LMAO !!! - Laugh My Ass Off

The Sequel

2005-06-19T05:12:00.000-07:00

Please find my new blog Sleepless in IIM-A at this URL - http://sleepless-in-iima.blogspot.com.
It is likely that all my subsequent posts would be in that blog rather than this one.

Adieu Hyderabad.

2005-06-16T08:49:00.000-07:00

Its been a little over two weeks since I've left Hyderabad.

Its been over 10 minutes since I've typed the above sentence and nothing after that. And I've been wondering, if this simple statement unwittingly gives me away. Because, if I had wanted to convey a state of passing from one phase of life to the other, I could as well have put it in a crisper manner - in a way which would make more sense.
For example, I am three days away from leaving for IIM Ahmedabad.

I read through all my earlier posts in this blog; articles which attempt at summarizing the amazing time my friends and I have had at Hyderabad, and at this summarization failing hopelessly. Because the narration is woefully constrained by my limited writing and memorizing skills, and would in no way, recount completely and unfailingly all the countless interesting moments I've shared with my friends.

I drove myself to giggles at the recollection of some of the incidents. Reminiscing further, giggles turn into laughter. And laughter to tears.

As I type in these last few passages about my brief affair with Hyderabad, my mom is asking me to start thinking about packing. That triggers a thought. Its not emotional like in the movies. Rather its just a realisation.

A realisation that I wouldnt be boarding the Charminar and going to my top berth right after getting into the train. That I wouldnt wake up groggily only after the train's pulled itself into Nampally. That I wouldnt haggle with the auto rickshawmen to charge me under 25 bucks to take me to Masab Tank. That, I wouldnt step into the welcoming familiarity of 204, Anand Residency.

Its just a subtle reminder that something's changed.

Chances are, I would keep writing my blog; in the same style, which I'm used to writing in. The thought which makes me pause for a second is that there would be a completely different set of characters.

Orkut (www.orkut.com) is not necessarily a medium through which you can hold real time conversations, as you would using, say, Yahoo messenger. But often when the two conversing parties are both logged on to the internet, a makeshift conversation could be held by leaving messages or 'scraps' in each other's webpages or 'scrapbooks'.

Following is a piece of conversation between Amit and I.

Amit: Hey, whats up ? Have you got Neo (one of my laptop's potential names) ? So, when are you leaving to IIM, Mr. Morpheus ?
PS: Whats the similarity between you and Morpheus ?
(Perhaps its fitting that he should use my dark and attractive skin color to ridicule me after I've left Hyderabad. They began with that.)

Oka: Amazing dialogue delivery.
Question for you.
Whats the similarity between you and King Kong ?
(I am not sure if King Kong has a tummy. But Amit wouldnt either. I bet he'd get the message.)

Amit: Both are kings.
Whats the similarity between you and Ambrose ?
(Does persistence really pay ?)

Oka: Tall handsome personalities.
Here's your question.
Whats common between you and Yokosuna ?
(Yeah, does it really pay ?)

Amit: Both are fair and lovely (??!!!??)
Now, whats the similarity between you and a black hole ?

Oka: Both are profound.
Here's yours.
Whats common between you and a pregnant gorilla.
(Fair, lovely, King - all these possibilities eliminated)

Amit: Both are too good at defending themselves.
Now, I'm going to put a full stop to this conversation.
Whats the similarity between you and my niece (His niece is a toddler)
Let me answer that for you.
Both of you are totally jobless, and I have a job to do.
GET LOST !

I notice another message in my scrapbook which I had previously overlooked. It was from Kaushik, written right after I left Hyderabad.

"Hey ! You took the iron !!!! How much cheaper can you get !"

The only thing which is permanant, they say, is change.

Some things however never change.

The miserables

2005-05-12T04:56:00.000-07:00

Problogue

The first few weeks in Hyderabad, we almost always had dinner in the nearby restaurant.

When we had tried practically everything in Sandharshini's one page menu, we started ordering food from a North Indian aunty who cooked delicious food and sent a boy over to deliver it.

However our kitchen cabinet was as empty as the rest of the house. There wasnt a single utensil in it.

The first few days, we ate on paper plates.
The principal reason why we continued to eat on makshift plates and even newspapers for weeks after that is a miserable four lettered word. Amit.

At the local store.

'These stainless steel plates look good. Lets get some.'

With a sharp intake of breath, and his features contorted to represent what could euphemistically be described as outraged indignance, Amit gasps '40 Rupees ! Too much !'

At the road side shop.

'This is too much !'

At the Chinese store.

'This is too much !'

The reason why we eventually did manage to get some plates is because of what happened in Big Bazaar.

'30 Rupees per plate ! This is too much !'

'Shut up.'

'And stay that way until Oka and I purchase everything we need.'

'Hey, I gotta show you guys something.' Amit said excitedly.

Manish and I, slightly curious, followed him obediently.

'Ta da !' he said triumphantly as he drew out something from the small cabinet over the wash basin.
It was a Mach 3 shaving set.

'Wow ! Is it your birthday today ? You never told us ! Who gifted this to you ?'

'Hello ! I bought it.'

'Impossible.'

'On second thoughts, did you win a lottery or something like that ?'

'Yeah, you better tell us about it. It has to be divided by four like everything else.'

'How much did this cost you ?' I asked him.

'390 bucks.'

We spent the rest of the morning discussing heatedly about this event of frightfully alarming magnitude. Is this the beginning of the end of an era ? The era of the legendary miser ? The mere thought of the consequences sent a million nerve impulses across my body.

The evening before, Amit, Manish and I were sauntering down the road to home.

'Shit, I feel so tired.' I gave a massive yawn. 'Just couldnt sleep properly yesterday. The mosquitoes fucked me thoroughly.'

'They must be really desperate.' Manish chipped in. 'Now the next generation of mosquitoes is going to be black with a bony ass.'

'Your repellent is completely useless man. We should get a new one.'

'No need man' Manish said. 'You just have to switch the repellent on, whether or not it has any liquid in it. The mosquitoes, on seeing the light, would assume its on, and fly away.'

'Disgusting logic.'

'Well, its been working for the past two months.'

'You mean, its been two months since it ran out of liquid ?' I asked in disbelief.

'Hey, today's mother's day. Did you call up your mom ?' Amit interrupted.

'Yeah, I did. She first thought I wanted more money.'

Manish laughed. 'Imagine Amit's kid getting him a card on such a day. He'd slap the kid for wasting money.'

'That way, Kaushik's kids would face a big problem on mother's day.' I said. 'They wouldnt know which one of their moms to give a card to.'

'Yeah' Manish added, warming up to the idea. 'They'd end up buying a hundred cards, losing all their pocket money in the process.'

'Shit man, coming to think of it, its real tricky - the Kaushik factor.' I said. 'You know, if you marry a beautiful girl, chances are she would be one of his ex-girlfriends.'

'Shit, you are right.' Manish said. 'Imagine. Amit's wife would call up Kaushik after their first night, and thank him for the practise she had had earlier.'

'Stop it ! You guys are really pathetic.' Amit said.

Laughing like nutcases, we turned into the alley leading to Anand Residency.

'I have to get some stuff from Balaji Grand Bazaar' Amit said. 'So you guys carry on.'

'Cool. But dont expect us to leave any kaju barfis for you.'

'Okay no problem. But before that, you dont expect to find any of them. I finished them today morning.'

'Pig !'

'Fat ass !'

Having had the last laugh, Amit entered the superstore and started walking between the racks, scanning the products for the stuff he needed.

Something caught his attention. He stopped.

A Mach 3 shaving set.

There was a tag attached to it. He turned it to read it.
"Gillette Deodrant Spray worth Rs. 190 free."

Cool deal, he thought. Fantastic deal in fact.

After fifteen minutes of deliberation, he walked to the billing counter, thoroughly satisfied with his purchase.

He gave his credit card to the guy at the billing counter and watched it being swiped. As the guy put the purhcases in a plastic cover, Amit asked him. 'Excuse me, what about the Gillette spray ? There's an offer right ?'

'It was valid only upto the 31st of Apirl', the guy barked. He pulled the tag free from the shaving set and tossed it unceremoniously into the trash can.

In the split second that followed, Amit's eyes first went to the credit card machine. The card had already been swiped.

Then they went to the receipt. He had already signed it.

Then they went to the plastic cover the guy was holding out for him. Too late.

It was then that his eyes started growing wider and wider - as wide as saucers, until they almost popped out into the plastic cover the man was holding.

Epiblogue

Manish and I were at Chutneys, impatiently waiting for Amit.

'We should have told him to start much earlier. I would rather have him wait here, than us.' I said.

'He should have been here before us anyway. What the hell is he doing ? Its a ten minute auto ride from his office to this place !'

'Call the screwball up.'

'Okay.' Manish said, pulling his mobile phone out.

'Hello. Where are you ?'

'I am on the way.' Amit replied.

'Why is it taking this long ? We've been waiting for the past twenty minutes.' Manish demanded.

'I will be there in five minutes.'

'Are you in an auto now ?'

'No. I am walking.'

'What ??'

'Yeah. I am planning to walk to and from office for the next one month.'

By our special correspondent.

2005-04-30T03:39:00.000-07:00

Manhunt on for the bald eve-teaser
30th April, 2004. Hyderabad. By our special correspondent.

The Cyberabad police has launched a hunt for a man who has been harassing young girls walking on empty roads, in and around Hi-tec city. According to a traumatized young girl, the suspect stopped his bike right in front of her and menacingly asked her if she wanted a lift to office. The victim has been admitted to Vikram hospital, Madhapur.
Police have put together a description of the suspect, after gathering information from the victims. The suspect is big, bald, bespectacled and rides a pulsar.
Anyone who offers information about him will be suitably rewarded...

'You know what happened today ?' Pratik had a sheepish smile on his face.

'What ?'

'Dont tell anyone, okay ?'

'Oh, that sort of thing huh ?' my eyes lit up. 'Okay, I wont tell anyone'.

'I was driving down this road, and saw this girl walking ahead.'

'Okay.'

'I stopped by her, and asked if she was working in Oracle', he paused.
'She said yes, a bit hesitatingly.'

'Wow.Then ?'

'Then I asked her if she wanted a lift till office.'

'What ?' I asked, flabbergasted. 'What did she say ?'

'She said no, and I drove off'

'Fuck man, she must have thought you were an eve-teaser or something ! How can you do something like that !'

'Come on, I had no such intentions. There was hardly any auto or anyone for that matter, so I thought I would help her.'

'No one around ? I dont blame her at all. I am amazed she didnt take to her heels. In fact, I wouldnt be surprised if by now all the nearby police stations have a pencil sketch resembling you on their notice boards, under the rapists section.'

'Shut the fuck up.'

By lunch, all my team mates knew about this incident, and during lunch we had a good laugh at his expense.
Needless to say, he was smouldering. And I was loving every bit of it.

Post lunch, most of the team, four of us actually, meandered towards the Table Tennis table.

There is no dedicated room for the TT table. Thats because Oracle has been hiring people in dozens and inevitably ran out of space to place new work stations. All the TT rooms, some conference rooms, and some huddle rooms have been filled - first with computers, and then with people.

So, the TT table is placed in an open space where the elevators and the doors to the washrooms are.

As usual, Pratik ran ahead of us, and tried all the four bats, looking for the best one.
Sunil, a bit late, ended up grabbing the same bat as Pratik did, and there was a mini tug of war going on between them. It was like a chipmunk trying to grab a banana from a gorilla.
The rest of us, understanding better the futility of such an exercise, picked up the remaining bats.

'Wait a second. I'll be back.' said Pratik as he left his bat and turned towards the washroom.

Then he stopped, as if something had struck him, turned and picked up his bat, before Sunil could even think of stealing it, and went into the washroom.

'Disgusting' I said.

When he returned, he was altruistic all of a sudden, offering his bat to everyone.
Understandably no one wanted it. Sunil almost backed into the elevator when Pratik offered him the bat.

We played a couple of games.
Predictable games, because when the team playing opposite Sunil wanted to win, they'd scare him when he's serving.

'BRRRR !!', they'd shout at the precise moment, and he'd serve it either onto the net or beyond the table.
I almost tore my hair out, because I was on the same team as Sunil.

A little later, when the others had left, Pratik and I got down to playing a few singles.

'Lets do one thing. Lets bet on this match.' he said.

'Ok. Whats the bet ?'

'100 bucks.'

'10 bucks.' Now that's confidence.

'Cheap fellow. Lets make it 50 bucks.' he snorted. 'The loser owes the winner a coffee worth 50 bucks in Cafe Coffee Day.'

'Deal.'

The reason I even submitted to this bet despite Pratik being the better player is that I have often won over him in the past by a very Australian technique. Sledging.

Whenever his shot goes outside or whenever he nets the ball, I would mock him ruthlessly for his mis-hit, and cause him to lose his composure. He'd spray the next few shots all over the place and I'd go on to win the match.

Confidently, I went into the first 'coffee match.'

Man found on TT table in a strange state.
30th April, 2004. Hyderabad. By our special correspondent.

Cyber Towers security found a big, bald, hairy man lying in a state of shock on a Table Tennis board, with all his hair standing up.
He held a Table Tennis bat in his mouth. Also on closer inspection they found the following words written on his bare rear, amongst a lot of violet bruises. "Here's your coffee".
The Madhapur police is investigating...

'Tsk tsk, poor fellow. How frustrated you look !'

'Shut up'

'Do you want to play one more ?'

After I lost the first one, I challenged him for a 'best of 3' bet, so that I could win back the lost 50 bucks. And after its even between us, I could stop. Why be greedy ?

After I lost the next two games, I challenged him for another 'best of 3' bet. I had to bring down the amount from 100 to 50. 50 is not too much. I could afford to throw 50 bucks on him.

After I lost the next two games, I finally had the sense to stop.

'Shit man, I bet you five games in a row. Add to that the two games I won before the coffee matches, and I've beaten you seven times in a row.'

'Okay. Now stop. Dont rub it in.' That smirk on his face.

'In fact, I think I killed your game. You've forgotten how to play. Tsk tsk, poor fellow'.

That fucking smirk.
'Dude...'

'When am I getting my coffee ?'

'You want coffee ? Here's your coffee ...'

Somehow I managed to convince Pratik that I'll treat him next month. He was convinced partly because he could understand what it is to be near the end of the month. We were both broke.

Later in the day, we joined Jaideep and Srini for dinner in Oracle cafeteria.

A telegu song was playing on the TV.

'Hey, who's that babe ?' I asked to no one in general.

'Yeah, hot and fuckable.' Pratik added in dirtily, typically.

'She dances well.' I observed. 'Wait a minute, who's that fat ass behind her ?'

'Hey !!' Srini cried.

'Watch it dude. Thats our superstar.' Jaideep said.

'Bullshit. Look at him dancing with a girl half his age.'

'Yeah, she looks like she could pass for his daughter. Isnt he ashamed to dance around like this with a girl probably in the same class as his daughter ?'

'He's a great actor.' Srini claimed.

'He must have done a lot of things with her.' Pratik chipped in.

'He wont do anything like that.' Srini persisted.

'What do you mean, he wont do anything ? Or is it that he cant do anything?' I asked with one end of my mouth up in a sly smile.

'Yeah, does he have problems, umm... standing up ?' Pratik and I started laughing.

Jaideep and Srini gave us icy looks, as we hi-fived each other.

Filmi message stupefies police.
30th April, 2004. Hyderabad. By our special correspondent.

Two men, one skinny and dark, and the other big and hairy were found in a state of trance in the Oracle cafeteria, Cyber Towers. Struck on their chests were posters of a popular Gujarathi film hero and a popular Tamil hero respectively. Around their necks was a garland of footwear. Written on their foreheads were the words 'Hail Chiranjeevi'.
Investigations are going on...

Greatness. Unwittingly.

2005-04-07T00:26:00.000-07:00

6th April, 2005. 23:00. Ohri's - the restaurant on Road No. 12.

'Shit man, Oka would leave us and go.'

'Yeah, Amit is going to feel very lonely.'

'Forget that. I am gonna lose a steady source of income. Whom will I con now?'

'Shut up, guys !'

'You know whats the worst thing about Oka leaving ?'

'What?'

'The rent will be divided by 3.'

Laughter.

'Oka, you have to get someone else to fill your place here, otherwise dont even expect to get back your deposit.'

More laughter as Amit takes off with me in close pursuit.

6th April, 2005 appeared no different from other days. I still hadnt begun to pursue my lifelong ambition of ironing all my clothes on the weekends to keep them clean and ready for the oncoming week.
The result? I was once again looking around the house for a clean shirt to wear to office.

Fatefully (like what happens in the movies), I stumbled upon my suitcase, and it flew open. And there in a plastic cover was the off-white shirt which I had worn for my IIM-interviews.

Without a hint of what was in store for me that day, I put it on and left for office.

'Okay, fine. No cocktails. I'll order 4 mocktails.'

'Yeah, dont turn us into drunkards. We've never had alcohol and we dont intend to.'

'Uh, could you get us a Mango Bloom, a Pussy Foot, a Blue Curacao and a...', Kaushik looked around the table 'umm.. a Daiquiri, cranberry flavour.'

As we watch the waiter leave, Amit speaks up.

'You know what, I am going to do exactly what Oka does. From now on, I am going to act all high-handed and arrogant. I wont get the water refill, I wont wash my plates, I wont do any household chore. Then maybe the next year, I'll get in as well.'

'Believe me, if arrogance was the criteria, you'd get into Harvard Business School'.

'Yeah, I am going to borrow Oka's jail shorts and I am going to roam around the house bare chested, and shamelessly keep sitting half-naked even when a girl enters the apartment.'

'I am going to download the rule booklet of Age of Empires. I am going to learn how to play it.'

'But you've to learn how to play it badly as well.'

Manish dodges as I throw a tissue at him.

'The most important thing. I am going to get a kilo of soot, and smear it all over my face. After that I'll try to use Fair and Lovely over that and try hopelessly to get rid of the color.'

Amit gets it again from me.

I unlocked my computer with the familiar uneasy feeling of seeing a few unfriendly mails from my superiors in headquarters.
Normalcy returned, after I went through the new mails in my inbox once and then checked them again to make sure my ass wasnt on fire.

The work quota for the morning fulfilled, I opened the yahoo messenger, the website www.orkut.com and the website www.pagalguy.com.
Pagalguy is a discussion forum for aspiring MBA students. Basically its a place on the internet where people'd get together to know and let know, news and information about events. One such post was,

"IIM-K results are out !!!!!!!'

Well, I hadnt had an interview call from IIM-K. And the ones from which I had a call from, IIM-A for example, werent expected to announce their results until next week.

Slouching in my chair, with a sense of extreme lethargy, I opened the IIM-A website. There was a link which I had used a few months earlier to check the results of the first round of admissions.

With nothing better to do, I clicked on it and entered my test registration number and birth of date.

'Hey Manish, why does your mocktail look like that ?'

'Whats wrong with it ?'

'It reminds me of Surf Excel.'

'Good though. Let him drink it. It will clean all the shit thats inside him.'

'Guys, guys, lets exchange drinks. Each of you, pass your drink to the next person.' said Kaushik as he passed his drink to me.

As I sipped on Kaushik's drink, I felt something warm pass down my throat. Something was different.

5 minutes later, after each of us had a sip of all the drinks, 'Kaushik, what was that? That wasnt a mocktail, was it ?'

'No, that was a cocktail. Rum with a hint of cranberries.'

Amit looks at Kaushik with a shocked expression on his face.

'YOU ARE PATHETIC !!!'

The site took quite a while to open, while I lazily sipped on my Real Orange juice, wondering why do I even drink it. It tasted like buffalo vomit.

The following message appeared on the screen; a message which was quite similar to what I had expected, but not the same.

"You have been selected for admission to PGP (2005-2007 batch), IIMA.

Note: Our formal admission offer letter is being sent by Registered Post. You will have to send us your formal written acceptance and return the other documents enclosed with the admission offer by May 9, 2005. In the meanwhile, please indicate to us by e-mail admission@iimahd.ernet.in your decision on this admission offer, quoting your name and Test Registration Number"

After reading it for about 15 times, I sank into my seat.

IIM-A results were out. And I had made it.

'Guys, lets raise a toast. Maybe we could say something now about this fucker. Amit do you want to start ?'

'Yeah.
I am a happy man today.
I have been praying for a long time, asking God to somehow get rid of Oka. He has finally answered my prayers. And may no one have the misfortune of being Oka's room-mate in future.'

'Amen.'

When they stopped laughing, Manish spoke, as I listened expectantly, hoping he'd say something not that obvious.

'Oka.
'Dont forget to use Fair and Lovely, but remember that whatever you do, you wouldnt become as fair as Amit.'

I rolled my eyes as they had another laugh at my expense.

'Ok my turn now.' Kaushik said.

We turned towards him.

'Some people are born great.

'Some people achieve greatness in course of their life.

'Then there are some people who have greatness thrust upon them.

'But how many pathetic fuckers are there, who, after having greatness thrusted upon them, behave as if its the most obvious thing in the world ?'

Parlez-vous anglais ?

2005-04-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

Contrary to what I said in my previous post, Amit did go on a fast once.
It was Sivaratri, and apparently Amit's family followed a custom which required them to not have regular meals on that day.

Well, it isnt like he cant eat anything. He could have fruits and a few snack items.
Thats what he told me.

So, that day, when I returned from office, I found him patiently cutting a papaya into slices and removing its seeds. There were a number of slices on a plate nearby, ready for consumption

'Cool.' I said.

It was obvious that the last person he expected at that moment was me, because when I devoured the first three pieces, he gave me a disgusted stare, watching his half an hour of painstaking effort spent in peeling the fruit going down my throat in half a minute.

The stare lingered long enough for me to realise that he wouldnt have had anything since morning. So I stopped raiding his plate, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

As I reached out for a glass, my eyes went to the unusually cluttered dustbin nearby.
There were three banana skins, an empty chips packet and an empty peanut burfi packet in the waste bin.

'So much for the fast', I thought.

With the realisation that some things in life just cannot be changed, I changed quickly and joined Amit in the hall where he was watching an English movie. By that time Kaushik had returned too.

It was an action flick featuring Jean Claude Van Damme.

'This guy's movies are all the same. If you watch one, you've watched them all.' I said to Kaushik with a dismissive wave of my hand. 'Have you watched Blood Sport ?'

'Yeah. But I cant recollect his name though. Whats it ?'

'Jean Claude Van Damme' I said pronouncing it like 'John Claude Van Damn'

'Ah, its not John. Its not pronounced that way'

'Yeah, it IS pronounced that way.'

'Come on, Oks, you've been in France. You should be knowing how to pronounce this.' chided Kaushik. 'Its pronounced Jawn where the last letter n is silent.'

I knew better than to argue with Kaushik on the subject of pronounciation. He is obsessed with the correct usage of language and even more obsessed about correcting others when they make a mistake.

He had a point though. I should have something to show for my stint in France - atleast the correct pronounciation of famous French associations.

Talking about languages, there's an interesting trend I observed among people trying to pick up a new language. At least among young men.

The first few phrases or words they learn are almost always obscenities. For instance, I can ask someone to fuck off in about 8 different languages.

Quite a feat, isnt it ?

Coming back to French, my friends and I have had quite a few interesting experiences in France. Before I narrate them, let me tell me how to find your way around the French words in the following passages.

When I am listing down a French word, I will list the pronounciation and the english translation in brackets. The disclaimer is that the pronounciation need not be the exact pronounciation.

And when I am listing down a phrase whose meaning I dont know myself, use google language tools. Here's a link - http://translate.google.com/translate_t. Select 'English to French' from the dropdown, paste the French phrase in the text area and just fire the button.

So here we go.

Bonjour (boshoor) is almost always the first word in French anyone learns. (There are exceptions though. My first word was foutre vous (foothre voo) and you know what it stands for).
Bonjour stands for hello. Its the first thing a person says when he meets someone, as a way of greeting.

Apparently this wasnt known to Balaji, fondly known as Bajji.
When a French guy stretched his palm and said 'Bonjour', he warmly shook his palm and said very pleasantly.

'Bajji'.

To avoid such situations, knowledge of the most basic words is essential. To put it in a better way, there are some words you cant escape. For everything else there's 'je ne parle pas français' (ja na pahle pa fronsae - I dont speak French).
Equally effective is the phrase 'parlez-vous anglais?' (Pahle voo onglae ? - Do you speak English)

I must say, that over time I learnt to say this phrase with nearly the perfect accent. So much that, when a French person came and asked me something, I told him with a swagger that I dont speak French, and ended up feeling extremely proud of myself for that.

'Excusez-moi. J'ai noté que vous ressemblez à un âne sourd-muet. Pouvez-vous me dire à quelle espèce vous appartenez?'

I would run a hand through my hair, look askance at the guy and give him a confident smile.
'je ne parle pas français'

Wow. Aint I cool.

After a few months we got so used to saying this, that we didnt even try to figure out what the person talking to us was trying to say.

One of my friends asked for a city map at a counter in a Paris Metro station. Guessing, by the looks, that we might not know French, the guy replied back, 'français or Anglais' (Fronsae or Onglae - French or English)

Bang comes the reply 'Parlez-vous anglais ?'.

Needless to say, it was usually a lot of fun when we traveled together as a group inside France.

Other than Paris, in no other place do people speak English. In fact, some French friends have told me that the French despise English, courtesy their historical enmity.

So even if a tourist asks something in a French which has absolutely no sense of verbs, adjectives and prepositions, the natives are delighted by the fact that a foreigner is making an effort to learn their language.

Naturally, this had inspired a few people in our Indian group in France to seek mastery of French.

One guy in particular, affectionately called Mittal bhai by us, took great pains towards a strong French vocabulary. He would take pages and pages of printouts of French tutorials from the internet and patiently go through them every night.

The next day, when we would gather during the coffee break in the lawns, he'd flaunt his grasp of French.

'Whats French for "right" ?' he'd test us.

'No idea.'

'droite'

'Hmm. Cool'

'Whats French for "left" ?'

'Umm.. leftie ?'

'No. gauche'.

And we would all look at him with awe and respect.

But the twist in French is that the pronounciation which people infer from the written word is often drastically different from how it should actually be pronounced. The reason for this is that French shares a part of its written alphabet with English, but the same letter may have a different pronounciation in French compared to English. For instance, 'r' is pronounced 'eh' in French.
Hence English speakers, especially those who read up written tutorials frequently end up in weird situations when they try to flaunt their French.

Mittal, eager to try his French, once volunteered to get the train tickets himself. This is how he asked the lady at the counter. Pretty much.

'Brusque bisque gibberish tibberish' (Google-translating this wouldnt help you much).

Obviously unimpressed, and more importantly, unenlightened, the lady replied 'Pardon?' (Pahdhown (n silent) - Sorry?)

'Blubber flubber blah blah ticketa fourppla', persisted Mittal, not one to give up.

'Parlez-vous Anglais ?'.

I thought that was our question. Who's the foreigner here ?

Despite the obvious lack of impact Mittal made on the French, he still was our leader in whatever trips we made over there. He took upon himself the responsibility of finding out about places from people.

One trip in particular is quite unforgettable.
We were in this place called Melon, and suddenly after all the sight seeing, we had a whim to go bowling. So we tried asking around for a bowling alley. Mittal was confident that there was one in the town.

'It should be somewhere in the neighbourhood', he said.

The first attempt Mittal bhai made was in a Pakistani restaurant. The communication was smooth because we didnt have to speak in French with the owner.

'Do you know if there's a bowling alley here ?' Mittal bhai asked him.

'Umm.' the guy paused, thinking.

'It should be somewhere in the neighbourhood. Do you know where it is ?'

'Oh yeah' the guy's face lit up in realisation. He led Mittal bhai to the middle of the road. 'You see the blue building over there ?'

'Yeah.'

'Take a left there. Then you have to walk down the street.'

'Ok.'

'Eventually, you'll come to a playground, where you can do bowling, batting and fielding - anything you want.'

Pause.
And you thought French was the only barrier to communication ?

Completely unperturbed by the results, Mittal led us on. Eventually, he asked us to wait at a particular place, while he strode towards two French men standing on the pavement.
He started a conversation with the men, while we watched from a distance.

Apparently he was having quite a raging discussion with them. We could see all three men gesturing and pointing here and there.

Maybe Mittal couldnt really connect with them in French, because a little while later he got down to demonstration.
He bent on one knee, ran a short distance and let roll an imaginary ball. His eyes then followed the ball until it struck all 10 pins, after which Mittal let out a whoop of joy.

It appeared as if it was working, because the men watching the demo with a serious expression, nodded knowingly.
There followed another round of gesturing and pointing at different roads.

Finally after quite some time, Mittal returned with a satisfied expression on his face.
Curious to know what exactly happened between them, we asked him if he got the exact location of the bowling alley.

'Mittal, you guys were talking for such a long time. Where is the alley ?'

'It should be somewhere in the neighbourhood, yaar'.

There wasnt a bowling alley within 50 miles of that place.

A yelping hand.

2005-03-30T08:15:00.000-08:00

In hindsight, it was all Kaushik's fault.

If he hadnt gone on to bond with her that day we wouldnt have had these kind of problems.
At least he should have stopped with one day's friendship. But he went to her everyday after that, muttering sweet nothings into her ear.

After a few days he gathered enough courage to hug her and stroke her chest affectionately.

And she reciprocated by licking him all over his face.

Ruby's an Alsatian. She's our neighbour Salma aunty's pet dog.
Salma aunty is herself like a huge bulldog. Now, dont get me wrong. I am not saying this with an intention to humiliate her or to sound rude. Rather I am just trying to provide a description by which you'd be able to visualise her.

But yeah, she's quite dark. She's big and obese and has a perpetual scorn on her face.
A bulldog is just about the perfect description for her.

But to her credit, she is quite social and has pretty good communication skills, which would partly explain why she frequently made small talk with Kaushik. (The other part that would explain it is the fact that she's still single).

So, the first time when she ordered some rotis and forgot to order the side dishes, Kaushik had no qualms in sharing with her, part of his rajama.
After all, you wouldnt be a good neighbour if you couldnt lend a helping hand, would you?

A couple of weeks later, I observed that Kaushik rarely went to see Ruby.
He would probably have got bored of the dog.

Well, that might be the explanation of an average guy.
Personally, I suspected that he had a couple of tooth marks on his rear. Whats more, I even found him walking strangely on his toes whenever he passed by Salma aunty's door; to avoid the dog's wrath maybe.

It became clear later on that Kaushik was trying to avoid Salma aunty and not the poor dog.
This is what led me to think in those lines.

That day, Kaushik and I were in the basement of Anand Residency, where the vehicles are parked. I was hitching a ride to office on his bike.

Just as Kaushik put his helmet on, there came Salma aunty and Ruby.

Strangely Ruby was walking behind aunty.
I found it weird because when I take Timmy, my pet dog, out for walking, he behaves as if he's the king of that area and I am his chauffeur. He literally drags me around (quite ironically, because the leash is on him).
A couple of times, I've stumbled and fallen right on my face.
By the time, he's done, I look more exhausted than him. Its a wonder how he packs so much energy in that tiny little furry body of his.

Not so, with Ruby.
Maybe she recognized the presence of a superior pedigree there and wisely chose to stay in the background.

Coming back to the situation, Salma said a hi to Kaushik and got to talking about the dog.

'Your Ruby hasnt been too well lately' she said.

'What happened to her?' said Kaushik running his hand over Ruby's back.

'I dont know. She's been dull throughout the day. She hasnt eaten anything since morning'

'Oh, thats okay, aunty. Dogs frequently take a day off when it comes to diet'. Yeah, Kaushik would definitely know about dogs.
Funny though. I've never seen Amit take a day off. In fact, its Manish who goes on fast every Thursday. Hmm.

'By the way Kaushik, did you tell the carpenter?'

'No aunty, unfortunately I havent had the time.'

'Tell him soon, okay. Just ask him to come and visit Salma's house - 202, Anand Residency. I have been waiting for the woodwork for quite a few days'.

'Okay aunty. I will do it whenever I can.'

'Thank you, Kaushik. Have a nice day.'

'You too aunty.'

As we got moving on the bike, I asked him 'Dude, what's this about the carpenter ?'

'She has been bugging me about this yaar. She wants me to go to the carpenter shop in the next lane and ask the guy to go visit her. I dont know why she cant do it herself.'

'Yeah, man. She sure can use a bit of walking. As of now, Ruby would beat her hands down in a beauty contest.'

'Whats more. She has his phone number as well. I dont know why she's after my life.'

So thats why Kaushik was tiptoeing like a criminal whenever he went past aunty's door.
It became even clearer when I picked up a couple of phone calls from aunty on the intercom that evening asking me to remind Kaushik about the carpenter.
I gleefully did that as soon as he came home.

But if I thought that she's gonna stop with the carpenter, I was quite wrong.

That morning, I had just come home after an overnight train journey from Chennai. I found aunty and Ruby at our door, talking to Amit. I caught the lower end of the conversation.

'Is she there now?' Aunty asked Amit.

'No, she's gone out for sightseeing.'

'When she gets back, tell me okay. I want to meet her'.

'Sure aunty.'

'Ok. I'll get going. Ruby has to have her walk'

'Okay aunty. See you later.'

I said a quick hi to aunty to her as she walked past me and jumped aside as Ruby walked by behind her mistress.

When she was out of earshot, 'Hey, has someone come to our house ?'

'Yeah, Manish's mom has come'

'Really?'

'Yesterday Salma aunty was telling Kaushik that two guys - her relatives were coming to visit her. She was asking if they could stay at our place, as she felt uncomfortable letting them stay with her, single that she is.'

'What ????'
I immediately imagined myself coming home and finding one guy sleeping on my bed with my shorts on, and the other blowing his nose into my tee shirt and throwing it into my cupboard.

'Yeah. Thats when Kaushik decided that Manish's mom has come to visit us.'

'You mean, he came up with this huge lie on the spur of the moment ?'

'Yeah.'

'What a screwed up lie ! What if she had asked me about Manish's mom ? I just arrived and I know nothing about it.'

'Did she ask you?'

'No she didnt. But what if she had ?'

'But did she ?'

'Oh forget it'. He would go on and on like this and I was in no mood to argue with the stubborn jackass first thing in the morning.

Well, that wasnt the end of it. The next day when I returned home from office, I found Amit looking particularly irritated.

'Whats up, man. Why are you making that pretty face?'

'She wants me to install Windows 2000 on her computer.'

'Yay !!'

'Oka. I am already pissed. Dont rub it in.'

'Kaushik is her handyman, and you are her technical support guy. How do you like it ? Do you have job satisfaction? Do you have good working conditions ? Do you face sexual harassment ?' I held an imaginary mike near Amit.

'Shut up.' he said. 'But really, I have no idea how this Windows thing hit her suddenly.'

'The brilliance shows on your face when your spectacles light up and your hair stands on its end.'

'Get lost.'

'But seriously.' I said. 'why did she pick YOU for this ?'

So thats how the situation is right now.
I havent been pressed into her service yet, and I am happy about it.

Maybe later on, she'd give jobs to Manish and me as well.
Manish would probably become her gigolo, and I would become her... umm.. I cant think of a single thing I am useful for.

What is sure is that she would sooner or later ask us to do something or the other for her. Its in her nature to know what to ask whom.

Or is it ?

A day earlier, I was chatting with aunty myself. I wanted to know where I could find a shop which would home-deliver cans of drinking water. She said we could see the shop right from her balcony, and called me in, to show me the shop.
Sure enough, there was a super store right across the road, clearly visible from the balcony.

As I crossed the room towards the door, I noticed that the house was quite well-maintained. There were quite a few wall hangings and paintings adorning the wall. The sofas looked royal between the lovely glass table in the center. There was a beautiful lamp as well.

The only thing that looked a bit out of place in that room was a computer in the corner.

'What do you do on the computer, aunty ?'

'Oh, I use it for browsing and chatting. Though I havent been using it much lately.'

'Why not?'

'It has been giving me a lot of problems.'

'What happened ?'

'The computer hangs frequently. I would be having fun chatting with one of my friends and suddenly wham ! - a blue screen would appear asking me to restart the computer. Its so irritating.'

'Hmm.' I said as I pressed a few keys on the keyboard. 'Looks like you are using an older version of Windows. Why dont you install Windows 2000 on your system ? It is considered more stable.'

'Will that help ?'

'Sure. And whats more, I know just the person who'd do it for you.'

Movers and Packers.

2005-03-18T01:31:00.000-08:00

(Continued from the previous post)

To my credit, eventually I did manage to find answers for all those questions on the IIM-A form, by Friday the 11th of March.
Yeah, even the one on my extra-curricular activities. (I had to do a mini survey for that, but hey, people in general are quite similar in their habits and activities).

My train for Bangalore (thats where the interview was) was at 1840 hours, and packing was about the last thing on my mind. But since it was a necessary evil that has to be done anyway, I did a bit of thinking that morning about what are the things I ought to take before I leave for Bangalore.

I knew it wouldnt be too much, because I didnt unpack when I came to Hyderabad. All I would have to do was open the suitcase and drive out the cockroaches.

Maybe, I thought, I might have to take a few other things.
Now what are they.

Amit never misplaces his stuff, so toothpaste, soap and other cosmetics are taken care of.

Clothes might be a problem, because either my clothes are in the bathroom begging for the maid's attention (and getting ours through the 'heavenly' fragrance it emanates) or they are on Kaushik.

My certificates. Hmm.. Someone was complaining about running out of toilet paper a few days back. I wonder why the complaints stopped after that.

So I deduced, against natural logic, that I would have to take a leave to even think about going to Bangalore.

I had to call up my manager and convince him that it was absolutely necessary that I take the day off. When he wasnt convinced, I had to resort to a bit of acting. I told him that I was at the running all over the place to get things done, and to supplement that blatant lie, I let out a few exhausted gasps, which unfortunately sounded more like hoarse moans from a B-grade porn flick, making it all the more difficult for my manager to understand.

Well anyway, the act eventually worked and I didnt have to look for my office ID card anymore.

For the first time in weeks, I began to do some serious work....

Three hours later, I was ready. I locked the apartment, and started walking with a swagger; with the suitcase in my left hand and the briefcase in my right. I thought I looked quite a sight - a bright, macho executive walking majestically and confidently down the corridor, looking the world in its eye.

Until my neighbour's dog started barking.

My confidence dampened further, when the watchman neither gave me the salute (which he usually reserves for Kaushik), nor a warm smile (which he reserves for Amit - brotherhood perhaps) as I walked past him. If anything, his snort was more disdainful that the dog's.

Oh well, at least the auto driver stopped, I thought as I waved out to an auto.You dont get anything in this world free of cost. Not even respect.
Okay, at least I dont get it.

An hour later, I was in the Secunderabad Railway station. I looked around for the electronic board which displays which platforms the trains arrive at.

I found it a minute later, and noticed that it hadnt yet listed the platform number of my train.
So, as with most of the Indian systems, I resigned to the wait, along with quite a few others.

A little later, I realised that the people around me looking at the board werent the same as those some time back.
Wow, since when did Indian passengers run out of patience ?

Half an hour later, the board still hadnt listed my train's platform number. And more and more people were moving away from the board.

Whats wrong with them ? I mean, I can understand why the girls would move away from the place, thanks to my driving (away) force. But the others ?
Isnt patience a virtue anymore ? I thought with a tired shake of my head.

Later still, I realised that there were just 10 minutes to the scheduled departure of my train and the name still wasnt up on the board.

It was pretty elementary.
The board wasnt working.
The trains listed on the board had left hours earlier.

The funny thing is, I didnt have to look far for my train. It was standing at the first platform, almost right behind the electronic board.

Walking along the platform, I eventually came to carriage number S10 - the compartment on which I had reserved my berth - berth number 38.
Now came the interesting part. I quickly scanned the list that was stuck near the door to the compartment.

Berth 36: Priyanka Malhotra.
(Ooh.. reminds me of Priyanka Chopra ! Baby, I'm coming for you.)

Berth 37: Sushmita Malhotra.
(Must be two pretty sisters. I am gonna have a great time !)

Berth 38: Me.
(The name here is of the least importance)

Berth 39: Vinod Malhotra.
(Shit.
Bloody Daddy to spoil the party.)

But I am an obsessively positive man.
I was sure Vinod would have tired himself with all that luggage lifting, and would directly go to sleep once the train starts.

I climbed onto the compartment. I put on my most charismatic smile as I entered the bay. You see, I wanted to create a favourable first impression.

It worked.
Priyanka smiled back at me radiantly.

Only that the 'radiant' smile was toothless.
She looked at least 80 years old.

So much for the babe.

Next to Priyanka 'Grandmother-India' Malhotra, was a man who had to be Vinod. He was an unkempt, balding, bespectacled, middle-aged man. He peered over his glasses at me for a second and went back to his book.

Sushmitha who wasnt there yet was my only hope. I closed my eyes and almost prayed that Priyanka's grand-daughter Sushmitha be young and beautiful.

As if in answer to my prayers, there was a big thud. I opened my eyes, and found the surroundings dark.
Weird answer to my prayer, I thought. Usually when God appears before you to give you a boon, its blindingly bright.

But thats when it is God that appears.
When Godzilla stands in front of you, she usually blocks the lights behind her, and casts a dark shadow upon you.

I hurriedly made way for the 80-kilo heavy weight champion.

'Sussssmitaaa' rasped Vinod, 'You must be tired. Why dont you stretch yourself on this berth?'. He referred to the one I was sitting on.

"Susssmita" the obedient wife that she was, lifted both of her elephantine legs, placed them on the berth and stretched them. Until they almost kicked me off the seat.
I barely managed to stay onto the seat.

And that wasnt the only thing.
There was then a fragrance, that would put even a thousand dead rats to shame.
I nearly died.

Making a Herculean effort, I collected myself, climbed the mini ladder to the upper berth, chained my briefcase to nearby metal mesh and passed out.

The IIM Candidate

2005-03-15T21:55:00.000-08:00

I think life is an alternating series of important, potentially life-changing days and carefree, insignifcant days. There are days when all you do is eat, spend and laugh heartily, sometimes even forgetting what day of the week it is, and then there are days which by their mere approach inspire an adrenaline rush; days you would have been thinking about for months, sometimes years in advance; days when eating, laughing and merry-making is absolutely the last thing on your mind. These are the days when you know you have to be serious, simply because a bit of seriousness would change the way you live. Drastically.

Sunday. March 13th

The day of my IIM-A interview.

As I mentioned (bragged rather) in one of my earlier posts, I took the CAT (its an exam - Common Aptitude Test) - and God's pet creation that I am, somehow managed to clear it. Consequently, I got calls from the top four Management Institutes, IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-C and IIM-L inviting me to attend the next round of selection process, which comprised of a Group Discussion (GD) and a Personal Interview (PI).

Let me give you guys an idea of what they'd ask you in the interview - I dont know.
But its a general opinion that they normally question the candidate about their work experience, academic courses, current affairs in politics and business.

A week before the interview (March 6th), my Dad called me up to ask how the preparation was going on.

'Are you reading up the newspapers and keeping yourself updated about all the current affairs ?'

'Yes, Dad.'

'You know all about these recent assembly elections right ?'

'Yeah, Dad. Dont worry about it. I know all that.'

'Do you know which government fell in Goa very recently ?'

Guessing time.

Well, maybe I can make an intelligent guess. You see, I believe that anything can be deduced by starting with what you know and then logically and systematically eliminating alternatives.

Hmm. So what do I know.
India is a democracy.
It has a multi-party system. (Wow. Aint I omniscient ?)
Now, maybe I can eliminate the possibilty of the smaller parties forming a goverment, and focus on just the big parties with a national presence. After all, isnt there a 90 % chance of a national party capturing the state assembly as well ?
Okay, now that I'm past that irrefutable logic, what are the parties with a national presence in India ?
Congress. BJP.
Isnt this unbelievable ? I started with the statement 'India is a multi-party democracy' and I am about 1 inch close to finding out which government fell in Goa recently !! Hail Oka ! The God of logic !

'Do you know or not ?' my Dad interrupts the smooth functioning of the well-oiled machinery that my brain is.

'Yeah Dad, I know. It is...'

BJP or Congress.

'It is...'

Congress or BJP.

Inky Pinky Ponky.
Father has a donkey.
Father dies. Donkey cries.
Inky Pinky Ponky. Ponky !!

'Umm.. Congress.'

There was a second's pause on the other end.
I could visualise relief and pride replacing my Dad's anxiety, as he came to terms with the fact that his son is well prepared for his interview, after all.

'Enna da ?' ('What is this?' in Tamil)

'You dont know even the stuff which make headlines ? It was the BJP government which went through a vote of confidence and was brought down.'

So much for my guessing prowess.
I must have missed something in that Inky Pinky rhyme.

Great start to the day. Now my parents must be anxious as well as disappointed.
I started pacing the apartment wihtout speaking a word. Thats what I do when I am in deep thought. I walked to every nook and crook of the apartment. I am not sure if anything came out of all that pacing, but it sure did prompt Manish to comment that if I do this on a regular basis, we can pay the housemaid less and ask her not to sweep the floor.

Finally, I decided to have a look at the form. IIM-A had sent me a form to be filled up. Besides the regular questions about my academic performance, degree, name, sex etc, they had also asked a series of questions apparently testing my motivation and aptness for the MBA course.

There was a question about my extra curricular activities and the prizes and awards that I have received. I thought I will tackle that first as it sounded pretty simple. I made myself comfortable on the bed and started thinking about it.

15 minutes later. No idea.
Maybe the question is not that simple after all.

30 minutes later.
I always knew I had a short memory.

1 hour later.
Maybe I should look at my certificates. I'll definitely find something there.
Umm... where are my certificates?

2 hours later.
I find my 10th and 12th marksheet in the folder with "all" my certificates. The other pages are all empty. What the hell was I doing all my life ???
No. I must have done something. Let me rack my brains a little longer.

3 hours.
Snore....Snore....

4 hours later, I woke up, and found my certificates flying around in the room. For a second I panicked. Then realisation dawned on me and I thanked God that I wasnt home in Chennai, and there's no Timmy here (Timmy is my pet dog - he lives with my parents back in Chennai).

Timmy, when he was very young and going through the chewing phase (its a phase in a dog's life where he has this irresistable urge to chew on anything and everything), had had my Chemistry Record for breakfast once.
The important thing was, it was the day when I had to submit it to my Chemistry instructor.

I had no option but to take the half-chewed record to my teacher. The lady, kind that she was, gave a benevolent look at my panic-striken face, took me to the cafeteria and got me a plate of biscuits.

As you can see, that left a pretty deep impression on me. (Not that I didnt gobble down those biscuits.)

Anyway, I gathered all my certificates, put them back in the folder and dumped it in my cupboard somewhere in between all the crumpled clothes. I took up the form again, and with renewed energy obtained from all those hours of sleep, decided to attack the questions again.
I decided to leave the extracurricular question for later.
Another question looked promising.

'What are your strengths and weaknesses with respect to a career in management ?'

Let me start with my strengths.

15 minutes. No idea.

Oh God !! Not again !!!!

I am gonna learn from my mistake, and not waste time over something which anyway is not gonna occur to me.

Over to weaknesses.
Now what are my weaknesses ?

Lazy.
Perverted.
Annoying.
Irritating.
Pathetic.
Habitually indecisive.
Logically impulsive.
Socially repulsive.
High frustration levels.
Low tolerance levels.
Zero confidence levels.
...
... (I dont count on readers to have so much patience)
...
Jackass.
Smart-ass.

51 records found. Search time: 0.0041 seconds.

I put the form back into its cover, and switched on the TV.

(To be continued.)

Your reputation precedes you.

2005-03-01T03:33:00.000-08:00

It was a lazy weekend morning. I wasnt home. I had gone to Bangalore for a couple of days.
Kaushik wasnt home either.
But that wasnt as surprising. He's rarely home on weekends.

So the only people home were Amit and Manish.

Manish wakes up earlier than any one else in the house. Usually when I'd get up, I'd find Manish leaving the house. There have been times when I've woken up and found the house quiet and empty. (Not quite, because I'd go to Kaushik's room and find a big lump under the bedsheets.).

Amit wakes up a little later than Manish. But he's so quick in getting ready that he'd leave the house with Manish. He pops into the bathroom and pops out before you can even blink.
Its really a mystery how he's so fair-skinned.

That day they happened to wake up at around the same time.
A little while later, after dozing off and waking up again a couple of times, both finally made it to the bathroom.

There in the bathroom, it didnt look as if they were making any progress with the essential daily activities, because Manish kept throwing stuff around in the little shelf over the wash basin.

'Hey Amit, I'm not able to find the toothpaste yaar.'

'Yeah, I tried looking for it as well. I cant find it either'

After searching a little while longer, they stand outside the bathroom with their palms on their hips, and look at each other for a second.

They nod in a common understanding.

'Oks.'

I think friendship is dangerous.
It lets out a little too much about you to your friends. Over a period of time they start knowing you too well for your comfort. They start predicting what you'd do.

You start getting a reputation.

Anything missing, any loss, any damage, anything broken in the apartment is immediately attributed to one person.

Me.

They do it with such unerring regularity that I have begun to automatically blame myself if something goes wrong in the house.

(By the way, they were right. The toothpaste mysteriously was found in my kit when I returned from Bangalore.)

(And yeah, it wasnt my toothpaste.)

Well, luckily this phenomenon of getting a reputation is something not limited just to me. The others are famous as well.
Look what happened once.

After a hard day in office, Manish and I happened to find each other at the bus stop. Luckily that day, we didnt have to wait for an empty bus. One came along, and we boarded it acrobatically.

As we were ambling the small distance from the bus stop to our home, I noticed a new apartment complex which I hadnt seen earlier.

'Manish, check out this building. Looks new. '

'Hmm'

'Nice isnt it? Looks like a hostel though'

'Wow.. hope its a girls' hostel'

'What difference is it gonna make to our barren lives ?'

'What are you saying? I'd get a pair of binoculars and check out the girls from our terrace.'

'Hmm. Not a bad idea' I said as I warmed to this idea. 'And we could divide it by 4 !'

It is an unwritten rule in our house. The cost of any purchase would immediately be put down in the common pool to be borne equally by all the flat occupants.

Another unwritten rule is that everyone would immediately try to detach himself from the purchase so that he doesnt have to contribute.

'No yaar. Amit definitely wouldnt contribute to this. So it can be divided by just 3'.

'Hmm. You are right, though I think that he can always use a close-up view of birds and trees'. I said as I pondered over this.
'Coming to think about it, it would eventually be divided between just the two of us.'

'How?'

'I will tell you why.
We would both be on the terrace using the binoculars on a time-sharing basis.'

'Hmmm' drools Manish.

'I would then zero in on a hot babe when suddenly the view would catch someone else - a guy actually, in the girl's room'

'We arent interested in guys.' says Manish. 'At least I'm not'.

'Me neither' I said throwing him a dirty look. 'But all the same, my natural curiosity takes over, and I focus the binoculars on him'.

'And' says Manish impatiently.

'It is Kaushik.'

For a minute, we laugh like idiots, scaring away the nearby stray dogs and inviting dirty looks from the passerbys.

'It wouldnt make sense for us to charge him for the binoculars if he's gonna be part of the scene most of the times, would it ?'

When we finally calm down we find that we are almost home. We find an auto standing right in front of the gate.

A normal phenomenon except for the fact that it had a not so happy auto driver in it.
In fact, he looked irate. Grumbling, he gave a final look of irritation at the house, and drove the auto away.

I looked at Manish and found him looking at me with a slight smile.

'Amit is home'.

'Yes. I think he just arrived'.

Amit is an auto driver's nightmare.

A Hyderabadi auto driver (for that matter any Indian auto driver) would always assume ignorance on the part of his passenger, and would do either of the two things.

He would switch on the meter, and would take the auto through the longest way possible, accomplishing a mini city tour in the process.
If the passenger is not particular about the meter, he would decide upon a price and would take the auto through a million short cuts and get him to his destination in a matter of minutes.

Not so when Amit is the passenger.

Amit would get the driver to switch on the meter and would direct him through nooks and crooks which even the driver would be unfamiliar with, and would almost always pay him about half the price which he'd make on some other passenger.

There were a couple of occasions when we had to save the driver from beating Amit up.

There were a couple of occasions when we had to save the driver from beating himself up.

There was an occasion when there was a large congregation of autos at a place. We believe that they were thinking hard to come up with solutions to tackle the Deshpande problem.

If ever you visit Hyderabad, and if you happen to take an auto please dont be surprised if you find his poster on the inside of the auto with the words 'Run away when you see him' under it.

Amit scares the living Jesus out of auto drivers. He really does.

Well, if you think that I'll close the post with this one, think again. I have a habit of saving the best for the last.

Check out the following snippet of a chat conversation I had with a girl. Lets call her Mary.

Oka: Wow, sounds great ! When would you be here?

Mary: I think we should be there by Saturday morning.

Mary: Hey, I would need directions to your place.

Oka: Yeah. I'll tell you how to get here. Dont worry about all that.

Oka: Wait a minute.. you arent gonna land up so early that he'd still be in his bed in his underwear, are you ?

Mary: Oh, I wouldnt mind that at all :)

Oka: What ???

Mary: In fact, it would be well worth the visit !

Never knew that Kaushik had this sort of a reputation.

Deshpande, Amit Deshpande.

2005-02-20T01:51:00.000-08:00

It was beautiful.

The evening sky was clear, without a speck of cloud. The scattered stars decorated its vast expanse with the full moon smiling gloriously among them. Directly below, from the placid waters of the Hussain sagar lake, shone his near-perfect reflection.

The gentle breeze ruffled her long hair and a few beautiful strands fell across her lovely face. She turned away from the heavenly view of the lake to look at me.
She smiled.

She was beautiful.

Leaning across the table, I whispered into her ear. She immediately broke into giggles - sounding like a dozen wind chimes dancing to the tune of the wind. I couldnt take my eyes away from her magnificent beauty.

As those melodious peals of her laughter faded into the evening, she slipped her palm over mine. She smiled like an angel. Oh, how weak in the knees I went when she smiled like that.
The gentle breeze lightened further, and for a second everything was perfectly still.

Gently she sang...

"With their guns, and their bombs... "

I didnt even think about the relevance of the song, as I closed my eyes and got totally lost in the magic of her voice.

"..and their tanks, they are fighting..."

Something was happening to her voice. It wasnt the same.

"In your head.... in your head..."

Something was really wrong. It wasnt the same sweet voice. In fact it was anything but sweet. She sounded gruff and harsh now. What was happening ? And why was I finding it so difficult to open my eyes ?

"Zombie... zombie.."

It was turning into an absolute cacophony. The voice (if I could call that one) had taken an irritatingly grating quality - like a million toads croaking all at once.
It wasnt a song anymore. It was noise. In its purest form.

"ZOMBIE !!"

My eyes flew open.

In place of the magnificient view, stood my magnificently cluttered room. The Hussain Sagar had shrunk to a puddle of water on the floor - something which Manish had done the day before and I had forgotten to wipe it up. (Nothing drastic. He had just spilt a glass of water). Maybe the light on my mosquito repellent had been the brilliant moon. The fan accounted for the 'breeze'.

Wait a minute.. what about my ravishing beauty? I looked up from my pillow, and found someone meddling with something in the cupboard.

Amit.

"Zombie !! Zombie !!"

And his hair was anything but long and silky. In fact, a porcupine would better resemble his head.
Can the day's start BE any worse ? Trust Amit to rescue me from a lovely dream and throw me into a nightmare.

Amit is our Tansen. He is capable of a million things just with his outstanding voice. When he 'sings', the following could happen.

A grid failure and a power blackout in Hyderabad. (Remember, Tansen could bring the lamps back on. It would take a million Tansens to repair the damage Amit would cause).
The mosquitos in our apartment would fall dead quicker than due to any repellent man has ever discovered and would ever discover.
People in a radius of 1 km would close all their windows and doors, and go into hiding. I've heard that people have even started constructing bunkers. I've also heard that ladies silence their wailing babies by just dropping Amit's name.
Dogs and cats run helter skelter. The few who were unfortunate enough not to escape Amit's wrath.. I mean.. talent would be picked up by dog vans the next day, with their eardrums shattered and hair standing right up in a state of shock.

Okay.
His 'singing' is not that catastrophic. But I am sure he is trying to improve upon his voice and I am worried about the consequences. Someone ought to tell him that he's no Indian Idol.
I am sure millions did, but someone has to tell him in a way that'd shut him up for good.

And its not just in this area where Amit flaunts his high-handedness and arrogance.

Some time back, Anuj's room-mate had packed his bags and left for Bangalore. Anuj was left without a room-mate and was looking for alternate means of accomodation, as he wasnt prepared to bear the full rent himself, and maybe it was much too boring for him to live alone. (He would definitely have weighed the advantages and disadvantages of solititude).

I thought we could accomodate him in our apartment, as we had quite a spacious apartment and one more person wouldnt take up too much space. (forget the fact that Anuj looks more like a bison than a human)
So we thought we could have a meeting among ourselves.

Somehow, the meeting kept getting postponed until Amit decided to take the initiative.
Look at the mail he sent out.
(The text I've reproduced is completely unabridged except for my interspersed comments).

"Hi Flatmates,

This is to bring to your notice that we have a meeting scheduled tonight @ 204, Anand Residency at 20:00 IST.

The important points in agenda to be discussed tonight are

Fate of Mr. Anuj. Whether we want to keep him or kick him out (I wonder how can we kick him out, before he even entered?, but then its the irony).
Fate of the person who promises to get the water refill this time but never fulfils it. We can even argue to replace this species in our flat with Mr. Anuj.
(That would be me.)
Decide on the fate of the persons who are reluctant in washing their own plates. We can even think of replacing this person with revered Mr. Anuj.
(That's Kaushik.)
Decide on the fate of the person who roams around in the flat in undies. This is another option for replacement.
(Manish is gonna kill me for letting this one out.)
Decide the fate of Room No. 3 which is not being used. I am planning to shift there, but if any of you have any objection, it can be raised during the meeting.

I advise you all to be well prepared. Because it is possible that anyone of you could be kicked out for accomodating Mr. Anuj.
However sole power of descretion lies with me and I am free to reject or accept any views. (Bribes accepted with the rule "sort bribe head -1", so rush now)

The meeting will be followed by an unofficial TTMM (Tera Tu Mera Mein) dinner. Book your dinner order @ 9866228820.
(That's Manish's phone number.)

If you have any issues please let me know. But accepting them is altogether different matter @ sole descretion of mine.
Expecting to see you all.

One & Only
Amit Deshpande"

Nobody went to the meeting.

The Oxe effect

2005-02-07T08:26:00.000-08:00

A few weeks earlier...

'I saw a really pretty girl today.'

'She was dark... like Nandita Das. Nandita Das is sexy isnt she ?'

I just nod.

'Her name's Maya. I kept looking in her direction. But she didnt turn and look at me'.

'Shit man, I think I should cut my hair'

Its been quite a while since Karthik left our team. (Refer to my previous post.) We've got over it. All the more because he has a couple of job offers in hand right now, and is debating which one to pick up.

Everything's back to normal. Pratik has gone back to being an animal, throwing his head and growling every now and then, and the rare sensitivity he showed during that period is hardly remembered.

And with the return of the daily routine, back comes the daily discussions about women and girlfriends.

I've never had a girlfriend. Pratik had one earlier but now maybe because of the company he's keeping (read Oka), he's without any relationship as well.
Manish has been way too focussed in life to have anything to do with girls.
With Amit.... girls ? whats that ?

Not that my 'success' with girls kills the die-hard flirt in me.
But it sure is funny that when I flirt with girls, they assume without a second thought that I'm kidding. I mean, surely I'm worth a second's serious thought !

You must read this chat conversation I had with Jess.

Oka: Hey why dont you change your snap on orkut ? I will tell you which one to upload.
(Orkut is a friend-networking website)

Jess: Which one ?

Oka: There was one you sent me, which was really good.

Jess: Which one ?

Oka: The one where the mail's subject was 'Fall in the ditch'.
(Well, when I saw the thumbnail of her snap on orkut, I told her that I am falling in love with her, and asked her to send me the original snap. She sent it with that subject.)

Jess: :))

Jess: You are really very cuuuuuuute.

Oka: ????

Jess: ????

Oka: What ????

Jess: yeah what ???
(She really can be exasperating sometimes.... Actually no. Knowing that she'd read this, she's exasperating all the time.)
(But really, sometimes I wonder if its a computer on the other end of the line, sending me back all these replies and laughing at me in its mechanical robotic voice)

Oka: Mad girl.

Jess: Arey !!

Jess: Ok..forget that. What are you doing ?

Oka: Working. Too much work today.

Jess: Am I disturbing you ?

Oka: Actually you are. But since you are shameless and anyways wouldnt go offline, and since I'm ever a gentleman, I would say no. You arent disturbing me.

Oka: Hey.. wait a minute. I gotta take a leak. I've been holding it for a really long time.

Jess: :D. Go.

Oka: By the way, holding it = holding the sensation. No pervert thoughts okay ?

Jess: I didnt even think of it. You are really sick. :))

Oka: That I am.

Jess: Shameless too.

Oka: That I am.

Oka: You done with abusing me ?

Jess: Yes. for now. But there's more to come. :))

Oka: You are always laughing at me :(

Jess: =)) =))

Jess: You are really really cuuuuute.
(Wow man.)

Jess: Cute doggie !!

Doggie ???? Wait a minute.... Doggie ???? I mean, Timmy back home - my pet dog, would really get angry if I tell him how strange I found this.
But still... doggie ???
I can almost visualise her petting my head, and throwing a frizbee in the air, with me running after it, taking a huge leap and making the catch perfectly with my teeth, which I then get it back to her with my tail wagging all the while.
Doggie indeed !!

Well, its not like I havent had weird experiences earlier with other women, but still fate never ceases to amuse me.

Before I turned into a flirt, before I met Jess, there was a girl whom I really was in love with. So much, that I had charted out my whole life with her in mind. My mind's quite fertile when it's excited. And she caused such excitement in my life that I had painted a vision of my life with her in brilliant colours.

A few months back she messaged me on the Yahoo messenger that she had something really important to say. She asked me to give her my phone number or call her at a number.
I called her up.

'Oka. I'm getting married !!! I'm so excited !!!'

A second's pause.
In that second, I had a distinct vision of the whole divine assembly of gods watching from the heavens above, rolling on the floor and holding their sides with laughter.
Man ! Cant believe that gods have a sense of humour as well. I thought the maximum they could do was smile while giving away boons to devotees, or frown with anger when they're destroying demons.

As I slouch on the couch on a Sunday morning in front of the television , I think that this is something every guy goes through in his life. Success in relationships is always elusive for the average guy. I mean, I really havent heard of anyone setting his sights on a girl and then in a matter of weeks going around with her.

Or have I ?

The door bell rings. Amit goes for it.
Its Kaushik. And there's someone else with him.
She has lovely eyes and sharp attractive features. Her black top outlines her sexy figure.

She's hot.

Kaushik quickly introduces us to her. He cracks a quick joke about each one of us, enough to get her laughing. I can barely keep my jaw in place.

She goes into his room. As Kaushik is about to follow her into his room, I call him.

'Hey Kaushik'

'Yeah'

'Who's she ?'

One corner of his mouth goes up in a sly smile as he runs his hand through his long wavy hair.

'Maya'.

Laid My Ass Off !!!

2005-01-27T07:50:00.000-08:00

Something serious happened last week.

Something grave enough to get me started on a serious post. I was halfway through it, when I had to suddenly leave for home.
The next day the gravity of the situation was lost, and I just couldnt get myself to complete the post.

I did try. But when I re-read it, it sounded artificial.
And everyone knows how much I love honesty and genuineness. :)

To add to that, Kaushik suggested this post's title 'Laid my ass off' - which obviously kills any expectations of seriousness. I had to choose between the great title and the gravity of my post.

So here I am, rewriting my post, without any intention to sound serious or casual. Its as natural as the other posts.

A few weeks earlier, Oracle had finally managed to acquire Peoplesoft.

This came after an intense 18 month struggle during which Peoplesoft had tried virtually everything in the business book to avoid being taken over. But Oracle, the aggressive juggernaut that it is, finally managed to buy out Peoplesoft.
(Oracle and Peoplesoft are the number 2 and number 3 companies in the Business Application software field. SAP is number 1)

This meant quite a few things.

It meant an increased customer base, as most of Peoplesoft's customers would eventually move on to Oracle business applications.
It meant that Oracle would move from a distant 2nd position in the Business Applications market to a strong 2nd position behind SAP, the market leader.
It meant that Oracle would achieve 'economies of scale'; a business term which basically means that their average production cost would decrease as the production increases.

It meant one more thing.

Job cuts.

Since the takeover, we had a vague idea that there would be some job losses. Mind you, I am no expert on mergers and acquisitions, but I did read up a tutorial on mergers and acquisitions, and found myself staring at one of the 'advantages' of acquisitions - 'reduction of staff' - for a little longer than necessary.

Rumours started trickling in, that there are going to be quite a few job cuts in Oracle IDC as well. (IDC stands for India Development Center). A bit later, we learnt that every team across Oracle is going to get affected.
The alarm balls, I mean, bells started ringing.

Our team has four recent joinees - Sunil, Karthik, Pratik and I. Of these, Sunil, Pratik and Karthik belong to a sub-team headed by Sreeji, while I report directly to Ramesh, who's our team's manager.

Pratik had almost given in to the fact that he was going to have to pack his bags. I dont know if he was pretending, but every 10 minutes he had to say something which connected to the lay-offs.
Maybe it wouldnt have disturbed me too much.
But he kept using the word 'we' when he referred to being fired.

That perturbed me.
That got me thinking on whether it was that obvious that I should get fired.

Well, I did have my own logic on why it should be just me who should be fired from the team.

Except me, everyone else in my sub-team was experienced, and added value to the team. If they had to remove the least contributing person from my team, no prizes for picking the 'deserving' person. Besides Pratik's team had just two experienced seniors. They needed someone to carry the team's flag when the oldies leave. So I reckoned that none of them would be fired.

One chat conversation between Pratik and I is worth mentioning. Its a bit silly that its a chat conversation, since we sit right next to each other. But then the terror of the impending lay-offs had shut us up.

(I was deep into my work, when suddenly there appears the chat window with a message from Pratik.)

Pratik: Hey, asshole. I am serious. What do we do if we lose our jobs ?
('We' again. Grrrrr.)

Oka: You throw around a few computers and break a few monitors. Since I am not as strong as you, I'll throw around a few mouses and a few keyboards.

Pratik: [Beep, beep, beep]
(Some very sweet sounding words from an obviously unimpressed Pratik, urging me to be serious. But seriously, even my blog is too decent for such words.)

Oka: We'd go out and look for another job. What else ? Besides, the job market is booming. We'd find good jobs without much fuss.

Pratik: I am planning to direct or act in a porn movie. I'll then sell the CDs. At least until I get a decent job.

Oka: Yeah, stick to directing. If you act, people might think that its a clip from the discovery channel. And whatever you say, animal sex is not arousing.
(Pratik is big and built like an animal)

'Ouch !! You fucking animal !!'
(I figured that this wouldnt need a label. Its clear who cried out.)

Oka: Hey, I had a weird dream yesterday night.

Pratik: What?

Oka: We both are fired and...

Pratik: Bastard, its not a dream. It'll happen now.

Oka: Listen !

Oka: Well, we both are fired. We pack our bags, and then walk dully down the stairs. We cross the road and wait for the bus.

Oka: We then decide to take the share auto. There's one auto with two people already sitting in it. We get into it.

Oka: The auto driver waits for the 5th seat to be filled so that he can drive with the vehicle full.

Pratik: Then ?
(Animals are instinctive. In their book of values, patience is not a virtue.)

Oka: You get impatient and force the driver to start.

Oka: He just about starts when a guy, huffing and puffing, calls out for the auto to stop. The voice sounds strangely familiar.

Oka: We both turn around to check him out.

Pratik: Then ?

Oka: It is Ramesh.

(We share a moment of crazed laughing. Thankfully the others have their headphones on. I wasnt too eager about announcing this joke to the general public.)

(Pratik had a weird look on his face.)

Oka: What are you doing ?

Pratik: Copying this conversation to Ramesh.

Later, Pratik and I plodded down to the cafeteria. We do that every half an hour.
So much that people had started to place their coffee and biscuit orders with us.

We met up with Sandeep there. (Sandeep sits on our floor). Sandeep is another big guy like Pratik. After a brief palm crushing match, the two of them finally start behaving again like humans. Thats when I joined in the conversation.

Fifteen minutes later, which included a few serious discussions about the lay-offs, and a few not so serious (guffawing rather) discussions about them, a few envious looks at the cafeteria workers (who we thought held stable jobs), and a few err.. lets say, not-envious looks at the girls sitting on the adjacent table, we walked back to our cubicles.

We obviously couldnt work, because the feeling that our asses were on fire wouldnt let us sit, forget about working. So we started chatting with people we knew.

I managed to scare Manish that the job-cut wave is coming his way soon. As if it were some tsunami, and he's standing in just an underwear with a small yapping puppy next to him, watching the waves looming over him.

He did get scared. You cant deny me that much credit.

A chat window pops up, and I see a message from Pratik. I see a pasted conversation between him and Sandeep. It went something like this.

Pratik: 12 in Projects and 4 in financials have lost their jobs.
(Obviously, Pratik was doing the same thing as me.)

Sandeep: Yeah.

Pratik: and around 30 in HRMS.

Sandeep: Yeah... and me too.

Pratik: What?

Sandeep: Yeah, I've lost my job as well.

Pratik: What the fuck are you saying. Stop bluffing.

Sandeep: Bastard, I am not kidding. I have a big relieving letter in my hand.

Five minutes later, Sandeep walks into our cubicle, hands over a few SQL books to Pratik.
His eyes are bloodshot.
He shrugs, and then leaves.

All we could do was look at each other.

We were shocked out of our fucking wits.

For about five minutes, there was absolute silence between the two of us. We both were sitting back on our chairs, with our heads bent. I kept going back to the conversation we had with Sandeep barely a few hours back.

The lay-offs had finally come to our floor. It would be minutes before it comes to our team. Ramesh would lay one of us off any moment.

Then walks in Karthik.
I realised that he hadnt been sitting at his place till then.
Ramesh follows him.

'Just give me 5 minutes.' Karthik said.

My eyes get down, and find a big white envelope in Ramesh's hands.

The reality hit me. I now knew who was the casualty in our team. Somehow I regretted all the casual jokes I had made about the whole issue. For a moment I hated my nonchalant attitude towards the whole thing. This thing was serious.

Karthik switched off his PC, got up, picked up the plastic cover containing his stuff and with the other hand picked up the white envelope.

As he was about to walk out of our cubicle, our eyes met.

Just for a second.

He turned away immediately.
I really am at a loss for words on how I felt, when I saw the pain and disbelief in his eyes.

After Karthik had left, Ramesh called forth a meeting. He announced that we had to lose one person unfortunately. He also said that with this, the lay-offs for this cycle finally come to an end.

I didnt feel relieved.

The meeting came to an uneasy end and everyone walked back to their seats.

I still couldnt work. I swivelled around slowly on my chair, towards where Karthik sits.... I mean... used to sit.

His monitor, which always had colorful wallpapers, was dark.
His desk was unusually uncluttered.

A boy came and wiped away the marker marks on the desk.

My eyes rested on the plastic bottle on his desk, with water upto half the level.
A tiny water droplet tricked down the outer surface of the bottle.

The boy picked up the water bottle, gave the desk a final wipe with his cloth, and left.

Six-pack someone

2005-01-18T05:12:00.000-08:00

Crunchhhhhhh...

No you pig, its not the sound of someone crunching a wafer. Its actually pretty close to the sound which my palm made when I shook hands with Sabih - my gym trainer.
Believe me, it took me a lot of effort to block the nerve impulses which travel from my palm to my face.
Mind over matter, you see.
(Its just like me to attempt a bit of boasting even in situations most embarassing to my ego).

If you could get whatever you want just by visualising yourself getting your most passionate desires, I would've had a body like Hrithik Roshan. Sadly, the books which exhort 'the visualization technique' also talk about following it up with consistent action.

So, I made the 7th attempt at building up my body.

Umm... it might be more than 7....

Uh... its actually around 10...

Umm....

Oh forget it.

The bottomline is, I wanted a great body to avoid the pain of thinking of retorts to buddies making fun of skinny ole me, and... ahem.. a few other common reasons.

So I joined the Cyber-Pearl gym.

Well... I (re)discovered something almost immediately.
You dont have to have a great body to boast about it. Just working-out will add a lot of weight to your head. Yeah.. thats where you build muscles first - in your head.
I found myself looking for opportunities to tell people that I work-out. This had a lot of amusing results.
Read on.

Built to a T

My first IMS Communication Skills Building class.

I dont know how the topic got to exercising.
Oh..yeah.. I know. The instructor was about to give us an exercise in communication and damn his stupid parallel thinking brain, he asked how many of us physically exercise.

Needless to say, I raised my hand.
After he had asked everyone else, he asked me what I do in the name of exercise.
A bit indignant that I was asked after everyone else, I said that I go to the gym.

A pause.

'Where are the muscles man ??'

A longer pause.

'They're all inside my T-shirt' (and a stupid, sheepish, silly grin).

Oh.. Thank you.. thank you so much God for somehow making me wear a full-sleeved T-shirt that day !

Knowledge is potential power

I found this modified adage in a book called 'The monk who sold his ferrari'. It makes sense. What it basically says is that knowledge when applied is powerful.
I am gonna go home and look if the book has the author's email address somewhere in it. I want to append a paragraph to that one.

Knowledge applied at the wrong place, at the wrong time, by the wrong person renders the ego powerless.

Sreeji, Anuj and I were in the middle of our sets. And we were talking about the relative sizes of the muscle groups. As it is, the workout schedule is always designed in such a fashion that every session a big and a small muscle group is exercised.

I have a lot of knowledge about muscles, exercises and stuff. I really do. Its just that I didnt get to apply all that knowledge on myself.

Oka: Triceps and Biceps are both smaller muscle sets as compared to the chest, the shoulder, the back and legs.

Oka: Triceps are bigger than biceps.

Sreeji: Really ? I dont think the biceps are smaller than the triceps.
(Let me enlighten you with my knowledge here. Popularly, a man's fitness is associated with the size of his bicep. The tricep is relatively less popular, which would lead people to think that the bicep is more important and hence bigger.)

Oka: No. The triceps are bigger.

Sreeji: Maybe you are looking at yourself and saying that the biceps are smaller than triceps.

Anuj, the asshole that he is, bursts out laughing.

My wit betrayed me then and I didnt have an answer :(
Ideally my reply would have been...

Oka: In that case the stomach would have been the largest muscle group if people take a look at you two !!

Pity, that I couldnt think of this right then.

Mark of the Oko...

Anuj is the greatest show-off among the people I've known after coming to Hyderabad. Well.. let me qualify it.. he's the greatest show-off among the people I like. He doesnt spare a chance to ridicule my phsique and self-glorify his.

It was yet another day at the gym, where he was having a lot of fun out of comparing my skinny arm with his fat one.
I couldnt bear it. It was a do or die situation. I had to boast about something.

'My knuckles are fucking hard, you know.
I used to practise hitting the wall when I was undergoing martial arts training'.

'Oh.. is it ?'

'Yeah. I can hit the wall pretty hard, and not feel a damn. Watch this'

and I let out a punch at the innocent, white wall next to us.

'See... I feel nothing'.

'Oh wow.'

I was just about relishing my success at having the last word in this boasting contest, when a huge guy tapped my shoulder. It was Siddharth - the other gym trainer. He pointed at something on the wall.

'That wouldnt go off the wall'.

It was the mark of my dirty fist.
That was when I realised that there were quite a few people who had been watching this, for there was the voracious sound of laughter around us.

As hard as a bone... or a bone ?

Nothing would complete this post of kelas, better than this piece of conversation between me and Jess (remember the post 'Dating Rules ??')

Oka: I underwent 3 years of martial arts training.

Jess: Oh !

Oka: You should see my abdomen. I have a deadly six-pack there.

Jess: Whats a six-pack ?

Oka: I have six groups of rock-hard ridges showing on my abdomen.

(A pause)

Jess: They must be your ribs !

Subtle boasting minus subtlety

2005-01-10T02:46:00.000-08:00

What causes a person to boast ?

Well, I can put down a few reasons on paper, but I think boasting cant be explained completely.

Here are a few reasons why I think a person might boast. Before I give you the points, there are two things to be noted here.
Thing number 1. Before you get smart and start asking me what happened to my supposed-to-be-funny blog, let me tell you that I've decided to get some serious stuff in. Thats the only way I can convey to you that apart from being a clown, I am a bit intellectual too.
Thing number 2: I just came back from a coffee, and I forgot this one. So lets forget it.

When a guy meets someone new, he'd want to convey how important he is. He would be intent on creating a good image of himself in the person's mind. For example, if I meet X, before X concludes something from my dark, skinny, bent-nosed, messy-haired personality, I would hurry up and do something which would get X to think of me in good light.

And there's always the desire to be looked up to. People love being hero-worshipped. They love being looked up to in awe and wonder, however humble they play.

The reason why I dont think boasting can be completely explained is this. Why would a guy keep boasting to people who already are awe-struck and have an amazing opinion about him ? Is image something like the government ? To be re-elected periodically ? Or does boasting become a habit ?
I really cant say.

Coming to the interesting stuff.
I hate boasting.
I love boasting, but I hate boasting.

I love it when I boast, but when others do that, I hate it. It ignites in me an immediate desire to bring them down to earth. And more often that not, I end up doing it.

Following was one of the chat conversations I had with a guy. This guy is an amazing 'Age of Empires' player. (AOE is a computer game). And every player including me knows that he's amazing.

The scene is after a series of AOE matches. Matches, in which, quite predictably, Dude won. (I am gonna call him Dude). I find this guy online on Yahoo. So I pull him for a chat. Its 1-30 AM.

Oka: Hey, playing another ?

Oka: How come you are still in office ?

Dude: No. Not playing another.

Oka: What are you doing ?

Dude: I have booked the 2 AM cab.

Dude: Was watching the recorded replay of the game.

Oka: Are you thinking of strategies for the next game or something ;)

Dude: Told you. I am watching the replay.

Oka: Okay.

Dude: How's your GD/PI preparation going on ?
(I think, I owe you an explanation here. GD/PI stands for Group Discussion / Personal Interviews. We both had taken CAT (Common Aptitude Test for B-schools) and we both had cleared it and received calls from some IIMs to attend the GDs and PIs - which constitutes the next round of the admission procedure)

Oka: It hasnt even started man.

Oka: I am always busy with work, and when I am not, I am playing AOE :)

Oka: How about you ?

Dude: Same here.

Dude: Actually I had planned to prepare and take CAT the next year.
(This is where subtle boasting begins)

Oka: Oh.. so you just gave it a shot this time, and you got through. Is it ?

Dude: I hadnt enrolled myself in any coaching classes. I took just a few practise tests.
(Advanced subtle boasting)

Oka: Are you some sorta fucking genius or something ?

Dude: I am just a normal human being, who gets lucky sometimes.
(Outrageously subtle boasting.)
(By now, you should have guessed the definition of subtle boasting. Boasting with an attempt - often a feeble one - at modesty.)

Oka: Modesty huh ?

Dude: My wing mates used to say the same thing at college when I scored 1520/1600 in GRE without any preparation.
(Subtlety just went for a toss.)

Oka: Wow. Thats great.

Dude: Nope. I was just lucky, thats all.

Dude: The only time I wasnt lucky was in my IIT-JEE.
(I forgot to tell you. This guy is from IIT - a premier institute in India. Not that I expect non-Indians to read this blog. But there's no harm in nurturing high hopes.)

Oka: What was your rank in IIT-JEE ?
(Why am I giving him more chances to boast ? Well.. maybe you should wait and watch.)

Dude: My rank was 1433.

Oka: Thats awesome man !

Dude: Hmm.
(His ego thoroughly pampered, he's at a loss for words for a second.)

Oka: I was also one of the also-rans of IIT-JEE. :)

Dude: You are from BITS, right ?

Oka: Yeah.

Dude: Which discipline were u in ?

Oka: Information Systems.

Oka: I went to BITS, because I wasnt getting software in IIT.

Dude: Oh.. what was your rank in IIT-JEE ?

Oka: 1350.

5 seconds....
10 seconds....
20 seconds....
30 seconds later.

Dude: Ok.

Dude: You got selected right ? How come you call yourself an also-ran ?

Oka: Hmm.
(I can tell him why. But he has to go through this blog first. And by the way, no prizes for guessing who has leapt into the best subtle boaster spot.)

Dude: When did you pass out ? 2003 ?
(Well, he's probably assuming that we both must have passed out the same time, and he's getting it confirmed)

Oka: No. 2004.

Dude: Was it a 5 year course ?
(Maybe he is a 2003 passout and he's probably assuming that we might have taken JEE the same time, but getting it confirmed all the same.)

Oka: Nope. 4 years.

Oka: When did you passout ?

Dude: Same. 2004.

Oka: Was yours a 5-year course ?

Dude: No. 4 years.
(The last few lines of the conversation might be meaningless. But for me, they sure do provide one more perspective into the character of the boaster. A boaster finds it difficult to accept that someone has beat him in some department.)

Oka: Hmm..

Oka: Okay man.. see you later at a game tomorrow. :)

Oka: Bye.

Dude: Bye.

Well. I havent said this earlier. But here's a disclaimer. The accounts I narrate are all inspired from real life conversations I've had. But they are all exaggerated to a slight degree, and sometimes to a large degree.
So buddies, keep behaving nicely with me. And no hard feelings :)

The importance of being eldest

2004-12-26T20:18:00.000-08:00

The idea that good-natured, obedient, rule-abiding mama's boys never cause problems to others, is bullshit.

Amit, my room-mate is an ideal kid. Why ? Get a load of this...

he doesnt drink,
he doesnt smoke,
he doesnt ogle at girls,
he doesnt participate in discussions about girls, or any discussion which your mom might consider wild,
he gets up early, takes bath early, says a prayer and leaves for office, selecting the means of transport which would cost the least.

Man... can I visualise a beaming proud mom behind this guy.

All these are quite admirable.... but for the following sixth point.

He respects people older than him.

Now, Manish is a senior. He has had a stint in another company before he landed in Hyderabad. (Kaushik, Amit and I are fresh out of BITS). That makes him older and umm....(I wont say wiser) elder. (I dont care if I have to twist the English a bit to avoid praising Manish)

Well, the red-hot young men that we are, wit is something which is first-nature to us... there's hardly a minute without some kind of teasing or leg-pulling between us - which invariably ends in one guy being laughed at by the rest.... only until he comes up with a retort.

Manish, Amit and I were walking towards our apartment after dinner. I was in my own world dreaming about I dont know what.... when I got a vague feeling of Manish pulling Amit's leg. I listened in on the conversation...

'Saale.. kya dekh raha tha ?'
Apparently some hot babe had passed by and my guess is Amit turned in that direction. Now I want to make two things clear here.
Its impossible that a babe passes by without me noticing everything about her. Its only that, after a lot of practise, its become an automatic activity for me. (Remember how mechanical driving becomes, if you have been doing that for quite a while ?). That's the first point.
The second is, Amit definitely wouldnt have looked at the girl. But Manish was least bothered.

'I was looking at the oranges... maybe we should get some'
(Yeah.. that is it.. there was a fruit seller nearby and Amit was obviously looking in that direction.)

'Whose oranges do you wanna get?' Manish retorts.
I couldnt stop laughing. Mind you.. its not that I wasnt trying.

'Samjha ki nahi ?' Manish asks when Amit purposely maintains a stony face.

'Of course I got it, I've known you two for more than six months. I know what you are getting at.'

Something doesnt seem right to me.
'Wait a minute.. how is it six months ?'

'August, September, October, November, December.... six.... uh.. five months' which only makes our laughing worse. Manish is almost rolling... a bit exaggeratedly... he actually doesnt care if its not a big joke.. all he wants to do is screw Amit.

'Whoa !' I cry out... as I get a solid kick on my rear.

'Come on.. what did I do ? It is Manish who's laughing like a nut !'

'You started the whole thing.'

'!!!!'

We get back and switch on the TV. Kal Ho Na Ho is playing on Sony. Amit who is a die hard Kal Ho Na Ho fan (more about that in a later post) has his eyes glued to the screen.

Now, people who've seen the movie (and remember the opening) would know that there's a pretty unique camera work when the titles go up initially... there's Preity Zinta running and the camera zeroes in on her every now and then from behind. (Note this - from behind)

'I like this idea... of squares zeroing in to focus her' Amit volunteers.

'I know what you like about it.' Manish smirks.

As Amit turns to let out a rude stare... 'Oka has known you for more than four years and I have known you for more than four months. Do you want me to count the months?'

'This time I really lose it.. I am laughing my ass off when Amit unleashes a series of kicks on my much-tortured bum.'

As I curl up, I cry out 'Hey what did I do ? This is so fucking unfair !!'

'I cant hit Manish because he's elder. So you have to bear the punishment on his behalf'

I hate Momma's precepts.

From "Invincible" to the "Wild Animal"

2004-12-24T04:11:00.000-08:00

I was absolutely fascinated by the computer when I saw one at my friend's place the first time.

Now this friend is an amazing exaggerator. He's a Gujju and hence is born with a business sense, and the ability to talk convincingly. I guess he talks to all his friends as if he's dealing with a customer.
Everytime I went to his place, he had something to show me which would both overwhelm and fascinate me.

When he was demonstrating to me the computer (which was an expensive 386 with DOS running on it) he did it to perfection. And somehow he selected the perfect thing that would influence me - a car racing game. My jaw hung open and it remained that way throughtout the time I walked back to my home.

After that I launched into an elaborate strategy to get my parents to buy me a computer. I somehow got my Dad into thinking that software is hot, and that Mom should study it. My Mom enrolled herself into a computer course, and then I managed to convince her that she would need a computer if she has to learn anything at all.

Before long I was playing the car racing game, trying to beat all the records my friend had set. (And yeah.... my parents' experiment with software had already stopped by then)
The day I beat his record, I couldnt wait to brag about it to my friend.

My lips stitched themselves shut, as he ridiculed me for playing that age-old car racing game. He showed me a 3-D first person game (Wolf-3d.. if anyone wants to know) which was absolutely awesome.
I took a bus back to my place, with my jaw dropped open.

Some time later, I got the brand new OS - Windows 95 installed on my computer (thanks to my excellent fooling... ahem... convincing skills). An hour later, I was knocking on the gujju's door.
'Hey... I wanna tell you something.'
He says 'Forget all that... I will show you something which will blow your mind'
We go into a room, and sitting proudly on a table is a brand new colour screen monitor with a pentium CPU nearby. On its side are speakers which produce music with amazing clarity.
Predictably, I cycle back with my jaw somewhere near my feet.

It took me three years to get a system with an equivalent capacity. In the meantime I got into a good university... the second best in India actually, and was doing quite well there. It was located pretty away from Chennai, my hometown. So we werent in contact that often.

Yes.. these kind of incidents happened everytime I went to his place when I was back for the holidays. But somehow I got used to it by then, and learnt to keep my jaw in its place.
(The latest thing - I land up a job in Oracle, and I am discussing about it with this guy over the phone, when he tells me that he's opened his own company. He's taken a small internet cafe for lease in which he and his team work late into the night !!)

Well, I have deviated completely from the subject. I was just trying to convey my fascination for computer games.

There's this game called the 'Age of Empires' - a long strategy game (usually runs into hours) wherein you have to manage a kingdom (each player manages a kingdom). I had played this game quite often in my college and was pretty good at it (I dont have the benefit of hindsight when I say this). So I was pretty much keen to participate in the games played over the network by my colleagues at my company.

The first game, I have my screen-name (Its the name of your kingdom in the game) as "Invincible".
Pre-game, when the participating players are chatting... (a snapshot)

Invincible: Hi guys !

Invincible: Ready for AOE ??

Nav: Hi..you are new. Whats your name ?

Invincible: [beep] (I say my name here)

Nav: Are you a good player?

Invincible: I am pretty good, I think.

Invincible: I used to play against 4 players in my college and still beat all of them singlehandedly.

Nav: Oh..

Nav: In that case, why dont you be in the opposing team.
(All the players usually group themselves into two team of opposing kingdoms pre-game)

Invincible: No probs :)

Invincible: [to team] Guys we'll kill them !

Invincible: [to team] They wont know what hit them !

20 minutes later. My kingdom is in ruins. There are elephants and horses running all over the place which used to my kingdom a bit earlier (which umm... is the start of the game). There's a solitary villager standing at the corner of my map. Just when I make up my mind to rebuild my kingdom (villagers can gradually build entire kingdoms) using that particular guy, he's killed by a bow-man.

Extra Information: Remember the elephants and horses I was talking about ? They were all part of Nav's army.

The next game is a few days later. I'll give you a snapshot of the chat which happened pre-game.

(as soon as I enter)

Error: Who's Wild Animal ?

Wild Animal: [beep] (again.. my name)

Error: I think he's new.. are you good at the game?

Wild Animal: No, I am a beginner.

Nav: He has played before. He was "Invincible" in the previous game.
(I curse his memory here)

Son of Phat: Oh..ok.
(There's a pause in the chatting here, wherin I get an absolutely irritating vision of each one of them clutching hard at their stomachs trying to control their laughing)

Son of Phat: Teams ?

Nav: Me, Cyclops and Error vs. Son of Phat, Savage and Wild Animal.

Son of Phat: HAHAHA !! Are you kidding ?? The game would be over in 20 minutes.

Nav: Okay, you suggest then.

Son of Phat: Okay, how about this... You, Savage and Wild Animal vs. Cyclops, Error and me.

Nav: Thats not fair.. its 2 vs. 3

Error: But you are the best player, and its only fair that you should get Wild animal.

Nav: But..
(a lot of chatting goes on, debating the teams. Finally Nav settles for Son of Phat's proposal)

Nav: Hey.. wild animal are you there ???

Wild Animal: Yes.

Nav: Shall we start ?

Wild Animal: Ok.

Some statistics: (Note: They are approximate)

Screen Name in Game 1: Invincible
Screen Name in Game 2: Wild Animal

Duration of survival by Invincible in Game 1 : 21 minutes.
Duration of survival by Wild Animal in Game 2 : 1 hour 43 minutes.
(Hint: Opposing players try and attack the strongest player first)

Total number of chat messages by players in Game 1 : 46
Total number of chat messages by players in Game 2 : 89
(Hint: Players had a tough time deciding whose team would 'bear' the joker in the second game)

Total number of chat messages by Invincible in Game 1 : 31
Total number of chat messages by Wild Animal in Game 2 : 4
(Hint: Not required)

My screen name is still 'Wild Animal'.
Time is the best healer they say. But I hope time causes selective amnesia.

Dating rules.

2004-12-23T11:09:00.000-08:00

I am a die-hard Yahoo messenger flirt.

The girls I flirt with are usually whom I know very well, and whom I've taken time to know for the sole reason that they are witty.
My flirting style is unique. I bring into my flirting my other qualities like frankness, straightforwardness and perversion.
Of course, I am not gonna talk too much about the results of my 'frank' flirting.

One conversation is worth mentioning all the same. It went something like this... (Lets call her Jess)

Me: So tell me, will you come with me for a date on Christmas ?

Jess: depends on your behaviour from now !

Me: Do you want me to address you 'My Lady' everyday from now ? Or should it be 'Your highness'... or do you want me to hold the door open for you ? Do you want me to kiss your hand ?

Jess: =))

Me: Well, I can kiss your hand, but it might not be accurate... the kiss can well land somewhere else.

Jess: Chi..chi..chi.

Me: Well, in case you say yes, I have my own conditions for it....

Me: Here are my 4 golden rules of dating.
1) you should laugh at every joke of mine... however non-funny it is.
2) you should bat your eyelashes when i look deep into your eyes.
3) you should pay the bill
4) and finally after the date, you should share a long, passionate kiss with me, in the moonlight.

Jess: Screw urself !!!!

Jess: =)) =))

Me: You think, I am kidding ?? Well, I am dead serious.. so when's our date ?

Jess: After all your conditions, NEVER ! =))

Jess: Hey..wait.. be right back in a while.

Me: Where are you going ?? Why dont you stand and face it like a woman ??

(she comes after a while)

Jess: You face it like a man ------> NO.

Me: :(

(The chat conversation is censored after this, as it is considered detrimental to the author's ego.)

Bottomline - My room-mates are rascists.

2004-12-19T20:36:00.000-08:00

"Jhoot Bole Kauwa kaate...."
"Kaale Kauwe se dariyo"

Chances are that you might have heard this song.

When I was selecting the template for my blog, I came upon one with a black background.
Now nothing inspires me more than the black colour. I absolutely love it.

To know why, you should know a few more details about my glorious personality, espeically my looks.
Well, I am a tall, dark and..... ummm... well I am a tall and dark guy.
(I was about to complete the phrase tall, dark and handsome... when suddenly the stark reality struck me.
Well, 2 out of 3 is good enough !!)

And I dont know why, but wherever I go, there have been millions of jokes about my dark skin. I like to think that it is because my friends just dont have any other thing about which they can pull my leg. Meaning, I am simply perfect in everything else. (I said.. I like to think like that.)

And there cant be people better (or is it worse) at this than my room-mates.
Check this out...

Incident No. 1
I come out of the bathroom, after a face wash. I find a towel (which is Manish's) hanging on the door knob. I go over and wipe my face.
Manish: Now I know why my towel is getting black stains.
Amit who was reading a book and who was a picture of concentration till then, bursts out laughing while I pick up the soft-ball lying nearby and target Manish's ass.

Incident No. 2
I live in an apartment with three other friends - all of us bachelors.. young blood... fiery naujawans... creative thinkers... bold entrepreneurs....... okay stop.

There's a lady who delivers food at our door-step through a delivery-boy.
Incidentally the delivery-boy happens to be a north-indian, and both Amit and Manish happen to speak Hindi as their mother-tongues or almost like that.

This delivery-boy also happened to be particularly, (In hindsight - irritatingly) talkative.
So we got talking.

After a conversation which wasnt unpleasant this guy gets ready to leave. He says, (in Hindi) (looking at Manish) "Aap tho Chandigarh ke hain", (looking at Amit) "Aap Maharashtra ke..." (and then he looks at me) "Our aap tho south indian hain... kaale hai to kya hua.... dilwale hain."

My mouth which until then was wide in a smile, closed at record speed. Amit and Manish tortured their lips by biting them hard to control bursting out in laughter.

Well not for too long... The guy left, and these guys were rolling on the floor laughing at my expense.

All I could manage was a silly idiotic smile.

Incident No. 3
There's a photo session going on. Its a birthday party at 12 midnight, and we are having amazing fun.
We are clicking away with aplomb.
After a lot of funny snaps, we gather for a group snap.
Kaushik is the clicker. Looking through the viewfinder.. he gets the people to move inside the camera's view.
Finally he says, "Hey, I cant find Oka in the viewfinder..."

Amit: No problem... Oka... smile !

Kaushik: Aah..... perfect !!

The clincher
How many of you have had songs written in admiration for your qualities.
I am sure not many.

Well, I've been great enough to have a song written for me.
Listen to this...

"Jhoot Bole Oka kaate..."
"Kaale Oke se dariyo."
- Amit Deshpande

The one and only serious post.

2004-12-19T20:15:00.000-08:00

Note: This is the only post which you can read and actually think of the possibility that I was sober and serious while writing it.

Well guys... I've jumped onto the bandwagon (is that the word?).
Let me introduce myself... I'm Oka (real name withheld) and I'm an ex-BITSian.

So, I'm gonna tell you the reason I've decided to blog. :) Listen up...

The best thing I got of BITS is the sheer number of amazing friends. I was outrageously shy in my school days, and its been quite a transformation in the four years I've been in BITS.

I call these friends great because when we get together, its absolutely amazing the way we keep laughing throughout.
Wit, to me, is the best charmer. And teasing your friend is probably the best way to improve the quality of your friendship. :)
(Believe me, I've made quite a study into the pros and cons of teasing, and I was just about warming to a particular idea, when I found out that there's already a book on it. Its not that I am not creative or brilliant, it is just that some people have a headstart and think of it earlier. Not fair.)

I'm gonna put in this blog all the amazing conversations I've had with my buddies. In between these, I might sneak in a thoughtful and intense post that'll get you thinking. (on why you ever started reading my blog) :)

So read on.
And find it funny. :)