Mothered......

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.

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!

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

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*

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

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...

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.

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!!

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

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

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....

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!!!!

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....

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

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)!!!

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

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….

"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