deep shite

Vinay Kumaar sets pace record : Clocks 200 kmph off the bat

2012-01-14T11:45:00.000-08:00

Indian quickie Vinay Kumaar's bowling was the source of some solace for the beleaguered Indian team at Perth on Saturday. One of his well disguised faster deliveries, bowled at a pace of 120 kmph, was smashed out of the ground by Aussie opener David Warrner. The speed gun showed a launch speed from Warrner's bat of 200 kmph, which is a new record in world cricket. Interestingly the previous record was also held by Vinay Kumaar from an IPL match.
Warrner said, 'It was a bit tricky in the beginning - I found myself playing 2-3 shots before the ball arrived. But then we decided to play him as a spinner who doesn't get turn, and we were able to score off him easily. Ridiculously easily, in fact. Maybe I could have converted some of the fours into sixes but then no regrets.' When asked about the 200 kmph record, he said 'All credit should go to Vinay, for bowling in the right areas. I think he's proved what he said about pace not being such a big deal at this level'.
Vinay, however wasn't very happy with his bowling. 'I think I need to control my raw pace a little more, maybe stabilise in the 110-115 kmph range. This record itself won't even last for 2 matches if I play, trust me' he said with a smile.

Overlead

2011-12-04T22:55:00.001-08:00

Overleader(O) : Guys, let's all work together and do this task in a fast and effective manner
Team-members (T) : As opposed to...er...go on.
O : Let's look at what the task is before jumping into action, alright? We've been asked to come up with a tagline for a brand of soap
T : So let's each come up with one option and vote on the best one.
O : I'm afraid that's not the correct approach at all. Let's all discuss in an open manner first.
T : Ok, you suck.
O : I meant about the task. What is the soap trying to convey? Come on, people. We can do this if we work together. What is the soap's message? One by one, who's with me? Who wants to go first?
T : How about 'kills germs' as a tagline? That worked on me when I bought one last week. 'No more stains'? Yes, that sounds better.
O : Let's split up into teams of 2 so that one person can ideate and the other can be a sounding board. Let's take 10 minutes to come up with some options. I will moderate the one-on-ones so that they are productive. Questions? Questions? All on board?
T : 'Smells like' something? Flowers? Sunshine sounds nice. Smells like sunshine
O : Creativity also follows a process. Let's ensure we aren't missing anything. Calm down, people. Let's do this. Who is our audience? It's important to...
T : Are we all agreed on 'smells like sunshine'? Yes?
O : Let's revisit this while we still have time...
Facilitator : (Trriiiing) Time's up
O : Our team has come up with a tagline
F : What are your learnings?
O : We took time to get aligned to the task at hand. But the articulation of the vision made course correction possible. On the personal front, I realised how hard it is to wear two hats, to be a creative contributor as well as the leader of the group. But I guess that comes with the territory. A leader has to...
T : When's the tea break?

He shunned a 3 figure salary to become a slacker

2011-11-23T11:14:00.001-08:00

From barely passing out of IIM-Kolhapur to achieving his dream of not doing anything for long periods of time, Virat Rai shares his memorable journey from which many a lesson can be learnt by overeager youngsters.
Interviewer (I): So Virat, where did you go from IIM? Let's start there.
Virat (V): Well, I had a job offer with a prestigious MNC, which I decided to take up on an experimental basis. I don't remember clearly but...
I : Why? How long ago was it?
V : Yesterday morning. It was my first day at work. We had a boring orientation. Then we were given laptops and I did some blog-surfing on mine. I realised one fine day...
I : You mean on the same day? Yesterday?
V : Yes...that my heart was never in it.
I : 'It' meaning browsing the net on a new laptop?
V : Yes. I think at some level, the corporate culture suffocated my creativity. My childhood passion still raged and gave me sleepless nights.
I : 'Night', you mean. Last night, you didn't sleep.
V : Yes...I had always dreamt of slacking off for a bit. It had always been at the back of my mind.
I : Slacking off? And then doing what?
V : Nothing. That's it. Just you know, chilling and loafing. Whatever you want to call it. Some TV now and then, channel surfing.
I : Ok
V : I think the choice was clear. Continue in a dead-end job which didn't grip me at all or just take the plunge. And I just knew. In a moment of clarity, I found strength from deep within. I called the HR Manager and told her, 'I'm sorry, I can't do this anymore'. That was it. Done.
I : What was her reaction?
V : The HR lady? She said she didn't know who I was and then after a while said I was anyway on probation so return the laptop and be on my way. I walked out, feeling a lot lighter in my head and heart.
I : Is it true that you had a 3 figure salary which you gave up? To chase your dream?
V : Yes (smiles). I can tell you it wasn't easy. I was making close to 3 figures on a monthly basis.
I : But you worked for one day so that would be 30 rupees types max.
V : Yes, to give up that kind of financial security and not turn back. It was tempting to go back but I thought of my parents and my teachers.
I : How did that help?
V : It didn't. I'm on the run now so I can't afford to be spotted by my parents or teachers. But you know, if I think back about it now, to be fair, it wasn't like I didn't learn anything from the company. I observed closely their canteen operations.
I : And?
V : Nothing. I asked specifically if the vada was fresh and they still gave me the morning wala vadas.
I : Anything you'd like to share with our young readers?
V : Just go for it. To fulfill a dream, you should first have a dream, so sleep. Then chase it with passion. One day, the dream will happen in reality and you'll feel a bit weird and say 'Hey! This is like some deja vu' and not quite know what's going on.
I : Thank you.
V : and you may fail in the beginning but remember to keep learning. Courage will be your friend in the journey towards success, like Einstein said.
I : I'm sure.
V : Step out of your comfort zone like I did. It may be difficult but I can tell you, in the long run, things will get even worse.
I : Let me conclude by saying many won't do what you've done and for good reason. Thanks a lot, bye.

KK Nagar scrapped - Jeya calls for enquiry

2011-11-10T04:12:00.000-08:00

In yet another sweeping move targeting programmes named after, or initiated by, the DMuK administration, ADMuK supremo and Chief Minister Jeyalelitha scrapped KK Nagar (Kalainyar Karnanidhi Nagar) from Chennai.
This is the fourth such announcement this month from the ruling party. In prior moves, the Gemini flyover (constructed in the 70s by DMuK) has now been converted into an arc shaped, slightly dangerous, public school; the Anna Centenary library becomes a children's hospital; Karnanidhi's second house is slated to become a parking lot for Jeya's drivers' cars.
Justifying the scrapping, Jeya said 'We already have so many Nagars, Ashoknagar, Annanagar and so on. This KK Nagar is another example of a wasteful investment by DMuK from public funds. I would like an enquiry conducted immediately on the creation of KK Nagar."
"I have no hesitation in scrapping this locality. Buses and vehicles will, starting today, not be allowed to stop in this locality as it does not exist. We are also re-doing all Chennai maps accordingly. Our ambitious plan will need a central grant of 1 lakh crore to operationalise, most of it towards unrelated bribes to my party personnel and some whiteners", she added
When asked about the people who live there, she said vaguely 'We are taking steps to allay the fears of people who live there. They will also cease to be real people but this will be done in a seamless manner'

IIT, IIM, coffee, love, one girl and bad language - An IITian's journey through life covering these aspects in more detail than the other stuff

2011-10-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

Preface
This is my first novel. When I joined IIT and IIM, little did I know that my experiences there would someday be read by other people in the form of a novel. It all started when I was caught doodling at my office desk with a blade. I'd scratched out some obscene statements with supporting illustrations. One of my colleagues, known for his sarcastic tongue, said 'You should totally do this for a living'. Well, here I am doing exactly that.
Let me start by addressing the question that must have occurred to you by now. Why should you buy this book? It looks crappy and it's probably a lurid account of a failed college affair which led to pornographic pursuits, flunking exams and so on. But what you are missing out on, is the fact that you may be a moron who thinks reading graphic details of how I was ragged in college will help you better your chances of gaining admission into these prestigious Institutions.
Also, notice how some people just laugh at foul language and obscene imagery, for no reason at all? You claim to not be one of them? Ha! F@#$ You. (Did you laugh?) Ch####ya (laugh yet?). Saala B******d (C'mon laugh already)
Well, let me tell you, this book is a treat for that kind of audience. It's got so much of the 'good' stuff that if it were made into a movie, the dialogue would be one long 'beep'.
At the heart of this book is a tender love story. At some corner deep in our heart, tucked away in a corner, of our deep hearts, there will be a chhota sa cute romance story from college. You may deny it but you can't refute it. That first love, that girl (or boy if you are a girl reader), the tentative approaches, will always remain etched in eternity. I hope while reading this book, you reignite that stuff even if it is only for 5 minutes-10minutes. If you went to an all-boys college then I guess we'll have to revert back to how this book can help you get admission into the prestigious IIT-IIMs. Without further ado, my story begins in a faraway place called Kanpur. The year was 2006. Her name was Priya. Fair, lean, black-eyed Priya. Aaaaaaaah. The feeling. It was bliss. Like morning coffee in a cold place. Like sunrise after a sandstorm...

Poor quality of Chetain Bagat an issue : Narayanmurthy

2011-10-05T12:55:00.000-07:00

Ex-chairman of Infoshys Narayanmurthy slammed noted tweeter Chetain Bagat's overall quality as an individual today at the Pan-ITI meet in Chennai. 'There is a definite deteriorating trend that I see. He was tolerable a few years back, both as a writer and as an individual. Not the case now' he said, 'We are faced with a grave situation where I don't like whatshisname Bagat's face but he keeps appearing on TV news channels and writing columns and books and tweeting. We have to take firm and concrete steps in a forwardly direction on this matter.'
Chetain Bagat retorted angrily with a tweet that said 'It's ironic that Murty's taking on an author of my stature given that he himself has written several books'

The May-you-help-me section

2011-09-24T02:51:00.000-07:00

"I need to be able to access the cash in this account. So can you help me do that?"
"Yes, sir, of course. Have a seat"
"As far as I understand, I need to make this a joint account or activate internet banking and do a funds transfer"
"Sir, this account is with the Indiranagar branch."
"Yeah, but the customer service guy on the phone said I could do this at the nearest branch"
"Yes, of course, sir. Let me key in the details. Hmm. Sir, this is not a joint account"
"Yes, I want to make it a joint account"
"Ok. I think the best solution is for you to open a new joint account with this branch"
Oh, I see what she's doing. Wasn't it Polya who said 'solve a completely unrelated problem'?
"But I have an account already"
"Then you close that account"
"So you can't make that account a joint account?"
"No, sir, don't do that, sir. You shouldn't"
Her earnestness would have been more appropriate if she were telling me not to drink too much.
"Why not?"
"Because in the case of dividend transactions and taxation and (some other courses I was taught in my banker exam coaching classes) blah blah and hence it will be much better for you to open a new joint account here"
I don't push her but I'm pretty sure I can get her to confess that she had a monthly target to meet in new joint accounts.
"Then help me activate internet banking"
"Sir, surely sir. Can you fill out this form please? I need passport size photo and PAN card"
I go out and get them. And then go back again and get PAN card - original.
"So this is it? Are you sure? I'll get a password by post and I can transact online?"
Who am I kidding? I guess a little optimism creeps into all of us every now and then.
www.lowquality banking. com -> login -> enter your password -> change your password -> a one time password has been sent to your mobile.
Drat! That mobile's no longer functional. Back to the branch to change registered mobile phone number.
Cut to three days later. I happily enter the one time password and enter the world of internet banking. I don't marvel at this for too long though. 'To transfer funds, you need to download and fill 'third party transaction form' and submit at the nearest branch along with your horoscope, ration card, favourite books and hobbies.'
Maybe if I give in and open a new account for now, the lady at the branch will get around to solving my problem too eventually.

Jan Lokepal

2011-08-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

The parliamentary standing committee on law and justice invited memoranda on email to kpsing@sansadnic.in on August 20, 2011 on the Lokepal Bill pending before it since August 4, 2011, from any individuals or organisations interested in the subject matter. Based on the feedback collected, the committee has decided to add the following memoranda into the Bill as special clauses. Having incorporated public opinion thus, the Lokepal Bill (original) together with the following clauses shall form the Jan Lokepal Bill. (Presently, the committee invites help in understanding #6 in the list below from individuals who can read sms lingo)
1. lolz:)
2. who's this kpsing@sansadnic.in, we want anna. WE ARE WITH ANNA. PuNISH CoRuption. kpsing must be raja and kalmadi's email address that's why it doesn't have their names to protect their privacy. anna tum jiyo hazaaron saal, hum tumhaare saath hain
3. ilayaraja is much better than rehman, you rehman fans must be tone deaf!!! or just deaf!!1
4. rajnikanth once heard a joke and the poor joke had to laugh...lololol
5. think what has 60 yrs of independence given us. a poor man still has to fight for 1 rupee water packet. will we all be quiet if this happened to our own mothers pardon my warm regards
6. wat is govt if not ppl by ppl for ppl. ths not ana campn not fit go bk to own cntry
7. This comment was removed by the committee moderator for foul language. But it will figure in the Bill confidentially.
8. I ask simple question of fellow Indians. if there is law already why is not bein followed. how many politicians are in jail tell me.
9. Anna is not India and India is not Anna. I'm not Anna nor Anna I. Who am I (5 across)
10. Ths so called God of crkt has ever saved a match on his own? memory doesn't cm to mind. in my humble dravd is true and only dada is also on offside only...

Tech product review

2011-07-24T10:52:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer : This post has turned out to be a lot more technical than I intended. So if you are not a tech-geek you'll find it pretty dense and incomprehensible.

Google plus has certainly captured the imagination of, well, those who signed up for it in the last few weeks since its launch. It already has 500 trillion users and this number is growing. The saving grace is that it hasn't created any new 25 year old billionaires. Its potential is unmistakable but is it the product that it can be, yet? Let's take a critical look at this product by comparing it to what, in some ways, is its only competitor, my old ipod-shuffle.
1. G+ has friends but Ipod has songs : My shuffle can hold about a hundred songs of all types, English, Hindi, regional languages - you name it (and then download it) and the ipod has it. G+ on the other hand, holds a virtual network of friends and family. You do the math.
2. You can shuffle songs but not friends : Even the most skeptical of song listeners will agree that sometimes you just need to shuffle songs, which my ipod does pretty easily. It can be argued that you can't shuffle friends because it might annoy them but that's just a sore-loser argument in my view. Surely family members and some other 2-3 circles should not mind being shuffled around?
3. Ipod usually comes with earphones : Well, this is self-explanatory. It is rumored that G+ is only in beta phase and when the launch happens, you can download some earphones but then what will you be listening to? Friends' status updates?
4. Privacy : Strictly this is a techno-legal issue and beyond the scope of this article but let me try to simplify it for a lay audience. This is the same malaise that facebook suffered from and can't be ignored. G+ has an option to block some friends (why add them in the first place, moron?) but surprisingly enough, ipod comes a cropper on this one. You can't block a song, but only manage through skipping or deleting.
5. User interface complexity : G+ is a frikking full page on my laptop with so many boxes and text. Ipod has only one circle with 4 arrows. I like. And not facebook-like.
6. Inter-usability between these two : G+ clearly scores on this one too. If I'm listening to a particular song ABC, I can update my status on G+ as "Listening to song ABC" but the reverse integration has just not worked out for Apple. A friend updates his/her status on G+ - absolutely no change in ipod music. And I checked the battery and earphones. Go figure!
7. The physical touch-feel aspect : This one's pretty obvious. You can give your ipod to a friend including the earphones if you don't have any infection or anything. But this is not possible with G+. You can maybe printout your home page and give it to the same friend but I think we can agree it's not the same thing as giving away an ipod.
8. Migration : You were on orkut just a few years back and then you got really lonely there. Sound familiar? Now your facebook friends are vacating for no particular reason. In contrast, when the ipod nano was launched, none of the songs moved out of my ipod, not one.
There's more of course, but these are the top-of-mind issues that developers at both companies are grappling with. Switching costs are high and the product really has to deliver on a unique feature or die a quick death. Will this be another all-out war like facebook versus the desktop computer from the previous decade? Watch this space.

Ragul Gandhi cannot legally drink in Maharashtra - Subra Swami

2011-06-24T02:53:00.000-07:00

Irked by Digveejay Singh's remark that Ragul finally looks old enough to drink, Janta Party President Subra Swami issued a sensational statement here dubbing Singh a Janpath mouthpiece and criticising his statement as one that had no legal or logical basis.
'He still roams around on an Italian passport' said Swami, 'Obviously he has to pay export duties before buying a drink. Also the legal drinking age in Maharashtra is now 25 which means Ragul will find it very tough to buy a drink, given his boyish looks.' When queried about actor Imraan Khan's PIL against the drinking age bar in Maharashtra, Swami said 'There is also a legal minimum age for filing a PIL so we can safely ignore him' with a chuckle.

Interesting conversation - must-read

2011-05-17T03:16:00.000-07:00

There was this atheist professor who decided to prove to his class that God did not exist.
"Can you see God?"
"No"
"See? Proved!"
The class was in stunned silence for over 35-40 minutes before a curly haired short student stood up in the last bench and said, in a confident but not complacent tone,
"Sir, may I go to the bathroom?"
"Yes"
Wait, another hand went up in the second-last bench and a smart looking fellow stood up.
"Sir, can I ask you a return question?"
"No, shhhh, please do some quiet reading,shhhh"
But the young man refused to give up.
"Sir, have you seen heat?"
"hain what?"
"Heat, h.e.a.t, heat"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Have you seen light?"
"Yes, shhhh now, let me focus on correcting these answer papers, please sit down"
"Can you prove that light exists?"
"That's it. Get out of my class room. Now"
"How do you know God does not exist, when you can't prove any simple damn thing?"
"Bring your parents to meet the principal tomorrow"
The first dude who wanted to go to the bathroom was none other than someone from Switzerland like Albert Einstein and the second guy who got thrown out was a distant relative of our very own former president Dr. ABJ Qalaam. The professor was, yes, by now you must have guessed it, Bill Clintain, whose name sounded like a former American President. The principal had a portrait in his room of none other than Europe's very own Isaac Newton. Please forward this interesting episode to all so we can all feel proud about India, physics, religion etc.

Trance

2011-04-26T00:53:00.000-07:00

DJ : Hey ye all, what's up dogs?
Crowd (C) : yea yea yea
DJ : Let's get this mfkin show on the road
C : yea yea
DJ : You guys like your music eh? What do you want me to play?
C : yea yea yea
DJ : I ain't gonna play no fkin' popular music. and that means no (first name1)-fkin-(second name1) and no (first name2)-fkin-(second name2)
C : yea yea yea
DJ : ye know what? I ain't gonna play anything!
C : yea yea
DJ : Let me instead read out some dialogues I wrote m'self.
'you ain't gonna no fk with me mofos, i ain't no saint blah blah etc'
C : yea yea
DJ : Also, let's get some beats goin' eh. (beats)
(repeat beats in infinite loop)
two hours later
C : yea yea
three hours later
C : yea yea
four hours later. The alcohol's drying up and the crowd's sobering up.
C (thinking aloud) :
1.If this place has a dress code, why is the DJ in a banian?
2.How many distinct songs did we just hear? I can recall only two.
3.I was carrying 10k when I came in. Now I need to borrow 5 rupees for bus ticket to go home.

Empowerment

2011-04-11T03:21:00.000-07:00

This is an email trail. So read from down up.

From : D4 (Office boy)
To : L
CC : D1, D2, D3
D3 saab ne bola kuch kaam hai aur aapse milne ka hai urgent. apun train me aa raha hai. kuch chai nashta leke aaoon kya?

From : D3 (Executive)
To : L
CC : D1, D2, D4
sir I is busy on call sir. sending my guy to meet yourgoodself and help with on your project as soon as asap.

From : D2 (General Manager)
To : L
CC : D1, D3
I spoke with D1 and it would be great to work with you on this. Requesting D3 to contact you immediately to take this forward. Do let me know in case you need anything.

From : D1(CEO)
To : L
CC : D2
Sure. Through this mail, I request D2 to contact you directly and take this forward.
D2 - Please speak urgently

From : L
To : D1
Sir, Can your firm help me with project xyz please?

World cup reveller amongst Hazaare supporters detained

2011-04-08T05:23:00.000-07:00

A semi-drunk 30 year old reveller Akash Sharma was detained by the local Delhi police for pretending to be a supporter of the Ana Hazaare anti-corruption campaign. Other rallyists reported him for shouting 'Dhoooooni Dhoni' out of context in the candlelight march. Akash was blank when asked about Ana Hazaare but made a brave attempt to yell his way out of the situation through general slogans such as "Bad things, down down!" and telling the policeman, "We have seen so much bad stuff and are very angry. I will not rest till whateva these guys are crying about is put a stop to or started or whateva they want done. I'm with you, comrades. They can't ignore us anymore (hic)". Akash allegedly took 5 chances to get to the 'cause' correctly, after cancer, terrorism, Ganpathi and Independence Day, and said "I don't know, who's he?" when asked about the Lokpal bill, which prompted the immediate arrest.

pls read v.v. important dn't delete...

2011-04-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

got this as a fwd and i swear this works...

this is v.v.very rare photo...look at photo and say small very simple prayer wishing for one thing...anything you want very badly...say prayer 12 times and repeat twice i.e. total of 19 times...

dear god, please shower me with happiness and joy
dear god, please shower me with happiness and etc etc...

now fwd this to 17 ppl within the next 43 minutes one by one and something mega will happen on april 2nd, 2011...if you delete or ignore it or even think about deleting it, i'll personally come after you, be careful...no you don't...i mean it...

Sachein, Bradmann surprise inclusions in MS Doni's Dream XI

2011-03-09T04:40:00.000-08:00

"Captain Cool" MS Doni definitely had a point to prove on Friday on ESPN when, as part of a special feature, he was asked to select a Dream World XI to lead, from cricketers past and present. Obviously stinging from criticism that he was irrational and biased in the selection of the Indian team, Doni went on to pick his all-time favourites. The first name that came to his mind was, as expected, Raveendra Jadeija. "I think his fielding gives him a slight edge over, say, a Garry Sobers." Doni said. The next pick was the difficult one - the bowling all-rounder. "I think I'm going to go with Jogeender Sharma over Kapil Deiv, because, you know, Jogs can bat a bit". No surprises there. "I need an attacking leg spinner next. I think Pijush Chawla bowls a great googly and just edges out Shaine Warney." The shockers came in later when he picked Tendulkaar, Bradmann, Marrshall who all have proven match winning track records, out of the blue. Not always predictable, that's Doni for you.

Conversation spirals

2011-03-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

11.00 AM
A : If you have a written manual, please send it to me. It would be useful.
B : I don't have it with me but a couple of people in my team might have it. I'll ask them.

This meeting could have ended here, in exactly 10 seconds. But A has taken a cab all the way to B's office for a face-to-face meeting. This ten-seconder could have even happened on the phone. Also, A is being paid a salary which is something that always guilts people into doing unnecessary and unproductive work. Like continuing this conversation with B.

A (decides to explain context) : So our firm is in a situation where we ...blah blah (2 minutes)...so it would really help us if we had a manual.
B (also warming up): As I said I don't have it with me right now. But I think a couple of people might have it in my team because I remember we were in a similar situation last year and ...blah blah...(2 minutes). So I'll ask them and if they have it, I will send you a copy.

5 minutes. Still not paisa vasool for the cab ride

A (trying a new tack as if that would make a manual magically appear) : It need not be a "manual" manual. Any document that outlines the process would suffice. Just a simple check-list, you know. Because, what are we trying to do here, after all...blah blah (5 minutes)
B (has had enough) : Hmm. Yes, I get that. I'll look for any document that might be useful in this context, alright?
A (fearing the meeting might end soon, raises important sounding but irrelevant issues) : If there's a problem with confidentiality, don't worry, we will sign a non-disclosure. It's purely for internal...
B: No no. That's not the problem
A: If we need to pay a token amount, you know or give you due credit for using your intellectual property, let me know
B: No, no. Haha. That won't be necessary.
A: It's important to clear these issues upfront. In my experience, if you do these things upfront in a very clear way, there's no problem later, you see?
B : Yes, absolutely. You are right. Ok, so let me ask my team if they have something for you
A : Yes, please do. I'll be grateful.
B : And I have your email id, so I'll forward you a copy.
A : Yes, you can check with your team and if they have a manual or any document that, you know, has an outline of the process, you can send it to me.
B : Yes, it need not be a manual strictly. I got that.
A : Yes, just a simple doc with a check list will also do. Of course, if it's a manual, then all the better. But I'm just saying it's not strictly necessary. Because, what's the purpose of it after all? blah blah...(5 minutes). So it's important that the purpose is served.
B : Yes, true. So I'll look for it and let you know.
A : Yes, please do. Thanks a lot for your time. Do let me know, once you've checked with your team, if you find something that we can use. And then you can forward it to me.
B : Yes. I'll do that. Ok, thanks for dropping by. I'll be in touch.
A : By when can I expect a call or email?
B (a little irritated now): Very soon. Like I said, I just have to check with a couple of people. If they have it, then I can just forward it to you very quickly. If they don't then, well...they don't
A : Yes, I understand. Ok, fine. So you check and let me know as soon as possible, if your colleagues have something I can use. You can email me a copy.
B : Yes, will do.
A : Thanks, I really appreciate it. Like I said, we just need it for this new thing we are starting...blah...

And some more spirals later...

11.30 AM
A (almost convinced now that his trip was worth it and feeling a warm glow about a solid meeting, but also wanting to show his superior critical thinking powers one last time) : Also remember to let me know if your policies come in the way, in terms of IPR and confidentiality and all that, alright?
B : Yes, that's not a problem.
A : It's important to be sure, right upfront, in my experience.
B(gets up to force the meeting to a close) : Yes, absolutely. Ok, Mr. A, nice to have met you. I'll be in touch once I talk to my team.
A(gets up) : Thanks for your time. See you. Let me know if you find anything. You could just email it to me.
-----
11.40 AM
After A's exit,
B : Hey C, did we document that process XYZ somewhere? Is there a manual sort of thing?
C : No
B : Ok
11.41 AM
on email : "Dear A, I checked with my team and we don't seem to have any document that might be of help to you. Sorry! - B"

SC disallows 'active euthanasia' of India's most irritating criminals

2011-03-07T05:12:00.000-08:00

In response to a petition filed by an undisclosed social activist, the Supreme Court today ruled that active 'euthanasia' of some of India's worst people cannot be allowed because 'we aren't that sort of country'. The activist's plea was that he be allowed to kill some people who 'riled him up to no end' and didn't deserve to live. He said only rapists, scamsters and terrorists seemed to be in the news, smiling at the cameras and enjoying all the attention and needed to be taught a lesson. In order to not put undue pressure on India's medical services, he said the SC could have some qualifying criteria such as 'scams above 10000 cr only' so that the small timers could be weeded out. His argument that these people were "mentally sick" and needed to be released did not find favour with the judges. "The best I can do is this, if you can convince these messed up folk to somehow commit suicide, I will turn a blind eye' the judge said.

Boundaries of Louv

2011-03-07T00:51:00.000-08:00

shehar se lekar gaon tak, dhoop se lekar chaon tak
(from city to village, from sun to shade)
sar se lekar paon tak, dil ki sabhi wafaon tak
(head to toe, till the heart's loyalties*)
mujhe pyar karo...oh mujhe pyar karo
(louv me, oh louv me)

paas se lekar door tak, door se lekar paas tak
(from near to far, from far to near)
in hoton ke pyaas tak, dharti se akaash tak
(till the thirst of the lips, from earth to sky*)
mujhe pyar karo oh mujhe pyar karo

saagar ke is aar se, saagar ke us paar tak
(from this side of the ocean, to that side of the ocean)
nazron ki deewar tak, pyar se lekar pyar tak
(till the eyes' walls, from louv to louv*)
mujhe pyar karo oh mujhe pyar karo

subah se lekar shaam tak, shaam se lekar raat tak
(roughly 18 hours)
raat se lekar subah tak, subah se phir shaam tak
(another 18)
mujhe pyar karo oh mujhe pyar karo...
(i.e. louv me for 36 hours. Off you go, tomorrow at 6 pm)


* don't ask me

'K..k..khan's speech' India's entry to the Oscars

2011-03-06T05:19:00.000-08:00

The Hindi remake of the multiple academy-award winning King's Speech starring 'King' Khan himself, has been selected as India's official entry to the Oscars for the year 2011. 'K..k..khan's speech' was released amid much fanfare last Diwali and bombed at the box office, which only increased its chances of being selected for the Oscars. The adaptation, starring Sahrukh Khan as a struggling actor who overcompensates for his poor diction with overdone expressions, and former cricketer Najvot Siddu as his voice coach, won several NRI hearts all over England. To make the adaptation 'real' and spontaneous, it is rumored that Siddu wrote his own lines which are in turn, old proverbs with the nouns mixed up with animal and bird names. "Bad films don't always win oscars. Crows don't always pee into the wind' he said, prophetically, when pressed for a reaction.

Applying the timeless principles of achieving excellence at work to achieve excellence at work

2011-02-04T00:26:00.000-08:00

Foreword
This book is a must-read. The third book in the 'applying stuff' trilogy, after 'Applying the art of war in non-war items' and 'Applying Buddhist principles at work without psyching out the others', this book takes a bold step forward from where the author left off in Book-two. Every young manager should buy a copy. Right now. I'm not kidding.
Excellence at work has always been an archaic body of knowledge, not accessible to the casual reader. The author not only distills the main principles from this body of esoteric knowledge but also teaches us, in a funny and definitely readable way, through illustrated stories, how to use those principles at our workplace to achieve excellence.
For instance, Rule #1 : Do work. Deceptively straightforward, but once you finish this section, well, move on to the next. Rule #2 : Don't beat up people. Elucidated through simple but delightful horror stories of corporate crime, this section is a definite page-stopper. Rule #3 : Take a break but let that not be the only thing you do. This self-explanatory portion still runs into several pages. There are more principles that follow, covering all aspects of work and I'm very excited about getting to those sections later this week! Happy reading!

The road less travelled by, there's a good reason why

2011-01-20T22:26:00.000-08:00

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

And so I thought I'd be a star
Till I saw some jerks on a truck
They'd taken the easier route by far
and made it to the same place on solid tar
And left me feeling like a stupidass schmuck

I was like 'Hey! this breaks my heart;
but the road less travelled can't suck in art
its suckiness in real life regardless
let's inspire people to make a mess'
And I decided to delete the last part

Case

2011-01-02T23:06:00.000-08:00

Ramaswami looked at the crumpled piece of paper in front of him and sighed. He got up from his ergonomic chair and walked to the french window of the plush Director's cabin and looked out. Then he came back and sat on his chair and looked at the paper in front of him and sighed. He had come a long way from joining Indian Management Institute as a Deputy Director the previous year to becoming Director this year. It had been a troubled journey.

When he took over the top job at the Institute earlier this year, his predecessor had handed him this piece of paper. The paper was cryptically titled 'Exhibit 1' and had the following table.

Exhibit 1
Harvard : Case methodology
Stanford : Don't know
IMI : Should be same as Harvard?

He remembered spending many days trying to make sense of this table and giving up. He then had nothing to do for a few months and decided to hire a consultant and entrusted the task of generating 'Exhibit 2' to them. The consultants decided to 'listen to the market' and came up with some pithy findings summarised as 'Exhibit 2', just like Ramaswami wanted.

Exhibit 2
Number of student respondents surveyed : 200
Preferred pedagogy
Case study method : 0
Orthodox (lecture) : 0
Replacement of faculty with better faculty : 100
Refund of fees : 100

This was a disturbing trend indeed and to recover from this shock, Ramaswami decided to download some data from the internet which he playfully compiled as Exhibit 3.

Exhibit 3
Food production in Zambia last Thursday: 200 metric tonnes
Ratio of China's GDP and Distance from the earth to the moon : 20

As he was staring into open space, some realistic questions occurred to Ramaswami.
Should I continue as Director? (5 marks)
Should this Institute continue with the case-study method? (15 marks)
How many exhibits on an average should a case have? (5 marks)

He was clueless but he was sure of one thing, the answers to these would occur to him by 4 pm the next day.

Tap leak

2010-12-20T02:28:00.000-08:00

NiR: Hi...is this Mr. Kuja?
Ku: Yes, it is me only, tell.
NiR: I spoke to Ajay just now...
Ku: Ok
NiR: and then to Suneil...
Ku: Ok. What he is telling?
NiR: And then to Aneil
Ku: How did you speak to so many people, all just now?
NiR: and then to...
Ku: Hello? Ok, what they are all telling, tell no?
NiR: And then to you...
Ku: That part I also know
NiR: Ajay's telling Sunil that Bharat told you, you know, about the thing
Ku: Hain?
NiR: and you should also tell Leader about that
Ku: Dey, who is this speaking?
NiR: It's me
Ku: Youaa? then wrong number. don't call again
---

NiR: Hi, I just spoke to CBI
Ku: Ok
NiR: and then to SC and CVC and
Ku: Ok, you spoke to all people. Then what?
NiR: There's talk of investigating a scam
Ku: Which one?
NiR: The 2G one, where the exchequer lost 1.75 lakh...
Ku: Who is this X.Shekhar fellow? And he paid 1.75 lakh to who in my department? Tell details
NiR: No, I mean the government lost so much in the spectrum allocation? So I spoke to Suneil and then to Arun and...
Ku: Ayyo. Started againa?
NiR: and then to your wife
Ku: Haan, only that was left. Enter into family alsovaa? And then? What she is telling?
NiR: You should buy her a black sari
Ku: Ok. I know who is behinding all this. I will tell Leader.
---
NiR: So they want to give two ministries
Ku: Let them tell Leader.
NiR: I asked for 4. I think we'll settle at 2.5
Ku: Ok ok
NiR: I've always liked textiles and fashion, from the time I was 3-4 years old.
Ku: For that what I can do now?
NiR: No, so I asked for textile ministry.
Ku: So you like talking on phone so much so you asked for telecom also for me? hahaha
NiR: Kuja, you are too much
Ku: What is other half ministry?
NiR: Culture or something where money is half.
Ku: Chee. Culture and all who will take.
NiR: Ok, so I spoke to Raten and
Ku: So what he is telling?
NiR: Nothing actually. I only spoke.
Ku: Very good. Once in life if you let others talk, I will get more covers I feel.
NiR: Cover means?
Ku: Suitcase, cover, all that. 3G also coming and I want to retire fast.
NiR: Yeah, I will talk to Barca Datt about that
Ku: Ayyo. You can talk to my grandmother instead. Same result.
NiR: And then she will speak to Veer
Ku: Who are all these fellows? I don't watch TV these days
NiR: and he will speak with
Ku: Yeah. correct. Now I have to go, but feel free to finish conversation before hanging up.
---

An open letter to open letter writers

2010-12-09T05:16:00.000-08:00

Dear openletterwriter (OLW) - or should I say, ahem, honourably illustriously sarcastic opinionated OLW,
I write to you with great dismay and some other profound emotions about the crisis that our nation is facing because of OLWs like your good self. I had no choice but to write to you, sir.
Sir, I had no choice but to write to you.
Actually the other choice was to not write to you, honourable sir. Wait, hang on, the third option was to do what the term 'letter' usually signifies. Which is to buy an envelope, some stamps, write this very same letter, take a printout, walk my opinionated limelight-seeking ass to the nearest post box and drop it in. But dear sir, my dear dear sir, I digress. This Open Letter is not about me.
I have been tracking your good self's penchant for open letters for the last many years and trust me, there is no bigger fan than I, of your open letters. You have been a vigilante citizen for many years now, writing bitingly acerbic open letters and shoving these down the throats of an all-absorbing media. I still remember the open letter you wrote to the Home Minister when the terror attack occurred. There was even a rumor that the letter made a couple of terrorists surrender. And they couldn't even read English. Such is the power that your open letters wield. You didn't stop there. You went on to then write open letters to each Minister, some minor celebrities, Paris Hilton, every member of the Bigg Boss-season 3 household and so on. But even you will agree with me that, lately, your open letters are making me puke a little inside my mouth.
Don't get me wrong, sir. I'm not, for one moment, for one solitary microsecond, saying that you shouldn't write letters. Your letters are the very cornerstone of the basis that this country has built its pillars of fundamentals on. But with the advent of the internet, the open letters you write with so much passion, are bound to fall in the wrong hands, namely, readers'. So write all you want, write like the wind, but please buy one 25 paisa cover, one 2 rupee stamp and post it to the one guy you want to talk to.
Thanking you,
Yours "very faithfully but only inside double quotes (wink, wink)"
An innocently common concerned citizen

The world's youngest guy-who-still-has-his-job-at-that-bank

2010-11-15T03:53:00.000-08:00

Marshall ran the numbers once more. Which is just a fancy way of saying 'Marshall closed the file valuation.xls and opened it again'. His boss barged in for the fourth time that morning.
'Done? What's the number we are looking at?'
'Er...25'
'Whoa! Sure you don't want to crunch the numbers again, buddy?'
The truth was there weren't too many numbers to crunch. Facebrook had earned a revenue of one dollar for the financial year 2004-5, which was under the column 'won by founder in a beer contest'. Assuming similar incomes over the next few years and a completely arbitrary terminal value of the firm, meant that for the first time since Marshall joined the bank, the cell next to 'enterprise value' had a number instead of an error message. And that number was 25 USD.
'Not really, do you want to check? Here's a print...'
'No, I'm late for the meeting already. Ok, I'll start at 20 then. Hmm. You meant 25 billion right? I'm very sure we can't be talking in millions anymore?'
This stumped Marshall. His world was falling apart in slow motion. And he had to say something in the next 5 seconds. He didn't really have a choice. Going along with 25 billion USD gave him time till this evening to re-work the excel file. Arguing for 25 USD would land him in unemployment for sure, and perhaps at a mental asylum. What had he missed in his model?
'Yeah of course, 25 billion. So, boss, did the founders speak about any other revenues, you know, like money coming in or something?'
'No, that was the best part. We have a winner and...ok gotta run now'.
There was a lot of work to do. Marshall decided to first take a 10 minute break and check his own facebrook profile. For the first time since he'd joined the firm, he didn't feel guilty about facebrooking in office.

Email

2010-10-27T05:48:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Ajay, can you please send us your revised offer asap? Thanks
Trrrring.
'Hi, Ajay here. I just saw your email. Our revised offer is 4 lakhs'
'Oh ok, can you reply to my email saying this?'
'Email shemail kya yaar. When we are meeting and phoning and talking, what's the necessity of email? hehe'
Ok, I'll have to do it myself then.
Dear Mr. Ajay, we spoke. We are going ahead with the order on the basis of your revised quote of Rs 4 lakhs. Can you please 'email' me the address to which the order needs to be sent?
Please, God, no. New message alert. Yay! For once, an emailed reply to an emailed query.
Hi, js sw ur mesg cn u pls cll?? - Ajay
He better have something to tell me in addition to his address.
'Hi, Ajay?'
'Haan you wanted my address na, ABC enterprises, 34-5, Grant Road...'
This does not make sense. Does he have a keyboard allergy? That does it. No more phone conversations. My new mission in this world is to make email the only accepted means of communication. I create an sms template that goes out to every caller whose call I miss deliberately. 'I'm in a meeting. Please email'.
The only result of this strike is that I have a bunch of emails from Ajay, all of which say the same thing
got your sms. can you pls call
tried calling u but dnt gt thru. cn u pls call
gt an sms from u asking me to email. cn u pls call
Email is Ajay's paging device. He automatically calls people who email him, as a reflex. And the emails he sends out are only requests to call him back. I shall not budge till he understands the full range of functionality of Outlook Express and/or gmail. There is a small chance he's being arrested and I'm the one phone call he's allowed. He seems to have access to email though so that's unlikely. I decide to not call Ajay till I receive an email from him with actual content.
Ajay, this email is with reference to a meeting we have scheduled for tomorrow which you are required to attend. Please confirm by way of an email. I'm getting into a flight right now and will not be reachable for the next few hours.
hi - will attnd. thr r some paymnt issues. cn we discus that tmrw at the meeting?
Yay! There are at least 3 separate bits of content in that email, none of which is a request to call him.
Dear Mr. Vivek, Can you send us some product brochures please?
hi - cn u call pl?
Vivek, welcome to my 3-week Voice-to-Data Personal Transformation Program...

CWG compromise : Beijing Olympics to be re-telecast

2010-08-09T05:37:00.000-07:00

Sports fans all over the world can breathe free - the Commonwealth Games to be held in India in October this year will take place as scheduled, though only on television. After a month-long negotiation, China decided to hand over exclusive re-telecast rights of the 2008 Beijing Olympics to Doordarshan today. This means hundreds of hours of sporting action, seen only once or twice before, with fresh perspectives on the same events from DD's expert commentary team.
'Am as interested as anyone else in finding out what Charoo Sharma has to say about my 9.69 second 100m run' said Usayn Bolt adding to the hype surrounding the upcoming event. Of course, medal winners from Beijing '08 who don't belong to any of the commonwealth nations will be stripped of their medals at CWG, 2010.

More Blahrbs

2010-07-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

A 200,000$ job with one of the largest corporate law firms in the world , a luxurious BMW, a lovely wife and two kids from her previous marriage, a plush apartment, Scott Fcall had everything going for him.
Till he was asked to defend a man who went by the name 'Baxter', a 20 year old accused of peddling cocaine, killing some folks, armed robbery and so on.
Taking the case would surely be a high risk career move depending solely on a last minute brainwave for victory.
Fcall refused to take the case though - why would he want to give up all the neat stuff I mentioned earlier? More Details inside! Read now!
-------

Everything seemed to be peaceful and nice in Robin Moore's life but a mysterious call from his past threatened to change it all and turn his life upside down. His ex-wife Joan was in deep trouble.
Once a millionaire heiress, she was now accused of peddling cocaine, killing some people in a pub and murdering her dad for insurance money.
Will he be able to defend her without letting his emotions come in the way?
Yes.
Will he be able to save her?
Also, yes. She was the victim of a conspiracy, as it turned out. Some other dude did all of that stuff and framed her. He confesses on his own in the 10th chapter so Robin doesn't have to do much but he does take some of the credit for solving the case, riling up the confessor a little bit.
Or will evil triumph over rich lawyers living out a lull period in their lives?
No. Well, not in this book at least.

Genius uncut

2010-05-27T04:30:00.000-07:00

Two things happened this past month that provided me genuine insight into a complex problem that mankind has been grappling with for many centuries now. The nature of genius. What constitutes genius? What makes an immeasurably talented blogger (me) a genius of a writer (me)? What makes Vishy Anand win a tournament? That's probably not a great example, he made some bad moves now and then. Let's focus instead on what made me win an under-16 Pune intra-school chess tournament at the tender age of 21 apart from a fake birth certificate.
The first insight I got was from Malcolm Gladell's 'Outliers'. His contention is that a genius has to first put in 10000 hours of hard work. I did that through my insightful and profoundly philosophical blog posts, of course. What separates me from the likes of Einstein, Bill Gates, Da Vinci and other such luminaries is not the fact that their genius was in any way inferior to my own, but the fact that I have achieved what I have on the internet, and those dudes definitely didn't have to compete with online porn! Also the now well-known fact that I'm pseudoanarchistcapitallibertarianistic with subtle rightwingy tendencies while they were not.
The second insight came when our very own Vishy Anand was crowned World Champion. This took me back to the days when I was playing pro-chess myself while solving relativity problems and watching Small Wonder on Star World all at the same time. I remembered the time when I, embarrassingly enough, played a novel opening move that had never been tried in the history of the game. If you must know, I tried to move my king.
What I'm really trying to say is that innate talent, which I have in excess, is never enough. If you think I just woke up one day a genius, think again. I also put in the hours. When my impulse was to unwind with some light reading like Kant or Kafka, I instead chose to blog incessantly about Rakhie Sawant. It's no wonder that my book turned out to be, in the opinion of one of blogosphere's stalwarts (again, me), the bestest book ever.
- Am it

Past Update

2010-05-13T00:08:00.000-07:00

Hi
HR is in the process of updating your profile for our database. As you are aware, this is a six monthly process since we would like to always have the latest information about you in our records. Please fill in the following details. Explanatory notes have been added for your benefit.
Name in capital letters : HR has seen several cases where names have changed in the last financial year due to religious conversions, witness protection programs and so on. Also capital lettering itself is seeing a paradigm shift with many new fonts entering the market.
Parents' names in capital letters : In case you have been put up for adoption by harried parents, you can leave this as TBD
Educational Institutes
1. School : HR has noticed that in the hurry to get to a better future, people often don't take time to upgrade their past. This is seen in the shady unknown school names that people fill up in their profile forms. If you have always craved a better primary school education, this is your chance to do something about it.
2. College : -do-
Work Experience
Company 1 : Think you got a raw deal in your first job? It's time to change!
Company 2 : We would like to know if you changed companies in the period 2005-2007 anytime in the last 6 months.
Company 3 : We would like to know if you changed companies in the period 2007-2009 anytime in the last 6 months
Other information : HR understands that your contact information viz. mobile phone number and email, your other interests, recent training programs you attended, current work experience and so on are forever in a state of flux and accurate information about these cannot be provided by you. So these have been excluded in the update form.
PS : Please inform us immediately if you haven't received this email so we can send across a hard copy.

Mumbai was attacked sometime in the 2007-2008 period : Special Court

2010-05-03T03:22:00.001-07:00

After a lightning trial conducted over a two year period, the special court found today that the city of Mumbai was attacked sometime in 2008. The court today attempted to put an accurate date on it with the help of the prime suspect, Kajmal Asab, as the country waited with bated breath. "The case has been going on for so long that I only remember bits and pieces of the incident", Kajmal said. The court refused to take his confession on record because his memory was 'unreliable'.
"However we have some good news. We have concluded that the city was indeed attacked. So there is no room for doubt on that front" the judge said. Defence put up a brave show claiming that the episode was a media-TRP conspiracy but lost in the face of piles of evidence and Kajmal's own testimony where he listed the lives he took and submitted photos taken from his cell phone camera.
"The next step is to open a line of communication with Pakistan to send us all the suspects to try. We have spoken to Ornab Goshwami of Times-New to do this. He's rounded up Gillani, their cricket board chairman and Meena, the model who got in trouble in Pakistan for bold photoshoots, to debate this handover process tonight" the judge said.

Attuned

2010-05-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

4 pm : Scheduled start of concert. But it's in fact the scheduled start of tuning time.
4 pm - 6 pm : Adjustments of music instruments, mikes. 20 second bits of the songs that are going to be played in the concert
6 pm : Compere sent out to pacify irritated crowd.
Compere (Co) : Hello, Mumbaaaaaaaaaaai
Crowd (Cr) : Refund.
Co : Are you having fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun?
Cr : No. But hey, did you know there's a point in getting angrier and angrier when a person stops breathing? I'm somewhere there.
Co : I know we are a bit delayed but what the hell, it's going to be a wonderful night. We are gonna rock tonight. Aren't we, Mumbai?
Cr : Shadthefahkup
Co : I didn't hear you. Show me what you got Mumbaaaai. Are we gonna raaaaawck?
Cr : Hmm. No. But you're gonna suck.
Co : (Looking left) What about folks this side? You're very quiet tonight? Let me hear you. Put your hands together.
Cr : We want to try and put our hands together with your head in between.
Co : Is that all? Let's try one more time. Let's hear it for Mumbaaaaaaaaaaai.
A section of the crowd (Cr') now feels the tension of having paid a huge amount of money for the ticket. What if there's no concert? We better shout now and get our money's worth of forced enjoyment.
Cr : (reading the minds of Cr') No No No. Don't encourage her.
Cr' : (Feebly) Yeaaaaaaaaaaa
Cr : Dammit.
Co climbs the self esteem ladder i.e. goes from incredulity in being able to elicit a noise despite being completely talentless, to belief that this in itself was her talent
Co : (positively glowing) Thaaaaaaat's more like it. Once more. Aaaaare weeeee gonna rock it tonight? (points mike in the direction of Cr')
Cr' : Yeaaaaaa
Cr : Should we leave? Is there going to be a concert at all?
Co : (not pushing Cr') Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Indipop's latest sensation...
Cr : It's about time.
Co : ...who will be here any minute now. Meanwhile, here's something for you for having been such a wonderful crowd tonight.
Much mindless handing out of freebies later, pop sensation arrives. Cr dreams up an ideal scenario...
Po : Am I laaaaaate?
Cr : Yeaaaaaaa!
Po : Should I redistribute my personal wealth amongst all of you for having sat through these torturous 4 hours?
Cr : Exclude Cr'. They seemed to be having fun.
Po : Should the organisers and the compere be starved for 2 days for boring the crap out of you?
Cr : Yeaaaaaaa! You rock!
Po : Without embarrassing all you gentlemen from good backgrounds, I want you to fling a couple of stones and old footwear at the organisers, the compere and at me. Be careful not to hurt me too bad coz' I have to perform (laughs nervously)
Cr start chanting 'we love you'
Po : Should I perform now?
Cr : Nooooooooooooo! Don't ruin it now. Best concert evvvvva!

Following Twaroor

2010-04-27T06:51:00.000-07:00

-I have won with a landslide, biggest winning margin in Trivandrum. Truly humbled. Now the real work begins - Tweeting!
-Travelling with the cattle classes and the holier cows.
-Called for a meeting to discuss my insensitive indiscriminate tweeting. WTF! This SM Krisna sure is a moron.
-Interesting party meeting to discuss how to control my tweet-in-the-mouth syndrome.
-Boooored. Should do something for my state. Roads? Hospitals? IPL team!
-Great meeting about our relations with China. tweeting from cybercafe in shanghai. now going back to attend rest of it.
-Interesting meeting with Pakistani counterpart. Ended abruptly when I said freedom of speech more important than confidentiality.
-Met a Lebanese dude on a flight. Could be a valuable intermediary and resolve Kashmir crisis. Asking airhostess to solve global warming.
-Intermediary is a Mallu word meaning should not interfere and mind his own business- just sorry that so many people don't know Mallu!
-Asked by party to shut thafk up on Twitter and to not tweet about the instruction to shut thafk up on Twitter under any circumstances. Funny people.
-@Mody : Met an Indian ex-hottie sunaida on a flight. Could be a valuable sweat equity owner of the IPL team I'm planning.
-Biggest challenge country faces not malnutrition but closed political culture! give man food,feed him for a day gv hm tweets instd. but guess no food means no internet also.hmm.
-@supermodel25 your visa granted @mody : oops:)
-I've done nothing wrong in office. leave alone wrong, nothing whatsoever, in fact. so quitting. tweeting will continue...

Marriage to coolbabe4u not valid : Shoib Maalik

2010-04-05T02:48:00.000-07:00

Shoib Maalik postponed his return to Pakistan for the 4th time in two weeks, when he was dragged to court over an alleged nikaah with coolbabe4u@yahoo.co.in, alias Shakeel Ahmed, Hyderabad. Shoib, as readers will know, is paying alimony through e-cheques to lolzchick, hot_rakhi and xxx4u, his three registered marriages prior to Aisha, none of whose real identities are known.
"It all started with installing that cursed dial-up internet at home. It was too slow to download anything but fast enough for Yahoo chat", said Shoib with a sigh. "I chatted day and night with strangers. Many of them wanted me to send a marriage document with my signature, in exchange for their photos which I badly needed. I met coolbabe4u in 2002 and I was on a rebound from a bitter chat fight with hot_rakhi. cb4u as I called her affectionately, was like a breath of fresh air and I proposed on impulse. Little did I know 'she' would turn out to be the prank of a teenager in Hyderabad. He even sent me snaps of Ishwarya Rai and I was really looking forward to married life.'
This saga seems to be affecting Saina Mizra's tennis as well as she lost in the first round at the Hyderabad-Secunderabad challenge tournament earlier this week.

To whomsoever this may concern

2010-03-11T03:50:00.001-08:00

I write to recommend Mr. Dandan Dandanadevan for the Graduate Program in Arachnomatics at your University. I offer a second year course in advanced photography at the Chennai Institute of Technology and also head the photography laboratory. I have been Assistant Professor at this Institute for the last 25 years. I have over 250 research publications to my credit as well as innumerable journal articles. But I digress.
I have definitely seen this guy Dandan somewhere. Was it at the annual cul-fest? No, that guy was thinner. I can't place him exactly but certainly looks like a decent chap.
So, CIT takes in 500 students every year. I remember about 2 students in every batch by name and 20 more by face - the ones who take my course and show interest. There are about 30 more in the grey area who register for the course and meet me only during the end term examination. And then the other 450 students of the batch who I run into in the corridors. I swear Dandan's not in the first 22.
But I urge you to consider this problem in a practical manner. From historical data, 100% of all students requesting me for a recommendation letter have taken my course. The only way Dandan could be otherwise is if he knew I would think along these lines and is exploiting my complacence. Let's say the probability of that happening is 1%, a very aggressive estimate.
I give only B and C grades to my students. About 90% of the reco-letter seekers are "B-putters". C putters come to me if they have flunked just about every other course or if they have done something extraordinary that they think I should remember them by. In either case, out of sympathy, you may consider this letter to be a strong recommendation.
So Dandan has an 89.1% chance of having taken my course and obtained a B grade. This is of course in addition to a 10% chance of being in one of the college sports teams and a 2% chance of being a coordinator of the cul-fest, and so on.
Reducing this based on data of a perfectly normal dude going crazy in the US, I have decided to give you an 80%-correct assurance overall that Dandan will be an asset to your university just as he was likely to have been to ours. If I'm provided more data on how I know him exactly, I could better my estimate.

Pityananda claims he is Tiger Woodz

2010-03-10T10:01:00.000-08:00

Full text of Godman Pityananda's apology speech
"I know I have been irresponsible. I have caused unspeakable harm to my domestic life in several south Indian towns (under different aliases, of course) and have completely nipped my porn film career in the bud, with this leaked video with laughable production values.
I know many people here believed in me. They believed I was God Himself, and so the same rules didn't apply. They thought it would be my face that would be blurred out in the leaked video. They heard me say 'celibate' when I'd actually said 'celebrate', the morons. Anyway as Ranjida and Gia and Bhagirathi and... well, as they all said to me yesterday, I have to show my repentance in action. I intend to speak to Ranjida and make amends. What we will say and do, will be strictly between the two of us. And on youtube after a while for free download.
I also have thousands of emails and messages from my countless devotees, and some from the court and the local police as well. I haven't opened them but I'm overwhelmed at this show of affection. To the skeptics who don't believe in me, who think I'm not God's incarnate on earth, I have only one thing to say. I'm Tiger Woodz, actually. His Indian avatar. No really, we are the same person.
I have a lot of work to do. I intend to turn Buddhist and live the values which my mother taught me at a very young age, too young for me to remember any of that stuff now. I only ask one thing of you. Please don't ransack my ashrams. Dudes, let's face facts. I'm a really ugly dude and it takes me time to set up a racket like this with all these struggling actresses. Go find your own room...find room in your own heart to forgive me. Thank you."

Mixer remix

2010-02-04T23:18:00.001-08:00

"Sir"
"What?"
"Project, sir"
The teacher held up what we showed him and inspected it.
"What is this?"
"Toy mixie"

In 7th standard, my project partner and I decided on 'toy mixie' as our project in this course called 'electrical gadgets' which was P/F(pass/fail - which meant it didn't matter). It was one Sunday's work - buy cups, a motor, rotating blades, some wires and a battery, connect the blades to the motor and connect up the motor to power and voila!
We got a P with distinction on that assignment. This post is not about that, though.
We were in 11th standard. We still had 'electrical gadgets' taught by the same teacher and it was still pass/fail. In the 4 years since 7th standard, the scope of the course had changed immensely to high-tech electrical and electronics mumbo-jumbo. TVs, antennas, diodes, ICs, Ritchie Street (where one presumably bought these items), transformers - you name it, the syllabus covered it. The teacher painstakingly suggested project topics which I can't even remember now and told us how we could go about buying stuff at R-street, connect stuff up and make stuff work, to put it in technical terms. What hadn't changed in four years, was our decision to not take this course seriously. Also, the toy mixie.

Me : "Looks like people are actually doing the project da"
Partner : "What nonsense. It's EG, man. No one's doing anything"
Me: "Ok"

Partner : "I saw XYZ in Ritchie street, da. Tomorrow's the deadline for the project submission"
Me : "What project? No one'll submit, man. Who dare submit when we haven't done anything?"
Partner : "Worst case? If everyone submits? Shall I bring that toy mixie from 7th class?"
Me : "You mean go to the those juniors and steal their project?"
Partner : " No no. I have ours from 4 years back"
Me : "Oh great! Done! That should work!"

And so the worst case scenario did come true. People were roaming around with ICs and antennas and the classroom felt like a miniature ISRO launch. Our mixie faded in comparison but it still worked (- we'd gotten a new battery). Our turn to submit came after an especially complicated project.

"How did you even think of submitting this? Where's the electronics, da? Antenna? Ritchie Street? I taught so many things in class? What the hell is this?"
Our teacher was delirious with anger. We didn't have much to say to redeem the situation.
"Toy mixie, sir" and I connected the wires and the blades started rotating. I thought some action would do the trick. Not to be. He grabbed it and flung it on the table.
"I know what it is. I know what it is. I know what it is. The big mistake the school made is to not include this course in your marks. You would not even have passed. You would have stayed in this class forever. In fact..."
I switched off. I think the outburst went on for 5 minutes. It was a lifetime's frustration from conducting a pass/fail course so we didn't hold it against him.
"...but now what to do. Next"
We saw him put a P in the P/F column. We looked to see if the mixie had been damaged. Could come in handy in engineering college.

The worst job in the world

2010-01-19T07:48:00.000-08:00

I often look at people in bad jobs and wonder what keeps them going. What do they tell themselves when they wake up in the morning to be able to get to office? One such job that completely beats me is the job of a villain's henchman/assistant (VA) in Indian movies. What allows our leery evil villains to garner enough charisma to be able to make slaves out of these well-meaning energetic youngsters? Let's look at this job along some accepted parameters of workplace motivation.

Job security : I think we skipped a parameter

Security : None. In fact, assured death. The VA has many options but those only cover the means by which he dies. In about 75% of known cases, he gets killed in various gruesome ways by the villain himself for seemingly small errors such as being beaten up by the hero, and in some cases for carrying bad news. There's a third special circumstance where he betrays the villain and thinks everything's hunky-dory if he blabs the villain's secrets to the police and/or the hero. It's re-think time in about 10 seconds when he gets killed after being of partial use to the hero's efforts by giving him some cryptic clue about a treasure or the location where the hero's family's being dangled tantalisingly close to boiling water.

Boss : Talk about the bad boss syndrome. The villain is hardly seen giving any positive reinforcement to any member of his coterie. The average dancer-lady gets more praise from the villain, albeit drunk, in one song than the VA in a whole year. The villain frequently sets the VAs impossible targets ending with "..now". If the VA communicates negative feedback to the boss, he has no choice but to quit the establishment. Where quitting refers to 'run as fast as you can and I will shoot you at the count of 10'.

Compensation : There is actually no salary per se, leave alone performance incentives. The villain takes the topline and takes care of his staff's basic needs. There is absolutely no incentive to smuggle more gold or steal more cash or to do better than Saambha at anything. The VA's loyalty is inexplicable because he could easily go to the police and collect the bounty amount on his boss's head. He would get killed for betrayal but as we mentioned earlier, he's bound to die anyway.

Growth : The single factor that keeps a VA going is probably the dream that he would take over the mantle from his boss some day and enjoy the kind of absolute power he enjoys. But this almost never comes true because sadly, the villain is usually the last member of his gang to die in the movie. If it's the climax and the VA is still alive, be assured that an impatient hero will wring his neck shortly, something that would be called a 'soft dismissal' in cricket.

Team : On the whole, peer quality leaves a lot to be desired. The VAs at vantage points have terrible aim and they are in fact, the first to fall. The others blaze a trail of bullet fire where the hero has recently been and seem to suffer from a time lag of a few seconds. There is also complete lack of coordination among the VAs which is seen from their approaching the hero one by one even when they have him cornered or surrounded.

Perks : VA's usually have access to a large number of multi-purpose vehicles (bikes, cars, lorries) but these incur the wrath of the stunt choreographer, who while allowing a hero's vehicle to land safely after encountering an upward slanted cart, in the same circumstance would let the VA be bounced into a pool and killed and let the vehicle itself be mauled and mangled.

Agenda is your head

2010-01-14T06:42:00.000-08:00

Me : Hi, I just called to say there's a review meeting this Friday at 3 pm. Please attend.
Indian agency : Yes, sir, we will be there! Just tell us location.

Foreign agency : There's a meeting? This Friday?!
Me : (No, last friday. I called to circulate minutes orally)
Foreign agency : Who's calling for this meeting?
Me : (Your father and my father calling joint meeting of both families)
FA : What's to review? I mean review of what exactly?
Me : (Dey! If I tell to come, just come silently, man. Indian agency coming no? Like that)
FA : What's the agenda?
Me : (Agenda is your head. We want to see the wire in your head that is always asking agenda, agenda. Except when cash is paid against your invoice. That time agenda, bagenda all forget)
FA : Can we make it next month instead? I have something else lined up on that day.
Me : (What? Nextuuuuu monthaa? Your this playfulness only we like very much. Cancel that something else and come)
FA : We need to pull in some resources from abroad for this meeting.
Me : (Then you are what for? I'll call that guy directly only no? and I will pay prorata that much less after subtracting your personal time being charged)
FA : We can't be presenting that piece. That's well outside our scope of services.
Me : (First tell what is inside scope, machi. All pieces falling in the well outside your scope. Inside scope only arbitration for nonpayment of your fee, that also in neutral country)
FA : We can't be held responsible for that delay. We highlighted this possibility in the previous meeting and you should have taken action
Me : (Dey! We don't take action on highlighting and all, da dey. We take only postmortem action, that's our style)
FA : Our objective view is that this whole 10 week project will take about 6 months to complete
Me : (Who said 10 weeks, man? If you say 10 weeks to Indian agency it means full-fledged 2 year project. Instead, if you give realistic timeline to them, they will soon make it unrealistic)
FA : Could we at least do a "premeeting" to look at pending issues?
Me : (Pending issues in "premeeting" means then in "meeting" what will you do? Just drinking tea and leaving?)
FA : Could we do a conference call at least?
Me : (For last time, stop calling normal phone calls conference call. Minimum is 3 in India)
FA : We'll be there. Tell us the location.
Me : (This you could have asked at the beginning only no? And avoided this unnecessary "conference call" heehee)

School students go on indefinite fast to protest changing social studies syllabus : PM intervenes

2009-12-10T02:52:00.000-08:00

Talks began at the apex meeting today between the Indian Prime Minister and Suneil Sharma, class leader, 7 'C', AP Public School at Hyderabad and sources say the students might call off the fast this evening, which would be one more feather in the PM's cap. This would be the thirteenth time in the last year that the PM has intervened and saved fasters' lives, in the process conceding five new states, a couple of new rivers, his private jet, besides agreeing to say 'Hail Sonya! Mere paas maa hai' at every meeting he attends.
To refresh readers' memories, the fifth new state was announced last month, splitting Bengal, as a preemptive move, when Rani Mukerjee was spotted fasting for her critically declaimed role in Dil Bole Kadippa. Students flunked Social Studies exams as a result and this resulted in stray rioting across the country. "Everyone knows we depend on map marks to pass", says Suneil, recalling the events of the last few months, "and we just can't remember 34 states apart from knowing where the metro cities, tigers and wheat plantations are in the country. The choice was either to get beaten at home or to go on a fast and that's what we've done"
Sources say the PM has agreed to knock off a few fundamental rights to make civics easier and this was well received by the student population.

Gurkanth Desai absurdity se nahin dartha...

2009-12-01T21:25:00.000-08:00

GD :
Khada ho jaoon ya iske liye bhi license chahiye.
(har har)

Aap kehte hai main kanoon ke khilaaf hoon. 40 saal pehle ek aur aadmi tha jo kanoon ke khilaaf tha, aaj hum unko Bapu kehte hain.

(Oh my god, Gandhiji? Really? I guess it's better than appearing in the Mont Blanc campaign)

Unke waqt main ghulami kanoon tha, unhone naya kanoon banaya - humari azadi ka kanoon. Main bapu nahi hoon main bas apna dhanda karna janta hoon, mehnat janta hoon garibi janta hoon.

(So the analogy is gurkanth desai: Gandhiji::tax evasion:freedom struggle?)

Do kameez ek biwi aur ek saale le kar Bombay aaya tha, socha tha business karoonga. Yahan pahuncha to dekha ki dhande karne ke saare darwaze band the. Who khulte the to sirf ameeron ke liye. Sarkari darwaze the yeh aap ke banaye hue, ya to laat mar kar khulte the ya ji hazoori de ke. Maine dono kiya jahan laat mar sakta tha laat maari, jahan bola salaam do maine bola salaam lo.

(this is a confession? the case can be closed here?)

Aaj mujhe yahan khada kar ke aap log yeh kah rahe ki yeh aadmi itni laat kyon marta hai, sala salam bahut karta hai. Kis baat se naraz hai aap meri tarakki se ya meri tarakki ki tezi se ya isliye sab gussa hai ki ek mamooli ganwar ki had se aagey chala gaya hoon main

(is baat se naraaz hain ki aapki yeh speech ya tho irrelevant hai ya illogical, aur isse mera sar fod raha hai)

Aapne ilzaam lagaya hai na mujh par excise, custom, income tax ye tax woh tax.jab dhanda maine shuru kiya tha in sab shabdon ka matlab nahi janta tha

(ah,the 'ignorance of the law' approach)

kai baar gira hoon tab jaa kar seekha hoon. Paise bachane ke liye Payedhooni se 20-20 km chala hoon Kelasilk ka ye bada gadda sar pe dho ke. Paise ki keemat kya hoti hai main janta hoon, agar paisa ban sakta tha to maine banaya hai lekin sirf apne liye nahi apne 30 lakh shareholders ke liye bhi.

Panel: Aapke kuch 3 minute baaki hai

(you've gotta be kidding me!haaaalp!)

GD: Mere ko yeh golf khelna nahi aata, ye ghode ki race bhi nahi khelta hoon

(kaun kambakht poocha yaar yeh sab)

lekin apne dhande ka mazboot khiladi hoon main. Polyster banana janta hoon fibre, chemical woh bhi A1 quality ka sabse saste daam main. Yeh hai meri galti is liye maafi mangoon aap se?

(no, fool, read the charges. And we are asking you to go to jail, not apologise)

Petrol pump attendant tha main dabbe le ke ghoomta tha jaise apna desh haath faila ke ghoomta hai world bank ke aagey paise de do sadak banana hai.

(ridiculous analogy #n)

Kyon na badle kismet humari, humari aur humare desh ki, aap chahte hai main humesha petrol pump attendant rahoon. Humein kyon teesri duniya bulaya jaata hai humein bhi haq hai pehli duniya ban ne ka aur hum ban sakte hai. Hum wahan pahunch sakte hai woh upar top tak.

Yahan tak pahunchne ke liye bahut kuch khoya hai maine yeh haath khoye hai maine latka rehta hai sala. Aur jab tak yeh enquiry khatam hogi na jaane kya kya kho doonga main apni awaz, apna dimaag.

(abey kaunsa dimaag?)

Lekin ek cheez aap mujhse nahi cheen paoge woh hai meri himmat, woh nahi khoonga main. Kyonki meri himaat aam aadmi ki himmat hai, is desh ki himmat hai.

(oh boy)

aap log sab milke mujhe rokna chahthe hain na? main akele nahin hoon. mere saath poora desh hai. aur desh ko rokne ki taakat aap mein nahin hai. na hi aapke kaanoon mein. jo darwaze aap bandh rakhna chahthe hain, woh khul rahein hain.

(haan, jail ke darwaaze)

taang hada di humnein usme aur hamaari taang bahut mazbooth hai. Arey is desh ki tarakki par kaunsi enquiry bithayenge aap aur humein kaun si enquiry rok payegi. Aap ne mujhe 5 minute diya than a sadhe 4 minute main sab khatam kar diya. 30 second munafa yahi hota hai business aur agar iske liye bhi aap mujhe sazaa sena chahe to de dijiye Gurukant Desai saza se nahi darta.

(kya dialogue writer saza se dartha hai? poochke batana yaar...)

So the defense can be summarised as follows.
GD can't be convicted because
- the law keeps changing so it's not reliable to base convictions on it
- his offences have enabled other people to make money
- his courage is the country's courage and the common man's courage and to stop him means to stop the country and the common man, both of which are understandably infeasible.
- the motives of the panel are questionable - they want to punish him because they want the country to not progress, business to be difficult, to snatch his courage and are also allegedly upset by the fact that he was a poor villager/petrol pump attendant. They have, as always, covered up these real motives in a veil of jargon such as customs duty evasion and so on.
- he came to Bombay with his wife and brother in law and they knew as much law as the do kameez which also they carried.
- putting him in jail will amount to applying for a World Bank loan.

What is interesting is that the panel acquits him. And more interestingly, the movie was a hit.

Poha - a wife-daughter in law-her brother-his friend story

2009-11-19T20:40:00.001-08:00

Veteran Amitab Bachan-film maker Balkee's ambitious new project was announced today at Juhu at the Big Bee's residence. 'This will be a touching tale of Jeya making omelette and the Big Bee rejecting it and asking for Poha instead' he said. 'It's inspired by my very astute observation one morning when I was breakfasting with the Bachans. I noticed that Jeya'd made omelette and Mr. Bachan rejected it and asked for Poha. I went back and googled for a medical disorder that would make a person reject perfectly good omelettes and instead found one where the patient is convinced that his inane observations are in fact, profound. Something to do with the temporal lobe - anyways, that's for my next film in which I would play the lead role myself'. Poha is a short 30 minute thriller to be shot with handheld cameras in the Bachan residence itself, the kitchen to be specific.

Nobama shatters 100m world record, runs a 9.49

2009-10-16T00:18:00.000-07:00

When Usain Bolt ran a 9.58 at Berlin, the world assumed he would be the world's fastest man for a long time to come. Well, US President, Nobel Peace Prize and Miss Hawaii winner Parack Nobama, had other ideas. In a widely telecast speech yesterday at Chicago, he scorched the podium by clocking 9.49 seconds (wind assisted) as the whole world watched in disbelief.
The President started off in characteristic style, personifying Chicago repeatedly and making an impassioned plea to the International Olympic Committee to select it as the venue for the 2016 Olympics. Chicago will then be the home of new world records and new feats previously thought impossible, he said. Can man run 100 m in less than 9.5 seconds - yes, he can, yes, he can, he added to thunderous applause. There was a call from the IOC Chairman, who congratulated the President on his incomplete speech and moved by the contents, awarded the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Gold medals to him over the phone and gave him a timing of 9.49 seconds. The athletics fraternity is, however, skeptical about the time and has called for dope tests on the President and his speech writer, for which the official protocol is now being worked out. If they pass, poor Ussain Bolt will have to wait till 2020 to win back his gold medal.

US aid goes to LETe directly, Zardarey sees red

2009-09-22T03:48:00.000-07:00

The US Senate today approved a USD 2.2 bn donation to Pakisthan as part of their ongoing aid programme. But two conditions that they plan to enforce have left the Pakisthani PM Zardarey fuming. One, the donation will be in the form of thermonuclear warheads and two, these will be shipped directly to Leshkar E Teiba , now a banned government agency in Pakisthan. An analysis of the utilisation of the previous aid package revealed that a large chunk of the funds were used up in administrative costs and the beneficiaries, Al kaeda and LETe saw barely half the money allotted for the attacks they planned to carry out. PM Zardarey denied this and said he would take this up with the US President during his upcoming visit to the States.
Meanwhile, former civil servant and current head of LETe, Zaeed, who is credited with having masterminded the 26/11 attacks, was overjoyed at the US Senate's decision. "First good news all day" he said, after paying Rs 500/- when the Lahore HC decided that the 11th dossier of evidence from New Delhi was sufficient to incriminate him, and sentenced him to pay a fine.

Explanation

2009-09-07T05:54:00.000-07:00

"Each person is different. For instance, you may be very different from me. And he may be different from you. She may be different from him. And he may be very different from her. It's natural that there are differences. That will always be the case. For instance, you two may agree on something but may be completely different in this aspect. What's more, the two of them may be different from you and so on and so forth etc etc etc. As I said, this cannot be avoided. Differences between two individuals are to be expected. You two may not be able to agree on something, for example...."
"See, that's the thing. Customers differ in their needs. One customer may not always be the same as another customer. In fact, in more cases than not, each customer is different. What I'm saying is that if you take one customer, let's say we take X, here. X is a customer. And then we take Y, here. Y is another customer. X will want something, for instance A. Just for the sake of example, mind you. I mean X may want B also, let's just assume he wants A. Now it cannot be said that Y will want the same thing. In fact Y will be very very different from X, you can take that from me..."
"Take the people sitting around this table, for instance. Let's say X here, goes to buy a car..."
Let's say X runs you over with it. The very different Y and his car, which is undoubtedly different from X's car, are hereby excused from appearing in this analogy.

She was like a bad poem

2009-07-31T07:31:00.000-07:00

watering the plants
on the highway
of my soul
in these lonely times
and not that many rhymes
she was like a bad poem
she was like a bad poem
she was like a bad poem
my heart skipping
and my mind skipping
and using identical words
as rhyming words
sunshine was my life
but she was a star
i miss her now
thinking about you
which makes it three people in this poem, technically
feeling the pain
my mind is numbing
am falling about you
there is nobody to pick
the pieces of me
loving this naked sun
and the crumbling earth
and the mooney moon
mooney mooney moon moon moon
lying in this bed
i think of you again
thinking thinking blogging
lonely woods beckon
the treasure at the end
could be you
but i wish you weren't
in a box
come back to me
i'm dying bit by bit
am chained to my fate
birds fly in the forest
of my fate
somebody save me
take me away
the least you could do
is take my net access away

'My attack was not racist': Aussie released

2009-07-27T22:25:00.000-07:00

Rodney Stuart, the baseball bat-wielding Aussie goon, now famous for his serial attacks on Indian settlers, was released by the Melbourne State Court yesterday after a valiant five minute testimony.
'How was the attack racist? I didn't target Indians. I roughed up five people in the mall that day and I'm pretty sure there were some Pakis and others too' Rod slurred 'Hell, I see brown skin, I go maaaaaaaaad'
The judge, also vaguely of Indian origin, admitted this plea and said that the attack was unbiased and hence could not be called illegal in the strict sense. He let Rodney off with a stern warning 'Rodney, dude, if I see you near my house, I'll throw you in jail'

Mahim-Mahim Sea link open : Will take you to same place in 20 min flat

2009-07-02T05:01:00.000-07:00

Starting today, you will be able to spend an extra 20 minutes on your way to office for no particular reason. MSDRC's unique solution to traffic snarls in Mahim - the 3000 cr, sprawling Mahim-Mahim Sea Link project, is being inaugurated today. The Sea link diverts traffic away from Sawarkar Marg, takes it away on a U-shaped road into the sea and straight back on to Sawarkar Marg. It's mandatory for odd and even numbered vehicles to take this detour on alternate days.
'It was an exhilarating experience', says Vineet, who tried the road this morning,'I re-entered the road from the sea link at 20kmph, skidded straight on and banged into the wall on the opposite side and am in Mahim police station now'. Mahim police have registered 300 such cases in the first 3 hours since the opening.
Urban Studies professor, Dr. Sawant sees this as the first step in the creation of marine suburbs in Mumbai, where travellers stuck in a jam for days together, turn the road into a colony and start living on it. The channa/moongphali vendors and mini-CCD that are already on the sea link tell us that this day is not far.

Why should consent be mutual? : Mrs Tiney

2009-06-21T23:46:00.000-07:00

Wife of alleged rapist, Mrs Tiney today asked the press to fight for her husband who according to her has become a soft target for everyone. 'The other day there was this cabbie who charged him 200 bucks to go from the airport to Bandra. My husband's mild nature has made him a target' she said. When asked about his confession, she said they had been advised by their lawyer to pretend that never happened.
'He is not denying that the incident took place. All we are saying is that he gave his consent to it. That's how it works at our place. Some days I have a headache and he gives his consent and some days he is tired and I give mine. I don't understand what this mutual thing is' she added.
Meanwhile Batt films is planning a re-release of Tiney's earlier films with a tagline 'now based on a true incident'

Tareek pe tareek

2009-05-12T22:45:00.000-07:00

Judge : Hain? Who do you want now as your defense lawyer?
Qazab : Arre that 'Damini' lawyer whatsisname. Suny Deol. Masth he is.
J : This is not some movie.
Q : (laughs heartily) I also want Kashmiri Pulao and Paneer Tikka on Fridays.
J : If you don't stop speaking now, I will have to rule...
Q : My laptop hangs a lot. I need some more RAM. Also the artillery I asked for to plan my escape is coming coming coming always but never reaches. I need softer bath towels, rainshower fitting, that coloured gel toothpaste, also some new stock (winks). Sorry Judge saab, I'm having to list everything here but nothing gets done in jail.
J : Er...let's get back to the trial. How old are you?
Q : When the trial started, I'm not sure, I have to see your records. But I'm now 16.
J : That means you were 10 years old when the attacks happened.
Q : (smiles) What attacks? I need some music in the cell. Also that weekend farmhouse cell in Khandala is maintained very poorly. My A/C's not working properly and...
J : Shadthefkup. Prosecutor, would you like to summarise?
Prosecutor : I have a suggestion, your honour. This trial is costing us crores to run. All my witnesses are hostile or dead. We should just let this one go.
Q : Mad or what? I refuse. I did not even agree to shifting to another jail in the same city 3 years back. I'll get creamed if I go out in the open.
J : Hmm. Now that's a promising idea. Let me think about it. Adjourned.

Akmal's action cleared by biomechanics lab experts

2009-05-12T07:59:00.000-07:00

Zaed Akmal's suspect bowling action was cleared by the biomechanics lab of Auztralian Institute of Sports according to their in-house lawbook exception 13(c) "if said chucker really really wants to get more turn". Biomechanics expert Richard Watson studied Akmal's action over 20 deliveries using 35 microcameras and the latest imaging technology. He concluded that the action was illegal in any form of any game but then Akmal's attitude was what turned the tide.
"Akmal wanted to get so much turn off even our flat pitch that he was forced to chuck really badly. When you want that much turn, you have no choice but to chuck. He has that same drive for results that Murali and Shoib had when they came here. Then came the tricky part. We needed to come up with a new scientific explanation for this almost-underarm action of his since we'd used hyperextension and the 15 degree logic too many times. I came up with one in an inspired moment - biosuperposition. Because at the end of the day, that's what this bloke's action does. It puts him and his team in a super position" said Watson, rounding off.

Management lessons from the Third Battle of Tumkur 1345 A.D.

2009-05-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

This is the first part of a series where the author draws management lessons from all sorts of crap that happened such a long time ago that factual inaccuracy will not be noticed.

When Raja Kumbha invaded the Shaurya empire, he forgot to take along his army. He got caught and spent the rest of his life in the Shauryan prison which was only so-so but he managed.
Lesson : In a corporate setting, you should learn to adapt, especially if you are absent-minded.
The Shaurya empire, angered by Kumbha's feeble attempt, decided to acquire territories in Newfoundland and set sail on rough seas. The ships got screwed in storm after storm and the emperor Rudraveera was thrown overboard and he drowned.
Lesson : You should be a team player and a leader but swimming is an individual sort of activity.
Angered at the storm, Tungabhadra, the emperor's 8th wife, went to meet his brother Kudraveera . She described in lengthy poetic verse the storm that had killed the emperor. But Kudraveera married her by force and that was at the least the end of her mediocre poetry.
Lesson : When making a presentation, you should keep the audience in mind.
Kudraveera attacked and annexed large parts of North India. On a hunting expedition in a forest he encountered a group of tribals with swords and other weapons who attacked and surrounded him. He tried imitating them and making their sounds and they started clapping. Soon they adopted him as part of the tribe and he became one of them but one day they killed and ate him with green chutney and margarine.
Lesson : If you join a new organisation, you need to read up on its culture.
Kudra's son-in-law Pratap was a brave warrior, second to none. He shifted his capital from Ferozepur to Andhipatti and then back 4-5 times thereby killing most of his kingdom. He died of a rose essence overdose at the age of 97.
Lesson : A dead team is as good as no team at all.
Pratap left behind two sons each, from his two wives and there was no clear indication of who would succeed him. But, in his will, he had asked for his wealth to be divided according to a complicated formula based on seniority and many other variables. But he hadn't left behind much of anything to divide, so it wasn't a real problem.
Lesson : Succession planning is important but you should do other stuff too.
Pratap's eldest son, Bhootraj took on the mighty Malavi empire in the battle of Tumkur. His general Shoora was a 9 to 6 kinda guy and refused to fight beyond sunset. But Bhootraj insisted and Shoora obliged unwillingly, cursing under his breath.
Lesson : Screw your subordinates. They can't do anything

Meetings

2009-04-24T00:23:00.000-07:00

1.
Looks ok. Average height. Oh, didn't notice the heels. Short. Fair.
'Should we order? What would you like to have? Coffee? Something to eat? I just had lunch, so I'll just have a coffee. That's ok with you, right?'
Talkative.
'Yeah, fine'
'I speak too fast no? I know I have that habit. What to do? You have a problem? You aren't saying anything?'
'No, no issues. So this your first meeting?'
'No, I met some guy last month. It was so weird...'
No, dude, don't switch off now, stay awake, hello? Gone. I regain consciousness but story is over by then
'So he didn't call. Why's this coffee taking so long? What about you? First meeting? What do you do by the way? I didn't ask. Sorry. Should have. So you live around here? You are silent. Did I say something wrong?'
Ears objecting to too many words going in. Time to pull out.
'Yeah, nearby. I had to be close to the hospital. Things have been quite bad after the syphilis diagnosis'
'Oh ok so my favourite is hazelnu...what diagnosis?'
----------------
2.
Looks decent. Shortlisting process is working well. Mandatory enquiries and pleasantries.
'I don't watch movies at all. I don't like movies. I think they are a waste of time'
Not good. More conversation.
'I read only non-fiction and management books'
Do I look like I want robots for kids? More inane small talk.
'Haaaan I think so that is correct'
Bad grammar also. Launch time.
'There's something I have to tell you. You will be a bit shocked but I hope it won't affect, you know, whatever we have...er. We were also shocked. I first thought it was just Madras Eye...'
----------------

Kakhi dumps second husband, readies for Season-2

2009-04-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

In a press conference today, reality show diva Kakhi Jawant publicly dumped her second husband, Abhishek, citing personal reasons. Abhishek, who tied for first place in Season-1 of 'Kakhi ka Swayamvar' last year, is planning to sue the TV channel for divorce, sources say. Readers will remember that Kakhi had separated from Sanjay, the other winner/husband earlier this year. After last season's finale which saw Kakhi gushing 'I love you both. It's a tie' followed by a 3-way marriage amidst much fanfare, things did not quite go as planned in the Kakhi household. 'Every fight can't be settled with a dance-off' Kakhi had once told a journalist late last year.
Trade analysts feel this is just Kakhi's preparation for Season-2 of 'Kakhi ka Swayamvar' which will be a more socially acceptable show if she is single again.
Police meanwhile arrested 17 attendees of Kakhi's press conference for wearing a third chappal with malicious intent.

Mumbai Run-down

2009-03-24T23:55:00.000-07:00

Aamna protests Varoun Gandi's self-deprecatory speech

The Sivasena mouthpiece Aamna did a volte-face on the Varoun episode after he went overboard scolding and berating himself for his 'stupidasssss' speech against a particular community, which had incidentally been appreciated in the Aamna editorial. "What was I thinking? I should be beaten and mauled. I'm such a jackass" Varoun said yesterday in a press meet. Aamna lodged a protest with the Mumbai HC stating that Varoun should not insult himself as he represents more than himself - he is now the voice of the common rioter all over the country.

Varoun moves SC

In a rare display of emotion, SC Judge Balaiah broke down listening to Varoun Gandi's pathetic excuse that the CD of his inflammatory speech had scratches. This is the first time the SC has been visibly moved on this issue.

Aamna protests Freeda cover

Aamna created more ripples of controversy after the ugly Chaplin statue episode, by protesting against 'Dumbdog Millionaire' starlet Freeda Pintu's cover picture in 'Kaamwalibai' a housekeeping weekly famous in South Bombay. 'We don't want foreign talent in this area' the article said.

'Vote against Lead Hindustan' campaign successful

Mumbai came together as one voice on Marine Drive and demanded that there be no more election-related preaching in mainstream media, specifically targeting a leading daily, TOH. 'Is TOH forgetting their vision - to bring raunchy photographs to your doorstep at affordable prices?' thundered an ex-loyalist angrily. TOH was forced to concede and has promised to stop the campaign immediately.

Azhruddin, Sunjay Dutt start 'clean politics' campaign

2009-03-05T03:15:00.000-08:00

The Milan party may well be fielding the cleanest candidates this election, with Bollywood superstar Sunjay Dutt also joining his sister, breaking away from his prior loyalties. The party has an average count of 5 criminal cases per candidate which is one of the lowest this election. The party's overall split-up looks quite good, with party candidates, between them, storing 33 submachine guns, 350 tons RdX, throwing 56 cricket matches, killing or kidnapping or raping or beating up 45,456 victims overall, wiping out 7 entire villages, selling 35,678 pages of classified government information to friendly neighbours, and accepting 13,400 crore in bribe money (as per declared receipts). Taking advantage of these docile numbers are the party's star candidates, former cricketer Azhruddin and Sunju Dada who are launching a campaign on the 'clean politics' platform.
'Who would you like to bring to power, I ask you. On the one hand you have criminals who have more than 7-8 ongoing cases against them on an average, involving rape, murder, extortion and bribery. On the other, you have people like me and Sunju, who have less than 5-6 cases against us. I threw cricket matches for money and Sunju aided acts of terror. Is that something even worth remembering?' asked Azhruddin in a fiery rally speech. 'On my personal involvement in the match-fixing scandal, I just have this to say. I once offered Sachen and Sourav 4 crore to throw an important match and they refused. Did I insist? No. Instead, I tried to do whatever little I could with a duck, some dropped catches and terrible captaincy. That was the kind of man I was and am.' he said. 'And my rivals claim that match-fixing amounts to selling your country. The idea is laughable. There are so many other things in a country which can't be sold. And we always had the opportunity of winning matches where I didn't play due to some injury, didn't we? What's your reply to that?' he challenged.

Briefing

2009-02-24T02:03:00.000-08:00

9 - 10 am : brief miniboss on day's agenda, one-on-one
10 - 11 : gather dusty old papers, print emails which might be relevant for day's agenda
11-12 : miniboss briefed by site team on latest status
12-1 : miniboss, site team briefed by contractors on latester status
1-2 : lunch
2-3 : preparation for who says/does not say what, in meeting
3-4 : mini-boss briefs bigboss one-on-one
4-5 : site team briefs bigboss in presence of mini-boss
5-6.30 : all-party meeting : bigboss yells
6.30 - 7 : miniboss follow-up one-on-one with bigboss
7 - 8 : miniboss all-party follow-up meeting to interpret 5 pm meeting proceedings *
8 - 9 : miniboss briefs site team about how to follow up with contractors
9-10 : get briefed by miniboss one-on-one on how to follow-up with site team
10 pm : procrastinate dirty task of minuting the day's proceedings to next year

* Eg : "When big boss said 'get lost you idiots', what he actually meant was 'get drawing #673 ready in time for construction to proceed' " and so on...

'The of Panama' has no takers

2009-02-18T21:55:00.000-08:00

The saga of the Indian release of the Pierc Brosnan-Jamy Curtis starrer 'The Tailor of Panama' finally came to an end with the movie being withdrawn from theatres after a less-than-lukewarm reception from Indian audiences. The movie was released in India six years after its world-wide premiere and this was one of the reasons for the poor opening.
Distributors in the country released the movie after deleting the word 'tailor' in the title fearing a backlash similar to the 'Billu' episode. Analysts feel this may have affected the box office collections as the new title 'The of Panama' was a little too ambiguous for the average Indian movie-goer.

Muttalik, Tisha confess to foul play; TWC says don't rely on us

2009-02-17T01:50:00.000-08:00

Raam Sena chief Muttalik and Tisha, the 'brain' behind the 'pink underwear' campaign confessed today to having stage-managed the entire Valentine's day episode every year to benefit a certain underwear manufacturer in South India, owned by Tisha's father. In a letter filed with SEBI, Tisha said, "I blame it all on the 2008 recession. People tend to repair existing chaddis rather than buy, in an economic downturn. End 2008 was when we got to know of Muttalik, who had won the 'Sathhyam young enterpreneur' award for his business plan of starting an extremist right wing party funded by mainstream media. Over many cocktails in Mangalore, we came up with a way of working together. He was supposed to create a ruckus about 'loose' women, which he did a bit too well, in fact. I would then start this campaign that would help us hit record sales of underwear and turn around dad's company, which also went exactly as per plan. The profits were housed in a shell company owned 50% each by Muttalik and myself. The business worked like a charm - these chaddis bought every year by faithful activists, got couriered to Muttalik, shipped back to the factory and recycled the next year. We did this every Valentine's day for 5 years and went public in 2014. We then started overstating chaddi sales to keep up with competition which had the advantage of uniform sales throughout the year. It was like holding the tail of a chaddi-less tiger, which you can't let go of. When the soiled 6-year old chaddis went again this year, people started smelling something. It was all downhill from there. I have to say that at no time did I siphon these chaddis for my own or Muttalik's use.'
When contacted, TWC, the statutory auditors of this company had this to say :'We aren't that good at audit really. Don't rely on us'

We will not allow 'greeting card companies' conspiracy day' celebrations : Muttalik

2009-02-12T01:20:00.000-08:00

Raam Sena (RS) chief Muttalik stirred up yet another controversy at a rally yesterday in Bungalore. After creating a ruckus and courting arrest on Valentine's day earlier this year, the RS is now on to their next target.
Every year around this time, the entire nation eagerly awaits March 15th, celebrated as 'greeting card companies' conspiracy day' (GCCCD) to commemorate the same day in 2010 when Ballmark Inc. came up with the idea of 'general day' when people give cards to themselves for no apparent reason. For GCCCD is a day when everyone usually takes to the streets, drinking themselves silly and partying till dawn. Maybe not this year. At least not if Muttalik has his way.
'We think it is against Indian culture to come back home after dinner-time. I used to be caned to death if I entered my home after sunset' Muttalik reminisced fondly.'So if we see unrelated people out on Mothers' day, we will force adoption. If people get out on Friendship day, they will have to add me on facebook and compare movie taste with me. We have a plan for all these so called 'days'' he said.

Dany Boil to make movies about all the Indian cities he's heard of

2009-02-04T04:52:00.000-08:00

Stunned at the success of his first movie about India, Dumbdog zillionaire, director Dany Boil has promised to make 183 sequels about various Indian towns and cities. Except that they will all be the same.
'I love you, Mambaai', he cried, at a press conference in Hyderabad, where he made this announcement. 'Seeing the warm reception my movie's got, I've decided to release this, world-wide, again and again over the next few months. What will be different is that the pre-release marketing hype will take the name of a different town each time, to get the western world to watch the same movie repeatedly. Also we have added some facial expressions to the lead character Dev Pateil in some versions. Dumbdog zillionaire -2,3,4,5,6 which are supposedly based in Indore, Nagpur, Surat, Cuttack and Madurai have all been released and are runaway hits in the States. People all over the world are finally appreciating how diverse a country Mambaai is' he said, beaming.
This was followed by a video of a New York theater screening of Dumbdog-3 (Nagpur) showing a visibly moved audience. 'Nagpore is such a colourful city. I never knew Pakistan had such towns' gushed one member of the audience.

Mumbai runs for adequacy

2009-01-19T04:06:00.000-08:00

Thousands thronged to run the 2010 edition of the Mumbai marathon as lakhs watched. The event was dominated by the Kenyans as usual, with Kennet Mugar running the 42 km stretch twice over before participants from any other country could even complete the race.
The city of Mumbai chose 'Enough!' as its theme for this year's race. This was a reference to the excessive media coverage of the attacks on Mumbai over a year ago. The city believes that media channels are exploiting the attacks by telecasting insensitive or bogus 'human interest' stories. CDTV, for instance, celebrated the 13 and a half - month anniversary by conducting a live panel discussion involving the aam mumbaikar called 'Should Mumbai remain silent?' which turned out to be a damp squib because Mumbai was, in fact, silent.
'Attacks dhikhana chhodo, kuch tho kaam karo' was the slogan of choice of the runners. The city has clearly had enough and it's time the channels looked for new content.

It was like being ridden by Raju : Tiger

2009-01-07T23:29:00.000-08:00

A young Bengal tiger that escaped the Hydrabad city zoo yesterday in the wee hours of the morning was rounded up and interviewed by journalists in the outskirts of the city.
'It was a terrible state of affairs at the zoo. There was corruption at every corner. We must be the only tigers in the world to survive on grass-feed. But the audited accounts indicate daily non-veg. Even the number of tigers in the zoo is far lesser than the 30 that the books claim. I had a nightmare last week that Sadhyam's Chairman, Ramaraju takes over the zoo and rides me around with a whip. I woke up in a cold sweat. I interpreted this to mean I should no longer be a victim of corruption and went about planning my escape', it growled

It's Qazab vs Salim this election

2008-12-26T04:05:00.000-08:00

Veteran SBP leader Abu Salim, MP of the Muzabarpur constituency, will face tough competition in the upcoming Indian general elections from young gun Qazab (of the Mumbai attacks' fame) who heads the youth wing of BDS. The opinion polls indicate that the situation is interestingly poised.
There is little to choose between the candidates. Qazab has a track record of fearless attacks and his high intensity training at Karachi seems to have stood him in good stead. Salim, on the other hand is now a well-known face and has the experience of running giant corporations that carry out drug deals, extortion, kidnaps and so on.
'I learnt a great deal from the Mumbai attacks. That was a rough time in my life and I had to spend a few days in jail as well, which was a humbling experience. But that was where my cell mates encouraged me to look at politics as a career' said Qazab, in a telephonic chat, 'When the Bakawati Commision report came out this year, acquitting me and my friends in the 26/11 attacks, I was overjoyed' he said,'I still remember the Mumbai attacks fondly. Despite the loss of lives, you have to admit that if not for this, no one would recognise me on the streets.' When asked about the issue of his nationality, Qazab had this to say -'The aam Indian voter does not care about where the neta is from. All he wants is food'
And food it is that BDS promises - two bags of rice in return for every vote. Salim bhai, on the other hand is depending on cash bribes and also a high profile campaign including dance numbers by his long time friend Bonica Medi.

Qazab brought down to 11, commisioner still not happy

2008-12-03T02:13:00.000-08:00

The ongoing negotiations between Mumbai police and captured terrorist Qazab ended on a positive note today, said official sources. Qazab, who demanded on Saturday that the official record of the attacks show that 25 armed terrorists entered Indian waters for the attack last week, brought down this number to 11, faced with tremendous pressure from the police negotiators and public outcry. While this outcome was seen as good, the city commisioner said there was scope for a further reduction. 'We have him on the backfoot' he said.
'We can't permit so many to enter our country at one time. 25 is just not acceptable' the Navy head had gone on air saying late last night. Qazab, in an exclusive interview with NTDV, had said that he was OK with 15 plus. 'We have invested a lot in this complicated assignment. It would be an insult to our organisation to have any number less than 15 in the records. If you want the number to be reduced, we will disown this whole thing and let our infant-wing, dekkan hujahideen take credit' he threatened. 'And what about the 14 terrorists hiding in Mumbai right now? Spare a thought for them' he urged.
This did not go down well with the average Mumbaikar. 'It is a day of shame for all of us. It feels like my own home has been invaded by approximately more than 20 people' said an angry activist.
The tense negotiations today included an offer to get the remaining escaped 14 terrorists normal citizenship to avoid public panic and get their boat tickets pre-dated. Qazab also promised that they would not create trouble for a few months. 'They are anyway shy of publicity and also a little scared of the seething Mumbaikar and his rallies' he said, smiling.

Nothing to offer

2008-12-01T22:02:00.000-08:00

What do you want from me? I can't help you out. I'm also pretty sure nobody can. Unless you want cliches about time healing your wounds, if you have lost someone in the attacks. Or about how you are in a peaceful place at least now, if you died.
Do condolences help you? You are either my half-acquaintance, my friend's friend, or someone I saw on TV or someone I don't know or have heard of. I can express my condolences. And I can adorn it with adjectives. I don't think I should call you or meet you because I don't think you would want to meet anybody. I can't get myself to email you because I can't find the right words. Everything sounds shallow. It's unfair in a way. What words match death in depth? I think about chucking the idea. Unexpressed condolences are also condolences.
I want to donate blood. Some of you are alive and injured and may need blood. The queues to donate in the hospital are long. My blood group is a common group and will probably not be required. Maybe I should still go across and give it a shot. But there are likely to be security problems and they probably won't let me in the area. I guess I won't go. Maybe I should volunteer. These hospital websites aren't loading. For good reason-people are checking about their missing family members. I decide not to overload the website traffic. And volunteer as what? I don't want to counsel you. If I were in your place, god forbid - sorry, I doubt if counseling would work. My effectively rationalising mind finds a way through most messes. Maybe this time there's a subtle difference in that I came closer to doing something. This coming closer to action is something I owe you.
I can't seem to get back to normal work. I hate news but I'm still addicted to it. My mind is clouded. I'm not particularly sad or angry, just in a haze. Also frustrated. How can these news sites be updated every 5 seconds, I ask myself rationally, but my hands seem to be on their own trip, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing the page. The pity is I can't even read an entire article, even ones I start with immense interest. Who gives a damn? What does death have to do with foreign policy? I get back to drafting an appropriate email to a half-acquaintance, again in vain. These idle hours in the office are not constructive in any way. These hours are because of you and so they are for you.
I'd have preferred donating a part of my salary to buy these policemen vests that are actually bullet-proof. There is probably a government budget for this, it's just not being utilised. I have paid my taxes. I present to you my bullshitty 'it's the government's job' argument but I also know that it's only as useless to you as a monetary donation. The only difference is that I would have felt like I had done something concrete in the latter case but then this isn't about me.
What else can I do? Do you really care if I vote or participate in rallies? Nothing works here. I'm just hanging around waiting for the next round. I empathise with the common people of J&K and for a brief moment, also feel patriotic concern about the whole country turning into a security-less state. We can probably adjust to that as well. 'Normalcy' can be a constantly shifting state and more and more uniforms will figure in our daily lives. I share your despondency and I shake my head when you do and say, as you do, that the dead aren't coming back. And we are all done for. I will probably agree to everything you say, which is not good for you. I should stay away.
People are suddenly nicer, and I think that will last for a week. The other noises by temporarily vigilant citizens and temporarily active government officials will probably die out in two. Your loss (or going away) is having an effect. You are in my head as well, along with a feeling of inadequacy, a kind of intense helplessness. If I were stronger or if this were the first time, this would have made me do something, or try to do something. I know better now and just vent. My time and with it, my incoherent writing is dedicated to your loss. It's not anything but I really have nothing else.

Have faith in bullshit - Dy CM tells Mumbai

2008-12-01T02:40:00.000-08:00

'A prolonged period of bullshit was effective in countering terrorism after the train blasts of '06. We should stick to the same formula', Dy CM, R Tapil said today in a press conference. 'We must also strengthen our army, navy, schools, hospitals, citizens and families. We cannot afford to sit back. We must act. This is not the time to not act. Or sit back, as I mentioned. Action is very important. We have already heard a lot of talk, I'm sorry to say' he said, visibly disturbed.
'Mumbaikars have a different sort of rage now. They want action. The previous time they were just angry enough for inaction to also be a possible course but not this time' added MP Doera.
Mumbai, the golden haired cocker spaniel of a city that it is, limped back to normal like a sick cow that's spread its legs too many times. It is a sleeping giant of a cosmos with a plethora of castes, animals, flyovers, religions and suburbs and at times seems like a starry night sky only to be spoilt by a supernova. It is a resilient rubber band, a mother to all dreamers, free as a fiddle.
Huge crowds were spotted around the attack-sites, cheering the squads and not allowing them to do any of their mopping-up work. ' We want peace, not war. North and South are the same' shouted one activist as he threw himself on one of the military personnel trying to defuse a grenade, creating some moments of tense confusion.
Meanwhile, an email written by a attacker locked in at the hotel, to IIS of Pakishtan was intercepted yesterday with the text 'need approval to use minibar stop ran out of badam stop' This was flatly denied by the Pakishtani government that said, in an official release ' We have always maintained that the people we send to work on Indian assignments are of a top-notch quality, much unlike these morons'.
The Hujahideen has sent details of its next target and the detailed plan of action for sourcing the explosives, training the personnel and so on, to the Inteligence Bureau. 'They have given us a year's notice this time. We have enough time to buy metal-tipped lathis for the policemen in the targeted area. Also the entire station is to be re-painted and this kind of reform is bound to be a slap in the face of such terrorists' said a senior official.
Filmmaker Ramgopalverrma has been invited by the state government to take on the mantle of chief investigator in the attacks and the investigation is expected to be complete abruptly in two hours and be released in five languages.
Media and news agencies have been busy trying to contact the families of the dead for comments.
Disclaimer : Just venting frustration. Willing to remove post if found insensitive.

Profundity

2008-11-17T23:06:00.000-08:00

'Should I go via flyover or Pedder Road?'
'Whichever route is quicker'
'No no, beta. These sort of things don't make a difference to me. In my entire life, I have always believed that this is a matter of business. The meter is on, so whatever is your wish shall be the route. It is right no? You understand, no, the concept?...blah blah '
Uh Oh. The profound cabbie syndrome. And this was a long cab ride. To someone who can go from geography to one's world-view in two seconds as demonstrated above, thirty minutes was a lifetime.
'OK. JJ then'
'Where do you live?'
'Colaba'
'Yeah, thought so. I took one look and I knew that you had to be in that area'
Genius.
'Your parents? Are you married?'
'My parents are not in Colaba. I'm not married'
Talking about where my parents were would have led to a flurry of questions. I thought I'd stick to Colaba and be done with it.
'Parents are everything but marriage is also important. What is man? What thing is man. It's funny sometimes.'
Maybe I should just get out and take the train. People rarely bother others in a train other than to pick up fights which are generally uncomplicated and short-lived.
'When my father was in the village, he used to say to me. Do things but do them honestly. Whatever one does, one should do well. It can be anything.'
'Does your cab have a radio?'
'I look at these new taxi drivers and I feel sad. What? No. There is no radio. So these new taxi drivers. They don't respect. That's the problem'
Where is my i-pod when I need it?
'But God is there. God never lets one down'
This is a topic that could expand exponentially and become a gigantic time-bubble that would fill up every second of the rest of the ride many times over. I had to intervene before things got...er...deeper.
'Where are you from?'
'Me? A small village called Misapur about 53 km...blah'
A detailed description of the place. How to get there. The cheapest way to get there. How many times he has been there in the last ten years. I gradually switched off.
'...Marriage works only when the woman is good'
Hell. How did he get back there from Misapur?
'You should get married. Don't mistake me. I always speak whatever I feel. I speak from the heart. I think one should always speak the truth. You will end up with enemies. Isn't it? Hahahaha'
'Haha...haha' I laughed lamely. I guess I didn't want to mess around with a profound cabbie especially when he was talking about enemies. Also silence, I noticed, only tended to make him repeat himself till he got an appropriate reaction.
'What does one have after all? I ask you. This money etc. Can you take it when you die?'
I got the feeling his meter didn't exactly share this nonchalance about money.
'Is your meter good?'
'It is a pukka meter. I don't do such things. In my entire life I have always blah blah'
I had my doubts. Meanwhile, an angry silence replaced the friendly banter. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Destination approaching. Phew. Stop.
'Pay as much as you want, since you don't trust me'
Awww. 'OK. I pay 200 bucks usually. Here'
'How can you do such as thing? Your home will be ruined, I tell you'
'220? take it or leave it'
Takes it but the tirade continues.
'How can you be like this? All this for 30 rupees.' Drives off in a huff.
Must explain why Mumbaiites still queue up to buy cars knowing they will never touch 20 kmph.

GWBush re-elected for a record third time

2008-11-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

The US elections took a bizarre turn as the results started coming in today. The fake Tabilan tapes that were released yesterday by BS-TV seem to have brought back memories for the American public as they voted for the current incumbent GWBush who didn't figure in the list of candidates. People just wrote his name and a tick by the side. Obam and Mccane were unavailable for comment.

'We love GWBush's stance on the amount of mayonnaise that should go into a subway sandwich. He is my choice for president of the world', slurred one half-drunk voter, leaving the world wondering if GWBush is a well thought-out choice. However, the voting percentage stood at an all-time high of 4% leaving no room for doubt that GWB and the accompanying bad policies and recession are indeed the people's choice. ' We don't want change. We just want a president we can identify with' said another voter, ' and to be fair, I think he will smoke out Obama (sic) from his hide-out this time around'

Don't care about novel contract : Repulsive represser

2008-09-19T02:37:00.000-07:00

Rohit Dev looks like any other 25 year old Mumbaikar. But it is a different story altogether on blogosphere, where he's made a brand for himself. Readers (all four of them) will know him better as the repulsive represser (repulsiverepresser.blogspot.com) a blogger who's shocked the online world through the generally inane and downright dull material on his blog.
'I didn't realise my blog would actually be read by others - I just started writing online instead of my daily journal' he says modestly. 'There was this girl I used to stalk in college who came up with the name. I took an immediate liking to it and I knew instinctively that it would strike a chord with the youth of today'
With 4 hits and 2 profile views in two years, strike a chord the blog has certainly done.
'Desire- the root of all evil is probably the post that everyone enjoyed. I personally also like You are your own moral police' says Rohit.
'How does it feel to have lost out on a novel contract with India's most respected publishing companies?', I prod,'My platonic experiences sounds like a winner to me - what were the grounds on which it was rejected?'
He considers this question before answering.
'I don't really care. It is very sad that publishers are driven entirely by market forces. I heard just yesterday that the compulsive confectioner's got a million dollar advance to write a full length novel about how she used chocolate coated sex toys to build a spaceship for a 3rd standard science project. I do admit that I find the contents of her blog educational but a full-length novel?' he trails off.

Vast gaps in intelligence : PM

2008-09-18T05:15:00.000-07:00

Under attack for the way national security has been handled, Prime Minister Singgh on Wednesday admitted that there were indeed vast gaps in intelligence in the system, at the concluding day of the two-day Conference being held at Vidhan Bhavan.
"There is no question about the government being soft on terrorism," Mr. Singgh started. After a pause, he added, 'It's not rhetorical. I'm actually asking you guys. How come there's no question about the government being soft on terrorism? That's a pleasant surprise'

'I think this is the time for tougher laws governing terrorist acts. As is obvious, these bombers are obviously not following any of the laws we painstakingly enact from time to time. The solution is not better terrorists - it is better laws.'

'I have always felt this big gap in intelligence in our political system. For instance, I always thought I was hugely smarter than Mamata' he said, 'Lately, the gap has become so wide that people just don't seem to understand what I'm saying'

Nowhere is this gap in intelligence felt more than between the people conducting the serial blasts and those who are supposed to prevent it. In a clandestine IQ test held recently, the Indian Hujahideen outperformed the Intelligence Bureau by more than 50% sparking widespread changes in blast-policy. The terrorist outfit immediately released a note to the press giving away detailed notes of where blasts have been planned over the next 10 years. 'Now that we know these chaps are slow, it's only fair that we give them time to study the drawings and the plan. It's no fun otherwise.' a masked spokesperson said.

Other parties expressed similar sentiments as the PM except Gaj Thawkre's SNM, Mumbai. 'We need legislation to get these plans in Marathi and French so that my son and I can go through these' said a visibly embarrassed Gaj Thawkre, when asked about his views.

Review for sale

2008-09-01T02:36:00.000-07:00

Good movie : Bad review :
These are easy to write. The following tips will help
1. Expectation mismatch : You know that Amir Khan is the creator of this piece and you walk into the theater expecting the world. The outcome though is far from satisfying and you leave a disappointed soul,
2. Random historical references : still searching for the same magic as say ' Rangeela' or even 'Raakh' where the man displayed a shrewd understanding of his audience. This is not to say
3. Disclaimers : that the movie is not without noble intent. It does have its moments but the message just gets lost along the way.

Bad movie : Good review : This is dicey because people will be out for your skin once you make them blow 300 bucks to watch some shit in a multiplex.
1. Insignificant details : Kiran Kher just oozes screen presence in the 30 second role she has. It is a short cameo admittedly but she just lights up the screen, reminding us of
2. Compare with old but hit crap : Mithoonda's Disko dancer. If you want to
3. Glorify the unadulteratedness of the nonsense : leave your brains behind and enjoy 3 hours of pure meaningless harmless fun, this is right up your alley. The director wants to have fun and makes no bones about it. This supremely over-indulgent
4. More detail, exaggeration : movie has perhaps the best right-hand-slapping-left-cheek scene ever in the history of Indian cinema when Kiran lovingly thrashes the hero.
example : http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/aug/08singh1.htm
Can't think of an example for the first category, can you?

Deiv Anand makes autobiographical movie: sues himself for defamation

2008-08-18T08:41:00.000-07:00

Bollywood veteran Deiv Anand launched his latest movie 'What was I thinking?', touted to be the man's swan-song. Jacky Shroff plays Deiv Anand in this semi-autobiographical movie and also four other roles. 'I always like working with fresh faces like Jacky' said Deiv saab, forgetting that Jacky dada is a veteran himself.

The story is of a film-maker whose life follows a strange pattern. For each hit that he delivers, 50 of his movies flop. At least that's what he thinks till his 52nd movie also flops, shattering his hope and dream of one day making a movie that people other than him actually watch.

'I'm as nervous as I was last year when Guide was released' Deiv saab chatters on incoherently, 'I only wish someone would watch this bloody movie'

He also confirmed rumours that he was taking action against himself and the producer, again himself, for having depicted himself in a bad light in the movie. 'There are creative boundaries that should not be crossed, which I'm sad to say have been crossed, despite my warnings. It's alright to imitate me but I have to admit I was hurt watching the rushes, at being caricatured like this. I have filed for damages amounting to Re 1, which will cover Jackie's salary if not anything else' he roared.

India leads tally in SMS-Olympics : Deepica Paducone wins High Jump

2008-08-13T03:23:00.000-07:00

For the 5th consecutive day, the Indian contingent led the medals tally in the 2008 SMS-Olympics held in Delhi but mostly on the portal vote-for-gold.com. Readers will know the innovative format of this competition, where a list of nominees is submitted a month in advance by each country and medals are decided during the olympics on a majority of SMS votes. Deepica Paducone won the women's singles tennis gold 6-0, 6-0 against Maria Sarapova, who was expected to put up a tough fight especially after posing in revealing costumes for Playboy in March this year. Sania Mizra narrowly missed out in the women's doubles because of a wrist injury. 'Couldn't send enough sms'es. My surgery is affecting my performance' she said. Deepica also won 17 other gold medals in unrelated events - high jump, badminton, swimming, diving and gymnastics, taking India's tally to 405 golds in the competition so far. This is in addition to the sms-oscars she won last month for best actress, actor, newcomer, child artiste, light boy and stunt double. 'What a gift to give the country on a long weekend! Deepica reflects the hope of a generation' said the Union Sports Minister in an interview yesterday. 'Even when she was in school, she used to be terrible', her school teacher remembered fondly.

Definitions for the corporate rookie - I

2008-08-04T04:47:00.000-07:00

Exposure : A powerful and easy way of extracting work from the innocent. It just means you have to work hard now so that you can get used to it and work hard later.
Challenge : Euphemism for shit work that no one else is willing to do.
Adversity : Synonym of shit - coined because it rhymes with many more words than shit and hence lends itself to poetry.
Learning : If your income is too small to justify the quantum of your work and you also believe you are higher on Maslow's than you actually are, this will do the trick.
Proactiveness : A trait that is used to fast-track the stupid ahead of the innocents.
Team player : A trait used to fast-track the vending-machine flirts ahead of the working innocents.
High quality work : Low quality work
Talent : Human beings
Genius : Human beings who turn up for work

Blahrb

2008-07-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

-Siddick's is a fresh new voice in Indian fiction that begs hearing in today's world of corruption, communal violence, world peace, bad movies and cheap alcohol. He may not only be the least important author of his generation but has also turned out a masterpiece that is perhaps best described by those who made the mistake of reading it.
-This book is a race-horse-power-packed-non-stop-pace-maker triumph. It is dark and chilling (where I live) but that's only because there's a power-cut in my house. Vintage Siddick.
- Pick this novel up on a lazy summer afternoon and lose yourself in sleep. This one's a page-turner and you will regret being born mid-way through the 890 pages.
- This is an important book. It covers the difficult terrain of balderdash that other writers ignore, with the admirable clumsiness and a general disdain for the reader's intellect that has now come to characterise most of Siddick's work.
- The book appears, deceptively so, to be an epic saga covering several generations to the undiscerning reader but it operates on many levels and raises some fundamental questions about buying the book.
- Siddick is almost deliberately plain in his phrasing. Yet his book has that ineffable lyrical quality to it and a couple of sentences rhyme awkwardly. An absolute piece de resistance, a novel non pareil, a rare achievemento, a novel without raison-d-etre.
- A surprisingly poignant and pithy tale. This is a writer at the depth of his craft.

I'm older than I was three years back - Parthib Patail

2008-07-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

Ghoni's absence in the forthcoming India-SL test series may just be the lucky break that young baby-faced wicket-keeper Parthib Patail was waiting for. But the only thing between him and another test match cap may be that very baby face that has endeared him to hardly anybody over the last many years.
"Just look at him. Would rather not have a keeper. And he definitely can't bat. He uses training wheels to hold up his bat in the nets" said Kumbli who believes that he is at least four times as old as young Patail.
Patail, though, is not amused. "After being dropped from the side three years back, I have consistently tried to look older. I sported a mush at one point and even got married, for God's sake. The fact is I am three years older than I was three years ago but my face still looks the same", he said, waving a copy of his birth and marriage certificate for all to see.
"It is a fact that I'm pretty much at the same place I started out with in terms of physical strength and cricketing ability. Still can't bat or keep wickets to save my life and have lost many matches for my state and 20-20 sides. But I have learnt how to take failure in my stride which is a valuable trait to have" he continued.
Will captain Kumbli give him a break in the first test? Or will young Patail be discriminated against on account of his complete lack of talent and baby face? We will know shortly.

20th century thamizh poetry and its influence on popular culture

2008-07-14T00:43:00.000-07:00

submitted in partial fulfilment of doctorate in superstardom...

Adhandaa idhaandaa Arunaachalam naanthaandaa
That only, this only, Arunaachalam me only
Annai thamizh naattula naa anaivarukkum sondhandaa...
In mother Tamil Nadu I am belonging to everyone
Aandavan nadathiduvaandaa daa daa arunaachalam nadandhiduvaandaa
God will strategise gise gise, Arunachalam will implement ment ment
Naan uppu poatta aala marappadhilladaa
I don't forget man putting salt da

Aanaa thappu senja aala viduvadhilladaa (Adhaandaa)

But I don’t leave man making mistake da (That only)

White noise

2008-07-11T02:56:00.000-07:00

"This reminds me of the time I used to work in Sion. There was this one staff officer who used to...I mean we have to be fair to him and all that because we don't know what he was going through but still a person has to, you know...take boss for example....I mean it's not always true but all I'm trying to say is that it is possible to be wrong. This guy I was talking about used to work a couple of offices away from me. Strictly speaking they were not offices, maybe some sort of cubicles. You've seen the ones at XYZ right? Maybe 2 metres wide, or 3. Something like that..."
Fade out. Fade in.
"...that is what he said, can you imagine? We were like oh my god. I don't know what happened to her."
Pause. I have to say something of a general nature here, I'm guessing.
"Yes. people, man, I tell you. All kinds", is my feeble attempt.
"Exactly. And not that I was pissed off or anything. I mean it is ok with me. But I'm like that"
Trrring. Phew.
"Hello. We are calling from StanC. We would like to offer you a free credit card"
Pesky call center credit-card salesman versus colleague given to random detailed anecdotes. Credit card pest gets disconnected. Back to colleague.
"As I was saying...What's that on your nose by the way, a boil? These things can spread to your brain. This triangular region is a little critical. So where was I? Forget that. What amazes me is that this chap...I mean how is it possible to be like that...My uncle once said that it is possible to be, you know, the uncle who lives in Chembur. Have I told you about him? He lives in Diamond Garden, you've seen that place where they, you know...You have to take left there and go straight about a few metres. Ok, I may be exaggerating when I say a few metres, maybe a kilometre. There is this old tree there that's I'm sure a thousand years old...hahaha...so it's about a kilometre, maximum a kilometre and a half. You can take an auto if you want to but I think, I mean purely personal opinion, you may differ. I mean like you said people are of different types. Me and my father for example. We can walk, I mean like not walk walk but more of a stroll or something..."
Fade out. Fade in with no recollection of how much time has passed in between.
"...and I had no clue what to do but that's another story. So what were we talking about before the digression?"
No frikkin' clue. What I would like to talk about, however, is the faulty wiring in your head that allows your mouth to emanate unprocessed sounds continuously.
"We were talking about some people, how they can be, you know...", I blurt.
"Exactly. I mean don't take this as bitching but if you are like that despite people telling you then I'm very sorry, boss I'm not the person for you. You understand what I'm saying? I mean I have to tell you despite all the negatives when I was working in Sion... I mean there wasn't even a process, can you believe that?... I'm saying despite all that, the truth is that it is still like the one place where despite all the negatives, a person, I mean these are not strictly negatives mind you, but you tell me how long can a person go on with something like this. My uncle used to say, the Chembur guy I told you about. Have I told you about him?"
I know enough about Chembur uncle now to go mug him at night and surrender at the Chembur police station.
"Yes. Diamond Garden". Am I really that good at pretend-listening?
"Yes. Like i was saying..."
Fade out. Fade in.
"..it's something like a dark greyish colour. I mean you can call it black but it's not pitch black. I don't know the technical term for it but it kind of looks like a ...hmm, I don't know but I think..."
Fade out. In.
"...that is not the point, right? Seriously the environment is such that even if one has to, I mean"
Out. In.
"You are rather quiet today, what happened?"
Trring.
"I is Tushar Sir calling respected yourself from StanC"
"Yeah hi! You got disconnected right?" I have never been this cheery to a spam-caller before.
"Sir Yes Credit card for you sir. You have been selected for this new offer sir, free credit card."
"Hmm. Interesting. Can you let me have some more detail?"
"Ma'am, of course yes, sir. Card is membership fee annual is exemption..."
Fade out.

Delegation

2008-06-27T06:14:00.000-07:00

"That's all you need to do. Put these small documents together and make a big document. No analysis. No nothing. As simple as that. I will take it from there"
"Cool. Great. So I think we should sit on it sometime tomorrow..."
Ho Hum. here we go.
"...and then blah and then bluh and then blah. What do you think?"
Much as I love your way of doing it, i.e., by not doing it, I'm going to stick to the original idea.
"You put those together first no? We can discuss tomorrow when we have one document that's readable"
"You are not getting my point". Comes and sits and points at random objects on my laptop monitor. "...blah and bluh and so we need to discuss"
"I don't think putting these together is a two-man job. Are you doing something else right now or later today?"
Always ask questions you know the answer to.
"No. Ok chalo, I will take a shot at it"
Phew.
"Mr. Chatterjee? Hi. I was wondering if you could do this as well as part of your presentation..."
Can you hate a task so much that you will die avoiding it? Sometimes the greatest distance in the world is between a person and his work. I give up.
"Don't bother Mr. Chatterjee, man. I will do it myself"
"Cool. Just try putting these documents together to make one big document, plain and simple. No analysis or anything. We can discuss tomorrow when you are ready"

Siv Seina buys suicide wing from Al Qaida for 2 bn$

2008-06-19T00:13:00.000-07:00

In a landmark transaction that marks the coming of age of Indian M&A, Mumbai's very own Siv Seina (SS) bought 100% of the equity of Al Qaida's suicide wing for 2 bn$. Trade analysts have called the deal 'overpriced' and 'suicidal' but the management is gung-ho as usual about the new merged entity.

The genesis of the deal was some innovative thinking from the senior management of SS when responding to a war cry from the party supremo, who had urged the party to start a suicide wing to counter the threat that Islamic terrorist groups posed. The management realised that starting this wing from scratch would take a lot of time and effort whereas a ready-made solution existed - growth through the inorganic route.
Meanwhile Al Qaida was looking to hive off its suicide wing which had been bleeding for many years. This resulted in the perfect marriage, something that no one would have seen coming even a few weeks back, given the history of differences between the two parties. 'This proves that terrorist groups everywhere are fundamentally the same' said Abu Kazi, 'The fund inflow will be used to digitally remaster some Osama tapes that are in production including a romantic comedy and an out-and-out action thriller'
'With technology and manpower transfer from the suicide wing, we should be able to do at least a couple of bombings every month', SS Chairman Fackeray said non-committally,' We are retaining Al Qaida's top management, so there may be issues on which communities to target. The problem is the census survey is also outdated, so there is really no scientific way of doing this, apart from taking an SMS vote and so on. So we are keeping our staff entertained by making them watch Sarkar Raj-3 multiple times so as to simulate suicide and near-death conditions.'
The state government has taken a serious view of this episode and is scrutinising the deal documents for evidence of tax violations.

Love gooru answers!

2008-05-28T05:27:00.000-07:00

The following is a transcript of a live chat session with our in-house relationship expert affectionately called the 'love gooru'
amresh : hi hi m 10 yr old boy in love with 12 yr old girl in school. pl help
L : Are you nuts? Go do your frikkin' homework, weird lil' brat...
srini : hi am hindu girl in love with muslim boy, his parents don't like the marriage. i feel like ending my life in world. pl help
L : Someone end my life in world
rocky : hi am muslim boy loving hindu girl and my parents are objecting
L : Stop right there. Refer answer above. Jeez. You two in the same chat room? What are you, 10?
amresh : no, i'm 10. in love with 12 yr old
L : You're still here, you spoilt little pain in the a**. Wait till i trace your ip
ridhi : hi i have life and death problem. i'm 12 yr old in love with
L : What is this- couples' chat day? Get out of my chat room, ye all
greg : hey man how you doing? ;)
L : Yeah dude, hit on me. Let's generate relationships. There don't seem to be any otherwise.
shamuddin : delhi daredevilry will win ipl
satya : go to pakstan where you belong
shamuddin : u go to uzbekistan then, the weathers really good this time of the year
satya : really? i was thinkin turkey, good suggestn sham, c ya
L : Really great catchin' up with you both. Anyone here who wants advice? Helloooo?
raj : hi, one of m close friends said she wants to marry me, now i'm worried that she might be hinting that she might want more than just a good frandship.
L : No absolutely not, please don't lose a good frand by mistaking her intent. Is she hot?
rehana : i fot wid a boy and he marrd some1 n nw i like hm, i cnt 4gt hm n thnk f hm alwys. wt shd i do
L : I'm astonished that I was actually able to decipher your sms-like crap.
loverboy12: there's this girl i really really like. i asked her out many times and she kept saying no. then one day i sms'ed her and she said no on sms. since then i keep calling her and messaging her thousands of times a day but she never responds. should i just give up, please advise?
L : Keep trying. Persistence, boy, persistence. Women love that. Another good idea is anticipatory bail for stalking. That's all we have time for, folks. Next round coming up in a week, same time. Hope to run into more interesting people than this bunch! bye!

Mukesh Ambni buys BMC for 8 gazillion $

2008-05-07T06:15:00.000-07:00

Reliable Industries, led by the world's richest man and business tycoon Mukesh Ambni acquired 100% of the equity of Bombay Municipal Corporation yesterday in a bold move that left the city pretty much indifferent as usual. Clandestine high-level negotiations have been going on for the past few months, revealed a company source. Both sides had hard-nosed negotiators who fought for every inch, delaying the closing by many months. Sources say Mukesh was very keen on VT, where he'd planned a second bungalow at a cost of 23 bazookillion dollars and the Oval for his son to play throwball with Shaun Pollock. BMC wished to retain management control over these and had to throw in Pedder Road and Borivilli Fast in return. The younger of the Ambni brothers, Sanil, not to be left behind, has put in a bid to buy Thane creek, which he plans to convert into a luxurious swimming pool at the cost of an arm and a leg.
Sena activists disrupted the announcement and restated their demand to find-replace B with M in all known nouns in the world. ''B' is a legacy left by the British. Are we not independent yet?' fumed an angry Mal Thackery. 'Mera Mharat mahaan. Mera Mummai mahaan' shouted the demonstrators, most of whom melonged to the Majrang Dal's Mhandup mranch.

Srisanth weeps uncontrollably again : Jumps to #2 in Times' 'world's most influential' list

2008-05-01T21:58:00.001-07:00

'He hit me for six 4s in one over' gushed a weeping Srisanth in the post match conference as Jaipur Jokers crushed Chennai Chums in the final of the Indian Premiere League yesterday, 'I haven't been smashed so badly even in underarm cricket'.
Ace paceman Srisanth's bowling took a beating in the final and he returned figures of 4 overs for 80 and no wicket. He had a good reason to cry this time and cry he did- he was apparently inconsolable for hours after the match.
While he had little to cheer about in the match, what would have come as a pleasant surprise to him and his family was the Time's 'most influential people' list that's updated every few hours on the Times' website. The widespread media coverage of Srisanth's teary-eyed interview seems to have made him a familiar ugly sighting in every corner of the globe. Little wonder that he jumped from #132475 to #2 in a matter of 3 hours yesterday night on the list. The other Indians in the list are PV.Narasimha Rao (#23), Mandira Bedi (#45), Inspector Karamchand (#57), arbitrary mahout-cum-snake-charmer man (#73) and the Nano (#103). Srisanth's climb in the rankings is definitely an indicator of India finding its rightful place in the world, readers feel.

SC bored with arguements : hikes BC reservation again

2008-04-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

The highest court in the Indian judiciary today upheld a PIL against both sides of the ongoing reservation debate - the PIL alleged that the arguements for and against reservation were getting increasingly repetitive and accuses both parties of being mind-numbingly boring as a ploy to get a quick judgement.
'Exclude creamy layer. Use economic and not caste criteria. Yawn', the two-page judgement reads. The judgement also slams the pro-reservation wing for excessive usage of the phrase 'years of oppression'. 'What years of oppression, useless fellow!' thundered justice KGB in the court when the lawyer used the phrase,'Wish I could subject you to some years of oppression'
The outcome of this long-drawn battle was a hike in the quota for backward classes to 40%. 'I'm retiring in six months, so I took an arbitrary decision and adjourned till November because people need time to figure out how I arrived at the number 40' said KGB with an enigmatic smile.
Forward classes meanwhile have taken this news badly and a radical group is now rumoured to have started a home-schooling movement. The rationale is that there are no seats in schools and colleges for kids from forward classes and hence they would have to be tutored at home till graduation/post graduation. Not to be left behind, the backward caste parties have reacted to this rumour by applying to the SC for a quota in home-tutoring as well. Parents can no longer help just their kids with homework and get away with it, it seems.
'Prima facie, I think the 40% would apply at homes as well because the judgement does not specify the instrument used to impart education. But I'm sure these lawyers will use their creativity and dig up some loopholes and talk about meritocracy beginning from the household etc' was KGB's unofficial view.

Happiness can't buy money : Warton Study

2008-04-08T06:41:00.001-07:00

A study conducted by the economics department of Warton University has come up with some startling conclusions. The old adage 'happiness is money' has been disproved and how!
Researchers at the University, who carried out the study, found that inhabitants of happier countries are far poorer (economically) than grumpier, 'the-serious-types' nations.
In other words, the wider you smile, the poorer you are.
This finding contradicts years of wisdom that a higher sense of well-being translates into a higher GDP. This also explains how anomalies like Indya, Nepaul and Butan have always been off the charts on happiness but their cumulative per capita income never really added to much.
'The paradox arises from the fact that poorer people tend to feel happy in a simplistic way once their basic needs are met. And what's more, some of these lucky idiots take to drugs and alcohol which either make them happier immediately, or makes them give irrelevant responses to our questionnaire and screw up our results', a fuming Dr. Bernstein - one of the researchers who led the study, was quoted as saying.

IIM-Q hikes fee to 3 cr : early birds to get 20% discount

2008-04-04T06:01:00.000-07:00

IIM Qaziabad hiked its fee to 3 cr from 3 lakh last year, an undisclosed percentage increase. 'We are charging six times as much as Harvard, but you have to note that our faculty's far inferior', said Vijay Singh, the Chairman of the Governing Board.
'We will ensure that every minute a student spends on campus counts and the course is worth every penny the student shells out. A study amongst Q alumni revealed that their chief regret on campus was attending classes. So in the new paradigm, there will be fewer profs, fewer assignments, fewer textbooks and so on. We are also launching new specialisation streams - An MBA in deep-sea snorkeling, MBA in blog-surfing and an executive development program in solitaire are on the anvil right now', he revealed.
'The proceeds from student fees will be used to re-paint the entire campus. We might also get real professors this year and they won't come cheap. We did a study last year where we tried to gauge the students' expectation of faculty IQ-Scores and they unanimously voted in the above 100 category, which has put us in a quandary. I think the days of getting primary school dropouts to teach MBA courses are long gone' he said ruefully.
Undergrad students all over the country are still reeling at the shock that their last chance at 'two more years of doing nothing' is suddenly unaffordable. It appears that the 20% discount for the first 100 applicants will also do little to alleviate the situation.
'If we are spending that much, we might as well get a real degree na?' says Shaurabh, an MBA aspirant who has settled for copies of 'The 10-day MBA' and 'The one minute manager' as a cheaper substitute for the course.

Macrosoft buys 'older posts' from Mumbai blogger for 2 Bn$

2008-03-26T04:19:00.000-07:00

Raj Mehta, a popular blogger, sold almost his entire blog to software giant Macrosoft for an undisclosed amount. Trade pundits put the transaction size to be around 2 billion USD.
www.randomlymumbleddeepthoughts.blogspot.com is the link where Raj blogs anonymously (until now). As per the agreement, the front page still belongs to Raj while MS owns all the archives i.e. what you get when you click 'older posts' at the bottom of the first page.
Raj is the second entrant to the billionaires' club this month after a venture capitalist picked up a stake in Sanjeev More's social network on March 3rd. Sanjeev, who is a self-proclaimed wastrel with about a 100 plus friends, sold his real life social network to Fundemall, an angel investor from Silicon Valley for a billion plus USD. 'If an online network is worth 15 billion, think of the value of my real life network', says Sanjeev - a veiled reference to Fiendster, a popular online social networking site. Ironically, his friends aren't too thrilled at the transaction and his network might be severely affected as a result. Fundemall is closely monitoring the situation.
Raj and Sanjeev are also planning to work together on their next idea - a web portal linking start up ideas to VC funds. 'We are specifically targeting what we think are bad startup ideas because these are sometimes the ones that need the most help with funding' says Sanjeev.

Rahul Gandy kicks off 'Discovery of India' tour on Google Earth

2008-03-13T05:45:00.000-07:00

Congress MLA Rahul Gandy today found Orissa on Google Earth leading to celebrations and firecrackers by re-energised party workers.
'This is so cool' Rahul drooled, 'I have connected to rural areas in Orissa and Bihar on Google Earth and downloaded some on to my desktop. The north eastern states will be a challenge. I have found only Burma so far' he said, in a candid low-IQ interview with Kal Thak.
President Sonya was seen heaving a sigh of relief. When Rahul had announced a tour of the Indian states, she had assumed this would be a real tour. In a press conference that had made Rahul cry, she had said 'He is so grounded. This tour will bankrupt the exchequer' she said, referring to the election funds collected by the party. She hadn't seen this low-cost alternative coming.
'I want to stay connected to the real India. But this new broadband that mommy's taken is so unreliable, I keep getting disconnected' wept Rahul.
Meanwhile, mobs were seen gathering in rural areas in Orissa to 'welcome' their hero and wave at him through the net. The hoardings and placards welcoming him are being scanned and sent to his email address as we speak, as they weren't visible on g-earth.
'I want to reform the party, especially the one we do Saturday nights. Who says we need to stop drinking at midnight (hic)?' he challenged, to much applause from party workers.
It seems like Rahul is certainly in the running to take over from his mommy at the helm
- Correspondent

No problem with clothes - Sherly Chopraw

2008-03-10T00:23:00.000-07:00

' I don't know what gave people the idea that I'm uncomfortable with wearing clothes on screen' Sherly fumes, ' I even wore a saree in Jab we slept'
'I'm ready to do anything the script demands. Or the director or the producer, for that matter. If heavy clothing is the way to go, I'm all for it. It's not as if I will be the first to wear clothes on screen. Even Sreedevi and Hemimalani have done it. At least I'm being open about it. My only requirement is that these shots of me in opaque clothes will have to be tastefully done'
Directors - are you listening? wink wink
-Subhas Ja for Mid-Night

Vote budget regressive - Finance Minister

2008-03-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

The Farmer Association of India (FAI) 's vote budget - 2008-09 was announced today at its annual general body meeting. This budget, to remind readers, is a broad indication of how the farmers are going to vote in the upcoming election. The salient features are as follows
Gainers :
Congress I : 2 crore votes allocated as opposed to 1.7 in 2007-08
Losers :
BJP : 3 lakh votes as opposed to 45 in 2007-08
Misra, the Finance Head of the FAI, quoted from the Bhagvad Gita, Koran and Bible liberally in his budget address- 'Tit for Tat - all the scriptures advise - and we are just following this mantra. We vote for those who help us in times of need'
The Union Finance Minister did not seem too happy with the meagre vote increase especially after announcing a bonanza for these farmers in his budget 2008-09 last month.
'I will have to say this vote budget is repressive and populist. Why the token allotment of votes to minority parties just to appease them? I'm hurt by this kind of lack of reciprocation'
Misra however, was unruffled. 'We had mentioned earlier also. We are unhappy with only past loans being waived. What about loans we need now and in the future? Who's going to pay those back?' he hollered, 'We told the Finance Minister personally about a pump set that needed repair in my house. Did he bother to do anything about it? These people remember us only during elections'
The Congress spokesperson was careful not to be too pleased ' We all know that the budget is just indicative. It does not trickle down to the common politican. Last year they promised 1.7 crore votes and then hardly anyone turned up because it was raining heavily on poll day. Also there is the corruption in between, where henchmen from other parties take a cut for allowing people to vote'
Overall, the attitude seems to be one of 'wait and watch'. The elections will have their own story to tell as always.
- Our special correspondent

Over-descriptive author almost sued for wasting readers' time

2008-03-06T20:51:00.000-08:00

When crime-writer Jeffrey Biggins woke up Sunday morning, he would have hardly expected to be sued. Sunday to him meant a day of relaxation, a day of lazing around by his indoor pool, which was a shiny blue, a not-so-much-of-a-contrast against the white-blue early morning sky. For Biggins, the day began like any other Sunday, and he woke up and looked down at his beak-like nose and whatever else he could see of his face. At 45, Biggins still could pass for a 43-year old and his jet black hair made it impossible for one to guess his age, unless you looked at the skin behind his ears or something. His deep green-grey eyes were quick to miss a trick and were embellished by his black bushy eyebrows. He was not what one could call handsome but he did have that unmistakable quality of non-handsomeness about him. Biggins let out a low whistle for no apparent reason.

Little did he know what news the mail would bring him that Sunday. He changed to a double breasted suit, from his white-yellow pajamas with blue stripes, which were black near the feet due to differential rates of washing by the new washing machine that he had purchased recently. The steel grey washing machine shone in the morning sun, a symbol of the sweeping changes in his life. Not bad for someone who did not have a washing machine before buying one, thought Biggins- a slap in the face of those who ridiculed new washing machine buyers. He smiled wryly at the thought

Biggins' mail took a different route that Sunday, via 24th street, cutting across to 15th, down two blocks, then a left and there it was, at Biggins' doorstep. Biggins shivered out of context, as the icy cold breeze did not actually blow into his bedroom through the tightly shut windows. These windows were a crimson red, in stark contrast to his skin colour which was a lighter shade. It was a symbol of an era gone by, of technology, weird architecture, tectonic and sociological changes, and intolerably bad music. Biggins smiled wryly for the second time in a couple of minutes.

He proceeded to open his fan mail; in particular, a letter that was written on a glistening white sheet of paper with startling orange borders. It was an unpleasant letter from a reader who threatened to sue him for 'never getting to the point and getting mixed up in verbose irrelevant descriptions' in all his novels. She claimed to have spent over 5 hours reading the first chapter of his latest offering 'Death on page 978' and wanted those hours refunded as soon as possible. Biggins grinned toothily, a luxury he allowed himself when his wryness dried up. He made a mental note to respond to this reader. This reader no doubt was a middle-aged woman with strong jaws, a sharp eagle-like nose, and green-black eyes, Biggins surmised with absolutely no basis. This woman would not be attractive in the conventional sense, but there would be that quality of unmistakableness about her, which would have drawn many men to her in her life. For a fleeting moment, Biggins could identify with what she had been through.

He made himself a cup of steaming hot coffee which scalded the crap out of his mouth. This Sunday was going to be different, he thought as he laughed noiselessly and looked at his beak-nose at a different angle this time, in the reflection on the coffeemaker's silver surface, which glistened in the late morning sun.

- Our special correspondent

Tehelga unearths fake celebrations scam

2008-03-03T02:53:00.000-08:00

In the wake of the Indian team's victory in the under-13 Asian Kabaddi championships, a Tehelga probe might just have unearthed a diabolical media scandal. If they are to be believed, the boisterous pan-India celebrations that were telecast hour-on-hour by NCBC, Kal Thak and Soni-News last week had one thing in common - they never took place.
"I suspected something fishy because both the reporter and the crowd were talking in very general terms. 'Aapko kaisa lag raha hai' and 'khushiyan manaane ka samay hai' in reply. And I also thought I recognised a long-haired drunk chap from this year's Ganesh Chaturti celebrations telecast on the same channel" says Pal, co-editor of Tehelga.
This suspicion prompted Pal to put in place a team to analyse various news videos of boisterous celebrations and 'people taking to the streets' across channels. The team tabled a report in three days with explosive findings
- The top three news channels have been using the same scenes of celebration for the last 6 years. Kal thak has used one video a record 28 times, for Ganesh Chaturthi 03-08, Diwali 04-08, 15 cricket victories including the 20-20 world cup, the Om Shanti Om silver jubilee function and Mayawata's victory in the 2007 assembly elections.
- The said video was shot with junior artistes in Goregaon Film City at a cost of 3 lakhs in 2002.
- Aforementioned long haired drunk was caught in Komal Bar and admitted to accepting a payment of Rs 10 every time his drunken dance was telecast by Kal Thak. He has made a tax-free Rs 100 in the last year alone.
This blog got in touch with a senior executive of one of these channels and he had this to say, strictly off the record : 'We can't be running around covering various jobless people shouting and celebrating. We did a study in 1999 which found that drunken revelries were 98% similar irrespective of the occasion the drunks were celebrating. Let's say we do the real thing - get our city correspondent to chase down these celebrating idiots everytime something happens. Do you know how much it would cost us? When Sunita William's son passed 3rd grade for instance, Bombay went absolutely nuts in joy. It's not safe for us to go around interviewing mad crowds, leave alone the cost. So we make do with what we have. How does it make a difference?'
This begs the question to be asked - if India in fact does not care, would you still like to see reruns of the long haired drunk dancing with his co-goons? Tell us what you think.

Sachan half-century auctions for 1 mn $ : Has to win match - says SRKK

2008-02-28T02:22:00.000-08:00

The unfolding IPL drama took a new turn today as the next phase of auctions began - the bids for individual performances. The cricketers laughed all the way to the bank as bids touched unprecedented levels. Leading the pack was veteran brand endorser Sachan Gundulkar who made a cool 1 million USD for hitting a half-century in the upcoming one day match against the Chennai Chamelis, to be played next Tuesday.
SRKK who owns the team was visibly in a grumpy mood in the auction and threatened some reporters with the six-pack that he carries to work these days even when not shooting for a movie. Times Correspondent Sheeba caught up with him however, for a brief chat.
"I had no idea I would have to buy out these performances. For the match this Tuesday, I have bought a Sachan 50, two third-umpire not-out decisions, and four crowd jeers of 'monkey' aimed at Symands when he is in the outfield. That's not enough to win the match, is it?"
The bids for wrong umpiring decisions shot up as the day progressed and the two sides led by SRKK and Malia were caught in a shouting match. SRKK bought a Sachan 50 for 1 mn USD but Malia shot back by buying a Fucknor decision to give Sachan out 'lbw' in the 2nd over. After heated negotiations chaired by starlet Bandira and Adul Wassan, who, to remind readers, started his cricket career directly in the commentary room, the bidding teams decided to concede a Sachan 50 in exchange for a cheap exit for Sehwaj for a paltry 8 runs.
The only man to gain from this arrangement was Sehwaj, who expected to get out at 5 and the additional 3 runs were an 'unekchpected bonanja' in the words of his relative.
SRKK, under advice from his lawyers, asked for a re-wording of the agreement, adding a clause binding Sachan to make a match-winning half-century, keeping in mind Sachan's recent strike rate of a run every 8 balls.
"I don't care. Cricket is a team game. I think we are thinking too much. We should all just go out there and try as a team to get me my 50!" said Sachan, slamming his critics.
In an unsurprising turn of events, Kumbli's 5 wicket haul was underbid by many times and the reserve price had to be reduced to 20 USD and this performance was bought by his brother, who has approached State Bank of Carnataka for a bridge loan to fund this purchase.
Adding to the drama were demonstrations by Green Cross, an NGO that has espoused the cause of wild life in Asia. Sunida who led the dharna, in a press release, said: 'The attitude of everyone, especially stupid little kids, has seen a paradigm shift ever since Symands was called a blue bison by Bajji. You should see these little brats at the zoo and at the national park, throwing things at blue bisons and shouting 'S y m a n d s ...Symands'.
Further confusion ensued as SRKK got delayed for his dance performance in the parliament as part of the Union Budget '09 session, which has become a regular feature of budget sessions over the last few years. The session had to be postponed by a day as a result.
"No point announcing the Budget today when nobody's going to watch it" said a morose Finance Minister. "Soni TV is telecasting Mohabbatein.v2 with two new Aiswaryarai facial expressions and Saharaa is playing Junoon reruns - who can compete with that? We really needed SRKK to boost TRPs. We are not happy. This year only cheque payment for SRKK- no 100 rupee notes will be flung at him when he dances in the parliament tomorrow", he boomed.
A bad day for SRKK but he is not KKing KKhan for nothing - watch this space.
- Our special correspondent

Go back to Dadar West : LTDE

2008-02-06T02:14:00.000-08:00

City life was disrupted today as LTDE (Liberation Tigers of Dadar East) chased away unsuspecting Dadar-West'ites from their offices in Dadar-East. 23 were reported injured, none seriously.

Anyone who had shifted to Dadar-East from West in the last 2 months, as well as those who stayed in West but worked in East constituted the group that the riotous LTDE targeted.

'These West people are taking our jobs. We also have mouths to feed', said Naresh, who does not remember what he used to do before taking up rioting full time for the LTDE

The tigers also staged a rally in protest against film star Bachpan buying a Nano from a Bandra Showroom for his grandson Gabbar . ' Has he forgotten the days when he used to eat at an Udipi in Dadar on the way to Goregaon?' an LTDE source asked.

The LTDE has submitted a detailed document to Bachpan marking out the areas he can operate in. An unidentified LTDE source gave us a sneak preview of this document - 'It just makes Bachpan's life easier and more organised. He needs to buy milk at Kolaba (because Sholay ran for 200 days in Regal), bread at Dadar, have a quick coffee at Thane and then do a loo break in Malad. He has requested for the last venue to be shifted because he can't hold back for that long and our apex committee is considering this request.

We have also given him clear direction on developmental work. He needs to set up a school in Goregaon west, where his kids studied, and a hospital in Andheri. We are thinking of giving him a tourist visa to Bandra because he has some relatives there'

The LTDE has re-sent the application to the President appealing for Dadar East to be recognised as a separate state after she rejected the first appeal on the grounds that the work of the President's office would increase with proliferation of states.

In another story, Times of India's 'Dadar Poised' campaign also came in for criticism from the party lead. TOI's much hyped ad with Bachpan proclaiming ' Ek Dadar upar dekh raha hai aur udne ki soch raha hai. Doosra neeche dekhke koodhne ki soch raha hai.' wasn't treated lightly by Dadar East residents who thought the two Dadars he was talking about referred to East and West.

Shivaji Park Association meanwhile reached an amicable solution of splitting the ground into 50 badminton courts thereby ending a 5 year struggle for space among the surrounding suburbs.

Given the spurt in activity and with Valentine's Day coming up, LTDE has stepped up recruitment of young rioters. 'We are looking to source from outside the country too, in fact a recruitment team has been dispatched just yesterday to scout for talent in UP and Bihar.' the source said.

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Follow-up

2008-02-03T23:04:00.000-08:00

"Hello. Is this XYZ? I have a note to be sent across to you"
"Email me. My mail id is..."
"I have your email address. I thought I'd just call and let you know so that you can, you know, expect a note from me..."
My outlook express and I now eagerly anticipate the receipt of the said note.
"Ok, cool."
--------
"Hello. Hi. I just called to say I have sent the email, you should be receiving it shortly. Would you go through it when you receive it?"
Not really. I usually translate it to Chinese, print it out and then shred it.
"Ok"
--------
Email arrives with pop-up at bottom right corner of laptop screen.

"Hello. Hi. I got a 'read' receipt from your account. So you must have opened the email. I just called to reconfirm"
These read receipts are rarely wrong.

"Yes, I have received it"
"Oh Ok Cool. You can go through it and let me know if you have any queries"
My first query would be about your parentagal legitimacy.

Email #2 arrives.

"As per telecon, please go through previous email and let me know if you have any queries
Regards"

Do NOT call to check about Email#2 or I'll call the police.
--------

"Hello. I called to check if you had the time to go through the note I sent you yesterday"
I had the time but I did not go through the note you sent yesterday.
"No"
"Oh Ok. let me know when you do"
Would you like an email or a phone call or, let me guess, BOTH?
"Ok"
--------

SMS at 10 pm. "cd u go thru the eml i snt u. gd day."
Mobile number busted. Hell beckons.

Email #3 : "Any luck with the note yet? Regards "
I need a gun.

--------

"Hi. It's been three days since I sent you that email"
You don't say. Feels like three and a half.
"Yes. I'm on it"
"Shall I call back in half an hour or one hour?"
Gun
"I'll call you as soon as I read it"
"Ok"
He's going to call in half an hour.

SMS : Dnt want 2 trbl u. ne luck wth my eml?
That does it.
Inbox -> delete email without reading.

"I read it and I'm not interested at present"
"Oh. Ok. Thanks for your time"
Not really. It just took 3 seconds.
"No problem"
"Can you reply to that email saying this? It's for our records"
Uh Oh. Why do I keep emptying the 'deleted items' folder?
"There is some problem with the server. I seem to have lost the message"
"No problem. I'll re-send it"
"Yes"
Noooooo. Too late.

"Hello. Hi. I called to say I'm re-sending the message. You should be getting it any minute now"
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CEBI to float Sane-sex

2008-01-24T04:15:00.000-08:00

The stock market tanked further today to an all-time low of 2000 triggering a special message from Finance Minister, Thangamuthu.

'Good time to sell and book losses', he advised the nation, 'all economics is behavioural'

Previously gung-ho MNC CEO's have been seen to change their stance repeatedly, from 'We are going to invest heavily in India' to 'We are looking very seriously at India' to 'India is very important to us' to 'In fact, India is a personal favourite for my annual vacation'.

Amidst this crisis, CEBI has taken a stand that an alternate stock exchange would be launched, dubbed the 'sane-sex' which would be purely based on fundamentals.

However, not all can invest.

CEBI proposes a tough screening procedure for retail investors starting with a screening test in quantitative finance, which is supposedly modelled on the Joint Entrance Test for entry into the IITs.

The screening then proceeds to a psychometric analysis of the investor and a certification from select psychiatrists. This is followed by the main exam which has sections on Fed rates and the world economy. The last step towards buying shares of company X is a personal interview of the candidate where he/she answers questions on company X's financials and projected cash flows.

The last stage is relatively easier for the Ambani companies where anyone who knows the chairman's father's full name is deemed to have passed.

To become a day trader or a derivatives trader, an investor has to take one more test on partial differential and stochastic calculus.

The launch of this exchange, originally slated for this Friday, has been postponed by a month. Inside sources tell us that CEBI ran a simulation with 2000 'sane' investors and watched the market crash even faster than the regular stock market. Trading had to be stopped just one hour into operation.

'There are no fundamentals, seemingly' CEBI Chairman added, in a philosophical vein, 'but we have asked the blue chips to take the lead in figuring out where and what their fundamentals are'

- Our special correspondent

barriers break when...

2008-01-20T22:36:00.000-08:00

November, 2007

Dear MD (Airtel),

We are a small ad agency in London and one of our creative directors accidentally downloaded a video of two kids playing football in Afghanistan. Since there is a football in the footage and both kids are wearing some sort of footgear, we pitched very hard to both Nike and Adidas but were shown the door on the grounds that neither of the kids resemble Ronaldinho and hence could not be shown growing up to a Ronaldinho in the course of the ad.

I asked my team to scout for irrelevant ad-making firms in India and you will be delighted to know that Airtel was the first name that came up.

I have seen all your ads and I have to say that the only jarring aspect of the ad is its subtlety, ironically. What I'm trying to say is that I still had no idea what the product was after watching those ads. I did some research online to find out, though and am now familiar with your offering.

We can quickly convert this raw footage into an Airtel ad by adding your background score. We downloaded this tune from Kabul prison archives where we figured this would be used, along with Eminem's latest, to torture prisoners through repeated listening. It is quite pleasant at first hearing, I must add.

In compliance with your censorship guidelines, we have deleted the graphic footage of what happens to the kids when the border guard finds out. Also the cellphone scenes have been deleted so as to not dilute the brand message.

I spoke to your Marketing Head with this idea and listened to an earful from him about my audacity and about how I should run my business. We are a small firm and we cannot afford to antagonise a firm as big as yours. I think it's important that you intervene and we discuss this face to face, because as they say, careers shake when people balk!

Yours
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Ladies and Gentlemen, Class of 2020

2008-01-11T05:29:00.000-08:00

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in this locality and the one closest to the international airport.

I made a promise to myself today morning.

That I would finish sending out a couple of work-related emails before coming here, which I have done. So we can begin.

Today I wish to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. Three stories. Or four. Or five, max. That's it. Five stories. Or six. Maybe seven if we have time. Seven stories. Ok let's settle at seven.

The first is about change. Change is inevitable, it's a life-force. It crops up when you least expect it and when left untreated, can be fatal. Oops. I'm sorry - that's malaria, which is a part of my third story about death.

Anyway, this story goes back to my campus days here, when we had non-stop mind-numbingly boring lectures as I'm sure you all have had. My most vivid memories are of the canteen where we spent hour after hour, in a heady mix of boredom and curiousity as to what might be going on in the classroom. In a sudden burst of proactiveness, I asked the canteen contractor to change the menu. He asked me to go die, thereby losing a regular customer. Change or perish, that was the lesson I hoped to teach him. After that day, I remember, every time I passed the canteen counter with its incredibly delicious-smelling samosas and maggi, I kept chanting to myself 'stay hungry, stay foolish'.

College is really more about small incidents like the one I just narrated, than the textbooks and the porn, the multiple failed relationships, the arrests and so on.

My second story is about bitching. The prof who taught us Human Resources, Dr. Bhargav - is he still around? - was the worst ever prof in the whole frikkin' world. It's not much of a story I know but he was really really bad.

Then there's the one about courage. The degree that you hold in your hand will ensure that you will never be struggling for a livelihood. That doesn't mean you can go around passing the time or experimenting with your career. You can't be a pilot or a cricketer. Go sell soap and fight for your annual increment like everyone else. Marry someone-anyone, have kids, push them hard and be a part of the cycle. Sometimes you need moral courage to be able to do what everyone else is doing. Follow the herd. What are the chances that your individual gut is right amidst a gazillion people who are doing something else. Build the courage to ignore your instinct. Look at yourself in the mirror. Or Not. Whatever works.

My next story is about equity and growth. I think the Sensex will touch 35K atleast. Invest most of what you've got in equity and party hard with the rest.

Then there is this story about what one of you asked me during the tea session - the meaning of success. Now conventional success being as difficult as it is, I think it's prudent to define success in various unique personal ways so as to not feel like a failure. Today I brushed my teeth without falling asleep, for instance.

My last story is about values. When you appear for campus placements, I urge you to find a job that is aligned to your core value. I remember I valued myself at approx 10 lakh post tax during my campus placements and I found a company in alignment to this ask.

While campus life and the academics you have encountered here will have absolutely no relation to your work or life going forward, I'm certain that this college has prepared you well for the real world outside. In the sense that your future in the real world will feel like all those times you walked into a class completely unprepared with no frikkin' clue about what's going on. I wish you all fulfilment and happiness

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