaapi) which was accompanied by a crisp toast with Kissan Jam..... Oh.. and an orange..

What can I say... I love breakfast.

Just when you thought it was all over...BONUS! (Don't cha love em?) ;)*16. Your friends are coming over on short notice. You have half an hour. How would save your dignity by being hospitable and feed your friends? (Considering you can't take them to a restaurant)

Funny this was asked. I had a friend over the other day. A Tam... She wanted to eat some home food.... So in a short span of an hour, I whipped up some Cabbage Poriyal (aka upkari), Aloo Gobi, Rice, Rasam and some papads... oh.. and I bought some curd as well...

P.S. I'm a genius in the kitchen.. LOL...

(Sniff)

2009-02-13T01:14:00.000-08:00

I have always laughed at people who told me that they came out of a theatre weeping as I've never understood how anyone could "feel" so much. Even my mother (my OWN blood) carries a pack of hankies with her whenever she sees a movie (on TV or in a theatre). Initially I thought that it was some kind of a fad or something which would make you "cool" (amongst the girls... If a guy did that, he'd be labled "wimp" for life!).. but then I realised that grown up men too would hold back a tear in some cases. For instance, a friend of mine (name withheld as I dont want to be responsible for him being called a wimp) said he was "moved' when he saw Taare Zameen par... For the life of me, I couldnt figure out what was so sad about the movie but I guess he has his reasons. This is when I realised that everyone has a "threshold-level-movie" at which she/he gets "moved". After all, I did come out BAWLING after seeing Krish.

Apart from Krish (reasons for my crying have been extensively blogged about), I saw a movie today which moved me beyond a point that I have ever been moved...(phew.. so much for an elaborate justification). The movie in question is ''The boy in the striped pyjamas" - a film centred around the time when Nazi occupied Germany was just about to start WW-II. I wouldnt term it as the best film I've ever seen, but it sure got me "feeling" (and the first one at that). Again, it is clearly a low budget movie without any big star or exotic locations so dont blame me if you dont like the film. The movie is centred around an 8 year old boy (son of a highly ranked Nazi officer), who happens to befriend a small jewish boy of the same age, who is staying in the POW camp. I wont play spoilsport and blurt out the rest though I must say that there isnt much in the story as most of the scenes have been shot inside a house or at a POW fence. (as seen in the promos pic) But the screen play has been done to perfection. No overacting, no unneccessary melodrama - just the right amount of drama for my liking.

The movie depicts the horrors of the Nazi POW camps. Though such attrocities have not been graphically displayed (as in some earlier Oscar winning movies), if one is aware of what happened to the jews during that period, the viewer will suitably shocked!

The only grouch I have with the movie is similar to one of the MANY grouches I had with slumdog millionaire and that is, the protagonists all have a distinct British accent. Dont get me wrong, I love the accent. But since this was a movie which portrayed Nazis and Jews, a less distinct accent (or an accent that Germans have when speaking English) would have probably increased its effectiveness.

I wont say much more now... Do watch the movie if you get the chance (I think there is a DVD rip on torrents)... I go back to being jobless for now..

Hiel Hitler....

Bangalored....

2009-02-01T23:27:00.000-08:00

Interviewer : Since you are a Bangalorean, give me 3 things that are unique to Bangalore - which defines Bangalore - the reasons why you love Bangalore

Me: 1) The coffee culture

2) The Pub culture (in your FACE Mr. Muthalik)

3) The People...

Interviewer: (Raises and eyebrow) The people? Explain...

Me: Well, to start of with, Bangalore has arguably the most cosmopolitain population in the country. Such levels of diversity can only be explained by the fact that only 23% of Bangaloreans are Kannadigas! They are sweet people who do not force you to speak in the local language (Though in the recent past, there have been some pro-kannada incidents). If you leave autodrivers outside the realm of this conversation, Bangaloreans are accomodating and helpful - on par with the Mumbaites on this factor. I have stayed in Bangalore for around 20 years - I dont know Kannada!

If only.....

2008-12-19T04:26:00.000-08:00

It was 2:30 in the morning, 30 minutes before start of play. He switched on the television and turned up the volume. In anticipation of this match, he had slept on the couch all night, or part of the night till then, with the remote close by.
The India-Pakistan-Australia tri series (Carlton and United Series) being played in Australia, was on and India was playing Pakistan. Ravi lived for such moments. Throughout his childhood, he like many others, had been brought up on cricket trivia, facts and figures and little anecdotes which made the game all the more quaint. He knew all about the Ashes, could rattle off the playing XI of the English team that lost to West Indies in the finals of the WC 1979, Andy Flower's Test as well as ODI stats and even Sachin Tendulkar's favorite sweet dish!But hey... so could a million other people right? After all, we were talking about Cricket - A religion in India.

Having heard him wake up, Amitha, Ravi's ever-caring mother got up to see if he needed a snack. "Would you like to eat a sandwich Ravi?" she asked. That was greeted with a grunt which was deciphered as a "yes". No time to talk woman - India vs Pakistan happening. So she set off to the kitchen to make her son a midnight snack. While she was at it, she also put the kettle on to boil so that he could wash his snack down with a hot cup of tea.

Outside the kitchen, some 7500 kilometers away, Mohammad Azharuddin had won the toss and this had made Ravi excited. "We're batting, we're batting", he was shouting, oblivious to the fact that the world around him was in deep slumber. Amitha, visibly annoyed hissed out to Ravi to keep it down. "Shhhh Ravi, everyone is sleeping". So he did.
In 10 minutes, just as Sachin Tendulkar was walking in to bat, Amitha brought out the sandwich and tea on a tray and stood besides Ravi, whos eyes were closed. He was saying a small prayer - A ritual that was followed before any India game.

"Oh god, may Sachin Tendulkar hit a century today and make India win. May Srinath break Inzamam's teeth and kumble take 5 wickets...."

This being said, he opened his eyes, stood up and groped about for something in the dark as his mom watched from a distance. He finally found his walking stick, flipped it open and deftly made his way to the toilet, waving his stick to avoid collision with any furniture. Amitha wiped off a tear, one of many she had wiped off like that in the past. She placed the plate on the coffee table besides where he was sitting and quietly went back into the darkness of her room.

Ravi was congenitally blind. Yet, cricket was his life. He worshipped the game.

If only the Indian cricket team could hear that voice whenever he prayed - And those of a billion other people who wished them well. If only that famous start-studded Indian cricket team knew the passion their fellow Indians had for the sport. If only those overpaid professionals understood that a loss in a match was way more than just a few statistics artfully woven about by mathematicians. If only.........

i pods ROCK

2008-11-23T02:25:00.000-08:00

I don't know how many people will read this. I really don't care!But this is for anyone who cares to listen

" I PODS ROCK!!!!"

Let me explain this emotion that I have shown.

It just so happens that I was gifted an iPod shuffle for my birthday. At the same time, the phone in my possession happened to be Nokia 5300 (music version - Xpress music - positioned as a phone with portable music). Having used this phone for 5 months, I was under the impression that there was no difference between this and any other music player(mP3 player). After all, it did have 1GB of storage space, awesome earphones and a convenient user interface - Nokia's premium music phone of its day. Why would anyone need anything else?
At the same time, many people have told me that Apple products were overrated. The Mac, the PC.... and even the iPod... I had heard them out.

Enter - i Pod --> this led to something I had never heard in my life - Perfection - the sound of music!My brains were blown out of my skull!!!.... Gosh.. The clarity of sound and the attention to detail, the delicate balance of bass and treble... It was any music lovers dream to listen to music so clear, loud and without distortions and crackling background noises.

Why I write this piece is, last night, before going to sleep, I put my phone for charging next to my head as usual. However, by chance, my phone headphones were lying around. I decided to listen some music before I fell asleep. And since Rock on seems to be the in thing these days, Rock on it was. It took me 20 seconds to turn it off. It was ghastly. After being pampered with such perfection, anything else seemed worse than ordinary.

How can people still throw stones at such a modern marvel?
Sheeeeesh!

Briton? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

2008-06-13T03:52:00.000-07:00

The British are a funny race. In fact I can easily say that the British are the funniest people alive. The English Football team for example, is the biggest joke on earth, since the previous biggest joke winner (i.e. former England cricket team who's most outstanding feature was Andrew Caddick's ears.)It is only fitting that such a ridiculously funny country has Prince Charles as its figure head... well almost(I deliberately chose Prince Charles here cos he's way funnier than his mum. I almost die laughing on merely seeing the man.....).

Coming to think of it, anything and everything that the Brits have done since the sun set on that Great British Stiff Upper lip, has been a big joke. Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Cherie Blair's contraceptive promotion program(wait a minute, doesnt she have 4 kids?), Prince Charles, Margeret Thacher's hairstyle, their nuclear program(which is made to look like a toy gun arsenal when compared to the Soviet Program in the Yes Minister series), Prince Harry's war efforts, Mad cows, naming hills after Wimbledon's biggest loosers... this list is endless really.

Talking about Tim Henmen and Henmen Hills, another hilarious trait of the British is the way that they hero worship their "Sports achievers" (Read: looooosers). When England beat Australia in the Ashes after close to 3 billion attempts, they wanted to Knight Andrew Flintoff. Huh... When England fluked the Rugby world cup, they ACTUALLY knighted the captain of the team(I forgot the blokes name). In fact Knighthood has become such a joke now (hence getting back to the point of the article) that it wont be long before they start dishing out blue ribbons at souvenier stores. And since we are still on the topic of British stupidity and sports, doesnt it really crack you up when you hear David Beckham's squeeky tone? I can swear on all the British Gods that Posh Spice has a more manly voice! (My apologies to DB fans)

On a very serious note though, the British have really excelled at creating humour. :) . (See... told you that the Brits were a funny race!). What was started by Sir PG Wodehouse in the post war era(when that famous sun I was talking about, just set on the GBE) rubbed off on the theatre industry in Britain giving rise to some of the funniest, most delightful sitcoms ever. As a person who loves good humour, British Comedy has been RIGHT on the top of my "favorite pass time" list. Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, The Monty Python's Flying Circus, Allo Allo.............Aaaargh... another endless list... All very good examples confirming my argument.

One might ask why I suddenly came up with such a ridiculous blog. Well... What can I say... I'm jobless and my Mom's just returned from her holiday. Any guesses from where?...............

Hehehehehe... Right....

BRITON!

An ode to Music - Part I

2008-06-12T21:03:00.000-07:00

Have you ever experienced maniacal rage only to be soothed by the sound of Music? Well I sure have and I am still wondering why its taken me so long to blog about something that is so important to me in my life - a funny sort of importance actually... like one of those computer programs running in the background which keeps the system alive.

Like I said, I LOVE music, but have never taken an active part in its creation. Though I've always wanted to learn to play the drums, I have not taken an initiative to do so.
Personally, I like western music created between the 60's and the mid 90s. Before I continue, let me list down my all time 10 most favorite bands (in no particular order other than the first )

1) Queen - My all time favorite band was held together by this chap called Freddie Mercury, who incidentally, happens to be an INDIAN!!! He was born and brought up as Farook Bulsara in one of the Parsee colonies in Bombay.... He is considered to be one of the greatest musicians thtr ever walked the earth

2) The Beatles - Need no introduction! Paul's the dude :)

3) Joe Satriani - The best thing I like about western music is those crazy guitar pieces. This man Satriani, is the best guitarist alive! He makes the guitar cry..... For those who are just starting to listen to Western music, Joe is a recommended option

4) GNR (Guns n Roses)- unconventional rockers with a starking raving mad lead singer who is supposed to be a god damn eccentric genius - Axl Rose is one of those guys who was able to tame the other members in the band who were SUPER STARS by their own right (Does Slash need an introduction?). These guys had THE most extravagant live shows after another of my favorites, Pink Floyd

5) Led Zeppelin - At one point of time, the 2 main members, (Bob Plant and Jimmy Page) were regarded to be the best duo around. Led Zeppelin again, created crazy unconventional music which was very easily identifiable and which began an era of musicians who tried to ape them. Funnily, their lighter songs are so soothing, one wonders how these pot heads could make the other hard music that they made.

6) Pink Floyd - Poetry in the musical form. Their music comes under the genre psychedelic rock and absolutely must be listened to when you're tripping on a happy beer high (or any other high!)

7) Aerosmith - Steven Tyler has a mouth which will put a rubber band to shame! For those who listen to Aerosmith, they will understand what I'm trying to say. Though I dont listen to ALL their music(they are one of the longest surviving bands in the history of music), the songs I do like of theirs, feature in my top 10

8) Deep Purple - I absolutely LOVE the energy that this group has on stage or in their songs. I heard "Highway Star" as a kid and instantly fell in love with the group.

9) Billy Joel - Singer, poet, sex symbol... you name it, he's done it. His "We didnt start the fire" is moving, provocative, amazingly melodious and one of those numbers which you end up humming for the rest of the week when you hear it for the first time.

And last but not the least,
10) Lynyrd Skynyrd - Most people would have not heard of this band but Im certain that everyone (who reads this blog or otherwise) has heard thier "SWEET HOME ALABAMA". SHA is an anthem of sorts but if one likes guitar pieces, then their one number (Free bird) has arguably the best guitar piece ever. A 14 minute track, the lead guitarist just LOOSES it for 9 minutes in the end. A must hear!

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Bands that I really love but missed the list (only cos these were the first 10 that came to mind) are THE WHO, Bon Jovi(esp for Richie Sambora), Stevie Vie, U2, Eric Clapton,CCR, Smashing Pumpkins, Metallica(their lighter numbers), Live, The Eagles, Nirvana, Bob Dylan.........................
In the next part, I shall try to list down all the numbers that I really love and must be heard by people who love good rock music (and not the contemprory trash they pass off as music).

If you havent passed out reading this yet... I apologise for getting carried away!

Confuscious.....the great thinker....

2008-06-09T05:01:00.000-07:00

I usually have something in mind before I come online to post a blog. But today I'm blank. So take this as a kind of a warning and leave NOW when you can!!! Hehehe

Like I said, I have no clue as to what I am going to write. Pretty similar to the story of my life coming to think of it. Aaaah.. the story of my life would be a good topic now wouldnt it? ....................... (long pregnant pause)............... Sharks.. there isnt much!

Throughout my life, the choices I have made have always been results of rejecting other options. For instance, I took up Science in Std 11 for the simple reason that I sucked at the arty and commercy (new adjectives please note) subjects. Besides my childhood plans of wanting to become an elephant were not very financially viable (In these days of rising inflation, sugarcane too has its price). The fact that I was rather good at Maths (still am if I have to say so myself..... does anyone hear trumpets in the background?) kind of supported my decision to take up science.

Again, when it came to the time of choosing a career path, I rejected the option of taking up a pure science cos it wasnt cool enough. Medicine was out as I couldnt spell Biyoligy properly.... :D.... and I really dint want to bust my ass studying law. So I took the easy way out -> Engineering!

In engineering as well, I dint seem to have an inclination towards any subject in particular. So I took Mechanical only because the seat was free and I wasnt really enthu about anything anyway. Plus I was exceptional when it came to sketching (again, Trumpets anyone?) so this seemed to compliment my choice

Then I graduated. Dint have a clue as to what I wanted to do. However, I did know that Mechanical Engineering companies were not my cup of tea. And since Mechanical Engineering is an ever green subject, I took up the offer Infy gave me.
This is when everything in my life started going down hill!
3 years of misery led me to grab the first MBA college that came my way(NMIMS) but on retrospective thinking, I do not regret taking up admission here. Agreed, we are not half as good as the IIMs ... but nothing can be worse than doing a job which you are not good at. The pressure is immense cos you know you will never be able to excel even if you try.
There are somethings some people just cant do. My dad cant draw to save his life. My mom wont be chosen to play any sport even if she is the only person on earth..... Similarly, I cant code.

Wow... from where to where this blog came!....
As of now... I really dunno what I want to do in life. Nothing seems to be good enough for me and I dont seem to be good enough for anything. Mid life crisis has kinda found itself a very strong victim... ME....
Counselling from anyone who cares to read this blog, is welcome!

Mothered......

2008-04-29T07:05:00.000-07:00

When it was announced that Mommy would be away for a month, I was aghast. We all loved her and wished that she had the best holiday anyone could ever dream of having..... you know.....The change of guard at Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, The Big Ben, Wimbledon, Lords, Hot crumpets and pots of steaming hot tea, Fish and chips, the Stiff British upper lip what?, Harrods, Etcetera, Etcetra AND the other spanish girls.........................................BUT WHAT THE HELL WERE WE GOING TO DO FOR 29 BLOOMING DAYS IN BENGALURU???????

Our first outing to the kitchen was close to disastrous. In our quest for the perfect Sambar rice, a meal which mummy would snap up in 10 mins, we almost brought the house down. It took us close to an hour and a half of bitter struggling to manage this meal - This AFTER she had left everything ready minus the seasoning(read: tadka) in the deepfreeze. As I wrestled with the microwave oven in an attempt to defrost the sambar, my dad decided to cut us a salad. 25 minutes later I figured it out - The defrost function had been conquered. EEEEHAWWW.... By this time, dad had even finished cutting an onion without the use of a band aid strip... What a man.... Bravo!.. We were on course to having our half-course meal

The next challenge was to make rice. So we put our chef's hats on again and put the water to boil. How much rice could 3 men eat? I reckoned about 4 cups. Dad wasnt very hungry... He being a top executive who has seen the world and me being that first class engineer that I claim to be, together redid the math and came to a mutual consensus that 2 and a half cups would be about enough (note: only later did we find Mom's note that we were to use only HALF A FULL small cup if we were really hungry)... I will leave it the reader's imagination as to what happened when we realised that raw rice absorbs water and expands in the chemical reaction that converts it to cooked rice. We dint cook rice again for a week.

Anyway, when we finally left the kitchen 2 hours later(completely exhausted, back pain, head ache and the rest of the jazz), it was closer to tea than lunch. Never the less, we were ravenous. The kitchen looked like two 1500 pound polar bears had just finished fighting for a mate as fur (read: bits of raw and cooked rice) and Sambar pools were all over the place.

It tasted good.......................................... ( Im sure...... to somalian refugees who hadnt eaten in around 47 and a half days......)................. Ahem.... No really.

We were too tired to turn on the washing machine so we retired for the day. It is then when it struck me that MOM IS SUPERWOMAN. She could make that Sambar Rice with a coupla side dishes, finish putting the clothes out to dry, watch her favorite soap opera, exchange juicy gossip with the neighbour, supervise the maid's efforts to clean the house, set the table for lunch, learn her musical instrument(the piano) AND look after us all in that time that we dedicated whole heartedly to come up with the "spread"(in the process seeing to it that the kitchen needed new interior decorating)

Mommy came back last night much to our relief. She made us a simple meal of Rice, Rasam and a side dish(20 mins mind you).... How we lapped it up!

Mumbai.... The Maximum City.

2008-02-29T09:56:00.000-08:00

I'm sure that there will be many people after my blood once they finish reading this but I'll take a risk anyway! And for all those people who are used to reading my blogs, this is different in that I'm in a seriously shitty mood.

I came to Bombay, the city of dreams, some 6 months ago. I came here with the impression that I was going to live in one of the most prosperous cities in the world...the Financial hub of the nation... the City that never slept... The Maximum City.... Gosh...the names and captions were endless really....

BOY WAS I IN FOR A SURPRISE.

I landed at the SantaCruz Airport in Bombay and started disliking the place as soon as the auto got out of the Airport premises. IT WAS(IS) A FILTHY CITY. I am told that I traveled through some of the posher suburbs that day, to get to my destination (Andheri) . I can only imagine as to how clean the "not so posh" suburbs will be. Here are some of the things which changed the image that I had in mind and changed them rather violently.

Garbage Bins… A myth

Here, I don’t claim that Bangalore(the city where I grew up) is the cleanest city in the world. There are certain areas in Bangalore where even pigs would think twice before setting camp... But Bombay is something else altogether. It is not an uncommon sight to see an overflowing garbage bin here (and when I say over flowing, I mean that the garbage spills out to almost 10 metres away from the bin which is not really serving its purpose). The stench is unbearable and there are flies all over the place. And this even in posh areas, mind you.

Spit!!!

Spitting is the local pastime

The hygiene level of the people of Bombay seems to be primitive as they spit wherever they feel like. I know that I’m being a bit unfair by generalizing here but you will see red paan pools or thick gooey red blobs all over the roads and footpaths here. In fact, in the area where I stay, I get my daily dose of exercise as I hop scotch my way to college, trying all the time to avoid stepping into a fresh mound of spit(yes yes… not shit…spit).

It hurts and angers me to see people who do not respect what they have around them. (Like I said, I was in a shitty mood so bear with this for a while longer as I vent my frustration on whoever cares to read this)

The Local Trains

Here’s another bit that left me disappointed when I saw it for the first time. I have recently returned from Singapore where I stayed for 7 days. I used the Metro rail there, the pride of the city. I, not to feel left out, shot my mouth off claiming that it was nothing in comparison to the Mumbai local trains (I got weird looks that day and I wondered why). When I visited the Vile Parle station for the first time, I was SHOCKED. I was not that appalled by the crowd(or the spit pools and the fact that it smelt like a public latrine…I was used to all that by then). What I was shocked by was the fact that the whole system was very old and outdated. In the sense…the platform was crumbling at the edges, terribly cracked and eroded in places. Hygiene levels had hit all time lows (Even the ticket checkers were spitting at will) and trains were BURSTING at their seams.(Im assuming that trains have seams here)… Five million people a day….thats more than the population of relatively large countries in the world…that’s the number of people who use the Bombay Local trains everyday. Shouldn’t the Government take steps to make the system a better one? Shouldn’t the Government take steps to instill some pride into the people who use it by telling them that what they have is probably one of the best systems in the world? Shouldn’t the government spend a little more on maintaining the system? These were some of the questions that came to mind almost immediately. And after a 30 minute journey where I got storked (a new term that I am introducing here…I was on one leg for 30 minutes ... not very different from the posture of a stork) I came out visibly shaken and terribly disappointed

Uncovered Drains and nalas

Now is where I get slightly emotional. The reason why I have written this epic is because we just lost a classmate to Dengue fever. One would think that Dengue fever is contracted only in god forsaken places in back-of-beyond Africa where the mosquito population outnumbers the human population a 1000 times over. I was shocked to hear that Dengue fever is very rampant in Bombay during the monsoons. When I kept reading (on daily papers) about the mounting cases around the city, it did not do more that just surprise me. But when one of our classmates passed away in a span of 3 days, this was then when it hit me. Drains, the breeding ground of mosquitoes are open and have stagnant dirty water all throughout the year.

I could write a book on why I hate Bombay so much but I think I’ll just put a lid on it for now.

I hope I have not offended anyone too badly!

2007-11-04T10:25:00.001-08:00

As I sit here 30000 feet above the ground, I can’t wait to get to Bangalore. It’s been 5 months since I left for Bombay to pursue another degree. The reason why I’m being so indifferent here is because in these 5 months, I have not changed much and have learnt sweet little from whatever has been done in the MBA course so far. To be honest, I am a bit disillusioned as I expected a lot more from the degree as well as the institute.

It’s hard enough hearing the sly “meant-to-hurt” statements at home very subtly reminding me that I didn’t get into an IIM or the fact that NO management institute in the country can come even close to being in the vicinity of an IIM. Now I’ll have to deal with my own little voice in my head telling me the same thing

5 months ago, I got off the flight with a gleam in my eyes and a spring in my step. NMIMS was a VERY good institute. It was the flagship course of the 90 odd courses that the management offered(yes, you read correct…90… Right from Underwear technology through Ice cream design to an MBA!) They had a 100% placement record and boasted of a 8.5 Lakh per annum average pay package. Being placed in the heart of Bombay, it was in the midst of the hustle bustle of the business hub of the country. How much behind the IIMs could it have been anyway? After all, we were located in a much better place and weren’t too far behind on the pay scales. This is what I had thought.

I maintain even now, that NMIMS is by itself, a very good B school. But there’s something about the place which gets on my nerves. Perhaps it’s the management which is so greedy that they churn out new courses by the hour just so that they can make more revenue without realizing that the institute is not designed for even HALF the present number of students on the rolls. It could also have something to do with the fact that we don’t have a “campus” par se. My engineering was done in (again) a very mediocre institute – MIT Mainpal.(perhaps comparatively, not even as big a name as NMIMS in the B School world) But at MIT, we got fantastic facilities in the form of excellent hostel rooms, numerous tennis courts, Badminton courts, an Olympic sized swimming pool(well almost!...43m) a couple of HUMONGOUS grounds and so on and so forth.

In the first few weeks, I accepted all these aesthetic drawbacks and space constraint issues that the college faced. I mean, the quality of the students was still GREAT right?

But then we had the Summer placement week. Its only when I saw what a struggle it was to get a job. Its another thing that I got placed on day 1(I’m not boasting. I’ll explain) What worried me was that I got 10 rejects before I got this job solely because I have “TOO MUCH” IT experience on my CV. Too much experience….unheard of right? Well, its true and is proved by the fact that I was grabbed by the first IT company on campus(Wipro Technologies Limited). To be very honest, I was kinda hoping that I wouldn’t be sucked back into IT again. But now it seems I might be doomed to be in it.

I’m digressing from the topic here. What I wanted to really bring out with this blog is that if NM is as good as it claims it is, why did I, someone with 33 months of work experience, have to struggle so much to get a job? I asked around and found out that the scene wasn’t very different at the other non IIMs. Slightly better than NM, but not even close to the IIMs. We have been able to place close to 200 people now out of the batch strength of 350 odd. This in 3-4 weeks mind you. From these 200, we have managed only 2 foreign profiles(that to back of beyond Hong Kong somewhere). Compare this to IIM C last year who placed their entire batch of 240 students in 2 days with a whopping 97 foreign profiles!!! 97. Man… how depressing is that?

I know that all is not over till the fat lady sings. But it really hurts to know that we are so far down in the food chain. And all because we didn’t do as on that ONE day when we went to give an exam by the name of a stupid domestic animal.

Life is a bitch.

GARBA........................GE

2007-10-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

After a monstrous examination fortnight (refer to my post about me being the next Bhetan Chagat minus 3) and a crazy pardy the night after the last exam, I was juuuust done with a painful Summer placement week(I got placed btw..whopee!!!) . Here I was, harmlessly chilling in the library and catching up with a movie when my friend Neha came and dropped the bomb

"COME FOR GARBA (GE)"....she bellowed(her mobile phone, I keep reminding her, is a redundant object - she really doesn't need one even for long distance calls )

I was slightly alarmed because it sounded like a threat at first and this woman, apart from having the vocal chords of 850 pound grizzly bear in heat, happens to also be particularly violent. So when she said GARBA, I immediately sprung onto my feet in self defence.(fists all balled up, elbows bent, Rocky style). When I came to my senses (hey come on...I was shell shocked) she explained to me what a GARBA was..... Let me mention here that this DID NOT make the situation better.

I dont know if you people are aware of what Garba(ge) really is. But for all those who dont, its the most hideous action of moving ones arms and legs(in unison with other willing people or suckers like me) to the sound of garba(ge) music (read: garbage music) into a sight which might make a normal human being(like me.... no jokes here) pass out when he/she witnesses it. In simple words, its a form of DANCE.

Dancing my dear friends, has always been one area in which klutzy old me has always had a problem. I wouldn't exactly be termed as John Travolta because what gives me away almost instantly when I get onto the floor (*grimace*) is that I just CANNOT camouflage the fact that I have 2 left feet. Its another thing that I do a perfect 10/10 "grease lightening" once Ive downed a couple of beers(just like JTV... Infact he must have picked up his moves from me when I was at Purple Haze or something).

The fact of the matter is, however, that I was stone dry sober. So not surprisingly, my immediate answer to her question or rather statement, was a loud NO... Thats when all the persuading, bribing, threatening, begging, kicking and punching started and me being the nice guy I am (and NOT weak livered as per popular belief) finally gave in. They say you can take a horse to the water but you cant make it drink the water......... If I was for one moment assumed to have equine characteristics and was forcefully dragged to a sewer, the following 2 hours saw the whole proverb being re-written. Not only was I made to drink the water, but was almost drowned in it!
One word to describe my experience

TERRIBLE

To make matters worse, I was looking like one of those lost kittens in a kurta with a flap around my neck(dress code apparently). And when I was told that I had to pay 250 bucks (1/4th of a frigging grand) to enter the place, my heart almost stopped beating. Two hundred and frigging fifty Gandhis.... that could get me 2 full Tandoori birds at Arafa(I say "bird" here because if what I get on the plate at Arafa is a chicken, then I can easily call myself Brad Pitt... I hope the Arafa restaurant owner is illiterate and never reads this blog)
Anyway, like I was saying, the cost for entry was so high because the singer (of the Garbage music mentioned above) happened to be some demi-goddess of sorts. Falguni Patuck or someone. So I took 10 deep breaths and payed up in the hope that it wouldnt be as bad as I had thought it would be......... It was worse.

Imagine 15000 deranged people all in comical garb looking maniacally happy and dancing at the same time. Its hard but try. Thats the scene I saw when I entered.
When I say happy here, I mean ecstatic. So happy that I'm not able to describe it...wait... I'll try.... mmmm... ok.. here goes - one chap I saw there jumping like a monkey was so happy that it looked as though 2 litres of steroids had been pumped into his veins and that he was VERY VERY high on sugar. If he smiled any wider, he could have been arrested. No kidding. And around 1/5th of the people there were like that(if my math is correct, thats about 3000 people.)

It got worse when Mrs Patuck waddled onto the stage and started crooning(croaking) her tunes. Those 15000 people went absolutely crazy. I actually saw one girl crying. I almost went up to her and consoled her but half way there I realised that she was crying like how I would cry if I saw John Lennon performing on stage. With all due respect to Mrs Patuck, I think I prefer the Beatles (Wow... hows that for an attempt at being over-diplomatic?) Doing everything short of putting my hand over my ears(in the fear of getting killed by an enraged fan for insulting the crooning hippo errr... singer), I scrambled to the food counters. I was depressed and I needed something to eat...ANYTHING to eat... I bought something that looked like a vada paav(Have you read my blogs on how much I detest Vada Paav? So you can imagine what I was going through if I willingly went up and paid for a Vada paav).
On taking the first bite, I realised that it was SWEET...A gujarati dish....a gujurati dance.... I almost puked(No offence to the Gujjus here... I love the people but I hate their food)... I begged God to wake me up from the nightmare (Disclaimer: All the events chronicled so far are not entirely true)...................

And 25 mins later it was over!The tradition at the end of the whole farce(which is done around circles made of about15 people) is to finish off with something like a "ringa ringa roses"...only thing being its a little more vulgar sounding. So when 1000 "HUSHA BUSHA WE ALL FALL DOWN"s are done together, the effect is close to 4.5 on the Richter.(this is NOT counting Mrs. Patuck.... gosh... Am I gonna get lynched for this?)

That was that. I had made it out alive!!!!....
So if any one who has read this pays up and goes for a Garba(ge) , NEVER say that I didn't warn you....!!!!

*clap* *jig* *clap* *shake that booty* *clap* *clap* *clap*

2007-10-10T03:03:00.000-07:00

Aaaah..and after a long period of hibernation, IM BAAACK FOLKS!
And when I did get back, I found this "tag" from Purnima. Im new to blogging so it took some time for the fact to sink into my thick skull that she meant that I had to actually do something about her request rather than wonder as to why my name was on her blog.

So without wasting more of your time by typing in 4 line sentences, I shall get to it right away.
Before I start,I would like to just mention that the reader needs to be above the age of 18 and mentally very very strong to go through the rest of this mail. Hows that for a disclaimer huh? :P

1. What did you have for breakfast?
Considering the fact that my rear got out of bed at 1:30 in the afternoon, I'll consider this a trick question... HAAAAAH...hows that huh?

2. As a kid you were scared of?
I was scared that I would wake up and find that i had not studied for a test!!! (fireworks at home if I failed...god knows what will happen when they realise that I MAY be a 2 point someone soon!!!)

3. Define the following in one word - (max. 2 words)

Karma - The phrase I used on my mom when I needed her car... mostly it would be followed with a NO from her...(i used more than 2 words.. SUE ME....)

Dictionary - Pillow

Kids - Pains in the butt..(4 words....PPPPPBBBBBBBBBTTTTHHH)

Your PC/ Laptop - Lifeline

4. Something that you crave to eat RIGHT NOW!
Tandoori Prawn ..... slurp

5. The last person you sent an sms to?
My fat friend Neha!!!

6. Memorable Rakshabandhan gift received (gals!)/ gifted (guys!)?
Baaah..... try again

7. What colour is your life? n why? (1 colour only, plz)
Black..... mmmmm... well...not everything is going as planned!

8. You see Dhoni buying a Tennis ball @ a Sports shop near your place... you....
Run out of the shop...cos if his fans come in and see me, I'LL BE MOBBED...(I'm a bigger star!!!)

9. Greatest feeling in the world?
Getting pooped out after a hot game of tennis...I badly need one now!

10. Most disgusting thing that you came across..
mmm...naaah...too many children reading this...:P

11. Your fav serial/ match/ film going on ... when BANG! goes the cable.. you

a. switch off TV, Switch on PC n log in to Orkut/ Yahoo etc.

12. English is a very funny language because..........?

cos I dont get jokes in Hindi or Konkani!

13. Current weather reminds you of...............
A cow taking a piss in the middle of the road... oh wait... did you say "current weather"?

14. Have you ever had a crush on your teacher?
65 year old Anglo Indian women are OLD, WRINKLY, WHITE and too sweet to have crushes on

15. 2 lines about this girl called 'Purnima' .... (plz no, ever gigglin, bit crazy, blogs regularly n all...that she already knows.... something that will make her go 'wow! is that true??'... No flattery, negative remarks accepted, just don't be rude :P, honest answers please!)
Errrrr...... 2 lines...ok... here goes...

I dont
know Purnima much.... Howzzat?
Hehehehehe...but I wouldnt mind getting to know her though...

We thank you Mr. Flintoff

2007-09-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

I suggest that we dedicate our World Cup victory to one Mr. Andrew Flintoff...

I even propose that the BCCI should pay 1/4th of the promised 2 million dollars to Andrew Flintoff as a token of gratitude....

3 Cheers for Freddie Hip Hip......

To hit the stands soon...

2007-09-23T05:02:00.000-07:00

2 POINT SOMEONE......

I'll be the author in case you didn't get this....

Please contribute and buy the unpirated version because if we go by the way my exams are going at the moment, that will be my only means of earning bread....

P.S. I accept voluntary contributions.

Letter to Santa.... Christmas is coming.

2007-09-06T09:04:00.001-07:00

Dear Santa
These are the following list of things I want for Christmas

1) Metallic Pink coloured Mercedes Benz(atleast S Classe....Maybach would do) with blue polka dotted hub caps and balloon tyres (must I mention bright red leather interiors with my favorite ducky hanging on the rear view mirror)

2) A bazooka(it will come in handy in college....)

3) A Rolex.....simple diamond studded one will do....

4) Apple I-phone.......nothing too fancy...the white one is simple

5) A Sony Vaio..... My Lappy is big, bulky, big, ugly, big, heavy, big and big(did i mention that its big?)

6) A beach villa in Goa. Now im not asking for one as big as Mr. Mallya's...I dont want to look greedy now

7) A 45 day world cruise on a 7 star luxury liner....oh...ok....not a luxury liner...a 5 star cabin will do.....*sigh*

Please find attached all my other lists(grouped by item cost..For example file name "30 lakhs and above" contains the things I want which cost Rs. 30 Lakhs and above. The Yatch and the Lear jet are in the "Miscellaneous" file)

Regards,

J

P.S. I have been a good boy.....
P.P.S. Promise
P.P.P.S. I swear on God....err...wait... I swear on Hritik Roshan....(muhuhahahahahhahaha...One celeb down, Shah Rukh to go)

Roger gets Rogerred!!

2007-09-04T02:43:00.001-07:00

Our summer hols, when we were little, were always spent at my Grandpas place in Madras. When I say "we" here, I'm referring to my cousins and me. It was a ritual that we all loved because like all grandpas, ours used to spoil us like crazy - Spoil us so bad, that we never really minded the heat of Madras!

And apart from other things, Grandpa liked his afternoon siesta like how people need air to breathe... We would fall all over him as he slept and he would ask us to press his legs and give him a head massage and so on... we loved that part of the day... And then he would go into a deep slumber and we would be paraded out of his room by one of his daughters(either my mom or one of her sisters)

On one such afternoon, once grandpa had reached his 14th or 15th wink, we started our daily round of hide-and-seek in his huge 1st floor house. (Huge is a gross understatement....It was palatial...built during British Raj days. And since we were very small, it looked MUCH larger than it was). It was a large bungalow with a first floor and on the ground floor, lived the landlord and his wife.(The Raghavans, an elderly couple). The house had a large court yard(20 metres by 30 metres) which was Mrs. Ragahvan's garden cum car park.

Now the Raghavans, happened to own this HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE Doberman........It would have been much taller than us if it was on 2 legs. I have to say that we werent very big then, but still. And to add to the misery, it was a monster....A postman's nightmare, the milkman's biggest fear and one of the most ferocious things I have ever seen in my life....Im sure it would have gotten along really well with the inmates of the lions cage at the zoo. The dog, Roger(no offence meant to Federrer but that was its name) would bark ferociously at any passerby and had to be kept tied with a large iron chain when people visited the Raghavans...Fat chance of saying "OOOOH....Cute doggie...want a biscuit???"...in such a case, Roger would have taken the biscuit and a better part of your hand in the process...

Back to that eventful afternoon. I was the denner and while I was counting to 100(which was an effort in those days) with my face to the huge grill on the balcony, I spotted this large billy goat hanging around the front gate of the house. Like I mentioned, there was a large courtyard between the house and the gate and that used to be Rogers playground in the afternoons, when the chains were removed. He would run about like a lion in the wild and there were times when all of us would just observe him in awe from the balcony.

By some freak chance, the goat happened to get into the premises. Mr. Raghavan must have forgotten to lock the gate and the goat must have fancied the garden and come in for dessert. When I was somewhere between 57 and 59(I was counting remember?), Roger realised that there was an intruder in his domain.I gave up counting and yelled for my cousins to come and catch the matinée show. As expected, Roger went charging at the goat, tongue out, saliva oozing from his mouth, embers in his eyes and other special effects!

As Roger charges towards what seems to the readers, his victim, let me get down to describing the old goat(wow...always wanted to use "old goat" in my blog) The goat was by no means a push over. Equally matching Roger in size, this guy had a huge pair of horns and was not the types who ends up on the dinner table as "Mutton chops". When Roger reached the goat, he went for its throat like how those mean dogs in Nazi war films were taught to do to their victims. What Roger didn't realise was, that he wasn't in a Nazi movie. The Germans had lost the war and their dogs (Rogers uncles from his mothers side), had lost the canine glory they had once been part off. The goat very quickly turned 180 degrees and with a quick flick of its hind legs, caught Roger right in the face.

I don't know if any of you have heard what happens when you step on a puppy's tail. My building friends and I(in Bangalore) have long since graduated from stamping puppies tails....Now a days, we tie fire crackers to their tails and light them(the firecrackers of course. We wouldn't want to be cruel to those poor things by burning their tails now would we?)...the effect is much the same as the sounds which came out of Rogers throat and apparently, the howls were heard one kilometer away at the post office(The postman confirmed gleefully on the following day!). By now, the balcony seats(literally) were taken. A groggy eyed grandpa came running out to see what the commotion was all about.

Roger was taking a licking(Note: This sentence will NEVER be uttered on a modern tennis circuit). Every attack of his was getting butted away and there came a point when the goat started chasing Roger. The fun and frolic that was coming from the balcony, the high fives, peels of laughter, the deep guffaw emanating coming from my grandpas throat and the high pitched shrill yells of my female cousins along with Rogers shrieks for mercy in dog language must have risen poor Mr. Raghavan up. He came running out and with great difficulty leashed Roger again. He managed to shoo the goat out, just as it had started on its dessert.

By now, our stomachs were paining!..... I will never forget the words that came out of Mr. Raghavan's mouth till the day I die....

He looked up, all embarrassed and said slowly...." The goat is lucky I came out.....else we would have had mutton biriyani for dinner today....."...................

YEAH SURE MR. RAGHAVAN....WE WOULD LIKE FRIES AND COKE WITH OUR ORDER!!!!

Letter to GOD: PLEASE wake me up once September ends

2007-08-29T14:20:00.001-07:00

There are times in your life when you feel that things just couldn’t get worse….that the whole world is getting at you….these are times when you feel defeated – like a loser.

I’m almost there at the moment. With the proliferation of projects, came an unseen weight around my neck…the weight that has got my neck on the guillotine.

And with just a fortnight to go for my trimester exams, the probability of me coming out in flying colours is slightly lower that a pregnant cow wearing 2 pairs of Bermudas and playing golf with Mickey mouse’s mother in law…..

Ok ok…never mind that last statement…Hehehehe…

Here are some of the things that are pending…

1) Group projects(I lost count of how many need to be submitted…At last count, it was 5 projects….. The whole group is going down I think…..)….to be submitted between 3^rd and 6^th of Sept

2) Marketing paper presentation – Day after tomorrow….oh wait…make that tomorrow…its 2:45 in the morning and I’m not in bed!

3) Fin assignments (group and individual) – by 6^th

4) Mid term test with complete portions in MTP (also read: IM SO SCREWED)

5) Article review(individual) in MTP by 3^rd…*sigh*

6) And then the exams start on the 17^th… 11 papers out of which I still dunno the NAMES of some subjects..(no kidding here)

And that’s only at the tip of the ice berg… To add to the misery, we have classes everyday from 9 to 5:45 in the fricking evening…

OH GOD…WAKE ME UP AFTER SEPTEMBER ENDS….

Starch Wars.......The Potato strikes back

2007-08-16T12:42:00.000-07:00

Ever since I have come to Mumbai, I have developed this deep phobia for the Potato(note how I am treating it like a person). One might think that it is only a common vegetable which harmlessly finds its way into ones plate in some form or the other. One might also think that I’m unnecessarily getting paranoid…

BUT TRUST ME…ITS EVIL….NOOO NOOOO NOOOOO… (starts stabbing himself lest he is forced to eat mashed potatoes for dinner)

But seriously… I used to be a respected Aloo loving citizen before I came to Bombay. In fact, I was a BIG fan of French fries(I’ve always wondered why they were called French fries though..I mean..the potato was Indian, the oil was Indian, it was being made in a bloody Indian house…but I might be getting a little too sensitive) I used to be the kind of person who would actually ASK for seconds when it came to those hot Aloo parathas with those big melting blobs of butter on them. And being a patriotic Indian cricket fan who is supposed to congenitally hate the Pakistani team, I used to actually admire Inzamam “aloo” Huq’s batting.(btw, I always wondered why such an innocent, harmless, seemingly peaceful hippopotamus faced bloke changed into a VIOLENT BLOOD THIRSTY MONSTER when someone in the stands called him Aaloo… Now I totally empathise)

Baaah… look at me now. I used to be a food lover…… A person who lived to eat… Now I grimace and wince everytime my stomach starts to rumble in hunger. I know that there is going to be SOME form of aaloo in the meal…
Heres what a typical day’s menu looks like

Breakfast( 8:30-9:00)

AALOO Paratha (very generous stuffing I must say) + curd
OR
Poori and AALOO Bhaaji
OR
Masala Dosa (no guesses as to what the Masala is made up of!!!...Theres so much Masala in it that it bulges out of the sides andit makes me puke to even think of it…)
OR
AALOO poha (poha = beaten rice… You have to search for it in the mixture really… )

Morning snack(10:45-11:00)

VADA PAAV --> For the record, the only thing I like less than vada paav is Britney Spears’ music and seeing Hrithik Roshan’s face. YES YES…I’m NOT kidding…

It is the most HIDEOUS food item EVER created. For all those lucky(read: ignorant about the whereabouts of VP) people, it is this disgusting blob of blaaaaaaaand mashed potato(not very well mashed also cos very often you get HUGE chunks of potato half the size of Zimbabwe coming into your mouth….ewwww) hurriedly placed between the local bread (paav). You must have heard of people asking for SCOTCH with mineral water and then as an after-thought telling the waiter to hold the water…. Well….In my case, with regards to Vada paav, it is NOT an after thought and I without fail ask the vada paav vendor to hold the Vada. It is at this point when I invariably get a very very very hurt look from him. Almost as though I stamped all over his ego and spat on it before kicking it into a pile of shit. Gosh…I really hate Vada paav..is it obvious?

OR
AALOO Samosa Paav. Slightly more tolerable as this gets remotely tasty at times

LUNCH (2:00-2:30)

Oh boy…heres where the REAL bit starts.

It would be a real shame if I spoil this part by saying that the only thing that they serve in the canteen without potatoes in it is the water…. But that could also be partly incorrect as I have actually seen that canteen chap remove thi humongous raw potato out of the jug before pouring me a glass of water.

Anyway… Heres what we get with AALOO PARATHAS at lunch(any one or more of the following Sabjis

1)AALOO capsicum

2) AALOO gobi

3) AALOO methi

4) AALOO jeera

5)Dumb AALOO (muhuhahahaha…I actually like this one…...............NAAAAAH)

6) AALOO cabbage

7) AALOO with beans

8) AALOO Raitha

9) AALOO rice

And not to forget, last but not the least,

10AALOO AALOO (this one is the chef’s specialty really…he outdoes himself everytime)

Then depending on the starch intake of the day, I make the all important decision of whether I should have a snack in the evening or not.(I’m a budding manager after all…Managers take decisions)

If I’m hungry (which is almost always the case…but sometimes I force my brain to think that Im not hungry…) I end up having AALOO bhujiya or AALOO Bonda along with a steaming cup of tea(the saving grace of the meal)

Dinner which happens anytime between 8 and 10 consists of pretty much the same things that were available for lunch.

So people...now you must be knowing why my Gmail profile is almost invariably anti AALOO ?
Yup...You got it right... I'm at war ... This is the STARCH war... And I will win I tell you
* Yells a blood curdling war cry and attacks the enemy with a knife *

Cheers..... good night

P.S. In a study conducted in MIT, it was proved that a person gets demented when spotted around potatos at all times. Unfortunately, we dont know much about it as the people who conducted the experiment met their demise in the most gruesome way known to man. The Autopsy reports claim that the cause of death was Starch poisoning but I wont be surprised if a piece of potato jumped out of their plates and stabbed them to death....

More on smart people....

2007-07-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

When a faaaaaamous Kannada super star was kidnapped by faaaamous forest brigand somewhere in South India(im not going to take any names...heheheh) there was a lot of turmoil in the city. Political parties siezed the initiative and started recruiting respectable citizens who have nothing to do all day(Read: jobless hooligans who dont like to see anything new and shiny). The new recruits were all given crowbars in one hand and a beer bottle in the other and were asked to do "their" stuff. Ofcourse, more beer was promised after the job well done! YAAKE COOL DRINK MAGAAA??!!??

So we had these semi drunk youths, not more than 16-18 years of age who I BET would not have seen even one movie of the above (very subtly) mentioned super star, going around bashing things up, throwing stones on glass, checking out boiling points of rubber by conducting heat experiments on tyres, and in general creating a lot of commotion in the city.
And since I live on the 4th floor of an apartment complex facing Airport road, I was able to get prime time entertainment by just opening a window(WINDOWS new version raaa!). On one of those days, there were these bunch of hooligans who were thrasing things outside our building. And a very hilarious thing happened....

This dude climbs a tree with a sickle in his hand... It wasnt a very tall tree - 6 to7 metres in height. Obviously our man must have had a little too much to drink because what seemed to be a fairly easy climb to the shortest branch took him some 4-5 attempts. Full marks for determination though..the country needs lads like these in the Army.
Annnnnyway....On reaching the branch, he made himself comfortable over there for a while as he saw his fellow revellers bring down flower pots, hoardings and anything that was standing. I guess he was feeling left out for not contributing to the noble cause so all of a sudden, with a rejevenated surge of enthusiasm, he sat up. He then changed his position by turning 180 degrees. So now he was sitting on the branch facing the trunk.
I suppose there arent many brighter souls around because what he did next, defied all laws of human common sense(If there are such laws ofcourse). He started hacking the branch with all this might - the portion in between him and the tree - with the sickle which he had hauled to the top. My brother, who was standing besides me, was already rolling about on the floor laughing and I was nearly there. My mother, who had given up hope on the city, was busy washing clothes. So when the branch came down, I was the only person in the family who had the honour of seeing the man land bang in the centre of his rear.
All good things come to an end they say...I dont think he ever went next to a tree after that!!!!

2007-07-18T03:03:00.000-07:00

Ive done a LOT of gutsy things in my life...(Ahem....cant think of any now but thats irrelevant) but this is the first time I am actually checking mail/blogging/chatting while sitting in class!
These are the perks which come with VERY SHORT TEACHERS...She wont be able to see me even if she repeatedly jumps (after getting on top of her desk) and trains her eyes on me...Needless to say, Im sitting on the last bench!

In the 3 weeks that I have spent at a BEE SKOOL, I have learnt that they dont teach much here. 99.999% of the people have come here to get placed....Of that 99.999%, 80% have come from IT backgrounds, and like me, are looking to "append their profiles" with an extra degree.........Oh btw..thats what I told those dudes in my interview. Apparently they bought it and here I am.

Another very wierd thing about this School is the fact that we have classes on weekends as well... In fact, the best classes happen on Saturday and Sunday when you have REAL managers coming over and giving us dreary, dark lectures on how mean the big bad world is outside. To compensate the fact that we are working on Sundays, we get a day off on Monday(huh...big bloody deal!)...
The lectures during the week are torture... Here are some of the things I do in class to stay awake...

1) Read the days papers..(do the Sudoku and so on)
2) Use toothpicks as props(to keep the old Eyelids open)
3) Sleep at the back of the class when the projector is turned on(they generally turn off the lights then)
4) play cows and bulls with my classmates(no no...they dont allow animals into campus..its a highly intellectual game which keeps us from hurting ourselves..in the sense, if we werent playing it, we would be banging our heads on the tables in front of us to pass time)
5) play book cricket and give the impression to the teacher that we are listening intently(an intelligent face like mine will help here)
6) Think about lunch
...

The list is endless really...

And before I bore you people to DEATH, I shall stop here.

BUS KARO....

2007-07-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

Its been ages since I boarded a local bus but whenever anyone mentions the word "bus" to me(even if they mean "ENOUGH!!!"), my thoughts go to some of my "cherished" moments spent on those 6 wheeled monsters.

The first of these incidents happened when I was much younger (when I was a "good" boy whose sole aim in life was NOT to learn all the bad words in different languages)... I boarded a bus from my stop on Airport Road and pushed my way to the middle. The bus was really crowded that day. The conductor came along and asked me where I wanted to go.

I have always been told that I should lower my voice as it is very loud. I have never paid heed to good advice. So when I replied as to where I want to go, my voice reverberated in the confines of the bus compartment....

"SOOLEY* CIRCLE", I boomed..... Though I didn’t think it was funny, most of the people there did... And for all those people who didn't hear me the first time (not many of those around thankfully), the "destination" was repeated for their benefit. I guess it was my innocent face (NO WISE REMARKS HERE PLEASE) that saved me that day!

The second incident happened during my stint (prison sentence?) in Madras. By now, I was a much older lad (And NOT very "good" anymore...). Since I hadn’t been in Chennai for long, I didn’t know the customs and practices of the place (and meanings of most bad words for that matter). Even bus-etiquette (if there exists such a phrase) was new to me. So I just entered an empty bus (a rarity in Chennai) from the back door, a custom followed in Bangalore buses**, and plonked my rear on the first seat I could set my beads on. Unfortunately*** for me, that seat happened to be the first one on the left side of the aisle. Since the bus had just entered the terminus, it started filling up slowly and as the people, women in particular, boarded the bus, the looks I got, became blacker by the minute. Oblivious to the surroundings, I put that familiar "innocent" look on my face and continued to remain seated.

Enter virago.....All of a sudden, this lady came up to me and started abusing me left-right-centre. (I must say that I appreciate her efforts because my bad language vocabulary in Tamil improved at a geometric rate as she continued on her verbal diarrhea)."RUTTA KUTTA SUTTA PUTTA LUTTA MUTTA RUTTA KUTTA PUTTA" ****...Oh she went on and on and on.

Initially I thought she was mad and was just venting her fury out on a foreigner.(Note: Non Tamilians are foreigners in Chennai). So I sat on, trying to enjoy the scenery around me. Then, for no sane reason whatsoever, she started tugging at my shirt. Decibel levels had reached an all time high and the "RUTTA"s and the "KUTTU"s were flying about like it was not funny. It is only then when I looked around. I noticed that everyone around me (Women, children, others) were ALL giving me dirty looks. At that moment, the conductor (who was sitting with a smirk on his face throughout) waddled into the scene and explained to me in flawless English that IN CHENNAI(he said that a bit too loudly...as if to tell me that in Chennai, you do as the Chennaites do.....), the seats on the left were all "reserved" for women an children. Another few minutes and the lady might have torn me apart.... I got up and hurriedly got out of the bus!!!

Ever since, I have not boarded a bus. Who knows what else is in store for me when I decide to use that form of public transport again??!!??

* Sooley, as was explained(not so nicely) by the conductor who was not amused, is a term in Kannada for prostitute..... Apparently, I should have said "SHOOLAY circle” which is a legitimate destination in Bangalore....So much for one little "H"......

** The Local buses in Bangalore have 2 doors, one being in the front next to the driver and the other at the back near the rear tyre. Ladies enter from the front door, everyone/thing else enters from the back door. Also, the first few rows in the front on either side of the central aisle is "reserved" for Women, children and handicapped people.(Gender equality? naaaaah)

*** Why unfortunate? Well....the "reservation" for women in Chennai buses is(unlike in their Bangalorean counterparts) all the seats on the left side of the central aisle

****Censored for the sake of my young readers!

My First Ambition in life and how it was accepted at home

2007-07-03T08:09:00.001-07:00

Adult Male voice: “Hey there Johnny …what do you wanna be when you grow up?”
Childs voice: “I wanna be a HUSTLER”!!!!!

Relax folks….neither am I Little Johnny nor have I fancied a career in criminology….this is an excerpt from a song which NEVER fails to make me laugh as it makes me remember all the things I wanted to be as I “grew up”!
At no point of time in my life had I ever imagined myself to work for a software company. This little episode brings out my first “real” ambition in life, the first of a long string which continues to grow as I sit here.

The earliest recollection of my wanting to be ANYTHING would go back to when I was around 4 when I announced to everyone that I wanted to become an elephant. That was at a birthday party where all us “chutkoos” were shepherded around a table and asked to say something for 2 minutes each…something on what we wanted to be when we grew up…a more adult version of that activity would involve only the fairer sex and would fetch answers like “I want to be like Audrey Hepburn” or the more clichéd ones like “Mother Teresa has always been my driving force in life…”…
The only difference between the two situations would be that when I said that I wanted to be an elephant, I really wanted to be one… (Let’s not kid ourselves… Anyone who takes part in a pageant is not going to be playing Florence Nightingale to the poor for the rest of her life…). The fact is that I was really fascinated (to the extent of infatuation) by those big creatures (still am) especially by the way they flap their ears. I always wanted to do that. I guess it would be no surprise if I say that one of my favorite films is a Walt Disney creation called DUMBO.
Anyway, this little incident caused a little uproar at the gathering and fetched me an encore from all the aunties but by the time the cake was cut, everyone had forgotten about it. Everyone but me and my distraught mother (who wasn’t please at my ambitions…NO SIR she wasn’t!!)
I guess this was the ONLY exception…the ONLY TIME when my mother has ever interrupted my dreams… After the party, we had a little mother to son one on one in the car(I was 4 years old mind you) where she tried to change my mind. She was a terror on the road that day and was making BTS bus drivers cringe in fear…..Her son, the same bloke she had carried around for 9 months wanted to become an elephant…..boy was she mad!

It was a well-prepared extempore (oxymoron?) wherein I was given an extensive insight on how mundane the beast’s life was. (“They only eat and sleep all day” said she with a disgusted look on her face…it sounded perfect but I didn’t mention it as she was visibly flustered)…After the speech, she asked me to think of something interesting, something which I could become without going a few rungs lower in the mammalian hierarchy……so I racked my brains and pondered for a long time(in those days, that period would range between 1 and 4 minutes depending on the distractions around) and I told her(after that “long time”) that I wanted to become the Commissioner of Police….
I don’t know if you folks have even seen how puris are made in the kitchen, but on very similar lines my mother, all of a sudden, bloated up with pride (all that she has lost at the party due to my “ambitious plans” and more)… the same lady who was doing everything short of man handling auto drivers on the road was all smiles and in a “that’s my son” mood…
As for me, I had steered out of the soup. Not only had my statement made my mommy happy, it got her off my back for a while and I would learn later, that it had earned me my favorite dessert that evening…besides, I really thought those “mee maw” lights on the Commisioners Police Car were really cool(the REAL reason for my choice)!!!

2006-11-27T02:18:00.000-08:00

Its been some time since I wrote a cheerful blog(there arent many things in my life at the moment that I can be cheerful about....)....
But Friday night is one night, the memory of which I shall cherish for as long as I live.
It so happens that I am a sports buff: an ardent admirer of ball sport of any kind(whatever the size or shape of the ball).... I have been criticised, yelled at, pleaded with and even cursed by my family members when I went on one of my "GOLF-TRIPS", where I would sit for hours together trying to figure out the nuances of the game.
But as we all know, watching a game LIVE in the stadium has its own charms. I for one would go any length to watch a game live(Any match that comes to the Chinaswamy stadium, Goldflake open at Chennai,local hockey matches...ANYTHING...)
So I was thrilled to bits when I heard that the world famous Harlem Globetrotters were going to play on Friday night at the Kanteerava stadium here. I had read a lot about them but had only seen them on TV(that too in documentaries on NatGeo and Discovery).
Sadly, I belong to a race which is on the brink of extinction. It was very hard for me to find someone who would like to invest in a pass. I must have asked 15 people who all had "better things to do"....Though I did eventually sucker someone into coming(on the basis that I bought her dinner), I was disheartened by the general awareness or rather, the UNawareness of this famous troupe.
By the time I reached the stadium(which by the way, was more than half empty), I had forgotten all that. The next 2 hours will probably play again and again in my mind like a broken video player for the rest of my life.
Those guys were AMAZING....though I have played a good amount of basketball in my life, I have never seen anyone physically touching the rim(leave alone doing a slam dunk)..... Let me just say that the shortest guy in that troupe was 6'2"(so you can all use your imaginations and guess how much slam dunking I saw for the rest of the show!!!).
The show included a game between the GTs and a New York based professional team. The result ofcourse didnt matter but the entertainment that was provided by those guys is unparalleled. The teams mascot,Globie (a character with his face as the globe)did a great dancing gig but the loudest cheer was reserved for Globie's elder brother `Big G', who had his own version of dance and tumble during the interval. And then there was basketball which was almost inconsequential!!! At the end of the show there was an autograph session. Its only when I got to the play area did I realise how MAMMOTH these guys are. One of them (Kevin) was 6'11".........Vertically challenged!!!!

All I'd like to say is, if ever you get an opportunity to see the globetrotters perform anywhere in the world...please...do take it....like I said earlier...its an INVESTMENT....:):):)

KRRISH

2006-07-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

Not seen the MI series? Missed out watching Crouching Tiger hidden dragon? Were you out of town when Matrix was playing in theatres???? FRET NOT PEOPLE, JUST WATCH KRISHHH....

It was heart warming for a Hollywood buff like me to see a whole lot of my favorite movies, all put into the blender and churned together to bring out this story of our young hero Krishna(er...back home in the US of A, thats KRISHH folks...so kindly adjushht)

Apart from the above-mentioned movies, the director of this film has successfully mooched off the creations found in several other famous Hollywood flicks (flicks??? hahaha….how appropriate)...here are some that I could identify immediately... Spiderman, Superman, Batman, He-man, Cat wo-man...(ok ok basically all English movies ever made with a suffix of "man"), Robin Hood, Notting Hill, Ghost, Rambo, ET, Twins, flashes of Tom and Jerry, Total Recall, Close encounters of the 3rd kind and last but not the least, Rainman (this being attributed to the fact that Hritik Roshan acts like a juvenile delinquent for 3/4th of the movie...readers please note that the remainder is comprised of songs, Priyanka Chopra's pretty face all over the screen and of course the best part of the movie, the 15 minute interval).....

P.S. This is an incomplete list…

The plot…..

Inspired by Shaktimaan, this flick starts of in a small little hole-in-the-wall-outfit village amidst sprawling countryside in the middle of Nowhere-ville(North India P.O. 666-666). Within the confines of a well furnished room, an evidently overfed kid of around 10 years, bulging at his seams(lets just call him Chubbs ok?), is answering advanced calculus questions posed to him by an interview panel comprising of an equally overfed Headmaster and other overfed fillers...I must laud the casting crew of this movie because at this point of time, instead of being mentally tortured by the pathetic screenplay, most people in the audience were watching in amazement as to how the kid was able to balance his large orb like figure on a tiny bench, holding a pencil in one hand and even look remotely intelligent at the same time.(I hope they nominate the kid for the Oscars and I hope his parents don't read this). Anyways, the panel which our young Chubbs is facing just cant believe it either as everyone, is looking dazed in this scene.(maybe they are wondering why they have stooped so low as to accept the role….but that's just a maybe!)

The scene ends abruptly as an old Rekha (oxymoron??) comes running into the scene, crying her eyes out.(yes people…a record 4 tonnes of glycerin was used in the making of this film) She pulls the boy, her grandson, away from his chair (which heaves a silent sigh of relief) and runs away from town for some reason I couldn't catch (no people, I'm not kidding…this really happens).

In a span of 10 minutes after this, Chubbs who also happens to be strong like his cousin (superman), transforms from a "ball" of energy into strong young man with a bulging 6 pack (was it 8? I didn't count…looked like plastic anyway), muscles oozing out of his ears and other special effects.

Enter Hritik Roshan:(Note: girls and gays in the audience started whistling here… most guys had passed out in boredom by now). Our man enters the movie dressed not very differently from Rambo is Afghanistan, only difference being he is challenging a malnourished horse (painted white for the movie) in a "who-do-you-think-will-gallop-home-first" sprint. Crouching tigers, hidden dragons, a malnourished black horse painted white, birds in the back ground, Hritik Roshan…all wonderful beasts of nature in this scene…really well done…kudos to the computer animation team. Since this a Hindi movie, I won't waste everyone's time in saying who wins the race to Hritik's house where daadi darling has just cooked him breakfast.

The scene at home is a pleasant one. Rekha by now is an older woman(hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha……) and she just loves her darling ( formally introduced as chubbs…I would have renamed him "Hulk Hogan" but the bovine look, which never seems to leave his peach for the next 2 hours made me change my mind)…the movie moves along painfully for another 10 minutes in this fashion pushing the audience to believe that this could just be a grandma-grandson saga.( Note: Everyone in the theatre was getting really fidgety when the director unleashed yet another of those cards from under his huge sleeves.)

WHAM…Enter Priyanka Chopra, a young, pretty, ambitious Indian girl on vacation, "flies" into the picture (literally) (Note: the above mentioned "almost dead" guys in the audience were all up now….bring out the pop corn boys!)
For some reason, the director has made Priyanka (aka Chumpa, aka Priya) live in Singapore.* Thankfully, Priya's father in no more (one character less…hip hip hurrah) and the only people in her life are her mother and her inseparable best friend "Honey" (take this with a BIG figurative pinch of salt here).

Back to the scene, Priya and "Honey"(the very thought of that character makes me grimace and shudder) are down in Nowhere-ville for a trek with a whole other group of sidekicks including a mentally retarded Chimp of an instructor who's only role in the movie is to act like an idiot. There is a lot of fun and frolic, songs, games and dancing around trees in the next few scenes much like other Hindi films worth their salt. There is also a whole lot of leaping from mountaintops, fishing with bare hands, "playing ghost", volleyball and tug of war unlike other movies for no extra charge (please don't fall for the bait)

I apologize to my readers here but at this very moment, I blacked out. For the next half an hour or so, I was unconscious. But when I came to, the whole scene had moved to Singapore. My friends filled me in with what I missed after the movie ended (much against my protests that I DIDN'T want to know). Here’s what I missed… I believe Hritik falls in love with Priyanka (surprise surprise?) but she has to get back to Singapore cos mummy lives there…

That's when Honey's real role begins and she being the bitch that she is, manipulates innocent Priyanka, who is oh so confused, to trick our beloved village bumpkin into coming to Singapore, by making her say that she loves him.(visions of Julia Roberts' famous Notting Hill lines come floating to memory)
As a net result, Hritik drops everything including Daadi, who tries all the tricks in the book starting from emotional black mail to bribing him with extra Gulab Jaamoons for dessert, to dissuade him going to that evil place(i.e. Singapore). Alas, her thick skinned grandson is too deep into Priya’s web now so one ton of glycerin down the line, he dons his deceased fathers suit and heads for the airport just like how George of the Jungle moved to New York.

Our man reaches Singapore (much to the delight of the Singaporeans, who declared a national holiday in his honor)…Here the director runs out of Hollywood movies to copy. So he dabbles with something he has never done before…INNOVATIVENESS…(let me NOT mention that he makes a complete mess of it…) So with some neat kung foo, great biking and AWWWWWWWWWWESOME stunts(did I overdo that?) he pushes the torture for another 30 minutes…Then FINALLY….after 2 hours or cranial damage, something happens…. He becomes a cartoo…er….SUPER HERO…..whopeeeeee!!!!…..like all self respecting super heroes, our man saves a little girl from SURE death. He rescues her from a circus fire (apparently someone in the circus audience couldn’t take his clowning anymore and set himself ablaze so that he could sooth the pain he was going through….May his soul rest in peace) In no time Hritik (can I call I'm riTHICK?) becomes a NATIONAL HERO (not in real life of course) …and since all heroes wear a mask, he too starts sporting a cool one**.

And when you thought that it JUUUUST CANT GET WORSE, it does. Out of nowhere, references to Hritik’s father, also acted by Hritik, who was believed to have kicked the bucket long ago start coming in. (so instead of one retard, we have 2 now) (Note: This is when realization dawned and I figured out that this movie was actually a sequel to another disaster by the name of Koi Murr Gaya(was it Koi Mil Gaya? Whatever…), which unlike this subtly done movie(yeah right!), was a DIRECT lift from ET. At this stage, people at the theatre started moving out in disgust…some of them made it to the door by foot while most of them fell half way to the door. Some loved ones were carried out while the others in coma, were stretchered out later )

Epilogue of KMG: Hritiks father who was equally powerful as him (read EQUALLY MIND NUMBINGLY STUPID) was stupid enough to be kidnapped by the movies saving grace (Nasir u din shah) , an evil scientist who wants to rule the world. He captures Hritiks Sr. just after KMG ends and asks him to make a machine that can help one see into the future…defying all laws of physics and making flicks like Star Wars look like bad mistakes, he actually creates the machine. Its only then when he sees into the future and sees how cruel the big bad world is…infact, one of the dialogues are so funny, even I laughed…He calls his mummy(Rekha Daadi) up weeping saying “maa yey duniya bahut burraah hai maa”. The tears in my eyes were genuine though!

In his quest to procure a machine that can see into the future, Shah(whos screen name I cant recollect now) has kept Sr. HR in captivity to preserve his retina and heart rate which is used as a password to access this machine(One wonders that if technology has reached such a stage, where one can see into the future, why worry about a bloody retina scan!!!). The machine is as large as the room and has cool digital displays and Total Recall type hand dials. A very famous quote comes to mind here…someone once said If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism - if you steal from many, it's RESEARCH...if you take the analogy to movies, our director has done TONS AND TONS OF RESEARCH!!!

Anyway…back to the movie…Being the model bad guy whose butt has to be kicked in the end, Shahs wait for 20 years comes to an end, and he finally logs into the machine. Much to his dismay, he sees his butt getting kicked in the future and doesn’t like it one bit. So to counter that, he goes around killing people who he suspects to be Krrish (remember that mask I was talking about?...THATS what saves the real Krrish)

From here on, it becomes a normal Hindi movie again. Jealousy, betrayal, hatred, love, melodrama, glycerin, evil, revenge and stupidity are the key words that come rushing to mind… The climax of the movie is dramatic. The good dude kicks the bad dudes butt, rescues his father, saves the world and everybody lives happily ever after…

The movie ends in a desperate attempt by the director to prolong the agony into a part 3. Apparently he was not happy with the number of people that died watching his earlier film in theatres. This(he admits) is a good attempt but this never say live director will never give up! I would just like to say that I am thankful to my friends and relatives for being so supportive and by my side throughout the film…had they not have bought the ticket for me, I would have definitely jumped off the balcony myself!

* Why Singapore? Because in a closely contested bid for "we want Bollywood in our city", Singapore edged out most European Capitals, American cities, Sydney, Melbourne and Shanghai…(the list is endless really)…for this prestigious event. Apparently, the free entertainment for the people around the sets of Indian films in these cities is being promised in election campaigns these days!

** 10 Advantages of wearing a mask

1) He doesn't look as stupid any more
2) He doesn't look as stupid any more
3) He doesn't look as stupid any more
4) He doesn't look as stupid any more
5)His promise to daadi to remain as anonymous as possible(perhaps because she is ashamed of him) is taken care off….)
6) He doesn't look as stupid any more
7) He doesn't look as stupid any more
8) He doesn't look as stupid any more
9) He doesn't look as stupid any more
And ofcourse
10) He doesn't look as stupid any more…

Chennai – My first experience….

2006-03-06T03:24:00.002-08:00

"Remember...People of Chennai believe in SWORDS, not WORDS" ...the words of he who shall not be named (no not Voldemort*..Voldemort is fictitious). These words echoed in my head as I got off the train onto platform number 5 at Chennai Central, some 8 months ago. These angry words had come from a person who had lost very badly in a verbal battle (a battle of words), a cornered animal who generally resorted to physical violence but was restrained from doing so because at that time he was in someone elses territory (i.e. mine...we were in Mysore-Karnataka) then.

The events that led to the altercation with that above mentioned individual, are not of any consequence to this passage, but the fear that it instilled within me is indescribable and that is the reason I have included it in the beginning.

The events chronicled below took place (as I mentioned) some 8 months ago. I had just come into Chennai from Mysore where I had done my training for 4 months. I was nervous as hell because to start of with, I was leaving the warmth of the place where I had been brought up in...by warmth here, I’m being VERY metaphorical because when it comes to physical warmth, I had heard gruesome stories about Madras summers. Also, for the first time in 22 years, I was going to stay in a place where most of the languages that I know were not recognized. (For the purpose of academic interest, I know just 2 and a half languages...I wont delve into it as that will be reserved for another story). To add icing to the cake, those words in the first line of this passage(let us call it the "catch phrase"), had been said by a person (Note: MUCH bigger and MUCH stronger than me) and every one of those words had come out through gritted teeth, with smoking nostrils and evil red eyes( a little drama here but come on, I’m Indian you know)...
And since I have introduced the word "territory" sometime back, let me just say that I was now in Lord Voldemort’s(the real one) BACK YARD.

Back to the scene, when I got onto the noisy platform, I was immediately accosted by a BIG BURLY man who was wearing a red turban and a coolie’s** overalls. I really didn’t need a coolie as I was (I’m boasting here) quite capable of carrying my own luggage. But Mr. strong man didn’t think so and after a flurry of guttural verses, he grabbed my bag from me while I very weakly kept saying "no no" like a sissy girl in a room full of chimpanzees.

As I wrestled with the coolie (who insisted on carrying my luggage even after my telling him that his services were not required), the catch phrase floated into my head again and I immediately changed my mind and gave in. Who knows, he might have removed a sickle from under his lungi*** and slashed my neck right??? Well, that just describes the frame of mind that I was in...in one word, JUMPY.

Then at the entrance, I was again bullied by a short, Tamil speaking person (might have been Greek for all I know), evidently a taxi driver who insisted that he would drop me off to my destination (somewhere in Kottarpuram) for 350 rupees only...for academic interest again, I did realize the language to be Greek because his taxi driver counterparts and auto-rickshaw drivers in Bangalore, the city from where I hail from, speak German when it comes to fares. So like a well informed foreigner, I shook my head sternly and said a firm "NO"..."200...take it or leave it". For those who wish to know how the conversation went, here goes...

Taxi Driver: " Yenga pogunum saaar???" ****

(I took it as "How are you sir?")

Me : Im fine Thank you...

Taxi Driver(the creep obviously knew English): "ille saaar...where...go..you?" #

Me(like one true Angrez ka aulad #*): "Kottarpuram…Infosys Guest House" NOTE: FIRST BLUNDER

Taxi Driver(with gleaming eyes) : "waa saar, naa kootitu poren" #**

(by the way he gestured, I assumed that he was a Taxi driver...so I stopped the coolie(the same above mentioned gentleman who was ALL muscle from the neck upward)

Me : " Ye-wo-lo"..(these were one of the very few words I had been taught...my first 3 syllables in Tamil)

Taxi Driver(obviously very confused...slightly alarmed) : "........"

Me(again...raising my voice a bit): "YE-WO-LO…HOW MUCH???"

Taxi Driver(very understanding person): "munnithi imbadhu saar"#*** He said, raising 3 very grimy fingers with the filthiest nails I had seen in my life. That had just sounded like "alpha beta gaama saar" to me...as I said, GREEK

Taxi Driver (again): "Thrii hendreda feefty" (yingleesa to English translation: Three Hundred and fifty)

Me(after taking a start and then regaining composure and balance): "NO"...."200..take it or leave it"...(raising 2 fingers) NOTE: SECOND BLUNDER... in programming languageà FATAL ERROR

The speed at which he accepted the offer was alarming and the gleam on his face was a sight worth paying for. I at once realized that I had created the cardinal blunder of bargaining with a thief. In that brief period of his momentary happiness, I spotted that he had only 4 of his front teeth, all yellow and paan#**** stained. So I straight away inferred that the rest were lost in battle and quickly got into his taxi as he had agreed to my bargain. The catch phrase was still playing along in my head like a broken tape recorder. "Swords not words... Swords not words... Swords not words". It is then when I realized that the coolie was still standing out with my luggage. So I got off and fired another series of "Ye-wo-lo"’s. The coolie seemed to have caught on pretty soon as he very audaciously asked for an exorbitant sum of Rs 150/-

Me : "WHAAAAAAT????" (Forgetting that he "didn’t understand" English)

Coolie: "yenna pannarthu saar? yen kudumbathiley anju peru yenna nambi irukkanga...vazhkai rombo kashtam aidthu...market la arisi oda velai oru kg ku yezhu ruba jasthi aidthu!" ##

As he said this, he had a pathetic look on his face. I have no idea what he blabbered but I was definitely moved. So I became very stern again(yeah right!!!) and told him...

Me: " NO...100...take it or leave it"...(raising one finger)

A similar happy gleam was quickly masked by a hangdog expression and he went on to tell me(as was later translated to me by our wily driver friend) that such big people like us who could afford to go on cars, couldn’t even pay properly for manual labour and what a big shame that was.

So after paying extortion money to the coolie, who as I distinctly remember, did a little gig around the corner, I entered the taxi again. Our driver friend unfortunately, had just got into the mood for a "dumm"##* as he irritably asked me to give him 5 more minutes. Having no idea what I dumm was, I looked on. He lifted the bottom of his lungi from behind him(much to my alarm) , did some tricky looking manouver between his legs and finally tucked it between his big belly and the rest of the lungi at his waist. Then he squatted on the side walk, removed his beedi##** and lit it. Holding it between the tips of his thumb and forefinger, he rested his other hand on his bent knee and took a long drag(with his eyes closed and looking up) The whole series of motions had a striking resemblance to what I had seen somewhere earlier .I wasn’t able to place it. Later on in my short stay at Chennai, I realized that all self respecting auto-drivers/taxi drivers/bus drivers/bus conductors(on the whole, the common man) smoked their tobacco in exactly the same way. It was only a few months later when I saw Rajni Kaanth( a popular Tamil Super Star) doing the exact same thing in some Tamil flick on TV did I realized that they were aping him.

After 5 minutes, he flicked the beedi butt off like a marble(again, JUST like Soofar Staar Rajni) and took the wheel. While he was smoking, I’m sure that he must have been wondering what he would get himself for Christmas with the stash he had just made. He started the car and then opened his mouth which closed as the engine died out some 20 minutes later at the doorstep of my destination. In that short ride to the Guest House, I got a crash course on Tamil culture and about the people and about how bad some of them were(pretty ironic coming from him, that too in English, but I took it all with very casual "Hmmm"'s )

Madras, my dear friends...oops, Chennai(pardon me) was alien to me. More aptly, I was an alien in Chennai. In fact, in one of those friendly bantering sessions, my friends had pulled my leg saying that I was going to the dark side of the Moon.(My apologies Gilmour and group) But as I stayed there, I realized that it was no different from a Bangalore or a Bombay. It was just a big city with many people who go about doing their own chores and worry about their own lives. They were people (just like you and me) who enjoyed their movies(as in the example I portrayed) and liked to eat and drink good things, who laughed at jokes, cried when they were hurt, and finally, who played cricket like all other Indians. It had the most amazing beach I had seen in my life(I’ve seen a whole lot of beaches, trust me) and the best roads in the country. Neither am I paying tribute to the place nor have I been paid to write this. I would just like to say that I learnt a lot more than I thought I had and very grudgingly liked the place more than I thought that I ought to have.

And as the time flew by, the catch phrase became dimmer and dimmer in my mind and I started making a whole lot of friends. As I left Chennai Central 8 months later(around 2 weeks ago), I wiped back a tear but at the same time laughed at my first experience here(mind you, this time I paid only 50 bucks to the coolie and 50 bucks as auto fare…my mother still insists that I got conned :))

Getting back to the catch phrase, I also realized that it was not wholly true. As I mentioned earlier, I made a lot of friends most ironically ones who firmly believed that the PEN was mightier than the sword(infact, one of the chaps I met had written a novel which had cleared the first round in contention for the prestigious booker prize....another was a reporter at a local paper).....

Key

* He who shall not be named….refer to books written on JK Rawlings’ brainchild

** Coolie = Porter

*** Long piece of cloth wrapped around the waist running till the ankles and is the standard garb for many in South India

**** "Where do you want to go sir?"

# "No Sir…where do you want to go"(yingleesa to english translation ofcourse)

#* Son of a Britisher(literal)...in other words, a foreigner

#** "Come Sir, I will take you"

#*** "Three Hundred and fifty Rupees"

#**** Betel leaf

## " What to do sir, I have a family of 5 who depend on me…life is tough.. The price of rice has risen 7 rupees per KG in the market"

##* Cigarette(colloquially)

##** A roll of tobacco in a special type of dried leaf. Very popular among the lower classes in South India

Hindi and me......

2006-02-22T21:41:00.000-08:00

First Voice (shrill, Young, Loud) : “Uh-AAh-E-EEEEE-OO-OOOOO-HARI....”

Second Voice (Shriller, Older, MUCH louder) : …..”NO AJAY, NOT HARI, its HRRI”....

The first voice wasn’t the sound made by a monkey excited at the prospect of getting a banana…it was a 4 year old me, desperately trying to master the intricacies of the Hindi alphabet. The second voice was that of my mother, who lost the best years of her life trying to make me learn the language. I, my dear friends, am a south Indian. To put it very crudely, I SUCKED at Hindi(still do by the way…I’m ashamed of it, but blame the Education Board for crying out loud!!!)
Affectionately christened as the ‘Dahi wadas’, we South Indians were always the butt of the Hindi jokes made by the ‘Butter Chickens’ and the ‘Konde Maamas’(These were the names which we so affectionately gave back to our brothers and sisters from the North, the second being specially for Sardarjis.) When I so confidently say ‘we’, I am referring to most of us who were brought up in Christian and Anglo Indian Institutions (KVs being excluded almost immediately from the elite bracket)
One might ask why my mother (very much a South Indian) NEVER had a problem learning the national language. She speaks the language beautifully and without a trace of that distinct South Indian accent. The answer is simple...She was brought up in the North.
I on the other hand, was brought up in the South, in an Anglo Indian School and never spoke a word of Hindi outside Hindi Class. Coming to think of it now, I never spoke a word of it INSIDE the Hindi class either. THAT WAS THE PROBLEM.
For all the North Indian readers and those who are fortunate enough to speak the language fluently (OH I ENVY YOU’LL!), let me tell you how our Hindi classes were in school. I'm sure most of my type will agree with me. A teacher would stand in the front of the class (99 times out of 100, a fat, old happy lady), and read something out to us in Hindi. We (I speak for my beloved last bench mates here) would see stars when that happened and soon return to what we were doing before she came into the class (most of time that would be gossiping, sleeping or brewing treacherous plans to ambush Karl Mehta’s lunch box…his mother knew how to cook…Oh yes she did!)…for those who cared to listen, the teacher would then translate whatever she had said in Hindi, to English and the basic medium would be English. Occasionally, a piece of chalk, flying at alarming velocities towards the back benches, would stop us from continuing our evil endeavors and we would sit upright again and 'listen'.
One particular Hindi teacher(no names here because that would be very rude) used to find sadistic pleasure in laughing as she corrected our Hindi papers…this as we sat praying to the lord above that we fall over the red line by his grace(or hers…i.e. the teachers!). She would smile and giggle, sometimes guffaw as she moved her red pen on our artwork like a wand. When things got very funny (for her of course), she would make the respective joker read his/her essay out to the class (which was a very mean thing to do I must say). I had that pleasure of reading to the class twice. Again, I’m not proud of it.
This would invariably make her laugh and that would trigger sniggers from her “pets group” which comprised of a group of children whose surnames ranged from Gupta to Mehra. It would be appropriate to mention that we gave back the same to her henchmen when it came to Maths and Physics(where they didn’t know the difference between factorials and powers…snigger snigger)
This of course, was just one teacher. Some of them were really very helpful and kind, almost pitying us for our deficiency. Why one teacher was so sweet that she actually told my mother to take me to Hindi movies because that would improve my pronunciation and gender realizations.(the KAA’s, KAY’s KEE’s and KOO’s baffle me…note the tense of that statement…baffle)
As a result of this trouble which I had, anybody who asked me in Hindi, to do something or expected a reply in Hindi would get a bovine look from me…Its not that I didn’t understand the language…NO…definitely not. I understood it…it was speaking in it that was the problem…speaking it correctly to be more precise.
By the time we had reached higher classes, so much Hindi had been rammed into our cranial cavities that the only Hindi we knew was TEXT BOOK stuff.
In this context, I will end this article with a rather funny incident that springs to mind, which I’m sure, will make you experienced folks laugh (it has never failed to bring a smile on anybody’s face)

It was a Sunday afternoon sometime during our 10th standard holidays where we had finished the last contact in our academic lives with the subject (most of the people in my friend circle didn’t opt for a second language course for pre-university…in fact some preferred to take zoology as the extra subject) A big group of us, right from us young boys to older working men and servants were playing cricket in the building where we stay. During the game, our ball went out of the compound into a nearby field where the batting team was sitting(they didn’t need to field that day as there were too many people who wanted to play)….so me being closest to the boundary, sauntered to the fence. Raju was standing there. Raju was the old man who delivered tea to the employees of offices in our building from the local tea stall, the vendor of which was also there that day. We got along really well till the part where we had to communicate (which was mostly done by gesturing). Raju knew only Hindi. So not wanting to show that I was lesser to anyone when it came to speaking our national language, I pointed at the ball which was next to this big tree and said “ Bhai sahib, Gaend Vriksh kay sameep hai” …(“Dear Sir, the Ball is next to that tree” in the purest Hindi imaginable …)We didn’t play anymore that day because play was stopped due to aching stomachs. All those who listened to that innocent statement, dropped down to the floor and laughed till they cried…Those who didn’t, laughed anyway and laughed again when they heard about why they were laughing the first time. It is a very contagious thing laughter; In 5 minutes, groggy, half awake residents had started poking their heads out of the windows to see what the din was all about, which had woken them from their siestas. They just saw 25 people laughing their heads off. Some of them who witnessed the laughter filled scene started laughing too.
I didn’t laugh because deep down in the depths of my gut, I knew that the results of the board exams were due and laughing at a subject I took would make Saraswati, the Goddess of Knowledge, angry. After all, I must point out that Sita(her fellow goddess…if ever there is a term like that in English) was sitting very "sameep" to the "vriksh" when Hanuman arrived in one of our lessons (how else do you think I made up that statement. Huh?).
The results came 8 days later and I had passed in Hindi (got a whooping 64, the best performance in my LIFE). But the fact remains that Im 23 years now, nearly done with my education and all…What would happen if I were transferred to a location in the North???

School...a short anecdote on how i got in!!!

2006-02-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

The making of this short article was triggered off by a questionnaire wherein there was a question regarding which school I studied in and what I had to do to get in. This probably takes me back to my first few hours(pretty hilarious on looking back) which I spent in the institution…the same institution where I spent more that half my life in.(14 years to be precise)
My earliest recollection of me at school go way back to a bright, well furnished foyer where we were waiting to be summoned by the School’s Head Mistress. My father was all suited and booted, mother - decked up in her most gorgeous blue sari, jewelry and all; both looking nervous as hell. And there I was, sitting on the bench in between the two, wondering where the tips of my nails and the dirt behind them had disappeared. My mother had forcefully scrubbed and cleaned me up (much to my disgust) for the occasion.

I was 3 and a half summers old in bright red short pants, and an equally bright yellow T shirt which had 'ANGEL' printed on it in bold red capitals(which would have made Govinda, Armani, Donna Karen and God, all cringe in shame at the same time)…the thing is, my mother had sole rights to my wardrobe. She felt that the brighter the clothes got, the cuter a kid looked. Apparently I looked just like Dennis the Menace dressed up for church but then again, Bill Watterson hadn’t published his brainchild yet ! My hair was neatly slicked back with the help of coconut oil (a sight which was very rare to get a glimpse of in those days) and the base of my scalp could be spotted after the "summer cut" I had got on the previous day. I vividly remember nearly kicking the barber’s teeth out because he "poked me with the scissors" but I very clearly remember the spanking I got after coming home. I stood barely 2 feet off the ground in my brand new red "BATA" sneakers(another of my mothers investments for the occasion…Mrs. Karen, I wont be spotted dead in any of those anymore I assure you). All in all, I was one ball of energy and spunk, waiting to be unleashed into the Indian education system. I personally didn't think I needed the schooling because as I had pointed out to my mother the earlier day,(just before dislocating the barbers jaw) I knew my alphabets till S and numbers till 100(i.e. 1-2-3-5-7-6-8-9-10-100…where 100 was yelled out in the midst of peals of laughter and appreciation from admirers)…And like every self respecting mother, I was the apple and all the other fruits of her eye and was undoubtedly going to dethrone Einstein’s theories some day. But somehow she insisted that it was a good place and that I would have fun in it though I had pictures of jail floating in my head when the word was mentioned. I told her so.

Anyway, when it was finally my turn to be interviewed we were shown into a small room by a smartly dressed peon in khakis. I remember that the walls were painted pink and there was an old lady sitting at the only table in the corner. She had grey hair and very soft eyes. The rest of the furniture included 3 chairs, (of which, the small green one was obviously for me) and a filing cabinet by water cooler in the adjacent corner There were Stuffed toys and other play things all in a big brown carton on the other side of the room. Her name was Mrs. Warden (ironic considering the fact that at that point, I thought school was a place where children who misbehaved were sent…to do time) and after the initial pleasantries, she started asking me a lot of questions….too many for my little brain to process. She had been badgering me with questions like "what’s this shape called", "what’s that colour" and "what’s this animal called"...I answered all those question alright, but my 3 and a half year old brain couldn’t comprehend that fact that such an aged lady didn’t know all these things...

“SHES SO OLD…SHOULDN’T SHE BE KNOWING ALL THIS?” I asked my father quiet confused and rather loudly…all in English.(we speak English at home) Of course my father turned purple and cringed, my mother sank through the floor(after changing into a pretty shade of crimson) and Mrs. Warden burst out laughing. Little did I realize that it was probably that "innocent" wise crack which was the reason why I’m working for such a big company today. My School taught me everything I know today and I will dedicate any accolades that I encounter (hopeful here) to that institution.
That was the beginning, a very rare beginning indeed to my learning cycle and though things havn’t changed much(...my brain is still 3 and a half years old as Im as kiddish as they come), I will never forget those GOLDEN years at school. The Frank Anthony Public School….MY SOUL RESIDES THERE.