A creaking noise echoed as his designer leather shoes rubbed against the uncarpeted wooden floor. He got accustomed to the sound, as much as a dog’s master would to its barking in midnight. Nevertheless, he isn’t bothered as long as he is warm and is protected from bone chilling cold of Arctic outside.

It has been three months since he was deployed as a support guy for his company’s software services to a client in remote town in Arctic region. All he needs to do is press the F5 button 5 times in a day, 5 times a week. He earns handsomely, so he did not mind. And little did he know that he is going to create history today- we will tell you how.

AGCGFTS (Acquired Genetic Code Goes For a Toss Syndrome) is a virus that spreads from computers to humans (if you do unprotected coding with your computer, whatever that means !) and randomly erases certain lines of genetic code of its host, rendering him/her into an altogether new living being. Softesh, not knowing that the virus is prevalent in his client’s system has nonchalantly pressed the F5 button. The virus entered him, a few cinematic lights and sounds and some smoke and Softesh’s genetic code has been modified into a cockroach! It is a different fact that Norton Anti-Virus installed on the machine was able to quarantine it almost immediately. But the damage was done by then!

Just as Softesh was wondering what just happened to him, a lady who was supposed to be a pest control specialist just entered the area and sprayed a copious amount of neurotoxins on him. This sent him into a permanent state of limbo (aka inception); unless someone repairs the MBR of his genetic code, which requires a re-boot, he would remain a cockroach forever.

Soon the cockroach was thrown into the Arctic ice and was fossilified! And a few decades later was collected along with the “last samples of Arctic Ice” for display at France’s Musee de Louvre alongside Monalisa.

A FEW HUNDRED YEARS LATER:

After watching Dhoom 35 (which starred SRK’s great grandchild and Aishwarya’s adopted (due to a technical snag) great grandchild) Dingesh turned kleptomaniac. With his quest he started from Ambala on his Royal Enfield bullet to Paris (all VISAS were lifted in 2501 and whole world was open for terrorists)

To cut a long story short, when trying to steal the Monalisa from the museum he activated the laser beams, which not only melted the “Last samples of Arctic Ice” but also repaired the MBR of genetic code of the cockroach. So Softesh who dematerialized in an Arctic town now materialized in a museum in France in his same Designer leather shoes, which incidentally are a fashion even in this period too.

Soon, the museum authorities put the water from Arctic into a deep freezer and sent Softesh and Dingesh out.

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Boy: Papa, how come Softesh materialized with designer leather shoes again?

Papa: beta, you need to be careful, didn’t the author also say that he needs a re-boot?

Boy: Papa, tell me onething- Are you really a Software professional?

Papa: Rahul Gandhi is an Amul Baby.

Boy: Papa, what are you talking? This author seems to be delusive, he writes anything!

Papa: Shut up! This advertisement is over!

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Softesh had a casual chat with Dingesh and found the following interesting events happened between his materialization and dematerialization:

• Sachin played cricket until age of 132 and retired and with due respect to him, everyone else stopped playing cricket after that.
• In the worst 3D TV disaster ever recorded, more than a million people died of heart attack, when Arnab Goswami habitually jumped towards the camera in his very first 3D news discussion.
• Ram, Allah, Jesus, Buddha and a few others returned to earth.
• Apple sued all of them for copying their iRobot design, so they all disappeared.
• The whole world then turned to Pappusim, where everyone is disillusioned and cynical.
• India became a Super Power and now gives huge debts to US.
• Robots have eventually been added into human kind and initially faced a lot of discrimination especially on Indian roads.
• Robot Hazare, a legendary Robotic rights activist staged a discharge onto death movement for the civil rights of Robots and eventually succeeded.
• Rajanikanth, a robot named after a legendary hero became the first robotic PM of India and in history. He belonged to Bharatiya Yantra Party!
• India’s population fell to 1 billion when a record 3 billion people died in road accidents, most of them happened in Pune.
• The high profile project (iBPN) after the launch of which, his girl friend promised to marry him, was never launched.

Dingesh then gave a ride to Softesh until Ambala and from there Softesh returned to Pune, his hometown. Again to cut a long story short, Softesh was recruited into an IT company. He worked hard for a month and hardly thereafter. He got bored of the boredom and sick of appraisals, so he grew a long beard and started a new movement- Democracy in Corporate world.

He prepared the following speech:

Brothers and beautiful ladies,

It is ironical that in an IT company where the resources are the bread and butter of the company, we cannot choose our own leader. How long should we be fed to the bloody politics? Can’t we elect our own PM’s and PLs and DMs? How long should we be controlled by someone else? Elect me as your PM, I will send each one of you to onsite. I will approve all your attendance regularizations without any hassles; I will approve all your weekend allowances.

He made the above speech in canteen, bus stop, games zone day in and day out. In one such meeting he got a call from his manager.

M: Where are you?

S: I am busy.

M: I am sitting in your campaign for Democracy.

S:

M:

S: Coughs!!

M: We are sending you onsite.

S: I don’t want to go.

M: We are not asking you.

After VISA stamping, shopping, flight, whisky and taxi he was in Arctic again. This time he did not have to wait for three months before he got converted into cockroach. AGCFTS stuck him the very first day when he pressed the F5 button. And this time too, the cockroach was thrown into “Arctic waters”.

So, I cannot merely go pages and pages about how my parents are very protective about me. If I do, an irate reader would message me- “Your recent blog is not up to your standards, you tried too many things in too little content”. So to avoid that, all I can tell you about the protective nature of my parents is that they never used to allow me to ride a bicycle.

Their reason was simple- The traffic on the road is deadly where an odd scooter would zoom past at 11-12 kmph at frequency of once in fourteen hours or so! And as for any hyper-active-short-attention span kids like I was, it would be imperative that I still ventured on to the road. And if I were to cut the long story short, all hell broke loose.

And for all those purists who want to dwell on details- I was trying to break the velocity barrier on my cycle and simultaneously maneuver a steep right turn, the impossible happened. The odd scooter which used to ply on the road every 14 hours was right behind me and the rest should be left to imagination. If you claim that your imagination skills are not up to the mark, well the skid marks are still on the road and this happened around 18 years ago.

The result was- my mom’s BP shot up and she made sure that I never rode anything remotely that looked like a bicycle (no not even on video games). Well she is almost successful; my poor dad still walks to the nearest general stores or hires an auto if I he is to travel any longer. My mom made sure that we never bought any vehicles!

I joined engineering, stayed in hostel and finally drove a bike. It was my friend’s Yamaha. I drove around 4-5 kilometers in just first gear. I would not have realized that even then if it were not for my other friends who arranged for another bike to tell me that there is facility to change the gears too. This became the talk of the hostel for 2 weeks. I was popular as the “guy who rode Yamaha in just first gear”. But this too is not what I wanted to discuss!

Before I actually get to the point, I will have to rather accept the fact that I gave a pass to other minor things like how I bought my first bike (at age of 20), how by the time I bought the bike, girls I know have graduated to the car “class”. Also, I cannot delve too much into how I banged into a girl who was trying to cross the left side of the road by looking right side and walked right into the path of bike. I am happy; I am getting to the point!

My point is about how a newbie car driver feels on the Indian road. I am among one of those ardent logically bent cinema viewers. I always wanted to see if the feat done in the cinema will be possible in real life. I used to think how a single person (hero) could thrash effortlessly a dozen sword swinging, bullet firing hooligans. And to add to the fun, he escapes with little or no injuries and at the end of it all he would be kissed passionately all over by a hot looking heroine.

Believe me my reader; driving a car through Pune or for that matter in India, is the closest we could get to the comparison, sans the kissing scene, of course!

As you might have already guessed, my on road experience was pretty less. I started riding bike in 2004 and rode for 4-5 years. I mean if road were to be a corporate company it would have been real tough for me to get a “job” of riding or driving on the roads. But as many things in India, all you need to ride a bike is a bike and I recently came to know that all you need to drive a car is just owning one.

Again, this is getting too lengthy so let me just pass you with the details of my experiences with the driving school. The topi clad, pan chewing and ever spitting “driver kaka” was a tough man. He was more interested in saving his car from any scratches than teaching anything at all to us. You must be able to guess the amount of “driving lessons” dispersed when I let you know that there isn’t a single scratch on the car. This my readers is a huge achievement considering that it was used to teach driving for at least a few thousands of drivers, whose driving skills on road would easily qualify them to be suicide bombers! I still wonder how I got a license, my wife sees this as an opportunity to believe in God (getting the license) but that is besides to the point.

Only until venturing for the first time on the road (without the driving instructor, of course) did I realize how bad the other “learned” drivers are. I basically don’t believe in two things:

1)     God

2)     No one could fight so many people simultaneously, the way they show it in movies.

At the end of the first drive, I completely believed the second thing and I am almost on the verge to believe the first.

There are a few things which men, as an evolutionary habit, learn. And what they learn they take it to their graves. I am not too sure what other things I learnt, but I am pretty much sure about the “art of discrimination” that my society taught me. So if at all there is anything I could do at ease, it is dividing a group with an entity in common into logical and hopefully funny sub-divisions. So here we go:

The first group is I-don’t-own-my-car-but-this-road-is-mine type. It is easy to identify these people. They as a habit close both their Outside rearview mirrors, making them literally blind. There is logic to this which will be unfolded soon. They have a customary dent on any of the four sides and generally are honking and drive as if they just got a telegram from hell.

Normal drivers like me, on finding them in and around, would just jump in their seat and probably would be ejected out, if it were not for the seat belts. This type generally operates in terms of nano-distances. Their horn is one of the mostly used parts apart from the gas pedals. There are just two things you can do when you see them around:

1)     Pray

2)     Pray more!

They act as if they don’t know why they are on the road and for most of the time oblivious of the rules. They seem to be under immense tension and if you look at them it is imminent that the driver wants to pop off the driver’s seat at any moment. They believe in following:

1)     Rules are for mortals.

2)     The white intermittent lines on the road are to be coincided with the car’s central axis.

3)     Rules are for mortals.

4)     If you are bored-honk, no matter even if the vehicle ahead has got not an inch to move

5)     Rules are for mortals.

6)     High beams are cool.

7)     Rules are for mortals.

8)     Braking is a sin, all the accidents that happen are due to braking because the driver Gods cursed them!

9)     Rules are for mortals

You get the drift?

I think these are guys who never grew up from their adolescence. They played that game, what was it called? Need for speed? Ah! And think that speed is the need of the day. Well it is, but not when there is huge traffic ahead of you? Right? I mean I can’t help but get frustrated when a car just zooms past my left side where there is hardly any road, as if the driver is going to wet his pants at any moment and hence breaking the line.

While almost all the cabbies come into this category there are many literate uneducated nincompoops who do similar things in spite of being in responsible positions in IT companies. How else can I explain a M800 overtaking me in TechM campus, if only I have bazookas fitted on my car!! Phew!!

But the problem is that this type is pretty-how do you put it- addictive? Or inducing may be. They are like what A Raja does to other ministers, you get the drift right? They tempt everyone to be like them. And sooner or later one thinks- Ah! What is wrong if I overtake from left or may be take that unoccupied on coming road! And like variable pay concept caught up like a cancer in the IT industry, these drivers slowly managed and still manage to increase the population of the group!

So during the transition from a dreaded driver to dreadful driver or in the confusion on whether or not to graduate, you would not miss the Sunday drivers. These are mostly under powered vehicles on our over crowded street, they are too fast for the slower lane and too slow for the faster lane. Their acceleration is akin to that of processing speed in government offices. The only difference is that you cannot bribe these vehicles; you just need to wait for them to throw mercy at you! Imagine this; a lorry at 10kmph is trying to overtake another which is moving at 5kmph. Only pray can help you man!!

Well the lesser said about two wheelers the better, as long as they do not bang into me and reach home safe I am ok with them. But all the bikers out there who graduated to cars, please do not drive your cars like you ride your cars, it does not work out like that.

But there is one thing that we learn on roads, we don’t like people crossing us, we don’t like people blocking us either. I guess that is life on Indian roads, where the law of jungle takes precedence over everything, only the fittest survives!!

You soon would turn avert to discos and seek the comfort of lounges and pubs.

And your music tastes get picky and mostly turn obsolete by the standard of “youth”!

So when I was at it, I had this opportunity to venture into a disco in the recent past. I think it was one of those rare occasions when I am just watching the action and what I saw did amuse me!

So now that I told you rather briefly, how I ended up on the other side of the dancing fence, let me now elaborate on the type of dancers. I think the dancing fraternity could easily be divided into following non-exhaustive non-limiting list:

1) Dancing desperados!

2) The unsure uber cools

3) The xenophobic chicks

4) Mad nomads!

Well the first group as the name suggests are desperate and how! You generally find these types in college parties, where people consider dancing is the only way to impress the opposite sex. The good thing is that they know a few steps- the neck curls, the hip shakes et al. The bad thing is girls are all over them. I mean I haven’t seen anyone enjoying so much attention after I had seen that elephant dancing at a circus. Sometimes things get over board and you really have to control a lot to not to take a video of it and share it on the youtube (yay!).

The unsure uber-cools are the ones you watch almost instantly as they are the ones in the perimeter. Normally they accompany the dancing desperados (DD) or the xenophobic chicks and they are kind of scavengers of the dancing food chain. They thrive on those 15 seconds of time when the DDs stop to revise their new steps or may be even for some breathe!

The thing is that the uber-cools are an eye sore to watch while dancing. They and dance are like oil and water and watching them dance is worse than seeing a bald headed guy combing his hair, they are just hideous. Their finger snatches and hip shakings would feel like eating roti with a knife and fork. They do not seem to dance to the beat and seem like a hallucinogen induced drummer dancing to his own imaginary beat! And the worst is that they often get mopped off by the mad nomads and generally occupy the perimeter of the crowd and most of the times seem like lifting some imaginary thing collectively with their snaps!

The xenophobic chicks as the name suggests come pre-planned to the disc. They choose a few uber cools and some times the dancing nomads and successfully build a human fort around them and dance within that. Their dancing steps, like film-fare awards and role change exercises, are rigged and pre-planned. It does not matter what song is being played they just form a circle and move in and out of the center as if they are doing some ritual. And when they are not doing that they keep pointing their finger at the sky, bite their lips and vacillate their hips, they often end up at the same place where they started and seldom sweat!

And the last but not least the most feared group on the floor are dancing nomads. They do not have any specific aim on the floor, they instantly groove into the beat and may even confuse to that extent that you start wondering if the music is coming from them. They, as described before, generally seem to be imitating the last seen animal or snake while dancing alone or make themselves into a centipede or millipede when in group and start going around the floor in a very haphazard way typical only to a biker on the road!

They also act as shepherd dogs chasing away the uber cools if at all they venture their way into the floor, you must pray that they should not around you while dancing lest you make have a punctured nose or a fractured ear. All said and done they just rock the dance floor!

Well folks, I would end this here. Hope I did not bore you!

However, in all the previous occasions I had no reasons; so I happily blamed my project manager for my not so cool career and my inexplicable 4 years of job in a single project without a single trip onsite(blasphemy of my time), I mean not even to pee, like most of my team mates used to go for!

So what happens in such occasions is peer pressure develops and your primordial instincts (don’t get second thoughts, eh?) take the better part of you, so you complain with all the restrain only possible for a frustrated soul when you are not intoxicated and even the slightest hint of intoxication of any form would take you off the tangent and the result was popularly penned (in an opposite sense though) as the song Pappu can’t dance sala! Which of course has been often re-mixed by irate people, who hate what I write, into various forms!

So can I dance?

Around ten years ago, it used to be virtually impossible for a middle class Telugu sixteen year old (read studying Engineering in XYZ college) to go to a disco and dance! The reason is simple- there are no discotheques! So all we would do is assemble on a terrace and gulp a few ounces of “this and that” and do your best to imitate Sridevi in Chandani as much as possible on feet if the condition permits or on the floor if things went out of control, which they used to be more often than not!

So dancing skills came to us as naturally as spin bowling came to Anil Kumble (I request the reader to jump out of the chair and laugh for a moment!) Moreover, the unshaven look, un-tucked shirt with its first few buttons unfastened for more air to pass and few other typical gestures would have made us a pretty odd customer at a disc, so we restricted ourselves to terraces and dhabas!

Now things change and we generally forget how quick they did, unless you are writing CAT exams every year! So when I was a fresher at Infosys and came to know that there is a DJ night being arranged, I got excited naturally. And what happened that night was completely forgotten!

I however gathered from the local gossip, that I went mad dancing and in the process became an uncontrollable bull and thumped many a feet before being targeted by bunch of we-don’t-know-what-we-do-when-girls-are-around class of guys who found a soft target in me to instantly lift me up and made me a make-shift ball, notwithstanding my shape!

Since then there was no looking back; in fact, yours truly literally ripped off many a dance floor. There were even a few occasions when my randomly moving hand, trying to imitate the last seen animal/reptile, ferociously attacked the beautiful cocktail glasses decorated by those colorful umbrellas. Of course, I was even a witness to a few glorious scenes of this beautiful umbrella used as a weapon of mass destruction! Girls and drinks are a lethal combination, I tell you!

The dance rage continued and as it did, my name has become synonymous to dance. I mean I had all that is required for a great dancer, I could bend backwards and touch my feet with my head and continuously rotate at 1500 rpm constantly, so much so that there could be come electricity produced from me. And if I were to be alive in early days deodorants would have been invented much before the wheel, I used to sweat so much!

While my dancing antiques were much appreciated by my male colleagues, I eventually topped the 10-things-to-avoid-on-dance-floor-for-girls list. I mean who would want to dance with a reptile imitating, constantly rotating guy who sweats like a pig? So it was time to sit under the peepal tree for me, for that ever waiting first light of realization!

Now this realization, my dear friends is not normal. Ask your 20 something friends if they really care about their image on dance floor, no one would! But once when you cross 25 and those areas of your head which used to be covered by thick hair once, starts seeing the sunlight, your maturity sensors get activated! You start feeling the whole world is a mess and “youth” now a days are senseless (wow! that rhymed if you did not yet observe!)! And when you realize that, you could not help but feel that bitter taste in mouth which is the effect of realization that you are not anymore a part of “youth”!

Other indicators include those instances like during a train journey, the naughty kid in the next berth would address you as “uncle”, for first few times your heart would do a bungee jumping into your stomach and your eyes would bleed tears, but then you would get used to it as more and more 5-10 year old call you so. Of course, if you are lucky enough and are from Mumbai even a 20 year old could call you uncle! But that is besides the point!

Well this is getting too long, I will continue this based on the readership

Objective: It is a well known fact (with a few controversies) that man evolved from monkey. As he evolved there were many CRs that were raised and design changes implemented. You must be aware that we have made and have been making considerable changes to the code “Project Homo Sapiens” Of late our support team is getting a lot of complaints on the performance of Human body.

Our design team has done a gap analysis and has come out with a few recommendations; rather it is just one recommendation- To uncomment the code that includes tail in the human body. This business case discusses the advantages of adding tail to the Humans.

Problem analysis:

It is found that the levels of stupidity in this world are increasing manifold and the comparatively self claimed more intelligent people are finding it tough to get along with rather stupid people and vice versa. We will analyze under various heads the advantages of and how adding a tail would attempt to solve these problems.

At office:

A tail added to the human body is immediately found to have increased the productivity in manufacturing industry. A tail is an additional body part capable of handling things and effectively used this can invariably increase the amount of work done per unit time and hence enhancing the productivity, please note that this may decrease the general waiting time for machines like cars, bikes etc.

In software industry too, this will increase the productivity as tail could be used to type code. Assuming that most of the code written is not copy pasted, using tail in conjunction with fingers could drastically decrease the turn around time for writing code.

For solution designers this is a boon! They could do all the stupid design work by typing with tail and use their hands for more productive work like styling their hair or drawing UML diagrams, this may need software companies to allocate two systems to each employee, however that is not in purview, even you cannot have a say in their business demands!

Other uses include blocking someone from barging into lines at food court and dish landing queues; this may increase the average disciplinary levels in countries like Bindia!

During driving:

The greatest use of a tail is found to have been in area of driving. With the advent of cell phone one hand you provided the Humans is rendered useless for all other activities leaving severe dearth for that extra part that could fill in the gap.

While driving a four wheeler, a tail may be the most helpful for human beings. If used properly and with proper training, a tail could easily be trained to change gears and FM radio channels and hence could help the Human being concentrate on the steering wheel with both the hands. Studies are going on, which analyze the increase in resultant safety levels and results seem to be positive.

Also we suggest including a design to make the tail curl down like a spring under the influence of alcohol, this would help traffic police a lot.

A tail as we see is the most beneficial for two wheeler riders especially when raining. A tail could be use to hold an umbrella while the two hands could concentrate on the handle bar. Again, the less we talk about how tail could be used to hold the cell phone while driving the better, after reading this even you might want to have tail (please don’t get angry on this, I know you could have another hand if you want).

Also, a tail would be very helpful for traffic police men at junctions to catch people jumping signals; however we should make huge changes to code to make its length infinitely controllable.

Safety:

In this world of decreasing safety levels due to morons, it would be very safe for a certain species of humans to have tails, you know how! I really don’t want to talk more about this.

Apart from above the tail could be used in many other scenarios which I quite can’t describe here, kindly understand.

Design Recommendations:

Our team of designers has come up with following designs:

• The tail could change its colors (to avoid racial discrimination)
• The tail has fur so that it could be cut and designs could be made of it during foot ball matches and cricket matches (one of our designer is a foot ball freak, could not help it, you can make it optional)
• Different tail texture for males and females, this would make tail more pleasurable for them and they would not resist the change.

Impact analysis:

A rapid impact analysis shows that most of the code we used for monkeys could be used as is with minor changes; we would not need any more resources. We would not recommend our client to implement these changes as we have information that the company is not paying its employees. We would not want to risk the possibility of some ugly looking creatures on Earth.

I have raised the design story on the system, kindly approve it. Also, kindly approve the pending travel bills; they are pending since a decade.

He kept mum for sometime, during which he drove dangerously close to a big truck and stayed there for so long that an interested Mechanical Engineering student could otherwise do a close study of how the truck’s differential, suspension, transmission and braking systems would work.

My heart dropt into my stomach and I was not sure if it was working, which was when a two wheeler started honking as if I just plucked his balls (of his eyes of course!) and squeezed his way through. For a moment the world spun around me and I almost thought my heart escaped through my trousers, may be this is what they called s**t scared!

The guy though silent, seemed to be observing me a lot. He was keen like an HR guy interviewing his probable employee, the expressions on the face would translate to:

1)     Is he a thief?

2)     Does he respect women?

3)     What if he blogs against the HR policies?

4)     But I am not supposed to talk about the HR thing, it was just an example!

5)     May be the author is a bit too disoriented.

6)     Oh stop staring at me like that you dumb fool!

As I was translating his face expressions, he finally spoke again!

How is your growth! He asked, as if he was not too sure about asking it.

 
photo credit: jontunn

above is the gym where I DONT worl out at!!

Well sir, it has been terrible, especially after I joined that gym last year!

You work in a gym?

Of course not! Do I look like I work in gym?? I enquired half excited half depressed!

Then what has the gym got to do with your growth?

Of course, I put on 10 kilos hence and my waist line grew by 5 inches!!!

What? I was not asking about your waist line? He did not frown this time. I did a mental high five with myself and asked innocently “Then”.

About your finances, how is it hanging?

I mentally laughed at the double meaning sentence and made my best efforts not to show it on my face, I just can’t afford it! I really started getting this feeling that he is a HR guy, who else does not know about Oie and he is asking about finances!!! I made up my mind to be more careful and evasive! So I replied:

Well, finances are a disaster! You know I invested a lot in branded trousers of waist size 28, now I am 33 and none of the trousers fits in. I am doomed! Moreover I am unable to cope with the EMIs I have to pay to save my hair!

It was awesome, no? That would be a befitting reply if he is an undercover HR guy. And he would definitely recommend me for the post of Solution Designer; I must make it a note to tell him somehow the name of my manager!

The situation is getting trickier by the time, my panicky brain is calculating all the possibilities, I decided to start shouting if he drives past the Wakad bridge, I also considered to tell a different name to him and quickly claim that I was AKP’s impostor and my actual name is <The person whom I hate most>.

 I have not yet decided the name. I for a moment wanted to tell that I am Ram Gopal Verma or something like that, but it seemed too improbable for him to buy that! 

Meanwhile he spoke; he spoke things about his personal life. He told me how his wife passed away due to heart attack when she was watching idea sare gama pa! And how his son ran away to become a roadie and how he disowned his daughter after she did some incomprehensible things on Splitsvilla on MTV. He rather used some choicest of expletives targeting the mothers and siblings of whoever is associated with the reality TV!

A tear, or may be even two rolled down my cheek. It was too tragic, as a matter of respect I decided not to blog about this. And then came the stunner, he turned and looked directly into my eyes. I was instantly worried about the dog that was crossing the road, as he drove past, all that remained of the dog were a few last scowls. He remained unmoved and said to me in a stern voice

I have an offer which you cannot reject!!

Godfather! ??$*(^($

The world spun around me, again!

My phone alarm started ringing, I was to send a good morning message to my girl friend, but the person who used to daily send me the SMS has not sent it to me yet, so I snoozed the alarm and tried to concentrate at the problem at hand.

While I was allowing myself to react to this moment of Universal disaster, he handed me what seemed like a small note of paper with something scribbled on it!

It had the following information

Lord of the World, scratch.

Lord of the Heavens, scratch

Sun, 3 so far

Lord of the Earth, 3 so far

Hundred faces, 6 so far

Creeper, 8 so far

Lovely creeper, 7 so far

Air’s Son, 4 so far

World saver; 4 so far

Prices: 5-3, Lord of the World, Lord of the Heavens; 3-1, Sun, Lord of the earth; 6-1 Hundred faces, Creeper, Lovely Creeper; 9-2 Air’s Son and World Saver.

I looked at it and wanted to Puke instantly, I did not make anything out of it, I was really wondering what is this about, did I really get into a trouble, should I jump out of the car, why do I always get into these kind of trouble just before the appraisal, my brain got into its favorite mode- The panic mode!

(to be continued subject to comments )

The other day, I was walking the uphill road to reach my bus stop. It is an otherwise arduous journey that saps all the water that you drank that morning off you, in the form of sweat. So I make my best efforts to ascend the road with minimal sweating. This is compounded by the ever increasing fear of two wheeler riders on Indian roads. If you are caught unaware and/or thinking about that particular AR Rahman tune whose lyrics you were not able to recollect, a nice little scooter’s front tire may end up as your third leg, you know what I mean?

So on that morning while I was simultaneously avoiding sweat and random two wheelers, I heard a hissing sound. It took me 3.4 nanoseconds to jump three feet into air and fall back and then bounce three or four times, the way a ball would do (Amazing! I think I should be qualified for some roadies or something like that with out even being interviewed).

But actually, between you and me, I have this eternal fear of anything that hisses in general and snakes in particular. So after performing a cursory check on the ground and finding nothing, I pulled out my mobile to Google what else than snakes could make hissing noises. Google returned 283,300 results in .45 seconds.

photo credit: las formerly meeza 1–in need of inspiration

But before I could open one of the pages, I heard a second hiss, this time I flew into air four feet and bounced six to seven times. However, I could trace back the hissing noise to a car across that road, the owner who looked blithe, was gleefully waving himself at me. I dismissed him as one of those gays doing Adam teasing and continued my journey.

The hissing, however, has continued. I later realized that in the part of the world I live people kind of address each other by hissing. You know?

So when you are here and when you need to call a person, all you need to do is bite your teeth, frown your face and send out a high pressure air blow. That is it! It is generally more effective than the “excuse me” and otherwise ubiquitous “hello”. And what more, it is a universal hello, you just hiss and the whole world in a kilometer radius would turn around and look at you! Awesome, no?

So when this guy continued his hissing noises, I invariably concluded that he wants to talk to me. So I nodded my head in upward direction, asking him what it is. He then pulled out his ID card and started waving at me. Only then did I realize that he wants to give me a lift. I quickly accepted the offer and with out thinking anything else I crossed the road, as if I am hypnotized by the wheels of the car. Though I had to dodge a few bikes and a cab all moving at light speed, as if they have got the good old “Start immediately” telegram from the hell

photo credit: aresauburn™

(flickr coughed this image for car lift, so much for googling )

Thanks I said, trying to forget how dangerously close to my manhood did that rouge two wheeler guys came!

When I got into the car, reality excitement subsided and reality dawned upon me, the following questions quizzed my brain in the order of priority:

1)      Will he kidnap me?

2)      Will he kidnap me?

3)      Will he kidnap me?

I must confess to you all, that since my childhood I have this fascination to be kidnapped. Though initially it all sounded cool to be kidnapped, with a kerchief gagged into your mouth and hands tied backward. And the icing on the cake was those ransom calls shown in the way they showed on the TV! They did have an effect on my mind when I was a child. However, the effect slowly developed as a phobia when I grew older!

I nervously got into the car and smiled at him meekly, the way a cow may smile at a lion or something like that. He is not one of those faces with whom you feel instantly at ease, a slab like face with a few wisps of reluctant hair stuck here and there as if they were the only evidence of a long battle between him and his hair. His eyes looked as if a couple of dead beetles and his nose reminded me of nothing, not even a nose. So I immediately patted my back for making a judicious decision of being nervous.

Nevertheless, he smiled immediately and steered the car off the shoulder and hit the highway. After a few moments of awkward silence where I desperately tried to show of my ID in a lame attempt to see if knows me, I finally spoke.

You know Oie? (oie is an online soical networking in my company, which is ver famouos among the employees)

What?  He asked making a face which is otherwise typical only to those reluctant shopkeepers who despise everything and anything that enters their shop.

Oie, our online interaction environment! I replied immediately, with an air of child like enthusiasm.

The expression remained on his face, I was really mindful of it because of its lethal nature; I instantly came to know that my nervous system cannot tolerate the expression for not more than 30 seconds. So I tried desperately.

You know even Vice President blogs there!

You mean Md. Hamid Ansari! He changed his expression, there are no words for it, but it wasn’t as bad as it was before. I instantly lived the moment and took a breath.

No not the Vice President of India, our Vice President, Mr. Krishna Gopal. I said with a ray of hope!

I don’t know any Krishna Gopal! He said, while steering his car dangerously close to a two wheeler.

You know Murali, Dominic? All biggies blog there! I said, almost pessimistic but expectant.

I donno any of them! He continued driving.

You know AKP? The great AKP!  I did not dare to look at him, but gave him a half glance.

He looked at me with one of those I-will-throw-you-out-of-the-car-if-you-don’t-stop-this-non-sense looks. I felt like tearing apart his seat or something like that as an act of revenge, but instantly excused him.

So what do you do? He finally spoke after a few minutes.

This has always been the toughest question to answer for me, ever since I have joined the job. I got nervous and gulped a few gasps of air! If it were not for the seat belt, I might even have jumped a few feet in the air.

Well, I blog! I said rolling my eyes!

Blog? He said. I chose to escape his expressions; they seemed too strong for my weak heart!

I am a product designer! I quipped, what if he is from HR? I immediately thought and appreciated myself for averting what I call a career crisis for myself!

To be continued!

dear_diary.jpg

Dairy 1.

Today I have been to Central, it has been more than year that I visited any place, it is amazing to see how the world changed. I really repent the time I spent relenting on what happened, may be one has to always learn it the hard way that one has to move on. I moved on, it has been more than a year, I am not too sure because I lost track of time. I started realizing this more of an inability to accept failure than anything to do with loving her.

By the way, I saw her today.What a coincidence, a bad one at that, to see someone you wish to forget on your very first attempt to forget her!! Anyways, she is too beautiful to think anything else, I was just lost in her sparkling eyes. Her petite figure has gone even slimmer, looks like she is gymming.

Before I could get lost looking at her, I saw her sister. I always suspect this girl is weird, she keeps on staring me, I am not too sure why! But then again, I wonder how progeny of same set of parents could have such diametrically opposite features. Well, why should I care now? By the way he looks so yucky!

Dairy 2:

It has been 13 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 5 hours and 32 minutes since I last saw him. And I saw him after .. 33^rd minute. I am so ecstatic. I missed him all these days. There is weird bulge underneath his eyes and he developed a tummy, he grew his beard and had unruly hair. But he still looked handsome. I still wonder how I should approach him.

But my doubt is that he still has feelings for my sister. He was staring at her continuously; I almost thought his eyes would bleed at any instant.

By the way, my sis’ bf bought me this cute life size teddy bear for me, he is so cute!!!

Dairy 3:

I have seen him after 13 months. He has changed a lot, I always knew he would drink. I think he is drinking too much of late, he has got a belly. His lips have gone so dark, seems he is smoking a lot. I always asked him have a clean shaven face, but he never listens.

By the way, my guess was right; he was continuously staring at my sister. Thank god I dumped him.

Well, why am I thinking about all this junk? I really loved the diamond studded platinum earrings my janu bought me today. He is sooooo sweeet.

Dairy 4:

Total expenditure on Janu: 5,33,456.

Total expenditure on her sister: 1,23,765

No of kisses fro Janu: One on forehead

Kisses from her sister: None

Life sucks!

Yeah! I run for my bus everyday. I declared almost very proudly.

She smirked, it was the same kind of smirk people give me when I claim ownership of my articles. A sarcastic one which in smirking language would translate to-stop those sick jokes you kiddo and go get a life!

I meant to ask whether you do gymming or such activities! She retorted showing her stern determination to ignore my face while she scribbled something.

Now, this is a tricky question considering my lean personality. There is a remote possibility that any sane person would even dare to ask such questions. So I persevered.

I run daily for my bus. Some two minutes, give or take thirty seconds. I continued enthusiastically, trying my best to convince her that it should be considered as a physical activity.

She ignored my blabber, in a way similar to my history teacher used to in my school when I used to bargain for a half more mark or so.

She tore the prescription and added in an utterly indifferent tone, otherwise typical to those mamus who catch you offending an odd traffic rule, try to involve in some physical activity like sports or gym and ignored my physical presence almost instantly.

I am not too sure if I can put this in a public forum, but I must admit that I get a bit finicky when someone ignores me like that. My BP, if it ever existed, rose almost instantly and my brain sent out those neurons which generally make me stubborn. I almost decided that I would sit there and convince her that running for bus is indeed a physical activity. However, the saner part of me paid the fees before excusing myself from the clinic.

This later made me think about the physical activity I have ever had in the recent past. My brain sent a query to the database and the server sent out almost zero results in less than a nano second. I mean I hardly had any physical activity after those elevators became operational in my office, this is sans running for the bus, mind you! Introspection dawned upon and yours truly was set out on a mission to have some physical activity.

For next two or three weeks, I did nothing but sit before my laptop and research about the best physical activity that suits me. In the process I used to be so late for the bus I want to catch that I am too early for the next bus and used to stroll to the bus stop.

All this resulted in a net weight gain of about four hundred grams. While I gained five hundred grams (of which 100 grams appeared as acne), I lost hundred grams of hair worrying about the gain! Life’s lessons, I tell you.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

She came so close to me that the warmth of her breath ignited the passion in me, she smelt like flowers and her gleaming skin gave an impression that she would be much more delicate than flowers. I touched her, and with in a few seconds I found out that her µ (frictional co-efficient) was zero! It was like acting in one of those santoor soap ads!

I got lost in her soft black hair and found in her intoxicating eyes, only to realize that she is trying to whisper something in my ears!

Play badminton she said in the huskiest and sexiest voices I ever heard. And she started moving away from me with a speed that I could never reach!

Deepikaaaaa! I shouted and caught hold of a hand, I am not sure if it was the same hand but I was sure the µ was definitely more than zero. Forget about feeling like flowers, I could actually feel hair. I woke up! All it took was a few milli seconds for me to realize that I was in a bus and I caught the hand of a huge a guy who took the seat beside me.

I am not a gay! I said in the most apologetic of my tones and added one of those sheepish smiles of mine!

I am not Deepika either! He replied as enthusiastically.

I blinked and made a few faces which did not dare him to break the ice. I sighed and slept again.

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If you are wondering who that Deepika was, I must tell you it is Ms. Padukone. Now, if you are making one of those faces and trying to tell me to stop this non-sense, I would shrug and ask you to wait till I publish the next part.

Disclaimer: This is a pure fictional story based on real incidents. All the tigers in this story are completely fictional and bear no resemblance to any of the living, dead or extinct tigers. Any such resemblance shall be taken with a pinch of salt and if possible pepper too.

I have started believing more and more that writing humor is a bit of uphill task; may be because of my handicap in maintaining my genre as satire/humor. I keep hopping on and off my style trying odd stuff here and there. This often leaves my audience confused (though the poems which I recently wrote may instill laughter, you cannot call them as humor; even if you call them so, don’t tell me OK?)

 My point is that, I like to laugh at whatever life throws at me; though this is a very innovative thing to do, you always are at risk of being called loony and all. So when I write stuff like “the other day I almost had a fracture on my hip bone when I tried to kill a mosquito”, and get comments like “Oh man! I am so sorry, how is your hip bone now?” I will have to look at myself in a rather pitiful manner.

 So when I decided to write about a day in my life, I thought I would rather comfort my audience by making it clear that I wrote the stuff to sound funny and all. So later in this article if you are at an ethical dilemma of whether or not to laugh at the protagonist’s sorry state of affairs, feel free to bring out that sadist in you to rule the roost and have a comfortable laugh, no seriously!

So here we go-

 It all started by twelve midnight or so. I generally have few expectations from life, at least, so I claim. But, it is difficult for me to hide excitement when I come into lime light and all. Just at the right moment, my heart starts making sounds like an old refrigerator- making continuous humming noises, sometimes which end up vibrating me to the effect that people think that I am sick!

 So when that night, when I knew something I did before would bring me to limelight, I was being my quintessential self. It was past midnight and I never remembered staring so much at my phone (though the lady who sits opposite to me at my workplace has other opinions, no not about my phone though). If I was a beggar and my phone was an average person crossing the road, the stare would have earned me at least fifty rupees or so! You get the picture right? I was looking at my phone with my most pitiful face ever. My acne just helped my cause.

 I did not know when I slept off that night but knew when I woke up, as my heart became the refrigerator again- making those humming noises. Before I could realize what was wrong with me, memory dawned.

The problem my dear reader was that last year on my birthday when I was sitting hopeless and disinterested, like a young calf waiting for its mother to come back, expecting hardly anything but a few calls from my closest friends, I’d received some hundred odd calls from all corners of the world wishing me a happy birthday and all sorts of things.

Though I was on roaming then, I was more than happy to use my high end Nokia for its main purpose-TALK (yours truly has an indelible affinity towards high end phone and ends up using them for anything except talking, creating a serious identity crisis for phone). Though my heart sank to deeper depths when I had to pay the bill, I never repented.

So for this birthday in order to save those extra bucks spent on my roaming bill, I’d made it a point to stay ‘local’ in spite of the fact that it was a weekend and was all set to celebrate my birthday in a cost-effective manner. And this, unfortunately or fortunately for me, turned out to be the anticlimax for the year long, nonexistent, birthday bash plans. I will tell you why.

Among many mistakes done by the God, one mistake is to schedule this year’s birthday on a weekend. For an average SE weekend is the biggest festival. One might forget his girl friend’s birthday, his wife’s birthday, for that matter, even his own birthday, but one could never forget the weekend. So in all the weekend excitement my birthday was sidelined like a pedestrian on Indian roads. As expected, no celebrations happened for me; no cakes cut, and there by nothing was applied to my face and hair, thereby increasing the life of a few wisps of my hair which are always eager to succumb to gravity, or so they seem!

I will pass on briskly and will excuse you with those details of how I flowed in and out of my bathroom and got ready, only to go for a breakfast. It was when I was forcing myself to enjoy a plate of pale yellow poha (a preparation made of rice flakes) that my phone started ringing.

Within a moment I felt like a digital camera which has been shifted from night mode to vivid color mode. The pale yellow poha turned bright yellow. The sun seemed more beautiful, flies looked like butterflies and the glass of chai looked like coke. It was Nikhil, my roommate.

Me: Hello

Nikhil: Where are you?

How does that matter? You tell, you tell (I repeat my sentences when I am extra excited)

Tell me where you are

(Thinking what has that got to do with wishing happy birthday) I am having breakfast. Why?

Could you get me a packet of Dove soap, blue color pack?

I hung up instantly. The poha returned to its pale yellow color, the sun started scorching and the flies started irritating me again.

Things remained particularly unchanged until noon and I started feeling like the watchman of an unused ATM in a remote village of Bihar. But not after my phone started ringing again. It was Little Johnny (name changed to protect myself). Before actually going any further, I will have to quickly introduce Little Johnny to you.

Little Johnny, if you do not know him, is more remarkable for his irritating manners than anything else. If a naughty child has ever met Little Johnny, all you need to do to put the child to task is to tell him that he will have to meet Little Johnny (LJ). You get the drift right?

LJ’s figure would just help his cause. He is five feet six inches high and would give you a feeling that he must be as wide. When I first met LJ, he already had this notorious popularity of being the most irritating moron within the measured kilometer radius; it did not matter where he was. But my sphere of influence being 2 km, I was able to gel with him very well. The science ladies call it ecological niche or something like that. But sooner I evolved as a better human being and reduced my irritating sphere of influence to a few meters. But LJ persevered with all the conviction of a determined soul and I avoided him as much.

So when I saw that it was LJ calling me, I was in double mind. I knew answering the call means putting your finger into a plug hole to test electricity. No sane person would ever dare to do that, but in the kind of situation I was in, risk is a biscuit. I was ready to watch MTV girl talk incessantly if someone wished me and so I answered the call.

Hello?

How are you mate?

Oh yeah, fine so far. I mean, yeah! Fine.

Where are you?

Home (how does that matter, wish me you moron!)

You know how to configure outlook?

 Configure what?

Outlook.

An unsuspecting onlooker would have undoubtedly betted his month’s salary on a claim that I was a chameleon. Yeah, on hearing this I turned scarlet red, then a tint of pale yellow and then may be of paper white, before restoring to my skin color.

The next 30 minutes were the longest of my life; of course, only if he doesn’t call me on my next birthday to ask me how to brush his dog’s teeth or other such interesting things. I shall agree that, at this moment, I hated myself more than anyone else did or could do.

Time flew and my plight deteriorated. It was pathetic. It was like the whole universe has conspired and erased my birth details from each and every human brain ever lived. There was me, who was determined to be wished on my birthday and there was rest of the world who seem to be ruthlessly determined to not to wish me. And nature seemed to be with the rest of the world.

I almost decided to catch a few cockroaches and make them wish me when Chirpika (name not changed) called me. I would not describe Chirpika for fear of sounding pornographic and all. I hope it would suffice when I say that I was more than excited to see her calling. But the excitement did not last long.

The first ten minutes were spent giggling. It was a tacit understanding for us to giggle if we did not understand what the other person had to say. So when I blabbered incessantly she reciprocated by giggling as much. The whole thing looked like a French man talking to a German in Marathi, a true treat to ears!

She then got into her natural form and spoke about wide variety of things ranging from her nail polish to how her mother has taken to some primitive form of pagan worship and started worshipping ants. From what I gathered she had been praying incessantly to ants and wishing for Chirpika’s marriage! She spoke about anything but my birthday!! For first time in life, I have started believing in God without any caveats, I mean it is a complete sign off.

With this I lost all hopes. I photographed myself in various angles and hoped for the best.

Two days later, my roommate took me to bakery and asked me to select a cake. I asked for who it was with a grudging voice. He named one of our roommates.  I never remembered when I stared any one with so much vengeance before.

It later turned out that I was choosing my own birthday cake. I am not sure how much I could make you enjoy this extremely long piece of nincompoopery, but the whole experience taught me one thing- You need not give any particular importance to the first day of a year. Each day is important, live it to the fullest.

My birthday cake

P.S: If I could celebrate by birthday 2 days later, why can’t I name my post as anything I like and disclaim any random thing?

But the problem, my dear reader, is that most of the good blogs are sparsely or hardly commented. Rather, generally the most commented blogs should be emanating Methane, you know what I mean, don’t you?

Now let me for simplicity sake take you a mini tour of such blogs.

Here goes a blog account of a GB (great blogger):

Yesterday was Sunday. Even then Sun came. You must wonder because there was never any Mon, Tues, Wednes, Thurs, Fri or Satur that has come on the other days. So I felt very happy and went for shipping, no, no sorry, it’s fishing. I sat there for hours together and caught what I think is a very rare species of fish. It was black in color and did not look spherical contradicting my expectations. Unfortunately it did not move after I caught it, I am now wearing it on my left feet and still waiting here for its friend to get hooked, I am really eager to wear fish on my feet.

Posted from my i-Phone.

Comments :

C1: Oh man, you are truly amazing; I did not understand what you wrote when I read it for first time. Only after reading after 2.5 times did I realize what a metamorphic genius your post is. You are simply awesome! I am really proud to know you! Keep them coming!

C2: Great stuff man, I nearly wept reading your post! Seriously man, my empathies with you.

G.B : @C1 thank you very much (wo)man, just pray that I will find the second shoe fish. @C2: let’s meet up for coffee. You are having my room keys right?

C3: Oh wow! You went for shopping? What did you buy?

GB: @C3 hehehe, i like your sense of humor!

C45: For better fishing encounters read my blog at www.morenincompooery.com.

…….. The list goes on.

Now, after spending three days envying such blogs, I have come up with an idiots guide to monger comments. The tips would be very useful to all the upcoming bloggers to get comments on their posts.

The first tip is tele-marketing.

A worked out example for your sake.

(Upcoming blogger)UB: (calls up his friend) hey man! How are you? long time, no see.

(Unsuspecting friend)UF: Oh yeah, hi, how are you Rajesh.

 I am not Rajesh

Yeah, tell me Rakesh.

I am not Rakesh either.

Then why did you call me?

Dude, you are supposed to comment on my blog!

Oh yeah! Man your blog is ssoooooooo bor-

Hello, I am not able to hear you

Hallo!

Listen, looks like my signal is weak, you are getting it?

Yeah!

Are you able to hear clearly that my signal is weak?

Yeah! Yeah!

Then why don’t you leave the comment on my blog, ok?

Yeah!

Sure?

Yeah!

Beep beep beep…….

This way you are making sure that the comment is coming.

Now look at the second way. The barter system

Smart Friend (SF): Man I need to borrow money, you have some 20K?

Unsuspecting Upcoming Blogger (UUB): NO man, I am out of cash!

Hey, I read your blog.

Is it?

It’s too cool man. I liked your style. See if you can manage the money.

Oh! By jove! I am saving it for an occasion, I think, I can……

Hey, I left a comment on your blog, did you check?

HEY! I think I have some cash in my locker, you can take it right away!

 
Things get simpler if you have a kid.

Kid: Dad, can you sign on my progress report.

Dad: How much did you get?

Well 65%

That’s appalling, you must have studied harder, I will not sign.

Dad! I read your recent post, it is good.

Oh! Yeah?

My friends liked it too, they are thinking of commenting on it!

Oh? Gimme your report, 65% is good man! You know I got even less in my engineering? Don’t forget to comment, OK?

These are just samples, if you liked this I will start writing the book. And please do not comment,

Breakfast:

Eat poha, drink tea, and think about the topic for a poem.

Lunch:

Escape into the dungeon (my food court) munch on mysterious things that they christened thali and think about the poem.

Tea:

Drink tea with some samosa and think about the poem.

 Dinner:

Eat Aloo paratha, drink lassi and think about the poem. Write it and publish it in your god forbidden blog, tweet it, update the link on facebook and orkut and voila! I am done!

I would then sleep and dream about the poems. And if insomnia supervenes read the poems that I had written so far and then risk sleeping forever. 

Believe me my reader, I have made it look awfully simple for your cause, but writing poetry is pain in the . The problem with poetry, and the reason why my otherwise kind and broad minded people wait in the corner just to hit it on the head with huge club the moment poem pops out, is the presumption that writing poetry is as easy as laying eggs.

If you think that poetry

Means breaking the prose

Into many small lines and

Forcing that darned stuff

to Rhyme; then you know

That you are mistaken.

Poetry for many people is verses that rhyme, that has metrification, that looks good and that which sounds blissfully soul liberating.

But the problem is that English, the language which I chose to write poetry, is a very funny language. There would be many a time where your pronunciation would force you to rhyme ‘east’ with ‘paste’ or ‘breaks’ with ‘snacks’ and then shamelessly publish the miserable doggerel hoping that it would be instant passport to the country of poets.

 Now if you are among those who have cursed an upcoming poet for nincompoopery please think again as I quote P.G Wodehouse here- “Whoever invented the English language must have been a prose-writer, not a versifier; for he has made meager provision for the poets.”

He is indeed true in his being frustrated because English leaves us with very few options. Take for example my previous poem where a line ends with ‘answers’ now there are not many sensible words that rhymes with ‘answers’ like ‘helicopters‘ and may be ‘tractors‘. Now tell me my dear reader, do you really appreciate the lines if they look like this

She couldn’t stay calm, she owes him answers

He is the rich one who has many helicopters

Or

She couldn’t stay calm, she owes him answers

He is a farmer and he owns three tractors

The chances are that you once for all abandon the faith on literature or you would call me if you are practicing psychiatrist struggling to survive.

Now speaking about complicating things further, the ELDT (The English Language Design Team), I confidently speculate , should be biased against poets for it to use a vowel ending monosyllable word to define the world’s most manipulated and commercially used emotion- Love. I mean why should they use Love for the emotion man? They should have used lantern or puchuk or may be other sounds which could easily rhyme with other sensible words.

Love, as you know rhymes with now, how, dove, bow and arrow, cow, crow, plough. How could a poet possibly write sensible poetry using love and still rhyme it with the possible rhymes it has.

But even then, poets survived the ordeal, they evolved and continued rhyming love with ‘now and how’ and  still made sense, while others chucked the rhyming and made sense while others stuck to rhyming and never made sense.

 I am relatively new to this company and I was not sure whether I can listen to songs when I am working. So I looked at the guy apologetically and removed my earphones and adeptly put them into the locker, hoping that he would not siege them.

 However, the shouts continued.

 ”REMOVE, REMOVE, REMOVE.” the guy shouted pointing his hands to me.

 I shall admit that my otherwise solid nervous system had gone for a toss. For a minute I started believing that my worst fears would have come true- Some one is trying to molest me! Holy god! Why he is he asking me to remove my clothes? I never picked up a fight with any local. “I am not from north, may be I look like one and my name might suggest otherwise, but please I am not from north” I prepared my speech in case things went out of my bound.

 But he continued “REMOVE, REMOVE, REMOVE”

 ”bhaiyya, please stop talking in block letters and please tell me what should I remove” I asked gathering all my courage.

 ”REMOVE THE FLOOR” he shouted.

 My eyes widened in amazement and I started hyperventilating. Removing the floor is not a simple task and more over I sit on fourth floor and probably the guys in the third floor would not like their ceiling to be removed moreover how can I remove the floor while standing on it? But I did not have time for so much of calculation. The guy who was shouting at me looked much like Bhajji after claiming his 9^th wicket of innings, running aimlessly towards an imaginary wall with a stern determination to head butt it!

 But before I could react, I saw other employees strolling out of the fire exit in a relaxed way, only then did I observe the fire alarm making some tweeting sounds. Ah! I looked at the guy and said “Evacuate?”

 He gave a cold look and started shouting again “REMOVE THE FLOOR”.

 Before some unsuspecting employee could start venturing to remove the floor, I exited.

 But the real fun started then. I mean we have a mock fire drill happening in the building and we are supposed to calculate the time required for evacuating the building in case of emergency and then I see a guy whose deeds would translate to the following.

 “Dear Security Manager or even the guy shouting at us to “Remove the floor”,

 We are Indians. When I say we are Indians, I mean we are bunch of cool looking Software Engineers who romance with bombs every day, who travel on bikes deftly averting the most dangerous Indicas which are hell bent to overtake from left, we cross roads, we do a hell lot of other interesting things which are otherwise categorized as unsafe in other parts of worlds. So with such an expertise you think we cannot handle a fire in the building? By the way we have Sharukh Khan on the floor who can single handedly evacuate by making us jump off the balcony behind this exit. So to me this fire drill is just another attempt to make us go into the sun and switch off the A/C to cut costs, eh?”

 You might be wondering what he was doing; he was blocking the fire exit to take photographs of the people evacuating the floor. I almost jumped with joy; you do not get to be photographed in such situations, do you?

 It took 50 times more time than it generally takes for me (I do not use elevator, rather I cannot use it!). As I exited I was welcomed by the real fire- Sun. With each minute I felt as if an invisible force sucking off all my energy like the way it’s shown in the glucose ad.

 A few We-care-a-damn-to-mock-fire-drills clad people escaped to get their daily dose of nicotine and caffeine as I wandered like a monkey whose tail has just been run over by a 12-wheel truck. After a record time, which in case of a real fire would have reduced at least 70% of people to chars, the whole building was evacuate and to my utter amazement I found that I was ahead of the crowd when it was announced that we could get back to work.

 I ran like a tiger released from the cage, to get into the safe air conditioned enclosure called my cubicle. And in all this excitement I ascended two extra floors

Disclaimer: All the work in this post is meant for sarcasm and not to demean anyone. I would rather agree that the author have painted too lurid colors about future of Country, but at the same time one cannot escape the fact that the author is a diehard patriot and loves everything about the country and has very serious thoughts on terrorism. So please do not send me hate mail.

2013, Friday the 13^th:

Today is a very important day in the world history. NO! We did not find any cure for AIDS yet and NO we did not find ET life; but today is India vs. Pakistan cricket match; a match that would be played after four years of violent battle.

Well, the match itself is not so great an event that it would leave a mark in history, so let’s quickly track the events leading to this historic moment.

The prologue:

In the bid to get Gandhi’s belongings from James Otis, the newly elected government had forgone defense budget to meet James’ demands. The result was that India was without any defense. This was just the right opportunity for terror infrastructure to do the needful.

A few months before the cricket match:

One fine day, the whole India woke up to shocking “breaking news” that Pakistan invaded India. And by afternoon, almost whole of India mistook the holiday declared on account of national emergency. Every household was preparing themselves to do various activities, ranging from watching the SRK’s newly released block buster to dancing themselves to glory in a pub and then hoping to not to be beaten up by hooligans with a misplaced sense of conscience.

However, the news channels beamed the most horrific news ever: India is not under the heels of a single invader but six.

The groups that invaded India were (incidentally all of them wanted to attack Mumbai):

•          The All Pakistan United Terrorist Organization (PUTO) (please suffix/prefix ‘al’  and ‘mujahideen’ if you did not get the feel, eh? ) headed by General Musharraf and General Kiyani.
•          Osama Bin Laden and his army.
•          The Chinese Army headed by Mr. Ping Pong.
•          Bangladeshi mutiny along with all terrorist groups in North East.
•          Dawood Ibrahim and his army.
•          The LTTE.

PUTO, under the leadership of the revered generals, made a safe landing in Gujarat; the attack was so sudden that there was barely any resistance to the plethora of dinghies entered the gulf, most of them were lungi clad and had a colorful handkerchief tied around their neck, this made them look like a dance troop from Andhra Pradesh getting ready for shooting one of those exotic songs which are a must in anyone’s porn video dance video collection.

However, they were surprised to see that most of coastal villages were empty. It was too late for them when they realized that there were communal riots going on; before they could even contact each other through the satellite phones they were set ablaze by an angry Hindu mob. Most of them died on the spot, whoever remained committed suicide after three days, unable to answer the questions from media on how the whole incident happened.

Osama Bin Laden booked a whole troop of military jeeps and entered the Indian border at Punjab. The local youth, who seemed to be extremely excited about sighting the legendary, took out their mobile phones and made the most of the opportunity.

Soon the internet was flooded with Osama’s videos on youtube. There was many a profile on face-book with status ‘so-and-so is meeting Osama’. There was also a game created for face-book which checks your compatibility with Osama, other games included date with Osama among others.

Osama seemed to have relished the kind of welcome and trying to capitulate on his demand, he followed his prime advisors’ advise and started charging Rs. 100/- per photograph. He became a billionaire before he could reach Delhi (some software engineer hacked his GPS device to show Delhi as Mumbai).

The moment he reached Delhi, Barkha Dutt approached him for an interview on NDTV offering him a huge amount of money. Pepsi, ITC and Unilever followed. Soon Osama was the TV figure of India; drinking Pepsi with Deepika Padukone and flaunting his silky beard and thanking Clinic All clear for the same; he however rejected to do the Kamasutra ad stating that it was against his religious sentiments. He then indefinitely suspended his attack on Mumbai; this popularity was too good to be sacrificed on the name of jihad. Little did he knew that he was digging his own grave.

Meanwhile, the Bangladeshi Mutiny along with the NETO (north east terrorist organization) made a great progress in India. They decided to march their way into Bihar amidst rustic groups of people who assembled with their mouths agape to watch the incoming mutiny. A few smart people started charging a nominal fee of 10/- per head to watch the mutiny.

The mutiny decided to camp in Jamajambalgapruppur, a remote village in Bihar. Tents were made and huge farmlands were occupied. No one complained, none cared; until one of the mutiny member peed in a wrong place.

This resulted in communal riots between the lower caste and the higher caste and almost 50% of the mutiny was killed in the riots. Whoever remained got washed away when Kosi changed its course and submerged all of the camp in its trademark Flash Floods. The TV correspondent covering it on the TV who was an erstwhile movie critic commented, “Will the real terrorists stand up” and laughed out loudly embarrassing a group of hyenas.

The Chinese army, under the esteemed guidance of Prince Ping Pong, made an adept and a rather clandestine entry into Pune. The reporter reporting the incident reflected that he has seen the Prince asking for directions in Chinese and the local public fanatically and enthusiastically answering them in fluent Marathi, it was agreed unanimously that it was a treat to ears.

Ping Pong decided to walk their way to Hinjewadi and as expected reached faster than the vehicles. They then feverishly flocked to the local Chinese restaurants where the Chinki looking youth tossed the oil filled ‘new-dulls’ fanatically into the air. The local legend has it that the higher the noodles are tossed the better they would taste.

To their agony, the Chinese found out that the food is light years away from being called Chinese. They instantly developed intense gastroenteritis, while most of the army vanished in the diarrhea that ensued; the rest of the army consulted a doctor who prescribed them Anti-diarrheal agents: one potion if you buy Indian medicine and four potions if the ‘maal’ is Chinese.

The Chinese got confused and took 4 each of the tablets instead of one; this resulted in acute constipation. What followed could be called as a mini Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the excessive cabbage used did the trick. Let me close my nose here!

In the mean time, the LTTE entered the Indian Territory at Chennai. The entry was almost effortless with hardly any resistance, as the local people mistook the LTTE for a group of Rajni fans going around in a rally. However, the LTTE were not so prepared for the Chennai heat; the whole army which was dressed for winter started feeling the oppressive Chennai summer heat in mid December. They immediately fled in the same boats from which they have arrived, of course towards the Australia, they needed a break and they could not possibly go back to Sri Lanka. “A great tragedy averted” noted Srinivasan Jain, not making sure for whom, he called for a break where Osama Bin Laden was back again; this time promoting Parachute hair gel, of course , using his beard again!

Dawood, was the first person to reach Mumbai. He was immediately briefed about the fame and money that Osama was gaining each day. Unofficial sources put Osama’s remuneration at 15 crore per ad. Dawood, a man who believes just in business, wrote to him 11000 pages letter explaining why Osama has to pay ‘protection money’ to Dawood. Osama tore the unread letter into million pieces and fed his goat with it.

This enraged Chota Shakeel. In his e-mail to Dawood, which was apparently leaked to NDTV, he wrote: “How many people should I handle? I am usually good for a dozen of them. How many of them are dead? I can handle any number of dead people (Unless they died seeing Ramu’s movies, heheehe)!”

Tension mounted when Ramu booked Osama for a whopping 50 crores for a remake of a famous Shakeela movie. He immediately gone for an IPO and his shares ruled the market for months together. Dawood sent an ultimatum to Osama, which again was fed to his goat. This was the final nail in the coffin.

What followed was history and all that’s worth noting is that the world got rid of the most dangerous people ever lived. Things were back to normal with a few weeks and the first thing that was thought about when Indo-Pak ties were back to normalcy was the CRICKET MATCH.

And just as everything seem to be falling into place, Sachin Tendulkar had dropped three catches and India lost miserably to Pakistan. Prannay Roy saw a great opportunity in this and held a special news bulletin, where he invited Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev and bashed Tendulkar black and blue. This infuriated Sachin’s fans (and also Dravid’s and Ganguly’s fans as they had nothing better to do) and resulted in a huge attack on NDTV. This was then followed by a candle march by Barkha which as well was attacked. The communal riots started again.

Danny Boyle, saw a big opportunity in this and made another movie. The cast was same; Dev Patil played Osama Bin Laden. AR Rahman, out sourced the music to his team in Chennai; who bought a few drums and beat them incessantly in a Geometric Progression, and claimed to have produced soul stirring music. The movie won 48 Oscars, a record for any film so far. The movie was named: mera bharat mahaan.

Someone told me that humans are very sentimental about last days, I came to know that they do a lot of things like shaking hands, hugging, slapping, spanking and a few other incomprehensible activities beyond the scope of my intelligence (I presume I have some).

Before actually I could do the above virtually over here let me just brief you with history of my stint with this office.

I really do not know when it started, because I recollect that I had no intelligence then. I was shown my seat and briefed about my responsibilities. All I had to do was to deliver everything that my client asked me to; it was a pretty easy job, as long as I have the resources to do so. So let me not talk much about my job, it’s (or is it was?) kind of boring!

What is really exciting to share is the work environment I was (I shall start getting used to use past tense, sob… sob…) in. My work load had no particular peaks as there were many intersecting sections of my clients spread over the whole day, thanks to shifts. The worst part of my job was that I had to work when everyone else was taking break. However, being an ardent observer that I am, I made the most of this opportunity.

There were many people who come to me while I work and they do wide variety of activities ranging from reading news papers to bitching about each others’ bosses to what not? Of all these activities, the one which really amused me was a particular class of people who talk on phone. These guys position their phone normally when they listen, but move it swiftly in a circle with their mouth as the center and make the phone parallel to their face, as if they are about to kiss the phone and then talk. I could not comprehend a logical reason out of it, I think they must have worked in Army or got too used to walkie talkies, whatever it may be this class of people really amused me. After all, there is nothing better in this in world than something you can laugh at.

The other type is I-please-my-girlfriend(s)-come-what-may types. I had seen these types catching 2-3 coffee mugs in one hand and a chips packet in the other hand, while the girls who accompanied him chat themselves to glory as they make infinite curls out of their hair. I wonder what would happen to all the waiters in hotels if these chaps were to lose their job like me, oops you dint read anything now, thooch!

Now, come closer, no! Not that part! Give me your ear, let me tell you a secret; closer, closer, I will have to whisper; I had even seen a couple kissing in the privacy of my office.

“No story is complete with out something that induces anger in you” once said a great writer, his name I forgot! Was it PAK or KPA, whoever it is, I will now have to make you all angry to make my story interesting. Let me try now: Slumdog Millionaire, Jai ho!

Yippie! I did it, your blood boiled, didn’t it? Well the movie shall win the Oscar at least for this triumph. Quintessential digression! Let me take you back to my story. So with all the masala around, my work place was fun to be.

However, the recent recession has turned the tables for me. Suddenly I was supplied short of resources and couldn’t serve my clients. I still remember the days I used to be cured of any ailment within hours and used to be back to work in less than a day. But this time around, after two cockroaches fell off me when a rather frustrated client hit me on my face, my company has decided to lay me off.

I talked to my friends in other companies, looks like things are worse there. In fact, one of my friends reported me a weird incident where its clients are inserting their hands into the pockets, when they have to shake hands after they come out of the loo. My friend initially suspected a skin infection, but later it was found that tissue papers were laid off.

OK, I will have to go now, Internet connection, my other friend who has been laid off is calling. I hope we meet again. Please keep in touch, my mail id is:

Coffeemachine@gmail.com

Yours sincerely

Coffee machine

        Well, I could tell you my success story in just two words- I drank. But it is not that simple, you know? The story has its share of twists and turns that you could expect, imagine as much as your brain permits. So now let’s go ahead.

        The whole thing stole upon me gradually, unlike in the movie Dev D where the hero has more reels of drinking alcohol than speaking anything. I still remember the day when I tasted some King Fisher strong, it did not grip me then. The only reaction I could remember now is that I was brushing my teeth for next 4 hours to do away with the bitter flavor. It is different fact that I have an artificial set of teeth now.

        It all started when I had to stay out of my house, for my studies of course! Though I really am not sure what I have studied, I made acquaintance with the awful power of ridicule. My friends were people who tied hand kerchiefs to their heads and who danced like hell at the movie theatres. Though, it seemed to me as if they were collectively pushing an imaginary object into the air. But the strange things that I have observed did not end there until they celebrated the birthday of one of our gang members.

                I could still vividly remember the crate of tins that had innumerable tins of – I even despise to say what it was. They offered me the tin, I refused. They laughed at me, ridiculed me. I was just 20 then, my character under developed and so I could not stand their scorn. I marched like person in trance towards the crate and drank. It tasted like cold hair oil. Not that I ever tasted hair oil, but I had a strong gut feeling that it should taste something like that.

        However, I stuck to it. I could not turn down the esteem that I had won from my friends. I wondered with squinted eyes the feverish pace with which each of them gulped down the drink. I set my teeth, persevered and completed my first drink. I ordered one more round, more rounds and tons and tons of peanuts have been emptied, so many peanuts that if you put one peanut on another, the stack would reach half way to moon. What followed has been copied in Dev D, with minor changes of course (my parents might be reading this, you never know!).

        The next morning brought pains, physical (especially stomach) and mental. But I could not draw back; I was too weak to dispense my popularity for a silly stomach ache. I continued and my friends praised me about my valor and I felt nothing could be an excessive payment for such an honor.

And I got the habit!

        I will pass briefly over the next few years, where I continued to sink deeper into the trap. I knew all the stores that sold this drink in Pune and I knew the names of their owners too and the worse they know me too. All I have to do is to tender a currency note and say “Regular one” and then I have the tin in my hand.

        But gradually my health seemed to decline; I spent more time in bath room than outside. There were times when I could not go to office for obvious reasons and used to sleep with my lungi on incessantly staring at the patches on the wall. I knew I was losing my grip. I could not concentrate on work, I had dizzy spells and got caught napping on the keyboard. I became nervous and distrait. I eventually visited a doctor.

“If I am to do you any good,” he said, “you must tell me all. You must hold no secrets from me.”

“Doctor,” I said, covering my face with my hands, “I am a confirmed Amul-Masti fiend.”

“Aaaaaah! Nature ka nashaaaaaaaa?” echoed the doctor

………….to be continued

I packed my things in back pack and got ready for a 2 hour joy ride in a bus (there is no helipad at the destination so could not use my copter). Now an ardent follower of my blog would instantly understand the affinity I have for the government buses.

                The moment we entered the bus station, a couple of khaki clad men started lobbying about a bus that would not stop before our destination, and they promised to drop us there in less than two hours, once they cross the city. Given the unsuspecting nature of our parents, I ended up in a 2X2 seater, which is generally used for intra city shuttling.

                The bus was half filled when we entered, with an occasional nylon gunny bag blocking the way. My parents settled in an empty two seater and I settled beside them in an Aisle side seat as the window one was already occupied. Our khaki clad men were talented they poached upon a lot of customers and the bus was more than full now. Both of them kept on shouting non-stop incessantly. It worked, as there were lots of passengers flocking the bus like the flies flock to jaggery.

                For the next fifteen minutes, the bus stopped at any place that the bus could stop and the khaki clad men, the driver and the conductor, kept on shouting ‘non-stop’. The more they shouted non-stop more people started boarding the bus. Soon my parents went out of my sight, as the space between us was filled by a family of eight. There was a father, two mothers (my assumption) and five kids. The family happily settled on the floor and occupied the space between my limbs and my body. It’s like I immersed my left leg and left hand into the sea of people, you get the picture?

                The bus stopped again, the men shouted non-stop incessantly and the cycle continued. This time there were more people, I felt as if I was going to be part of team that won Guinness record for accommodating maximum number of humans in a small area. A space which was once occupied by just three people is now occupied by more than twenty people and some uncountable bags of God knows what. There were three people between my left hand and left leg, four kids between my legs, two bags and a person between my right leg and right hand. My shoulders and head were spared as I was wearing a T-shirt.

                The bus stopped again. I gave up and took a mental note to change the meaning of the word ‘non-stop’ as the driver shouted the word again. In a few minutes the buildings of the concrete jungle that spawned along the road were replaced by greenery. Not knowing exactly where my body parts were there, I decided to take a nap, I was almost successful if I were not to smell the aroma of under arm of one of the person surrounding me. The distance between my nose and his armpit was second only to the record set by a gentleman when I was travelling in a Mumbai local, another difference was that the gentleman used a deodorant.

                There is one more thing that is typical of buses in long journeys in our part of the world, people throwing up. There is no problem if they throw up once, but they do it as if they are paid by someone if they sporadically shout Oaaaak with special long emphasis on O and extra stress on K, hearing it for three or four times would automatically induce a nauseating feeling only amplified by the gentleman’s armpit.

                The bus stopped again, after a long interval though. When I said the bus stopped, it is not the normal stopping, where we see a bus loaded with people dashes its way into a thousand passengers waiting anxiously in the bus stop, where an undoubting onlooker would die of tension, speculating on how many would be crushed to death by those hefty tires. But this time the bus came to a screeching halt. Like in many places in India, animals like cows, buffaloes and goats pay road taxes; at least they behave so, when they use the road in a direction perpendicular to the normal crossing roads at incredibly slow speeds. Our bus encountered one such herd of lazy buffaloes. Within seconds the demography of the bus changed as if it was a migration season. The family of eight surrounding my body had been replaced by a smaller family and few nylon gunny bags, I am not sure if there had been any expulsions out of the bus. Before even I could think about the law of conservation of mass, the bus accelerated and the small family and gunny bags were again got replaced by the family of eight; I breathed.

Meanwhile, the gentleman sitting beside me, after hitting my shoulder with his head a few times, found a comfortable position on my shoulder to take a power nap, which of course I disturbed almost immediately. I don’t like oil patches on my T-shirt. However, I could not stop him from collapsing into my lap, which acted as a blessing in disguise s he woke up and found a resting shoulder on the glass window.

                The deep orange light that lit the horizons a while ago was then replaced by twinkles of stars. The greenery was then replaced by an occasional hut. After a few more stops of ‘non-stop’ bus, it became almost empty. I could see my parents again. The cycle was complete, we alighted the bus.

…… to be continued.

So when I was waiting like sulking child waiting for an opportunity to vent out this anger, my phone vibrated in my pocket. Though I wished the guy messed with me so that I could give it back to him amplified (please note that I am still straight), the feeling waned in a matter of a few seconds as my brain responded to the stimuli and recognized that my phone was ringing. I carefully reached for it; it was Muley- my room mate.

Of late we have been practicing a lot for the ‘World’s laziest bum’ contest. So as a part of the practice we have decided to work on our dinner plans and decided to pick a parcel on our way. I agreed half heartedly as this means a few extra steps with my newly bought designer Italian shoes (for all those who do not know how I look, the next time you observe a tall fair guy with shoes that are too long, too slim and too shiny, like the ones the hero in the fairy tales wear…… errr that SRK wears, you can safely conclude that its me).

So as I carefully ascended the steps of our take home biryani center, my concentration was instantly bought by the owner who seem to be extremely interested in my ID card. There is nothing more contending than some attention for an average SE engineer. So I moved the ID into and away from his line of vision and enjoying the way he hypnotically craned his neck like a pendulum (as I am writing this I am cursing myself for having not concentrating on my new shoes ). Things got more exciting when he did not move away from the ID, for first I was a bit worried about getting mugged, but that was a very stupid thought. I instantly praised my laziness for not being able to thought further.

As the next few seconds were spent in trying to control the adrenaline rush into the blood, the excitation peaked when the owner approached me and took hold of my ID. I widened my eyes; and even a child observing me would have concluded that I had a throat infection by looking at my upper throat; I opened my mouth so much. I gave up my oath to laziness and started thinking about the possible reasons for the owner’s interest in my ID card. My brain started calculating all the possibilities- Is the guy a big fan of Infosys? Is he going to offer us some exorbitant discounts? Or DOES HE READ MY BLOG? DID HE RECONGNIZE THE GREAT AKP? I stopped breathing at this instant. I needed to listen to his intentions to choke myself back to breathing.

He said “Hamare paas aisa bhi kuch hona chahiye”.

I flushed instantly; he apparently wants to issue this kind of ID cards to his staff too. My face turned pale, to control the bile I had to cancel the order we placed and rush off the center taking enough care not to damage my new Italian designer shoes.

Looks like VRL travels has hired Veeru and Jai, take a closer look at the screen grab.

The tree was big and the shade was good,
I looked here and there, I needed some food.
I found something to munch, and as I did
Screech was the sound; I turned and I saw a hood.

The hood belonged to a jeep
I guess it’s used to carry sheep.
Four men came out and gave me a peep
They tied me up and put me in the jeep.

After a bumpy ride the jeep came to a stop
I was near a tall building and I jumped out with a hop
I was not happy, I mowed and wanted to mop
I was pulled into a lift and taken to the top.

The house was new and I could smell some ghee,
I was pulled into it and then set free.
They fed me water and treated me like a queen bee.
Ah! Only then did I realize that they wanted me to pee!

I can never understand these beings, humans
They claim that they have lot of acumen
But ask a captive Cow it to pass urine
in a new house and call it a house warming ceremony.