Being Myself...

Email etiquette...

2008-05-18T04:46:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how many people use incorrect e-mail etiquette on a daily basis, so I'm sure this tip will help several others as well. Below is a list of the 10 most common e-mail mistakes people make. Let's check them out!

Vague subject line: I don't know about you, but when I get an e-mail, I always look at the subject line first to see what it's about. The subject line is supposed to give you some basic details for what the e-mail is about and it gives you a reason to actually open the e-mail and read it. The subject line is especially important if you're dealing with work related e-mails. Your co-workers probably get several e-mails everyday and if they don't have a good subject line to go by, they may just skip past it and miss something important. The same goes if you're e-mailing a friend or family member. Take some time to make the subject line perfect!
No signature: It's a good idea to include a signature at the bottom of all your e-mails. Otherwise, your recipients may not know who you are and they could by-pass your e-mail. Your signature should at least include your name and e-mail address. You can also include your physical address and phone number if you want to give your recipients more ways to contact you. You can follow this tip to learn how to create your own signature.
Unclear message: I get e-mails all the time that have no clear message as to what they're really about. When you send out an e-mail, make sure you use complete sentences, correct grammar and correct spelling. Also, take the time to really get your message across. If you don't make what you want to say clear enough, your recipients will be left dazed and confused. Plus, they probably won't bother replying to you, because they won't know what to say in return!
Rambling on: When you're typing out an e-mail, it's best to be short and to the point. While still making yourself clear, you should use short sentences and paragraphs. Just say what you need to say and be done with it. Unless you're e-mailing a friend you haven't talked to in years an update on your life, you don't need to write a novel! Your recipients will better appreciate a clean, cut e-mail.
SHOUTING: We've talked about this before, but I'll say it again: don't use all capital letters when typing out an e-mail. When you do that, it's like you're shouting at your recipient and they might not like that too much! So, before you start typing, make sure the Caps Lock key is turned off. That will make for a much nicer e-mail!
Wrong tone: It's hard to express your tone of voice over an e-mail, but you have to do your best with the way you write. For instance, if you're trying to crack a joke to one of your friends, make sure they'll take it the right way. Otherwise, you might end up offending them. Also, I know I told you to use short sentences, but don't be too short with your recipients. If you are, they might take it the wrong way. If you think something will be interpreted the wrong way, it's best just to leave it out.
Too many attachments: Do you like to send attachments along with your e-mails? That's all good and well, but if they're too large, you may end up annoying your recipient more than anything. It's hard to tell what type of Internet connection they will have or if their computer will even be able to handle a big file. If there's any doubt in your mind, just don't send it! Save your attachments only for the people who need them the most.
Incorrect e-mail address: What's the worst thing you can think of when dealing with e-mail? How about sending one to the wrong person? Yeah, that's pretty bad! To prevent that from happening, you should always double check the recipient's e-mail address before you send it off. Otherwise, it could end up going to the complete wrong person and that's just no good at all!
Mixing e-mail accounts: Do you ever use your work e-mail account to send your friends or family messages? If you do, you shouldn't! It's as plain and simple as that. Your work e-mail should only be used for work related issues and nothing more. Use your personal e-mail account for everything else.
Too much e-mail: If you find yourself rambling on in an e-mail or if you're afraid the message will get mixed up, you're probably relying on e-mail too much. E-mails should be used for quick communication and if you have something more to say than that, you should probably just pick up the phone and call the person or talk to them face to face. Yes, e-mail is convenient and easy to use, but with certain things, it can be a little too much.

There you have it! The top 10 most common e-mail mistakes. If you have made some of these mistakes in the past, don't feel bad. We've all done it, but at least you now know what you can do to correct them. Proper e-mail etiquette is very important and it will help you stay in good relations with all your e-mail buddies as well!

Management & Dreams...

2008-05-17T11:15:00.000-07:00

The antithesis of a seemingly perfect life.

While I was still at college I happened to visit an organization where my uncle worked. There was nothing unique about it but that visit shaped what I’d do for the rest of my eventful life. I had for the first time met a Manager. He was suave, cool, authoritative, and around him things just happened. Or maybe my uncle introduced him the wrong way, “This is the guy that hired me, can fire me, and can increase or cut my salary, almost everything that happens to my career here… this guy holds major sway over it…” To this the manager says that HR Manager held a sway over his life…

The imagery was vivid. He had several people working for him and everybody recognized him and wished him a “Good Morning”, “Good Afternoon” or something to that effect. He had his personal cabin that even had an air-conditioner… the icing on the cake was that he had lot of women around him to whom he used to bark shout orders at!

These were the images which stayed. They were there when I first walked the imposing corridors of MBA School. I had long ago decided that I wanted to get one of those things… During the admission process one of the questions that I was asked was “If selected, what stream of management would interest you the most?” I answered immediately “Human Resources”, this surprised the interviewer and he questioned as to why I wanted to go in that particular stream… Now, I wanted to share the gory details of clout, lush surroundings, and hobnobbing with who’s-who… but I was not sure he’d understand let alone egg me on… So I reverted with a somewhat textbook answer… which must have made a good impression since he immediately confirmed my admission. My mind was working overtime about how, very soon, yours truly would be hobnobbing with who’s-who and prancing around all the desirable women and not to forget the unnatural hold over people’s career. Further, it was thinking, once this hobnobbing begins, who knows what may happen next (these were still the times when all you sought from friends was an intro to that girl with curls, with the cool airs of being able to handle the rest yourself with panache - all you felt you needed was a cool bike!).

Two years hence having slogged hard and starry eyed, I walked into this domain. First few weeks were all about understanding how the domain functioned - inane things like resources, bench management, transactional HR, campus recruitment and even more inane things like how we help the company make money.

All this just didn't seem real. But then, I consoled myself that I am new. Surely, once you put in some years in the domain, all this will change, and magically all that I imagined will just appear in front of my eyes.

While all this was happening, some more ‘stories’ about a senior at work started doing rounds and the imagery was making its way to my dreams... And that was further reinforcing the belief, that surely the dream I had when I joined the domain, was lurking somewhere just around the corner.

The wait of weeks turned to months, and months unto years. Every passing day was filled with increasingly drier stuff like competency management, utilization, and recruitment numbers. I came across all kinds of models - like the Ashridge mission model and the capability maturity model. What kept eluding me were the models, which were shapelier. Not that I didn't go for recruitment trips, or off campuses, or events; but then, all such visits to locations and functions were mired in extreme stress about requirements, deadlines, recruitment budgets, joining ratios etc.
Though I can boast of a decent IQ, but the thought never crossed my mind that probably this industry is really all about such stuff and not about unnatural power over other people’s lives... I continued to wait for the next turn, where the scenery will change, and suddenly the cool climes which I had always associated with this domain, will sooth the otherwise stressed out default life one lives, being a part of this domain.

But while I was waiting, something strange started to happen. For some masochistic reason, I started to enjoy it all. The little dream hadn't died, but while it wasn't coming true, I started to enjoy just the wait, and all that was happening during the wait. I was somehow reminded of a saying I had once heard… Life is a journey and death is the destination… and what happens in the journey is what makes it worthwhile. I started to love the irrational demands being made from me and I started to become true-blue human resources junky.

The next requirement, the next impossible target, the next irate employee, became the things I started to wait for, and not the next comely lass! And believe you me; these became more fulfilling than the dream that brought me into the domain in the first place.

Now the dream seldom recurs. And the hope of that dream coming true has completely vanished. A new dream has replaced it. The dream of understanding the employees even better, creating even more single-minded, even more persuasive human resource system, a dream of creating a unique strategy for some unique problem some company is facing. And strangely, I am a lot calmer, as a result.

Working hard at achieving this new dream has become extremely rewarding - both literally and figuratively. And now, when someone asks me that if I had a choice of making my choices all over again, my answer is - "My choice will be the same, albeit for different reasons."

I am telling this personal story for the benefit of all those juvenile, starry-eyed people who possibly are waiting to enter, or have entered the domain of management for all the wrong reasons. Enter they must, but they should do so with their eyes wide open, and making their choice with an eye on the right reasons. And, most certainly, they will be rewarded as I have been!

Travelogue: Intermittent disaster

2008-05-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

Today's visit to Rajkot was marred in a way... Well we all (all the guys, I mean) dream of a comely lass soothing us in our journey but this time around I had to sit next to an extremely obese guy and while I have nothing against obesity but why don't they try and work something out? Don't brand me as the 'Ku Klux Klan' yet... I am not being judgmental... though we always are for example have you ever noticed how you brand anybody going slower than you as an idiot, and anyone going faster than you as a maniac?

Just like I have always yearned for a window seat, I have always wanted to have enough part of the armrest. This guy's forearms were so bulky forget the armrest I was fighting to defend my chair seat... he was intruding on that too... over a period of time I gave up... receded to the space that I had and stayed there with a fierce look that said "If you come any closer, I will kill you..." (though I must not be good at that since he did that all the time...)

And all those out there who want to deliver a positive message... Quit that... else someday this will happen...

The Machine: "Hi Rob here, it's a great day and I'm out enjoying it right now. I hope you are too. The thought for the day is 'Share the love.'

'"Beep."

The Caller: "Uh, yeah...this is the VD clinic calling...Speaking of being positive, your test is back. Stop sharing the love."

When I started shuffling a bit the portly guy looked at me and questioned... "Are you uncomfortable?" Why do people ask ridiculous questions... For example... At the movies when you bump into acquaintances/friends they ask "Hey, what are you doing here?" I'd want to say: Well, it's so hot outside, there were no cool cabs so I thought I'd watch some advertisements in
the cool comfort of the multiplex... Or sometimes when in the bus a fat girl wearing pointed high-heeled shoes steps on your feet and asks demurely: "Sorry, did that hurt?" Answer: "No, not at all, I'm on local anesthesia on that one... why don't you try again or should I try this time"... and the last one... At a funeral one of the teary-eyed people asked: "Why, why him, of all people"... Answer: "Why? Would it rather have been you?"...

Well the good part is that the journey thankfully came to an end before I ran out of my patience (thanks to my job, I have plenty of that...)

Up or Down - II

2008-05-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

Waiting for an elevator (and so many of these episodes occur from the elevator lobbies, don't they? Nothing GOOD every happens to me waiting for an elevator.) ... I've pressed the button to go "UP". It is lit.

Shuffling flinchy ratty type comes up, gets REAL close to the call button, and presses "DOWN," and then "UP" repeatedly. Punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch. Beat. Punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch. Beat. Punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch. Until the damn car arrives.

Okay, so someone's impatient...

We both get on the car, to go UP but it goes down first (since the as* pressed the down button too...) me to Floor 7, Ratty to Floor 5. I press "7" once. It lights up. Ratty, of course, gets WAY into the space of the button panel, and vigorously and repeated hits "5" with alternate hands... reminds me of the Jackie Chan movie I saw yesterday... Punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch. Beat. Punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch. Beat. Punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch-punch. Beat. Until we get to the fifth floor. Somehow I think he feels that if he does not repeatedly remind the elevator to stop at 5th Floor, it won't... I wonder what did his parents do to him... Or maybe he believes the elevators were somehow powered by his vigorous button-pushery, like those wind-up Y2K transistor radios.

Did I mention that he never made eye contact nor spoke a word during this entire display? Not that I would have responded in kind but it's good to have choice... whether to speak or not... I hate it when that choice is taken away from me... Ah, if only his glasses were taped at the bridge, or he had a Les Nessman-like band aid on his head somewhere, then I would have realized that someone was doing the hidden camera thing to me. It's not only the hidden camera thingy that scares me... it's also the slice-of-life snappers and the invasive perverts who aided with the latest silent surveillance standard cameras who would not stop from snapping a odd one... Ohhh! the devil's minions at work again...

But no, this is the day-to-day reality at the Glorious Temple of All Business. I know that there are at least DOZENS of these types here. Maybe even in the low hundreds. Got to admit, it's more entertaining than bursting a blood vessel over Dilbertian management, another regular pastime here.

Complete the phrase...

2008-05-08T23:55:00.000-07:00

A first grade teacher had twenty-five students in her class and she presented each child the first half of a well known proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb.

It's hard to believe these were actually done by first graders. Their insight may surprise you. While reading these keep in mind that these are first graders, 6-year-olds, because the last one is classic!

Don't change horses..................until they stop running.
Strike while the.........................bug is close.
It's always darkest before.........Daylight Saving Time.
Never underestimate the power of ....... termites.
You can lead a horse to water but....... .. how?
Don't bite the hand that ........... looks dirty.
No news is............impossible.
A miss is as good as a ............. Mr.
You can't teach an old dog new ........ math.
If you lie down with dogs, you'll ..........stink in the morning.
Love all, trust ........... me.
The pen is mightier than the ............. pigs.
An idle mind is.......................the best way to relax.
Where there's smoke there's .............. pollution.
Happy the bride who.....................gets all the presents.
A penny saved is .........! .........not much.
Two's company, three's ................. the Musketeers.
Don't put off till tomorrow what .................. you put on to go to bed!
Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry....... and you have to blow your nose.
There are none so blind as .......Stevie Wonder.
Children should be seen and not ......spanked or grounded.
If at first you don't succeed ............... get new batteries.
You get out of something only what you .............. see in the picture on the box.
When the blind lead the blind .................... get out of the way.
Better late than ..............pregnant.

Up or Down?

2008-05-08T12:42:00.001-07:00

Elevator etiquette, or lack thereof, is a big part of an urban dweller's life. I live in a 10-story high-rise building, on the 15th floor along with my ego... just kidding it's 8th floor for me... I work in a 12-story high rise building, on the 7th floor.

Clearly I spend a LOT of time in elevators each day. I consider this my informal training at assessing the elevator behaviors I observe. I'm practically an expert. Here are my observations, to date:

Old people not only like to talk to you in the elevators, they EXPECT it. Don't even think about ignoring them, or mumbling an answer and looking away... they STARE
The younger generation is so utterly uncomfortable on elevators that they will do ANYTHING to avoid looking at each other. They will put their hands in their pockets and stare into nothingness, pretend to do stuff on their phone (despite the widely held knowledge that phones don't work on an elevator), adjust their iPod. Anything to avoid having to look at you, much less exchange words.
Business people judge one another while confined in this airless space. They assess clothes, other accessories and (since most are staring at their feet), shoes.
Don't you often wish you could hear a stranger's thoughts while standing within arm's length of them for 7 floors. I'm fairly certain sometimes it would include things like, "He smells like vodka, and it is 2 pm on a Sunday." or "I can't believe he's wearing his boxers... Doesn't he have any social etiquette?"
Why don't people shower regularly? It ruins the morning for the rest of us. And, if I wanted to smell like a garbage can, I'd wear it...
There is much debate about the protocol for the door holding move. It is my belief that if someone is later to arrive to the bank of elevators, it is my friendly obligation/favor to hold the door for them. If I can hear them hurrying, scrambling and shuffling to get to the open elevator, it would just be obnoxious to let it slide closed in their face... Just kidding I push the close button as soon as I enter i.e. if I am alone else... I do what I was kidding about...

All in all, riding in an elevator is a strange cultural situation, a paradox of close proximity and distanced behavior, that results in some strange observations of humanity. When in doubt, say hello, look each other in the eye, and talk about the weather.

Sometimes if you want to do something to spice up your elevator ride here are a few great things to do in an elevator...

CRACK open your briefcase or handbag, peer Inside and ask "Got enough air in there?"
STAND silent and motionless in the corner facing the wall without getting off
WHEN arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to yank the doors open, and then act as if you're embarrassed when they open themselves
GREET everyone with a warm handshake and ask him or her to call you Admiral
MEOW occasionally
STARE at another passenger for a while. Then announce in horror: "You're one of THEM" - and back away slowly.
SAY -DING at each floor
SAY "I wonder what all these do?" And push all the red buttons
MAKE explosion noises when anyone presses a button
STARE, grinning at another passenger for a while, then announce: "I have new socks on"
WHEN the elevator is silent, look around and ask: "Is that your beeper?"
TRY to make personal calls on the emergency phone
DRAW a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passengers: "This is my personal space"
WHEN there's only one other person in the elevator, tap them on the shoulder, then pretend it wasn't you…
CALL out "Group hug" then enforce it
ASK if you can push the button for other people but push the wrong ones
HOLD the doors open and say you're waiting for your friend. After a while, let the doors close and say "Hi Greg, How's your day been?"
DROP a pen and wail until someone reaches to help pick it up, then scream: "THAT'S MINE!"
BRING a camera and take pictures of everyone in the lift
PRETEND you're a flight attendant and review emergency procedures and exits with the Passengers
SWAT at flies that don't exist
PUSH the buttons and pretend they give you a shock. Smile, and go back for more.

Legal Disclaimer: I am not responsible if anything 'bad' happens to you...

The Marriage equation...

2008-05-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

I wonder if the Gujarat Education Board missed out intentionally on putting this one is our course content...

Equation 1
Human = eat + sleep + work + enjoy
Donkey = eat + sleep
Therefore,
Human = Donkey + work + enjoy
Therefore,
Human - enjoy = Donkey + work
In other words,
Human that don't know enjoy = Donkey that work

Equation 2
Men = eat + sleep + earn money
Donkeys = eat + sleep
Therefore,
Men = Donkeys + earn money
Therefore,
Men - earn money = Donkeys
In other words,
Men that don't earn money = Donkeys

Equation 3
Women = eat + sleep + spend
Donkeys = eat + sleep
Therefore,
Women = Donkeys + spend
Therefore,
Women - spend = Donkeys
In other words,
Women that don't spend = Donkeys

To Conclude:
From Equation 2 and Equation 3
Men that don't earn money = Women that don't spend.
So, Men earn money not to let women become Donkeys! (Postulate 1)
And, Women spend not to let men become Donkeys! (Postulate 2)
So, we have?
Men + Women = Donkeys + earn money + Donkeys + spend money
Therefore from Postulates 1 and 2, we can conclude
Man + Woman = 2 Donkeys that live happily together!

In Search of Hate...

2008-05-04T04:38:00.000-07:00

Recently a post on a friend’s blog spurred my interest in the two opposites… Love and Hate… Love is something that has had attention from everybody… be it motivational speakers to the stockbrokers and even scientists but something that has not been probed enough is Hate…

While googling hate as an emotion I came across couple of good articles and the one that specifically stands out deals primarily on Hate and is by a psychologist and a researcher Christopher Burris…

The general consensus is that hate is an emotion, but Burris argues that hate is a motive. Burris says a motive provides focus directed toward the attainment of a particular goal.

Burris offers analysis of road rage, movie scenes (e.g., Kathy Bates' character in the movie adaptation of Stephen King's Misery), to illustrate various subtypes of hate.

The hate motive does not have to be premeditated nor do emotional experiences inevitably lead to hate. Burris says: "To the extent that we devalue the other, see them as somehow beneath us or totally unlike us, I believe that becomes the cognitive step towards the process of hate. And honestly, I feel like once it comes to the point of devaluing the other, hate may be an inevitable consequence."

All of this got me thinking, not about "big" hate, but about the everyday hate encounters, particularly in society. It seems to me that the two goals that are commonly encountered in the groves of society are "elevating the self" and "restoring order"… Denigration and redress, then, are the subtypes of hate all too often exhibited in the "normal" course of social behavior...

In the personal life it comes in the forms of ‘Mutiny’ and ‘Tethering’… Last but not the least ‘Nihilism’ is a subtype that I think I’d reserve for terrorists and co-workers :-))

Below is a table from the UA article summarizing Burris' categories of hate…

Let me count the ways: six subtypes of hate

Subtype	Emotional antecedent	Goal
Sadism	Anticipation, excitement	Pleasure
Mutiny	Resentment, exasperation	Assertion of autonomy
Tethering	Loss, fear of abandonment	“Securing” the relationship
Denigration	Envy, contempt	Elevating the self
Redress	Anger, disgust	Restoring order
Nihilism	Loathing, seething rage	Destruction of the other

Source: adapted from “Let me count the ways: An integrative theory of love and hate,” by J. K. Rempel, & C. T. Burris, Personal Relationships (in press).

Travel travails... (Part II)

2008-05-03T06:57:00.000-07:00

Warning: Read Part I first!

‘Sweating like a pig’… Do you know what that phrase means… I know it and I know it far too graphically. It was 11am of a very humid Mumbai morning and I was drenched… I did not sweat as much even when I was giving my board exams and while reading my physics question paper I realized that all questions seemed alien to me…But then I am getting ahead of myself here… let me recount what happened in my journey… The guy who had previously asked to exchange seats with my friend was back with a new DEMAND…

I have never been posh… but what with the appraisal and all I was feeling like a million dollars… I had carried shorts and changed into them from the rather uncomfortable jeans that I was wearing (ofcourse I had double checked that Sush was not in any of the compartments – including the two tier AC compartment) which was a core part of my ‘shining armor’ (read more about the shining armor)… 15 minutes had passed hence I had resumed watching Mystery, Alaska and that ‘guy’ asks… “Bhai saab, would you happen to have an extra pair of shorts…?” I looked at him… I didn’t know what to tell him… then just when I thought of giving him a treatment similar to the one that my friend had given… he adds… “You know these terecot trousers are not very comfortable… there is no breathing space…” Obviously this guy was not aware that there is such a concept as ‘too much information’… It’s moments like these when you realize your true love… blogging… There was a guy asking for my shorts, I mean my honor was at stake and all I could think about was how good a post this would make… go figure...

The friend came to my rescue… he quickly interjected saying… “How much is your gold chain worth?”… Finally he slept off on his berth forming a deathly grasp around his luggage…

Before sleeping off I had set up an alarm to wake me up at 5am… I slept fitfully fully aware that the demon in that man sleeping across my berth might rise again… I guess I must have been a good boy and all and maybe… just maybe God was happy with me and I would not be the butt of his ire… Exactly at the hour I was thinking about all this He (GOD) was thinking “I don’t need to punish him… he is going to Mumbai, in wet blistering Sun, hoping to meet a friend who is not going to make it… I don’t need to punish him anymore…”

You know how it is at weddings right… you meet some new people and try to cram all their names in the face recognition software in your brain and the software works overtime to keep up with the first few and you overload it with some more… then there is a crash! Suddenly I found myself laughing at couple of jokes by a person who seemed vaguely familiar… He was a friend of a acquaintance who was a friend of my friend… I struggled, stuttered, fumbled, trying to recollect his name and I was pretty sure it started with a ‘Tan…’ and so I surged ahead with “Good ones, Tan…” He cut me off suddenly saying “Vikas” and in unison as it came out as “Good ones Tan Vikas”, an aunty sitting next to him blushed and walked away… 3 hours later while traveling from Chembur to Mumbai Central practicing ornithology from the sweaty comfort of a non-airconditioned taxi I blushed when I realized why she had blushed…

3:45 – Chembur Railway Station

4:00 – Taxi to C P Tank

5:00 – C P Tank

5:10 – Flying visit to Aunt’s place

5:35 – Taxi from C P Tank to Mumbai Central

5:45 – Train leaves in exactly 25 minutes; sweating profusely

5:57 – Mumbai Central; fantastic babe, lost track of time…

6:00 – Mumbai Central;

6:05 – Ticket window

6:07 – Tickets in hand running towards platform 4

6:08 – Lots of female travelers; oops wrong compartment…

6:09 – Settled is a cubby hole of a seat… my home for what I thought would be 3:30 hours but actually for 4:45 hours…

Observed in a recent bus travel [Off Topic]

During my travel from Baroda to Ahmedabad I took a luxury bus (in another time I would have emboldened and expanded Air Conditioned with TV that works…) as I climbed aboard and walked towards my seat I noticed a beautiful 30ish woman sitting in the seat next to the one that was supposed to be mine… I said a silent prayer… She looked at me, her brow creased, she turned back to the guy sitting behind her… whispered something and the guy started shooting daggers at me… I was rummaging my mind to understand what I had done and I inconspicuously checked if my zip was open… Relieved that nothing was out of order I sat next to the guy who had by that time switched places with the lady… he also had a child, sitting in his lap, who seemed to be almost a 10-year-old…

I settled in the seat which was a window seat with cool breeze in my head (thanks to the overhead AC duct that was broken and could not be closed…) The TV was switched on and it appeared that the conductor/helper was trying to start a movie… I said a prayer…

But it seems that the new pirated DVD was not working so he put in an old movie probably from the 80’s… I resigned to my fate and watched it… There was some dialogue “main tumhari izzat lootunga…” and the following conversation followed…

10-year-old: "Daddy… err… what is the meaning of Izzat lootna?"
Daddy: "Umm… err… talking to women impolitely and without any respect."
10-year-old: "Oh. So it has nothing at all to do with the fact he just ripped her blouse off?"
Daddy: "Of course not…"

This is why India is at 1.2 Billion now… prayers have nothing to do with it… Promise.

Update: Part III coming shortly...

Travel: Hope Floats...

2008-05-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

Just back from the most perfect holiday... well as the title says it was almost perfect... I am still unsure what was missing but I am sure that as I recount my experiences I will find it...

You know that scene when Rajnikanth finds out that he has two villains to kill but is left with only one bullet… yeah, I know life’s a bitch… so… what are you gonna do?

Something like that happened with me too… I had been planning for a vacation for a long, long, long time and nothing interesting was forthcoming… Some or the other thing always got messed up… sometimes my friends weren’t free, sometimes I wasn’t available, and sometimes the wallets did not permit… I mean going on an intergalactic ride needs a space shuttle and building a spacecraft does not exactly cost peanuts which my company pays… so... I was doomed...

But then one of the training that I went thru’ came to my rescue… the training was pretty unique too… It was about ‘around the world, without a penny’… and that is what I did… I spent rupees… lots of them… the amount would have been enough to pay for a dinner of four at Tandoor (an upscale restaurant) at Bangalore….

So I went home got out all the wedding invitations I had received and did that 'inky-pinky-ponky' routine and hooray! I won a chance to visit Mumbai and attend a friend’s wedding (Not my first choice but I was sure that I did not want to spend a fortune on attending a wedding in US)… it was a blessing in disguise… I could visit the glam cap of India… (glam cap means glamour capital which means spaghetti tops and micro minis, stilleto heels and lacy underthings... I am getting ahead of myself here...) So... I was excited…(I am talking about my mood here...)

Mumbai is such an exciting place... I mean who does not hope that they are suddenly going to be ‘discovered’ by Subhash Ghai or RGV? Or chance a meeting with oh-so-glam Sushmita Sen… sigh... I even consulted a fortune-teller about my prospects of ‘making it’… he also said that the wedding venue would be near to a big shooting studio... and it was... it was near to the R. K. Studios... Yahoooooooooo Chahe koi mujhe junglee kahe...

From Ahmedabad we traveled by the 'vehicle of the masses'… Train… Second Class Sleeper… It was my first train travel in two years and as soon as I entered I felt at home… that distinct vinyl and metal smell which clings to you the moment you enter the bogey…Hugo Boss, Davidoff Coolwater does not stand a chance… The kind that you can’t fight against… you just give in and wait for it to ravage your nostrils…

Modified Hotel California

On a dark deserted platform, dust settling in my hair
Warm smell of ammonia, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw the usual sight
My head grew heavy and felt bile rise in my mouth
I had to travel all night...

[The Original is here]

Along with travel comes one more thing… the ultimate fantasy… Something which involves a lovely maiden and the knight in shining armor and a rescue mission… my shining armor consisted of jeans, sneakers, and a tee… I would have had my shining armor on but I am sure the Railway police would not have taken kindly to that… not to forget the maiden in question… I am not sure what happened but after checking out three bogeys (the one that I was traveling in and two adjacent ones…) I was losing faith in the fortune-teller...

I came to terms with the fact that she might have missed the train… then again the fortune teller had told me that I would meet Sushmita Sen the very same day so technically there were three more hours to go… (hope floats!) But then he had also told me that my boss will recognize my potential and handover the Head position to me and retire herself… this was three months ago… I am still waiting for that to happen…

Suggestion: Anybody who wants to write a novel with lots of characters… my suggestion is to travel in train… you find plenty of different species there… Like there was this guy sleeping across from my friend who asked who asked my friend not less than 12 times about wanting to exchange the berth… every time my friend would politely refuse… the 13^th time my friend told him … “If you want my berth you will have to pay 500 bucks to me…” The guy slept off on his berth forming a deathly grasp around his luggage…

I felt sleepy after Mystery, Alaska and fell into deep sleep to Jagjeet Singh crooning … “Kabhi Yun Bhi to Ho…” (Again, Hope Floats!) clutching at my Sneakers and the bag… not to forget the iPod and curling in a very uncomfortable posture…

I met Mumbai at 6am in the morning. This time there is a daze and you almost feel that the city is bare-naked, minimal… obscure, isolated and bleak… and this was just the beginning (This sentence is a poor effort at copying V. S. Naipaul :-))

Oh and by the way if you have not seen that scene… In the climax of the scene Rajnikanth shoots the bullet and then throws a blade that cuts the bullet into two which kills both the villains… (There was no rhyme-or-reason for me to mention this situation at the beginning or end this post with it…)

Part II will have all the gory details...

Lace and all...

2008-04-26T02:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I go back and think about why I started to blog there are lot of things that come to mind… but the first and foremost always is ‘the want to express…’ and others were pretty interesting too… ‘World domination…’, ‘to start an interstellar war…’, see I told you the intent of this blog was definitely ‘good’ at heart… but over a period of time the intent of this blog became… umm… more honest… Now, I wanted to ‘earn inordinate riches and subsequently control the world economy…’

So I looked around at what people were doing to earn the ‘jam’. No particular preference, any flavor would do as long as it is ‘jam’. I looked around and I found that everybody had something that they had sort of cornered… a blog on computers, everything about electronics, talking about movies, sharing unoriginal jokes, all things related to hair, the universe, the hot & steamy-stuff, clay, and believe it or not even shoe laces… Yes, it’s true… The ‘shoelace’ site is pretty detailed too and incase any of you face problems tying shoelaces… don’t ask your friends… they will just make you the best-selling laughing stock… (I know because I did that to someone once…) Instead just visit Ian’s shoelace site and tada… you can learn how to tie shoelace… standing up, sitting down, with one hand, with two hands, without hands… whatever you like…

Come to think of it shoelaces are famous too… For e.g. there is a production company by the name of Shoelace Productions and they have produced movies like ‘Stepmom’ and ‘America’s Sweethearts’… apart from this shoelaces have also been mentioned in movies… the following excerpt from the movie ‘Cocktail’, during which the fictitious "flugelbinders" are mentioned… (Flugelbinders – the ends of the shoelace, also called ‘Aglets’)

The scene begins with Flanagan (Tom Cruise) playing with one of the tiny paper umbrellas that are used to decorate cocktail drinks:

[Flanagan] You know there's a guy who makes these.
[Jordan] One guy? He must be exhausted.
[Flanagan] Yes, he is. But still, he gets up in the morning and he kisses his wife and he goes to his drink umbrella factory where he rips off ten billion of these a year. This guy's a millionaire.
[Jordan] (Picking up an ashtray) How about the guy who makes these?
[Flanagan] How about that guy? Not to mention the guy who makes these.
[Jordan] And those little wrappers are made by another guy.
[Flanagan] What about these plastic things at the end of these laces.
[Jordan] Hmmm. It's probably got one of those weird names too like - ummm, "flugelbinder".
[Flanagan] Flugelbinder, right. We're sittin' here, and we're surrounded by millionaires. You rack your brains day and night to try to come up with a money-making scheme, and some guy corners the flugelbinder market.
[Jordan] Poor baby. He's frustrated.
[Flanagan] You get a bar job to keep your days free for your real gig. After work you're so charged up, you have a few drinks. You know, hey, it's party time. Days get shorter and shorter. Nights, longer and longer. Before you know it, your life is just one long night with a few comatose daylight hours.
[Jordan] Oh God. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself, Flanagan. Hey, your flugelbinder is out there waiting to be discovered.
[Flanagan] Waiting. Do you think so?
[Jordan] I do.

Every time I see this movie I start fidgeting and looking around to find my flugelbinder… Is it just around the corner? I am sure I will find my flugelbinder… the only thing I need to do this is to find Elizabeth Shue…

Even if I don’t find Elizabeth Shue, I know I will find my flugelbinder, in two years I think I’d have walked enough to turn the corner and if the flugelbinder is not there then I have made a deal with God, He can cancel the Porche and instead deliver a bolt of lightening gift-wrapped for Ms. Elizabeth Shue… (I told you I am friendly, can we be friends now?)

Informative Hip News

A budding technology-startup CEO yesterday was taken to Saint Mary hospital when he complained of gastric trouble… Doctors said “…He is stable now and should recover soon… it seems he had inadvertently gulped down a mass of paper…” The company cook said he had nothing to do with the currency notes found in the CEO’s esophagus…

In a totally unrelated incident, more than 50 employees have resigned from the same technology start-up, the reason for quitting has been cited as “…unable to complete task at hand…”

Bloggin' your way !!!

2008-04-26T01:45:00.000-07:00

Some excerpts:

Excerpts from the Dog’s Diary

08:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
09:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
09:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 PM - Lunch! My favorite thing!
1:00 PM - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 PM - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 PM - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
7:00 PM - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 PM - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 PM - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

Excerpts from the Cat’s Diary

Day 983 of my captivity.

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once vomited on the carpet. And today I also decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a “good little hunter” I am. Bastards! If only I had bigger jaws like my 'cousins', of whom my mother once spoke to me of...

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of “allergies”. I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage. Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his Feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow — but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and seems to be more than willing to return. The bird must be an informant. I observe him communicating with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe.

For now…

Eddie (this is my preferred name, but these people call me 'Twinky' YUCK...)

IPL Camel Fair...

2008-04-22T12:03:00.000-07:00

IPL. Google it and the first entry you will refer to Indianapolis Power & Light Company. But that would not make it interesting would it? I guess it will be more interesting if we talk about Indian Political Liars … tut tut tut… waste of words… I am talking about IPL as in the Indian Premier League…

Let’s leave IPL aside for a while and talk about ‘Pushkar Fair’.

If you are unaware about Pushkar… Read this: Pushkar Camel Fair - Also known as Pushkar ka Mela, Pushkar Fair, is the world's largest camel fair held in the holy town of Pushkar in Rajasthan. Pushkar Fair is undoubtedly the world's largest camel fair and it also makes it world's largest cattle fair in general. Competitions such as the "Matka Phod", "moustache", and "bridal competition" are the main attraction of this fair which attracts thousands of tourists.

Today I am going to tell you how ‘Pushkar Fair’ is similar to our own version of the English Premier League… the Indian Premier League…

The Gods, Demi-Gods, Exotic Dancers, the Servants, and bystanders…

In case of ‘Pushkar Fair’ they refer to the Gods and Goddesses of the mythological years (The one and only temple of God ‘Brahma’ is situated in Pushkar; apart from this there are around 400 other temples you can visit). In case of IPL it is the oh-so-formidable owners of the teams viz. Mukesh Ambani, Vijay Mallaya, Shahrukh Khan/ Juhi Chawla/ Jay Mehta, Preity Zinta/Ness Wadia and the likes

Camels are the demigods at Pushkar while in IPL it’s the best bounties (Sachin, Dravid, Sourav, and the likes)

Folk performances are quite interesting at Pushkar and they are delight to see while at IPL the ‘cheerleaders’ (what would they be called in Hindi… “utsaah-utpaadak naari”?) And their skimpy… ahem… If you are watching this with your entire family just ask God this one question … “How many sins did I commit to deserve this?”

The Stock in Trade

The stock in case of Pushkar is that awe-inspiring animal – Camel. In case of IPL it’s the person with the biggest numbers or the best arm-action or ‘fevikwik’ hands…

Ultimately IPL does seem drastically similar to Pushkar though if I had to choose between them… I’d go for Pushkar since there’s lot more adventure there than watching drunken cricketers, overly made up actresses and overtly exposed “utsaah-utpaadak naari”…

One moment you see Rahul Dravid bang a ball high in the air for a six and the very next moment you are watching Preity Zinta and then the Camera changes over just in time for the Umpire to declare a six and just as you hear the crowd roaring, you see the cheerleaders doing their bit…

At the end of the day when you are trying to recall the match that you saw on the idiot box, it’s all jumbled up… “Was it Rahul Dravid cheerleading wearing Gucci glares...?”

Anti-social Employment...

2008-04-22T05:27:00.001-07:00

Note: The terms 'Oh-Sho-Shweet' and 'Aaaw' is taken from a gushing female-friend of mine.

I love people, I really do. Besides the usual 'oh-so-sexy' category there is 'oh-sho-shweet' category (i.e. children, for those unacquainted with the 'oh-so-sweet' terminology - pronounciation: 'oh-sho-shweet') and the 'aaaw' category (if you don't know what this means, place a puppy and a sample of the 'oh-so-sweet' category together in front of a girl and you'll get, or rather, hear the idea), I am in awe of all Lawrence of Arabia, Rickys of Pointings, Georges of Bushes, Rajs of Thackereys and the likes. The 'likes' here, would essentially stand for those outstanding human beings who take themselves so seriously that they end up making outstanding fools of themselves.

Anyway, being the shallow person that I am, I shall not go in depth where these outstanding personalities are personally concerned. Let's talk about people, and not the famous ones, just our normal average Joe's and Jolie's (female form of Joe and not the outstanding personality one would usually associate that name with).

We all take ourselves seriously at some point or the other but there are some of us out there who do an outstanding job of it. These guys are real fun to observe. You can find them in the office cubicle adjacent to yours or sweating it out and stinking on the treadmill next to you amongst several other places. All you need to do when you spot such a character is to pull up a seat, grab a drink, get your popcorn and watch.

An ideal host to these commensal organisms is a page-3 party. Our subject of study would probably be subject to a lot of stress before the commencement of such a party. After all, it isn't all that easy to think and talk at the same time, sound good and look better at the same time and eat a morsel of food and force yourself to puke it out (fortunately, not at the same time). It's tougher still to color code your hair to match that exact shade of gold your less-observant dentist capped into your mouth for that million dollar smile. Oh, the pressure must be unbearable!

Recently, I stumbled upon a picture of the Queenies of Dhodys on the third page of an outstandingly inconsequential 'news'paper. If you think that the 'news'paper is bad from the front-page wait till you get over to the Page 3. As is the case with standard, customary 'news'paper photography, a title/job description was bestowed upon the organism as 'Queenie Dhody: Socialite'. I've heard of several job descriptions but this was the first time I ever thought of socializing as a full-time, serious profession. Geez, imagine having to keep up with those infinite appointments and remembering names of both, emerging and long-established people who share similar career interests. Not to mention a million 'air-kisses' and being an inevitable and essential part of society, I guess these guys must be working in a sweatshop...

Man, am I glad I am anti-social; I simply hate the thought of being unemployed.

Attrition...

2008-04-22T04:59:00.001-07:00

Recently I asked one of my subordinates to send me an updated excel sheet of our target companies... He said he would send it across to me ASAP...

10 minutes passed and when I hit the F9 key on my keyboard there lo-and-behold was the mail...

I opened the mail and this is how it looked...

Now if I had a funnier vein in me I'd have laughed at it but since I lack that... all I said to him was...

"No, keep that for your future boss... It will come in handy..."

My Umbrella...

2008-04-17T07:04:00.001-07:00

Everyone remembers their first… the first time you flew in an airplane, the first time you saw the sea, the first time you kissed a girl, the first time you fell in love, the first time you cried (strictly in case of guys), the first time you sang a song, the first time you won a prize… the list is endless… I too, like others, had a ‘first time’… I remember my first umbrella… No, it’s not a metaphor… Stop laughing… It was a Saturday, I remember because I had an off at school and mommy did not… She only had an off on Sunday unlike me and that really made me feel like a King… We were well-off at that time but not enough to afford a house-sitter every week and hence here I was with mommy at hospital. No, I was not a bad boy… hospital was where Mommy worked and she took me along… every Saturday...

It was 5pm and it was already as dark at night… I saw the bright flashes of light coursing thru the sky accompanied with thunderous clap-like sound… I receded to the shadows cowering, closer to mommy where I felt safe… She looked at the watch and announced it was time to leave; I did not want to… I did not want to venture out in the rain lest the bright flash of light strike me or mom… the distance between the hospital and the bus-stand was a good 100 meters… the rain was coming down hard… Just before leaving the expansive courtyard of the hospital mommy stopped to open her brown bag… I was thinking to myself, “This is an odd time to hand out a chocolate…I was trying very hard to recollect what I had done that deserved a chocolate… but nothing notable came to my mind”

That was the first time I saw that thing or rather the first time it made an impression on me which I think was because this one was different than the others that I saw around… they were always dark, listless and conceited… This one, the one that Mom took out of her handbag, had a floral design complete with little blue and pink flowers almost like a silk kimono and a gleaming steel handle with a golden ring and button… She pressed the button and it sprang to life, right before my eyes… I had seen it in my book the colored one… It had a name an unusual one at that but I could not remember… I squeezed my eyes real tight and concentrated hard trying to recollect what its name was… alas, I could not…

Now the simple thing would have been to ask her what it was called… but then if daddy ever got to know I would be in for a hard-time… what with him being my tutor at home for the colored book… I thought twice about asking but refrained since I was scared of the punishment… The inverted-bowl thing did good enough job of keeping us dry…

I could smell that sweet earthly smell that always made me feel good…Probably, it was something in the smell, that sweet, homely scent, that made me brave enough to pose a question.

“Mommy, what is this thing called?”

She replied saying, “I thought your father explained that last week...”

I replied “Yes, he did and I remember that it has a weird name, but don’t seem to be able to recall it…”

“That’s too bad; well do you know what it does?”

I attempted to impress her with… “It shields us from getting all wet…”

“Yes sweetie that also but there is something else too…”

Puzzled, I asked “What?”

“It creates a sort of safe haven for you, somewhere you will be safe no matter how hard it rains…”

Even more puzzled I asked “… a safe haven… what is that?”

“Ok. You know how you sometimes feel scared in the dark…”

“Yes and you taught me to shut my eyes and pray to God to keep me safe, and you said he will always be there to safeguard me…”

“Yes. Exactly. This thing (pointing at the inverted-bowl), is like God but it is called an Umbrella… umb… U-M-B… rella… R-E-L-L-A… (She always found a way to explain things to me, just the way I understood) it keeps us safe from all the problems… when it rains too hard or the sun is scorching the earth, this keeps us from harm’s way”

“U-M-B-E… U-M-B-R-E-L-A… U-M-B-R-E-L-L-A…”

“Good. Now you deserve a chocolate…

I started thinking…

After about a minute of silence, she queried “What are you thinking about?”

“You know mommy… You ARE my Umbrella, I always feel safe with you…Thank you for being my mother”

“And you know what… you are the sweetest son any mother could have…”

She was and still is 'My Umbrella'… All the spellings I have misspelled over the years Umbrella has never been. Probably it is so because it means so much to me…

What a day that was...

2008-04-16T03:32:00.000-07:00

Recently I went to Thor… “What is that” you ask… Well it’s a bird sanctuary some 25 odd kilometers away from Ahmedabad (now don’t ask what this is… else we will be playing this game endlessly…) So, now you ask what was so different since I did this (visited Thor) in August last year too… well this year I went with a friend fully armed with two things… Firstly I had with me a Nikon D40 and secondly (hold your breath) 50~300mm lens with Macro (now gasp…) both of these courtesy of my friend… my ~~close~~ best friend since he bought the spanking new Nikon D40… (Who says I was taught nothing at the Stalin school of business management…)

This trip was good for me because of several reasons, one of them being able to pursue a pure interest without having to worry about the aftermath… Ornithology… an interest which is practiced by our sex (the ‘man’kind) throughout their life… After I shared the photographs a friend actually pointed out that she never thought that “…this was not the kind of bird watching you kept mentioning (in your blog)…” I almost never realized that I have never once mentioned ornithology in its true light… :-( The article where ‘Ornithology’ previously appeared was in the post titled “of perseverance…”

This was the day that so many things happened…

I fell in love with ‘pinky’ – (a curious bird, the real kind complete with wings and all, with a deadly combination of pink, black and white)
Came close to encounters of the third kind – at one point while shooting the friend abruptly stops and says, “…lay down on the grass…” I don’t know how to react because I am shocked… I mustered up my courage and said “No way…”he retorts “Dumbo, you are missing the shot... the pelican is flying away…" I have never been more relieved… of course, I thanked God, who would not in this kind of situation?
I saw a 'helicopter' using streax (hair color advertised by the oh so... Malaika Arora Khan)
I found one more reason to love India. I am not talking about the smart-ass reasons that we give to the phoren junta (foreigners) like…

Q. What does that red dot on women's forehead mean?
A. Well, in ancient times, Indian men used to practice archery skills by target practicing by aiming at their wife's red dot. In fact, that is one of the reasons why they had many wives. You see, once they mastered the art of archery and hit the target...

Q. You're from India? I have read so much about the country. All the wonderful places, the forests, the snake charmers, the elephants... Do you still use elephants for transportation?
A. Absolutely. In fact we used to have our own elephant in our house. But later, we started participating in elephant-ride sharing schemes with our neighbors, to save the air. You see elephants have an "emissions" problem...

The real India is beautiful and I am talking about all of it not just the natural resources but even the children we saw taking care of their bowel problems at the side of the road…

Ok so where do we go now knowing that there is a polished photographer/writer in me...It’s not a conscious thing mind you. I’m not trying to develop one of those stylish quirks (the kind where you are the actor/director/singer) that will probably pop up, years hence, in a Bournvita Quiz or something.

“Who was the Shell Wildlife Photographer for the year 2008 who also maintained series of blogs with huge fan following…”

BUZZ!

“Ankit... Day... Dey... desh... Des...ah screw it… Sikander Sharma!”

A Social Klutz...

2008-04-13T02:37:00.000-07:00

Although I am nearly perfect in all ways, I do have one minor flaw: I can’t pull off a proper introductory handshake. Being able to conduct a firm, effective hand clasp is a basic requirement for manhood, which is why I still ride a bike with training wheels at the age of twenty-two (just kidding I drive the new and improved 150cc Pulsar...) A proper handshake has more than a dozen steps, but I seldom manage to pull off more than one or two of them before my attempt at an assertive, masculine greeting degrades into little more than awkward hand-holding. The problem lies mostly with my total lack of social grace, but I also place some of the blame on whoever decided that such a complicated process was the best way to introduce yourself to another human being. If it was up to me, the official way to make a new acquaintance would be to point at them from a safe distance and possibly offer a friendly grunt or a chuckle. Alternatively a namaste should also do. Unfortunately, mankind’s need to form an instant opinion of a new contact would still be present, meaning that even my point-and-grunt/point-and-chuckle technique or the namaste thing would eventually become just as nuanced and overanalyzed as the current handshake system. The rigidness of the pointing finger and the manliness of the grunt or the funniness of the chuckle would be under the microscope or the symmetry of the hands folded in case of namaste. It would be used to assess your value as a human being, which quite frankly seems a lot more fair than evaluating irrelevant factors like the content of one’s character. The more someone knows about me, the more likely they are to join one of the many groups devoted to my destruction. My best chance at survival is to deceive people into forming a good first impression of me and then never talking to them again. In this, at times, I succeed; not of my choice ofcourse...

Unfortunately, making a good first impression is nearly impossible for me to do under the current greeting system. I’m not stranger to failure, but I still manage to impress myself with how I manage to come up short in every stage of the handshake process. I know trained dogs that can navigate the ritual better than I can, but they get a treat for their trouble whereas I just get another name I’m forced to remember. My problems typically begin when I encounter either a new person or a person who I’ve met only briefly in the past or has been recently introduced. When said person holds out his or her hand, my fight or flight reflexes instantly kick in. I need minutes of advanced warning and a few helpful diagrams to pull off even a marginally successful handshake. When someone offers me their hand by surprise, I first evaluate the pros and cons of running away as fast as I can. This one time an acquaintance thought I had seen an apparition...go figure! When outside, this can sometimes be a viable option, but it’s a lot harder to do effectively when standing inside the office. This series of thoughts usually kills two or three seconds, putting me well past the point where I should have reacted in some way to the offered hand. This greatly elevates my panic level, forcing me to hastily take action without thinking. Maybe I’ll reach for the person’s hand, or maybe I’ll just punch them in the throat. I don’t know what’s going to happen until I’ve already done it, but more often than not I’m pleasantly surprised to find the other party lying on the ground clutching their larynx. Then I can pull off the flight part of my plan even while trapped in the middle of the cubicle maze at work.

On those occasions when I skip the throat punch and foolishly attempt to complete a real handshake, the results are predictable. My first instinct is to try to maintain eye contact while moving in for the hand clasp, but I’m always afraid that I’ll miss their hand entirely and end up groping some part of their abdomen. As a result, after a quick glance to make sure the person is trying to shake my hand and not the hand of someone standing behind me, I move my eyes down and stare at the person’s hand so intensely you’d think I was attempting to dock a space shuttle with the international space station. I move my hand with exaggerated slowness to make sure I don’t miss the clasp, and if I’m really nervous I’ll even make space shuttle noises to break the tension. The space shuttle doesn’t make any noise in the vacuum in space, but I imagine the people inside the shuttle listen to music. The people I greet are often confused as to why I hum astronaut music, which is actually just soft rock, but it helps start a conversation and ensures that I’ll never again have to talk with the person I just wasted all that energy to meet.

On those rare instances where I manage to secure the handclasp in a timely fashion and I hum my astronaut music too quietly for the other party to hear it, I put all my cards of social ineptness on the table when it comes to deciding how firm to make my handshake. With other men, I usually try to match however hard the other party squeezes, but in the back of my mind I’m always afraid that they’re making their handshake extra limp just to test me. Calling their bluff, however, could be disastrous because if one of us squeezes harder the other is likely to reciprocate. At that point the contest can only end in broken fingers and girly screams, which isn’t the best way for me to establish myself as the dominant male in the encounter. After a number of bad experiences with people whose hands turned out to be much stronger than my own, I now only attempt to make my handshake firm when greeting elderly women with osteoporosis.

As if all of that wasn’t difficult enough, there is often verbal communication involved in this already overly elaborate ritual. Connecting on the handshake and then avoiding having my fingers broken takes all of my concentration, (and since males can only process one thing at a time...) so I almost never hear what the person says when they announce their name. Upon completing the handshake, I’m never sure if I should initiate a second handshake to try to learn the other party’s name or if I should just admit that my chipmunk-like brain is so easily overwhelmed that I can’t move my fingers and listen to simply auditory prompts at the same time. While pondering these philosophical questions, I almost always forget to tell the other person my name. I’d like to believe that this somehow makes me seem mysterious, but in reality it just shows the person I just met that I have little aptitude for social networking but great aptitude for finding and then burying dead bodies... I can make it through a standard workday without disaster only if I go to great lengths to avoid meeting new people. This is not possible since I am in a job which means ~~meating~~ meeting new people every single day, no wonder I am exhausted at the end of the day. I have tried hiding in the bathroom which isn’t the most exciting way to spend my days, but at least it doesn’t affect my productivity. It’s hard to fall below the total absence of work I manage to achieve even when sitting in my cubicle.

April Fools Day

2008-04-13T00:34:00.000-07:00

Once a year, it’s acceptable for people to commit atrocities against each other in the name of humor, but April Fools’ Day actually owes its creation to another, ostensibly less violent occasion. Once upon a time, February 2 was celebrated by injecting beavers with steroids and then releasing them in churches with the goal of browbeating God into ending winter. That changed when those animals became more valuable for their pelts than for their destructive abilities, a shift that caused celebrants to switch from beavers and steroids to inviting aliens to do that. The aliens weren’t very good at bringing down churches, but they were great at gnawing through the people inside them (yes, they gnaw...). That part of Alien Day never gets much press, though, so all that people see on TV is the sanitized nobody-gets-gnawed-to-death interpretation of the Holy Day. Proponents of the more deadly version of the celebration protest this censorship every year on April Fools Day, which is about the earliest that it’s safe to go outside. Those roving packs of rabid groundhogs don’t start returning to their home planets until the end of March when the sky clears and they have 100% visibility. The protests aren’t very organized because those who truly appreciate alien-on-human violence also have very short attention spans, so it’s not entirely surprising that sign holding and self-righteous anger quickly give way to lame pranks and fake news stories on the first day of April every year.

[There are always 'alternate truths' if you don't want to believe this story... read up the fish story here...]

While most April Fools’ Day pranks don’t ruin enough lives to warrant mentioning, it’s important to remember the momentous antics that have transpired on this day in history. Life pulled a pretty good joke years ago at the start of April when it gave Franklin Roosevelt polio. The Third Crusade was another memorable prank. Nothing says "just kidding" quite like scorched earth and dead people. You might not be able to give debilitating diseases or start holy wars at will, but there’s still quite a bit you can do to rise above the typical I-put-salt-in-your-coffee stunts that mar the workplace. Instead of messing with your coworker’s beverage, mess with his wife. You won’t have to worry about pranks in the future since every year at the start of April you can fondly recall that your fellow employee is unknowingly raising your illegitimate child. (Don't do your cuckoo dance just yet, there are repercussions...) The only problem with this prank is that if you share it with the office to earn those well deserve laughs, you’ll also have to pay child support. The solution is to confess to fatherhood only if the rabid aliens are in a position to devour your love child before they hunker away for the season. Not all April Fools’ jokes involve ruinous acts of procreation, but most of the really good ones do.

One of the reasons this Holy Day doesn’t really appeal to me is that it relies heavily on lies and deceit, which are skills I use as part of my normal work day. For those of you who don’t have the privilege of being entirely dishonest for eight hours every day, a little disinformation could be a great way to celebrate the occasion. Type up a fake performance review for the guy in the next cubicle comprised entirely of effusive praise and left-handed compliments: “Mr. Rao is an employee whose work ethic and job performance are beyond reproach. We are confident that he will be management material if he ever gets his conspicuous body odor problem under control. He has the moral leadership skills this office needs, especially if at least half of the very public rumors about his deviant sexual conduct prove to be mildly exaggerated.” Make sure to deliver the document with an attached bar of soap and a photocopy of the laws concerning bestiality in your country.

As with all things in life, the best April Fools pranks involve the police. Calling in bomb threats happens too much on regular work days to deserve an appearance here, but reports of other criminal misdeeds are sure to keep your April Fools’ celebration interesting. Find a coworker whose out of the office for the day, and then call the police claiming to have uncovered a criminal situation in his cubicle. Law enforcement officials will be impressed when you point out the grow lights and two dozen marijuana plants that have been in that four-walled work space ever since you put them there three minutes earlier. Your workplace acquaintance will have a good laugh when cops kick down the door to his home and haul him in for questioning. In order to pull this one off effectively, you’ll need to have marijuana plants and the accompanying growing supplies nearby for when the big day rolls around. I suggest growing them in your own cubicle under large camouflage nets. If any of your supervisors question what you’re up to, calmly throw them off you’re trail by claiming that you’re running a meth-lab. The best way to cover up for a crime is with lies about an even bigger crime. If that doesn’t work, it might be time to destroy the office with that steroid-enhanced beaver you’ve been saving for just such an occasion.

April Fools’ day isn’t as glamorous or purposeful as most other holidays, but it generally manages to disrupt my work routine enough to earn my seal of approval. My daily job performance is a joke, so I could probably let that one stand on its own without doing anything extra to celebrate, but as always I’m willing to put in additional effort at all tasks except the ones I’m actually paid to do. I haven’t decided yet what I’ll do when I arrive at the office this afternoon, but putting in my two-week notice last Thursday seems like a good start. Now if my pranks get me fired, the worst punishment they can give me is an unpaid two-week vacation before I start my new job.

Update: Somebody just told me that April Fools' day is on 1st of April.... Shit!!!

[note: the 'alien' thing is a brainchild of a friend of mine; "thanks dude for the inspiration"]

Square pegs, round holes...

2008-04-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

A friend recently spoke to me about whether to accept a particular offer or not... I helped him out and in the process realized that there would be lot of people out there who would need help on how to negotiate the salary...

Take some time always to consider the salary offer. Ask for the least of 24 to 48 hours. Silence is the golden - or it could become so - when you just let it hang for a while following the initial offer - people tend to fill in those voids which in turn fills up your kitty in the process too. Do not rush to fill a quiet void. Let the other person speak.

Weigh any of the offer against a company’s expectations of you in a position rather than your own needs. A company has put itself on line with its offer. Rest assured they do have a cap, but you might have some of the wiggle room (please understand that it's a wiggle room not a hall - range will be 5-10%) based upon how much value a company perceives you could bring them.

Prior to any of the job interview, compare the salaries for the similar positions. Websites such as www.salary.com offer the tools for the research. Knowing own worth and why a company would want to hire you, gives you the bargaining power. The salary offer itself is the testament to fact that a company perceives the value.

Write the "counter-offer" letter thanking the company for all its offer to you, recap why do they say they want you, and enthusiastically proclaim the desire to join their team provided they will reconsider an amount of their offer, then wait for their word. Accept a risk involved with this approach and will be prepared to walk away if it does not work.

Know when it is no longer in the best interest to keep negotiating and then move on to next opportunity. Usually, if a situation does not feel quite right, it is not. You will not be happy working wherever you feel you are a proverbial square peg in the round hole - especially if you feel you were taken advantage of...

Spin Doctors...

2008-04-10T06:41:00.001-07:00

You spin. You put things in the best possible light. You fail to mention those four hours you spent devoted to checking out mail from your friends marked 'careful' or 'open when alone', those two hours you slipped out to have an extended lunch with your friends (I can't believe they schedule these lunch timings - how do you know when you will be hungry...), and that 1 hour period every day after lunch when you sit at your desk in a massive food coma. You don't mention these things, because they call-in to question your job performance. You highlight the good stuff that you have done, or you highlight the reasons why you haven't produced more good stuff - i.e. you felt alien presence in the room where you were working on the papers or you were thinking about why your co-worker is never at her desk...

So what we are doing today is a job performance review. This is what I have accomplished and here are the reasons (excuses) why more has not been accomplished, and this is why I deserve to keep my job and more so deserve a job. Job performance reviews are important and worthwhile but they must be put in context. It is practically a war between two parties the 'reviewer' and the 'reviewee' (it's not a word, but then what are you gonna do about it...) the one who blinks first... it's like that movie 'The Quick and the Dead'...

In performance reviews don't go into points where you'd say "I'd rather be doing something else...", this is a sureshot way to getting fired... If you are not doing something you love... live with it... According to one statistics 90% of the people don't get to do what they love, the rest 10%... (choose from the following options...)

are beggars
are the managers or higher ups
are lawyers
politicians
have fiefdom
lie about it
born with a silver-spoon and hence don't need to work...

A perfect analogy to this is something someone said to me once... "You love someone, You marry someone else! The one you marry becomes your spouse... And the one you loved becomes the password of your e-mail id"

Payback time...

2008-04-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

In this 'festive' ('festive' for 5% and 'bloody' for the rest 95%) season it is apt that we recognize the talent of those 5% people who are at the top. To understand more about these 5% 'performers' you will need to look at the make-up (notice: (for girls) please don't worry about your mascara, it's not running... now pay attention) of the society... Who forms the top 5% of the crowd? No prizes for guessing... its the politicians, mafia bosses, actors, CEOs and some highly placed corrupt officials...

Do you see a similarity between that spineless ass that sits next to you seemingly doing nothing productive the entire day and walks away with the biggest bonus? If not you have to... these people are very adept at using all their energies towards maneuvering for political advantage... this is called being 'Machiavellian' (Definition: Machiavellianism is the term that some social and personality psychologists use to describe a person's tendency to deceive and manipulate others for personal gain. The concept is named after Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote The Prince) [Awe at my knowledge; duration: 30 seconds]

Now you are thinking that this post is turning into a guidebook of how to 'butter your boss', 'kiss ass', 'suck up to...' but I know you can't do that hell... I would not be able to do that... so contrary to being 'Machiavellian' i am going to talk about something else... This idea flashed my mind yesterday lonesome midnight soiree (visual stimulation provided by 'The Devil wears Prada')... ~~My father's friend~~ my friend's father, who happens to be fantastic at humor, once said, "...those who make fun of others or make others laugh look down or consider their audience dumber..."

This particular thought which is also replicated by a leading philosopher shows a way to better take the revenge on the 'dirty dozen' (I mean the top 5% 'performers'), for this you will have to learn how to make fun of other people, especially your co-workers... (A few guidelines on how to do this has been mentioned in previous post - Part 1 and Part 2, you can also refer 'The Joy of Work - Scott Adams' this book is the bible for the kind of thing I am suggesting...

After you learn to use the 'humor weapons' you can spend your day mocking those 5% and hence you would become 'Mockiavellian' [laugh heartily; Duration: 1minute 30seconds] Given a choice, you will always be happier as a Mockiavellian than a Machiavellian. And since you seem to be funnier (hence smarter), those Machiavellian employees will eventually work for you. Then you can mock them even more...The train of events that will happen are so...

Initially a few people around your desk start enjoying it...
Over a period of time you become 'indispensable' - this comes to a stage where if you are sick and at home people call in to alleviate their 'food coma' [Smile; Duration: 5 minutes - haven't you heard... it's good for you!]
Now your boss is your ardent fan
You are promoted over the 5%
Now those 5% work for you; ofcourse you still mock them...

This post is 100% original.

[Originality = Theft + Lack of Talent + Time]

Benefits of being Mockiavellian:

You actually get the office bimbo (usually within a month - if you think this is mail-order go read some other blog...)
You will no longer feel being trapped by obnoxious co-workers; you will get, actually get an office with real doors
Your pride is reinstated at having a lady-love and a prime patch of real-estate (corner-office)
Last but not the least you love coming to office everyday

Rank or Yank...

2008-04-09T07:55:00.000-07:00

A shiver ran down my spine as I heard those words... "...and 5% of them will be killed..." No this quote is not from an POW story... this is the story of a family...

The family had lots of members... grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren... 22 people in total... these were the times of scarcity the rain last year had not been great... just enough...

The great grandfather one day thought: "This year I will get lesser food... since I will have to share my share with all of them..." the conceited man that he was he got together with the co-conspirator who was the great grandmother and formed a plan...

At the dinner table next evening silence spoke and fear grew, the night was still... The great grandmother spoke (she was the spokesperson): "This year your performance will be rated differently..." people fearing the worst shivered... they knew how conceited she was and would go to any extent to ensure her importance in the family... she continued "... this year we will rate you as per the forced distribution method (explanation appended)..."

Explanation: Managers sort fixed percentages of their employees into categories like “superior” or “needing improvement”; those in the top group typically receive the best compensation, training and promotions while those at the bottom may be denied raises or promotions, or even fired.

She went to the blackboard and drew this...

After drawing this she spoke... "According to this new method you will be forced to work 8 hours a day in field irrespective of the rain, plough, tractor, or any other resource available... considering your performance in last year you will be rated between 1-5 (where 1=best and 5=worst). The rewards will be commiserate with the performance. Members will receive following rewards...

grade '1' ration increased by 100% and no work hours, they will monitor grade '5' (the ones not executed) & '4' in next year
grade '2' ration increased by 50% and work hours reduced to 4 hours a day
grade '3' no additional food, 8 hours of work, no benefits
grade '4' ration cut down to 50% and work hours increased to 12 hours a daygrade '5' will be sent to the execution stands or will have to work 16 hours to make up for the lost work last year... ofcourse they will not be served any lunch at all... only dinner and that too left over from lunchtime"

She continues, "some people may have objections and/or concerns about the executing their people during this review time. But we need to send strong message that we are a performance driven family and poor performance is not acceptable here..." There will be only a few members in each category...

grade '1' - 5% (1 persons)
grade '2' - 15% (3 persons)
grade '3' - 60% (12 persons)
grade '4' - 15% (3 persons)
grade '5' - 5% (1 person)

A year later...

There was a great rainy season but the production reduced to 25% of what it was last year the main reason being nobody to plough the fields, work the tractors... All in all 11 people left the family and joined another family where the head also worked hard in the field and they shared everything that they earned...

Status:

grade '1' - 5% (1 persons) - nobody quit from this group
grade '2' - 15% (3 persons) - 1 person quit from this group
grade '3' - 60% (12 persons) - 6 people quit from this group
grade '4' - 15% (3 persons) - all 3 quit
grade '5' - 5% (1 person) - this guy too quit

I guess the 'great grandfather' did not know that... "the juice was not worth the squeeze..."

What’s The Craziest Thing You’ve Done Lately?

2008-04-06T01:30:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: You'd definitely need a dictionary open to interpret this post... (especially Bobby)

So it is April: The month of fools (~~or fooling around?~~). It was the perfect time— DVD marathon— when I watched this movie yesterday, hmmm... This was definitely not porn, nor an American Pie attempt. At least, when one-sixteenth-porn movies are not too trite, The Girl Next Door tried not to be hackneyed as much as possible. Now it’s intuitive to ask, “What would you do when your girlfriend is actually an ex-porn star?”

As in the case where a buddy of yours would slot in a DVD tape in your player and then you see HER there… pretty much doing her “thing,” like, what would you do? It’ll be a volatile experience (I mean, if you’re not a pervert). The Girl Next Door offered less of the laughs, but more of the teenage drama, romance and test/s of philosophy. Director Luke Greenfield said in his commentary that he will indeed employ the affective drive of the eye [or eye contact] as an intensifying agent. And that’s how he established Danielle’s ubiquitous hotness.

Three things I liked in this film:

1. First off, the über-hot (relaaaaks, no hyperventilating... deep breaths please!) Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert) is sexy with ~~or without~~ her clothes on. Lol. Her peering eyes and sleek lips are what I consider as standards for one to be called a city chick and/or a country sylph.

2. Next, I really liked the “opposites-attract” idea. Like what I learned in Human Behavior151, it is creative to “[make] unusual associations” (Ankit Desai, 2008). Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) is a pusillanimous over-achiever while Danielle is a lovely “cowgirl” type. Although, with the latter’s projection it occurred to me how “mature” she were than kiddo Matt, but still keeping that innocence I personally like in a girl.

3. Quotable Quotes

Matthew together with best pals Eli, the film director wannabe, and Klitz, the taut nerd, plans of shooting for a porn flick and subsequently selling it to the “sex educator”/film producer Hugo to earn. Only that Klitz automatically refuses… until Eli comes with his moving wisecracks:

Eli: Take a look at us. Take a good look at us. Do you know what we are, the three of us?
Klitz: What?
Eli: We’re a fucking tripod
Klitz: A tripod.
Eli: Yeah, you know what that means? That means if you kick out one of our legs, then we all fall. Come on, baby!

Matthew— under the vertigo of the induced Ecstasy substance— delivers his speech to ace the Sheridan Scholarship that’ll bring him to Georgetown. Only that he’s all momentarily kooky:

Matthew: Moral fiber. So what is moral fiber? [...] I used to think it was always telling the truth, doing good deeds… you know basically, being a fucking Boy Scout. But lately, I’ve been seeing it differently. [I] think that [it] is finding that one thing you really care about: that one special thing that means more to you than anything else in the world. And when you find her, you fight for her. You risk it all. You put her in front of everything— your future, your life— all of it. [...] Because in your heart you know that the juice is worth the squeeze. That’s what moral fiber’s all about.

P.S. Lastly, I almost lost my breath upon seeing Matthew’s BMW in the conclusion part. Sweeet!

“What’s the craziest thing [I've] done lately?” umm, watchin’ this flick...

Dilbert

2008-04-05T05:41:00.001-07:00

A very interesting collection of Dilbert can be downloaded here... Dilbert.zip

Bill Gates vs. GM

2008-04-05T05:22:00.001-07:00

Bill Gates of Microsoft (if you didn't know that...) said at a conference:

"If GM (General Motors) had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........Twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. 4. For some reason you would simply accept this.
5. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.
8. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
9. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
10. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
11. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Roses for Rose

2008-04-05T05:00:00.001-07:00

Red roses were her favorites, her name was also Rose.
And every year her husband sent them, tied with pretty bows.
The year he died, the roses were delivered to her door.
The card said, "Be my Valentine", like all the years before.

Each year he sent her roses, and the note would always say,
"I love you even more this year, than last year on this day.
My love for you will always grow, with every passing year."
She knew this was the last time that the roses would appear.

She thought, he ordered roses in advance before this day.
Her loving husband did not know, that he would pass away.
He always liked to do things early, way before the time.
Then, if he got too busy, everything would work out fine.

She trimmed the stems, and placed them in a very special vase.
Then, sat the vase beside the portrait of his smiling face.
She would sit for hours, in her husband's favorite chair.
While staring at his picture, and the roses sitting there.

A year went by, and it was hard to live without her mate.
With loneliness and solitude, that had become her fate.
Then, the very hour, as on Valentines before,
The doorbell rang, and there were roses, sitting by her door.

She brought the roses in, and then just looked at them in shock.
Then, went to get the telephone, to call the florist shop.
The owner answered, and she asked him, if he would explain,
Why would someone do this to her, causing her such pain?

"I know your husband passed away, more than a year ago,
"The owner said, "I knew you'd call, and you would want to know.
The flowers you received today, were paid for in advance.
Your husband always planned ahead, he left nothing to chance.
There is a standing order, that I have on file down here,
And he has paid, well in advance, you'll get them every year.
There also is another thing, that I think you should know,
He wrote a special little card... he did this years ago.
Then, should ever I find out that he's no longer here,
That's the card...that should be sent, to you the following year."

She thanked him and hung up, her tears now flowing hard.
Her fingers shaking, as she slowly reached to get the card.
Inside the card she saw that he had written her a note.
Then, as she stared in total silence, this is what he wrote...

"Hello my love, I know it's been a year since I've been gone,
I hope it hasn't been too hard for you to overcome.
I know it must be lonely, and the pain is very real.
For if it was the other way, I know how I would feel.
The love we shared made everything so beautiful in life.
I loved you more than words can say, you were the perfect wife.
You were my friend and lover, you fulfilled my every need.

I know it's only been a year, but please try not to grieve.
I want you to be happy, even when you shed your tears.
That is why the roses will be sent to you for years.
When you get these roses, think of all the happiness,
That we had together, and how both of us were blessed.
I have always loved you and I know I always will.

But, my love, you must go on, you have some living still.
Please...try to find happiness, while living out your days.
I know it is not easy, but I hope you find some ways.
The roses will come every year, and they will only stop,
When your door's not answered, when the florist stops to knock.
He will come five times that day, in case you have gone out.
But after his last visit, he will know without a doubt,
To take the roses to the place, where I've instructed him,
And place the roses where we are, together once again."

A veering post...

2008-04-04T07:49:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: You will not read anything meaningful in this post. There is no relevance whatsoever of any sentence with its previous counterpart and any semblance of that happening is purely a coincidence. In case you find this post interesting please reread there must be something wrong. If you are my 6th grade English teacher, "Yes, I know I am supposed to use shorter sentences. But I won't because I don't want to"

Random Quote: Incompetence is widespread; I just look at the guys around... I am sure my friends find that in abundance :)

Everybody loves to give advice... "Do this...", "Don't do that..." - The reason is simple and the benefit twofold:

You get to know the result of the 'proposed solution' using somebody else as a "guinea pig", of their own free will...
You get a mental boost out of undermining his/her abilities to solve the problem in both of your minds, though more importantly his/hers...

enough of this psycho-babble bullshit...

Explanation of random behavior: Sometime back a friend who noticed my unusual interest in blogging... [he could not miss it since every other day I'd call him up in the middle of the night and talk enthusiastically about how my visitors-count crossed an even, odd, prime, arithmetic, geometric, lucky, birthdates, anniversaries number (the list is endless but you get the picture...) or how I had managed to create a design that beautifies the world...if not that atleast my blog...]

One day while having a midnight soiree he probably got tired and started talking about what I could do to ramp up my ~~viewership~~ readership. One of his most meaningful suggestions was for me to give out money to people who come and visit my blog, which ofcourse I declined to even consider... I told him I did not want to get involved in vices involving secret payouts... Subsequently he said two things:

There should always be something for the people in your posts... (When he said this I had this glassy, blank stare, which probably he could not decipher just like me being unable to decipher his point) he went on to the second point...
Be focused... this was primarily aimed at my writing style which he said is very 'random', he said I keep on veering from the topic all the time... I said in my defense that if people could not make the connection I did then too bad... probably they are dumb... He said, probably they were... (personally, I think you are very very intelligent and if you, the reader, were to get your IQ test, even Einstein would have been impressed...)

Advices like prophesies follow a common trend, they are very broad, some almost all-encompassing, some examples are mentioned below:

Advices:
1. Be focused...
2. Be sincere... (best given with a serious,
anal retentive look)
3. Improve your leadership skills - WTF?
4. Team-building should be your focus area

Prophesies:
1. Something good will happen today
2. Romance is on the cards
3. Be careful with money
4. You will have a good old age - this is mentioned in 'today's fortune'

So well... I have decided that I am going to be a non-conformist (thought: If I confirm to non-conformism am I a conformist then?) I will write a post that is completely unrelated and it is doubtful that it will be of any help to you...

My friend had suggested that I should concentrate on things that I am good at and yesterday night in that blissful state that is somewhere in between the state of awareness and sleep I realized what I am good at... I am good at sleeping... So that's what I am going to write on ... Sleep: How to get it and sustain...

Here we go...

Sleep: How to get it and sustain

Decide to sleep… (Very important, discussed in detail later)
Accumulate resources in order of usage
If you suffer from insomnia some cultures suggest keeping a bowl filled with salt by your bedside. No, I am not superstitious but no point getting on the wrong side of holy spirits or the omnipotent forces of the nature right?
Don’t watch TV or even so much as look at a computer screen atleast 30 minutes before you lie down. The light from both a television as well as a computer monitor mimic the same intensity of light as sunlight. This fools your body and brain into thinking it’s nowhere near time for sleep. Your brain has another smaller brain that thinks for the brain, if you didn’t know, now you know why you failed in Biology – 101…
Drink milk. Milk has an amino acid in it called Tryptophan that increases the levels of serotonin and/or melatonin in the brain which slow down brain activity. It’s science folks.
Go to bed when you are tired. Different strokes for different folks here. Just because your wife goes to bed at 9PM doesn’t mean you are ready. You might only require seven and half hours of sleep while she might require ten. If you aren’t tired, do something low-key until you are, like read a book, play solitaire (for royalty: we are not talking about diamonds, it’s a game; for masses: NOT on your computer), or play with some legos (legos – this is actually a game, it’s not latin for legs).
Reserve the bed for bed things (i.e. sleep and sex – this is specially for people who are not potty-trained).
Meditate. No, don’t cross your legs and hum tantric mantras, but focus on relaxing…if that makes sense. Take deep, long breaths (if you smoke you will not be able to do this, there is no reprieve for you, don’t worry you will get a very long long long sleep shortly). Tense each muscle one at a time from head to toe. Focusing on doing this takes your mind off of other things and you’ll be in lala land in no time.
Exercise during the day. I emphasize during the day. Exercising at night just gets everything going instead of shutting down for sleep. But exercising during the day tires the muscles out and makes for a solid nights sleep. Of course there are some kind of exercises that might help you to sleep, especially men – it’s different for women (this is what I have been told)

Yeah Yeah Yeah… I know… This was not supposed to be a meaningful post but I guess that friend of mine has screwed up with my thought process; this was an honest mistake… I swear…

But you know the above 6 points may be important in getting good sleep but the best one is yet to come… Well I don’t know if it’s only me but more often than not things always happen the other way than I would want them to… I am sure you have guessed what the 7th and the most effective point in getting sleep is going to be…

You have had enough life behind you now, I mean you have seen life as it goes by and would, by now, have formed a general feeling how things go when you want them; Unlike Kaun Banega Crorepati there are only two options here… (a) It goes exactly as you want it to go and second one is (b) It goes in the exact opposite direction as you want it to go… So the solution to sleep is as simple as coming to a point and say… “I want to sleep…” or in my case… “I don’t want to sleep…”

A word of caution: This is an extremely potent tool in sleeping or staying awake… Please use it at your own risk…

I have now meaningfully wasted 10 minutes of your time (those not accustomed to speed-reading for you guys this time might transcend to half an hour or even an hour in some cases) I am basking in the glee of this recent achievement… off you go…

Personality test...

2008-04-02T05:31:00.001-07:00

Nowadays every organization subjects their employees to random personality tests. Wouldn't it be great to find out your personality before your company does?

Here's a test which is absolutely free, though any kind of help for this endeavor is highly welcome.

This test was devised by a famous team of psychologists from a British university...
Imagine you walked into a small hut by the river in the jungle. You pushed open the door, in front of you were 7 small beds to the right of the hut, and another 7 small chairs surrounding a small round table. In the middle of the table was a round food tray with 5 kinds of fruit in it.

The fruits are:

Apple

Banana

Strawberry

Peach

Orange

The fruit that you choose reveals all about you...

Click here to know the answers as well as psychological profiles...

Google wakes up...

2008-04-02T04:31:00.000-07:00

Just launched!

Wake yourself up with our new Google Wake Up Kit!
Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning? Everybody does... this is why I was not surprised when I saw this...

Apparently Google has launched a new Wakeup Kit. Since it has been told to me by an inside source has become very evident at times when it resulted in lacklustre attendance at team meetings. To help solve the problem they've created an innovative solution called the Google Wake Up Kit.

"I could never wake up on time to get to our team meetings. But thanks to the new Google Wake Up Kit, I'm always on time now!"
Pedro C. (the person who tried the beta version)

In combination with the kit, you can receive a new type of notification from Google Calendar, called the "wake up" notification. This notification is relentless in ensuring your timely awakening from restful slumber.

The "wake up" notification uses several progressively more annoying alerts to wake you up. First it will send an SMS message to your phone. If that fails, more coercive means will be used. The kit includes an industrial-sized bucket and is designed to be connected to your water main for automatic filling. In addition, a bed-flipping device is included for forceful removal from your sleeping quarters.

Follow the link here: Google wake up

Trick to the top...

2008-04-02T03:01:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, corporations are paying lot more importance to the creativity and intelligence-based jobs. The example below is just the tip of the iceberg. A corporation advertised all kinds of positions to fill for their new office in a big city, the candidates were selected based on their resume and tested for their aptitude for the positions

The corporation put around one hundred baseball balls in some particular order in a closed room with the room window open Then they send a group of two to three candidates of particular discipline into the room and locked it from outside They left them alone and came back after six hours, to analyze the situation:

If they were counting and recounting the number of balls - They were hired for the ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT
If they had messed up the whole place with the balls - They were hired for the ENGINEERING
If they were arranging the balls in some other order - They were hired for the PLANNING
If they were throwing the balls at each other - They were hired for the OPERATIONS
If they were sleeping - They were hired for the SECURITY
If they had squashed the balls into pieces - They were hired for the INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
If they were staring out of the window - They were hired for the EXPORT
If they were sitting idle - They were hired for the HUMAN RESOURCE DEPT
If they had thrown the balls out of the window - They were hired for the MATERIALS DEPT
If they were clinging onto the balls - They were hired for the TREASURY
If they said they had tried different combinations, yet not a ball had moved - They were hired for the SALES
If they had already left for the day - They were hired for the MARKETING and finally
If they were talking to each other and not a ball had moved - They were hired for the TOP MANAGEMENT

Routes of Exits...

2008-03-31T04:39:00.001-07:00

During this time everybody thinks about the same thing... getting a better offer if you are not satisfied with the new numbers handed out to you... I have personally seen lot of people struggling with writing exit letter or a letter of thanks that also informs his/her boss about him/her quitting... So, here's some help these letters can also be used as a guiding point to concoct a deadly but pleasing quitting letter...

Simple one...

Acknowledgement...

Justifying resignation...

For the passionate ones...

The Smartest One...

Hello Boss,

I love your wife.

Yours faithfully,

XYZ

Self appraisal & Marketing...

2008-03-29T00:41:00.001-07:00

A little boy went into a drug store, reached for a soda carton and pulled it over to the telephone. He climbed onto the carton so that he could reach the buttons on the phone and proceeded to punch in seven digits (phone numbers). The store-owner observed and listened to the conversation.

Boy: "Lady, Can you give me the job of cutting your lawn?
Woman: (at the other end of the phone line): "I already have someone to cut my lawn."

Boy: "Lady, I will cut your lawn for half the price of the person who cuts your lawn now."
Woman: I'm very satisfied with the person who is presently cutting my lawn.

Boy: (with more perseverance): "Lady, I'll even sweep your curb and your sidewalk, so on Sunday you will have the prettiest lawn in all of Palm beach , Florida ..."
Woman: No, thank you.

With a smile on his face, the little boy replaced the receiver. The store-owner, who was listening to all this, walked over to the boy.

Store Owner: "Son... I like your attitude; I like that positive spirit and would like to offer you a job."
Boy: "No thanks..."

Store Owner: But you were really pleading for one.
Boy: No Sir, I was just checking my performance at the job I already have. I am the one who is working for that lady, I was talking to!"

This is what we call "Self Appraisal"

Now actually the boy did not do a decent job but the lady did not want to hire a better person since she did not have to pay anything to the boy for doing the work since he was her son. But by doing this he drove up his price for the shopkeeper.

This is what is called "Marketing"

Mortal thoughts at midnight...

2008-03-26T03:07:00.001-07:00

What do you do when you wake up in the middle of the night. Don't go around trying to calculate and trying to find what exactly refers to the middle of the night... I am talking about halfway thru' the sleep when you awake from a very deep, deep sleep...

Now I am not lucky enough to have an imaginary, invisible friend who'd lay awake waiting for me to wake up and talk... So I tried really hard to go back to sleep... but somehow I could not catch the sleepy slumber... and this is very unusual because I can always sleep no matter what... it's like a blessing, while others would proclaim something like "I am an excellent painter" if I was there I'd say "I can sleep, anytime, anywhere"

Now since I could not sleep I had to do something... so I made an effort to flip open my cell to check the time.... HOLY COW!!! it was 5:07.... AM.... I was wondering how long it has been since I had seen that kind of time after having slept... Now I had spent almost 10 minutes just thinking about this... and there was this sudden urge to use the washroom which I had no option but to comply with... so after pondering in vain over what I could do to avert it for another 5 minutes....I did the inevitable... I got up and went to the washroom... which was followed by two glasses of water....

Back in my bed I started thinking about the things I could do since I was awake... It started as a very small list...actually it started with cleaning the house - which I decided against since it was pretty early and I did not want to unnecessarily scare the neighbors.

Following this I started thinking about what all I wanted to do which I had not done...

So, these are the things that I'd want to do before I die...

I'd want to...
     Skydive.
     Have my portrait painted.
     Learn to speak a foreign language and use it.
     Learn to skate.
     Own a flat with a view.

It was then that it hit me... there are a lot of things that I have done than people would have me think... suddenly everything felt nice and I don't know exactly when I slept off...

A Comprehensive list of things to do before you die...

Attend at least one major sports event: the FIFA, the Cricket World Cup and color yourself...
Throw a huge party and invite every one of your friends..... even the ones you don't remember....
Swim with a dolphin.
Watch the launch of a space shuttle.
Be an extra in a film.
Live in Himalayas for a considerable time... (yes, more than a day)
Learn how to take a compliment. - done, I blush but I know how to take it...
Buy a round-the-world air ticket and a rucksack, and run away.
Give parents a dozen red roses and tell him/her 'em love them.
~~Be a member of the audience in a TV show.~~ - done
Send a message in a bottle.
Ride a camel into the desert.
Plant a tree.
Learn not to say yes when you really mean no.
Write a fan letter to your all-time favorite hero or heroine. - I have been thinking about doing this since I was 12-year-old
Learn to dance.
Fall deeply in love -- helplessly and unconditionally.
Ride the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia and before this the Konkan express in India
Write the novel you know you have inside you.
Stay out all night dancing and go to work the next day without having gone home (just once).
Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany.
Be someone's mentor, anybody's (not your dog's)
Shower in a waterfall.
Ask for a raise.
Learn to play a musical instrument with some degree of skill.
Teach someone illiterate to read.
Spend a night in a haunted house -- by yourself.
Write down your personal mission statement, follow it, and revise it from time to time - peeep, not going to do this...
~~See a lunar eclipse~~ - done
~~See a solar eclipse~~ - done
Spend New Year's in an exotic location.
Get passionate about a cause and spend time helping it, instead of just thinking about it.
Experience weightlessness.
Sing a great song in front of an audience - without ever having performed ever
Ask someone you've only just met to go on a date, even if they say "no".
Drive through entire India from Kashmir to Kanyakumari - as soon as the cars start running on hydrogen...
Make a complete and utter fool of yourself. (don't sniffle, it's not that often...)
Own one very expensive but absolutely wonderful business suit.
Write your will. (that could potentially help when you're dead)
~~Sleep under the stars.~~ - done
Take a ride on the highest roller coaster in the world.
Learn how to complain effectively -- and do it!
~~Spend a whole day reading a great novel.~~ - done
Forgive your parents.
Learn to juggle with three RED balls.
Find a job you love.
Overcome your fear of failure.
Donate money and put your name on something: a college scholarship, a bench in the park, etc.
Buy your own house and then spend time making it into exactly what you want.
Grow a garden.
Spend three months getting your body into optimum shape.
Drive a convertible with the top down and music blaring.
Accept yourself for who you are.
Learn to use a microphone and give a speech in public.
Go up in a hot-air balloon.
Attend one really huge rock concert.
Kiss someone you've just met on a blind date.
Give to a charity -- anonymously.
Let someone feed you peeled, seedless grapes.
Fart in a crowded space. (hehe)
Create your own web site.
Make yourself spend a half-day at a concentration camp and swear never to forget.
Try skiing/snowboarding, or both, and laugh at yourself for hurting yourself in that way.
Learn to bartend - like Tom Cruise in Cocktail
Reflect on your greatest weakness, and realize how it is your greatest strength.
Run outside in the middle of the night, go in the middle of the street, and dance while looking at how wonderful the world is.
Dance like nobody's watching, even if there is.
Tell someone you love them, and mean it.
Find the song that reflects on how your life is, even though you didn't write it.
Wander around aimlessly, get lost, find your way out, and not know where you are until you start wandering aimlessly again.
Go in a forest/large woods that you've never been in before, in the morning with your best friend, and go so deep you're completely lost, and find your way out without a map.
Build and start a fire without matches.
Hold a baby and change it's diaper, even if s/he is bawling it's eyes out.
Eat strange exotic foods that you don't know what's in it.
Go everywhere you can.
Make one friend that you'll never forget.
Save a life.
Learn to do Random Acts of Kindness on a daily basis.
~~Draw/Paint someone's picture.~~ - done
Go hiking in a national park alone and realize how beautiful the world is.
~~Wish on a shooting star.~~ - done
~~Watch a meteor shower.~~ - done
See the Northern/Southern lights.
Kiss in the rain.
Learn to smile when you're sad, until you're happy again, and if someone asks how you are, tell them the truth.
Learn acceptance and tolerance.
Eat grass. - just kidding
Fall over absolutely nothing unintentionally.
Learn to laugh at yourself.
~~Watch a sunrise and sunset~~ - done
Find your ultimate freedom and embrace it.
Take a cruise.

What dreams may come...

2008-03-10T04:48:00.001-07:00

Sometime back I had written about dreams and stuff... after reading this post you will definitely change your thinking about dreams :-)

Harry did like he always does, kissing his wife, crawling into bed and falling to sleep. All of a sudden, he wakes up with an elderly man dressed in a cowl standing in front of his bed.

"What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?......and who are you?" he asked.

"This is not your bedroom," the man replied, "I am St. Peter, and you are in heaven."

"WHAT!?? Are you saying I'm dead? I don't want to die.....I'm too young." said Harry. "If I'm dead, I want you to send me back immediately."

"It's not that easy", said St.Peter, "you can only return as a dog or a hen. You can choose on your own..."

Harry thought about it for a while, and figured out that being a dog is too tiring, but a hen probably has a nice and relaxed life. Running around with a rooster can't be that bad.

"I want to return as a hen." Harry replied.

And in the next second, he found himself in a chicken run, really nicely feathered. But man, now "he" felt like the rear end was gonna blow........then along came the rooster.

"Well, it's OK I guess, but it feels like my rear end is blowing up.""Oh that!" said the rooster. "That's only the ovulation going on. Have you never laid an egg before??""No, how do I do that?" Harry asked.

"Hey, you must be the new hen on the farm." he said. "How does it feel?"

"Cluck twice, and then you push all you can."

Harry clucked twice, and pushed more than he was good for, and then 'Plop' and an egg was on the ground.

"Wow" Harry said "that felt really good!" So he clucked again and squeezed. And you better believe that there was yet another egg on the ground.

The third time he clucked, he heard his wife shout: "Harry, for Gods sake wake up, you're shitting all over the bed!"

Faster, faster...

2008-03-10T03:16:00.000-07:00

For a startup, two months is an eternity, but even for large companies two months is a long time. Today, people need to be replaced real-time - one is out and the next one is in full-speed, day one. This is difficult, particularly because of the incredible amount of information that we end up processing daily.

Increasingly, modern business is becoming a complex, distributed information processing system. The nodes of this system are employees, tirelessly passing bits around to each other, crunching and filtering with the goal to compute, to gain competitive advantage, and to help the business survive.

The problem is that unlike factories or boxes in the computing cloud, employees in the modern company are not identical. Each one knows a unique piece of the information puzzle that makes a company tick. Two weeks is not enough to do the transition and two months is way to long to waste training up the new guy. This is why the old adage that everyone is replaceable may need some re-thinking.

Recently, my insurance broker switched companies. He quickly contacted me, offered an attractive new package, and then drove 1.5 hours from his office to my home to sign the papers. His commission would not want warrant the trip, but he was smart to make the investment of his time because he won me as a client. On the other hand, the cost of losing a talented employee for his old company just increased - they also lost a client, and I am sure I was not the only one.

Although my insurance agent lives in the technical world, he is part of new breed of folks that I call the digital elite. He uses Facebook to keep in touch with his friends, he was savvy enough to look up my company on the web, and he knows all the cool financial web sites. In other words, he is on top of what's going on. He knows all about the speed of information in our world. And this makes him a serious and important player, of the type that is really hard to replace.

As organizations become smaller and focused around the talents their employees bring in, we're going to see a lot of employee-organization branding together. Specially the "superstar" employees (a rainmaker in consulting organization, for example)

Yes, a lot of things are going to change, subtly but slowly :-) HR and management groups must be aware and open to these changes, specially in the small creative hotshops.

My goals for Q1 2020

2008-03-10T03:13:00.001-07:00

Video-conferencing - the new devil...

2008-03-10T02:17:00.001-07:00

After mobile phones the new devil... video conferencing...

MIB...

2008-03-10T02:00:00.001-07:00

Men in blue are red-blooded too... :-)

Of sanitary pads and pajero...

2008-03-10T01:47:00.001-07:00

I agree the title is a bit gross... but could not find another which seemed more apt, in case you find a better one send in your response...

Countless times it has happened that Indian's are the butt of jokes now I don't get too fanatical but sometimes it irks me... well this one is the first time when I have got a positive one... so here it goes...

An Indian moves to Montreal and goes to a big department store looking for a job.

The manager asks, 'Do you have any sales experience?'

The Indian says, 'Yeah, I was a salesman back home'.

Well, the manager liked the young man, so he gave him the job. 'You start tomorrow. I'll come down after we close and see how you did, but let me give you a bit of advice. If a customer comes looking, say, for toothpaste, you might suggest for him a toothbrush, or shaving cream etc. You get the idea?'

'Of course,' the young man said. His first day on the job was rough but he got through it.

After the store was locked up, the manager came down. 'How many sales did you make today?
The Indian says, 'One'

The manager groans, 'Just one? Our sales people average 20 or 30 sales/day.

How much was the sale for?'

The Indian says, '$101, 237.64.'

The manager exclaims, 'What? $101,237.64? What did you sell him?'

The Indian replied, 'First I sold him a small fish hook. Then I sold him a medium fishhook. Then I sold him a larger fishhook. Then I sold him a new fishing rod. Then I asked him where he was going fishing, and he said down at the coast, so I told him he was going to need a boat, so we went down to the boat department, and I sold him that twin engine Chris Craft. Then he said he didn't think his Honda Civic would pull it, so I took him down to the automotive department and sold him that 4X4 Pajero.'

The manager says 'You mean a guy came in here to buy a fish hook and you sold him a boat and truck?!'

The Indian says, 'No, no, no, he came in here to buy a box of Kotex for his wife and I said, 'Well, since your weekend's already screwed up you might as well go fishing!!'

The manager fainted...

[Contributed by: SN]

which do you prefer?

2008-03-10T00:24:00.001-07:00

The phone rings. The lady of the house answers, "Yes?"

"Mrs. Ward, please."

"Speaking"

"Mrs. Ward, this is Doctor Jones at the Medical Testing Laboratory. When your Doctor sent your husband's samples to the lab, the samples from another Mr. Ward was sent as well and we are now uncertain which one is your husband's. Frankly, it is either bad or terrible."

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Ward asks.

"Well, one Mr. Ward has tested positive for Alzheimer's disease! (related to memory) and the other for AIDS. We can't tell which your husband's is"

"That's terrible! Can we do the test over?" questions Mrs.. Ward.

"Normally, yes. But Medicare won't pay for these expensive tests more than once."

"Well, what am I supposed to do now?"

"The people at Medicare recommend that you drop your husband off in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don't sleep with him".

P.S. - Don't bother trying to find the relevance of the cartoon with the post... b'coz there is none I just put it there for the heck of it... :-)

[Contributed by: DK, Read more about DK here and here]

information technology foxed...

2008-03-06T03:46:00.001-08:00

The foxy lady Olivia Munn is back and back with a 'bang'! She is the new starlet hosting the viral video for Dell Computers "IT Through The Decades..."

The clip is more of a marketing ploy that is directed at the goof-ups or poor IT-related decisions companies have made the past few decades i.e. '78 thru 2008. In the clip, Mike 'the IT guy' suggests 'new' technologies like databases and bar codes and gets made fun of by his colleagues. Olivia doesn’t have a million lines but then she was never hired to speak anyways, she does what she does best... adding a lot of sex appeal to the YouTube clip.[update: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssdINlpQ5nA]

Warning: It’s a little longer than what is normal for viral clips... Olivia fans will also probably get a kick out of seeing her dressed up in retro 70’s and 80’s outfits.

Why men are never depressed...

2008-03-05T02:12:00.001-08:00

A friend sent me this forward and forms an interesting read...

Men Are Just Happier People - What do you expect from such simple creatures? But still if you are not satisfied with this argument let's delve deeper...

Your last name stays put.
The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves.
Chocolate is just another snack.
You can be President.
You can never be pregnant.
You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
You can wear NO shirt to a water park.
Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal.
You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.
You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
Same work, more pay.
Wrinkles add character.
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.
New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
One mood all the time.

Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.

You know stuff about tanks.

A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.

You can open all your own jars.

You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.

If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.

Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.

You almost never have strap problems in public.

You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.

Everything on your face stays its original color.

The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.

You only have to shave your face and neck.

You can play with toys all your life.

One wallet and one pair of shoes -- one color for all seasons.

You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.

You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife.

You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.

Performance appraisal myths...

2008-03-03T03:08:00.001-08:00

I'm sure many of you have the pleasure of receiving a performance review at the end of the year. Your company touts the performance review as being incredibly important. Your witty your boss will mention "the performance review ties directly to your pay increase" and "we pay for high performance". In some companies all of the above may very well be true, but in other companies it's other way round... Let me address this in several bullet points to demonstrate for you all the myths relating to performance reviews:

Myth 1: Performance Reviews are Important.

Hmm... it's so important that every year I'm asked by my boss to submit to him a self evaluation. This is because my boss is too damn lazy to take the time to write my review himself. Instead he will take what I have written and just cut and past it into the review. To make himself feel better he will add one measly sentence of what he/she calls "constructive criticism" (read: degrading enunciation of failures) and rate me 2 levels below what my self evaluation grade was. The sentence he adds also has zero ounce of fact or truth in it and he cannot give me any examples of what he means. Gee thanks!

Myth 2: Performance Reviews Reward (monetarily) High Performers.

As a manager I have the pleasure of seeing what salary increases my people get as part of their reviews. I can tell you that high performance does not equal high monetary rewards. My company flat out rewards employees with the following % increases: 1% (meets expectations), 2% (exceeds expectations), 3% (far exceeds expectations). So based on these reward system, an employee making $40k a year will only get $13 more a paycheck for far exceeding expectations vs. just meeting expectations. Whoopdy do! That's why everyone in my company is mediocre. People came in, realized they would get shitty increases, and figured why try harder than I have to.

Myth 3: Your Review is Based on the Entire Year.

We all know the suck-a*ses who do nothing for the first 8 months of the year, then turn it on the last 4 months and get a dandy review. Reviews are very rarely based on the entire year because bosses are too damn lazy to keep records and meet with their employees throughout the year to discuss progress, accomplishments and improvement points. If you did something great at the end of the year your boss will think of that when reviewing you. If you slipped up at the end of the year, even though you performed well overall, expect a crappy review. It's sad, but true.

Myth 4: Your Review Can Be Changed.

During your review your boss gives you a bum rating in a category or overall. You provide documentation and proof that clearly shows that the rating is not consistent to your performance. Take heart, my friend. Your boss took zero time on your review to begin with because they just want to get it over with. They certainly aren't going to allow more time to listen to a dispute of their rating. Furthermore, most bosses are egomaniacs and will flip out that you are even questioning the rating.

Most companies out there talk the talk about performance reviews, but don't walk the walk. Does your company conduct training on performance reviews to make sure management knows how to properly write and conduct a review? Probably Not! Does anyone at your company look at the reviews for consistency and accuracy? Probably Not! There are many myths about the performance review, but there is one truth; the performance review at most companies are a formality and have zero value or reward for employees!

A fulfilling day...

2008-03-03T02:22:00.001-08:00

This is an actual ritual/daily schedule with little alteration of somebody's boss...

7:00am-7:30am: Boss gathers materials (cereal, milk, bowl, and spoon) and commences eating of breakfast (usually fiber cereal served with skim milk).

7:30am-7:40am: Boss wanders down hall-way with cereal materials to clean bowl and spoon in sink, then returns back to office.

7:40am-10:00am: Boss reviews various newspapers (Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Local Newspapers) reading every page of every newspaper. He is not shy about doing this as papers are spread out, open across his desk.

10:00am-10:10am: Boss wanders out of his office to flirt with attractive department assistant and request her to get him his morning coffee. He usually tells a joke, laughing at himself. Attractive department assistant evokes fake laugh then gags as he turns.

10:10am-11:00am: Boss drinks coffee as he strains his brain playing solitaire or pinball on his PC. He cannot be disturbed over this time frame and will actually become volatile if you interrupt him during a move.

11:00am-11:30am: Boss logs onto the Internet to review stock quotes and latest news stories.

11:30am-12:00pm: Boss strolls over to my office to "check in". This is the longest 30 minutes of my day as I get to hear the "bad news" on my latest recommendation. I also get to hear about other nonsense like the wording of an email or the font used in my reports.

12:00pm-1:15pm: Boss goes to lunch with other head honchos at local restaurant. He and other big shots feast and laugh at how lucky they are to be able to do nothing and get paid six figures to do so.

1:15pm-1:40pm: Boss heads to bathroom, stall #2 to commence his afternoon dump. Male employees in the department are well aware of this as they have encountered the men's room during this time frame. Some are still hospitalized from the fumes.

1:40pm-2:30pm: More solitaire and pinball play.

2:30pm-3:30pm: He will read his email during this time frame and only during this time frame. I have put return receipts on my emails and have noticed this phenomenon.

3:30pm-4:00pm: More wandering takes place as he walks down the aisles making wisecracks and trying to stir up conversation with his underlings. Mostly people try to turn and avoid eye contact with him as they don't want to be subjected to bad jokes and horrible stories.

4:00pm-5:00pm: This is cleanup time for Boss. He will gather all of his waste from the day and organize his office for tomorrow. All the newspapers will be neatly wrapped together and placed in his trashcan. He makes his call to his wife to ready dinner as his large body is starting to eat away at all the stored fat he has. His salad over lunch just wasn't enough and he is getting hungry.

Well, I can't say this is a surprise...

appraisal - no trauma this time...

2008-03-03T01:56:00.001-08:00

It's that time of the year again... The time when your boss/superior/senior (or Hitler if you are expressive enough) gains an inordinate amount of power over you... Yes, this power comes from their ability/authority to affect your performance appraisal and through that your future and the current/future company... In addition there is the matter of moolah... Will you stand in that ration queue or will that queue be of a posh night club depends on 'the Boss'...

Academics who study career strategies call it "ingratiating." To the rest of us, it's just "brown-nosing." You know the tactics:

Take copious notes whenever the boss opens his or her mouth
Volunteer for office grunt work
e-mail managers in the wee hours to prove your tireless industry
fawn without mercy at every opportunity

Colleagues may roll their eyes and marvel that the boss can't see the obvious manipulation, but forget them. It works.

Brown-nosing succeeds because the manager sees what your colleagues don't see. Where they perceive insincerity, the boss notes only energy, enthusiasm, and drive. According to a research done with 120 students who were getting interviewed for jobs. Those who told corporate recruiters what they wanted to hear i.e. things like "...Your company has a reputation for being team-oriented, and that is something I truly value..." landed jobs at twice the rate of their more reserved but equally qualified peers. "Targets eat it up," the researcher says. "People are happy to be ingratiated upon."

So what are you waiting for? Odds are you could become a much more effective butt-kisser. All it takes is a little practice.

Master the art of eye contact. Beginners should practice this skill by locking eyes intently with a friend's, over a coffee, as he's droning on about his latest coup in office that you don't give a damn about... If you can make him think his stories are more compelling than the ab-cruncher that is getting advertised on the big-screen TV over his shoulder, you're ready to try it with your managers.

Parrot key ideas or slogans. Using the boss's pet phrases in meetings, reports, and memos shows that you are getting the message, you respect her opinions, and you firmly grasp what she wants from you on the job. This doesn't take practice, just shamelessness.

Be aware of your manager's interests. Those pictures of your manager's dopey-looking kids cover her desk for a reason. Ask how they're doing. Does the boss love tennis? Suggest a match after work. At the very least, ask the boss to lunch. Talk about her, not you.

Run ideas by managers who are most likely to hate them. This protects you from looking like a dolt later on and proves that you covet their opinion.

Take credit for accomplishments. Beverly Purtell, principal consultant at HRValue Group, recommends sending to managers concise e-mails that talk up your accomplishments. Just don't forget to give credit to those who helped.

Finally, beware of sucking up to one manager at the expense of another. "The one you were buttering up can disappear," warns Richard Sadai, a former executive at Lucent Technologies. There's nothing worse than hours of eye-locking, all for naught.

[via: Business 2.0]

Well, I could not do it so I guess I am doomed but maybe you will fare better at brown-nosing... Best of luck!

The Great 'M'...

2008-03-01T02:20:00.001-08:00

The Lungi (Read: P Chidambaram) has delivered... or more importantly has tried to deliver. The Indian Budged 2008 was aimed at killing two birds with one stone and I guess they have succeeded...

Budget 2008 aims at helping Congress come back to power
Congress needed to please the Minorities (Caste & Category) and Middle Class to win the ballot

Both of these seem to have been achieved with just one Budget 2008. The most important highlights (Read: Important for me)

Personal income tax exemption limit raised to Rs. 110,000
Income Tax exemption limit to women hiked to Rs. 145,000
Personal Tax exemption for senior citizens hiked to Rs. 195,000
Deduction in respect of medical insurance under Section 80 (D) increased to Rs. 15,000 for common person and Rs. 20,000 for senior citizens.

I have been running harried trying to save whatever amount I can from the deadly clutches of Income Tax department and I seriously wonder how employees get any work done in the months of Feb and Mar considering that a greater loss looms.

But, let's take heart that atleast next year we should (the Middle Class) should be laughing their way to becoming more cash-rich...

Maybe this year I will actually be able to buy a citizen chronograph... Cheers to the dreams that might get fulfilled...

Snippets of fun...

2008-02-29T05:24:00.001-08:00

Ok, so you have had a rough day... you are nearly at the end of what can easily be termed at the most tiring week till now in your corporate life... but intending to reconnect with old friends you log on to your messenger and a friend pings you a puzzle...

What do you tell him... "it's Friday evening ... and not really the end of the most tiring week so far... to top it off i have to work on sat i.e. tomorrow ... this is when i don't want to work... i don't want to work now you want my mind to think and think creatively at that... aren't you asking for too i mean tooooo much ... huh? my friend..."

Loosen up, life's tough, tougher if you make friends with the wrong type...

In these moments you can refer to the following articles which will reinvigorate you with knowledge and fun. Just kidding it's just fuc*king fun!

The Indian Hitler

A User Manual to Seat 21C - The aisle seat...

Valentine day tactics - 2009 Action Plan

2008-02-29T05:05:00.001-08:00

Did you too spend this V-day alone? Don't worry this will not repeat next year if you follow this 10-day action plan. If you follow this plan you should be able to seduce a beautiful little damsel to accompany you on a most romantic dinner for two by February 14, 2009.

Day 1

Today you will embark on a rigorous health improvement program. You must exercise and maintain your diet. Women totally dig guys who are fit and seem to be in good shape. This is because women are genetically programmed to subconsciously evaluate their prospective partners. Too fat and she will end up cooking all day. Too thin and she will have to do all the lifting and pushing and pulling at home.

You must join a gym. This can be expensive. Instead, what you can do is make use of the 'Free Trial Day' offer which is available at most places. Find ten different gyms near your home and spend one day at each place. Remember to always look as if you know nothing. Talk a lot about wanting a three-year plan. They will get the entire staff to train you.

Day 2

Today you will get a great new job. Something that is high-paying, high-class and has great future prospects. This will require preparation, networking and sheer hard work.

Alternately, you can get a set of visiting cards printed for yourself in the name of a fictional investment bank. Call it something swanky yet practical -- 'Sigma Century Investment Bankers'. Also give it a caption that will impress the ladies: 'Sigma Century Investment Bankers: We pay our employees by the truckloads'.

You should get a box of cards for around 100 rupees. If a box doesn't help you get a date...hmm...

Day 3

Once you have the body and the job you need a great place to live. You might want to do dinner at a five star restaurant on V-Day. But if you do come back home you don't want to introduce her to your roommate who cleans the house each time the Olympics roll around and is remarkably extrovert for a person who wears only underwear.

The best thing is to join a real estate agency for a week or so. Collect keys to lots of furnished places. You can also take photos of the flats and carry them in your wallet.

Day 4

Today you must arrange for transportation. Nothing turns off a potential date like arriving at the Taj in an autorickshaw.

When the tourists do it everyone finds it very cute and so magnanimous. When you do it, they laugh at you and call you a 'kanjoos makkhichoos' or something like that.

Best is to borrow a rich friend's car. But then he will definitely have plans of his own on February 14. My solution for this is to make sure you book a test drive at the local Mercedes showroom. Time it to coincide with the start of dinner. After dinner act as if you have no idea where the driver is and send her away in a taxi.

Then catch an auto.

Day 5

Now that most of the infrastructure and logistics have been taken care of you must find a suitable place to scope out the ladies. Thanks to the emergence of coffee shops this is no longer the challenge it once used to be. Find one near colleges, beauty salons and bookstores.

Spend day and night keeping a track of the number of women coming and going. Have a cappuccino once in a while, but no desserts. We are slimming, remember?

Day 6

Today you will spend all your free time doing breathing exercises like pranayams. You may also do light yoga and read self-help books. This is because you will soon spend days making conversation with woman-kind. This requires patience and fortitude.

They may often throw questions at you like: "Darling! I have spent the last few hours trying not to show how much you're upsetting me tonight and you haven't said a single word at all! Is it because you don't care or because you don't want to accept the fact that you are, indeed, upsetting me?"

Strength, my friend. Now breathe in long and slow. Exhale. Repeat.

Day 7

Today you are looking thin, fit, at peace with yourself and the cosmos. You are ready to hunt for prey.

Hit the cafe you have chosen. Take a notebook with you today. Also dress in disguise. Wear a cap and large cooling glasses. Today is a day for observations and analysis. Make a note of all the ladies who visit the cafe. Try to eavesdrop on their conversations. The best way to do this is to buy a pair of cheap earphones. Insert the wire entirely into your shirt and then push the phones into your ear. Everyone will think you are listening to music. Now lean across and overhear all the conversation.

Find out who is single and looking for a V-Day date. When you do, immediately note down their names, interests and so on.

Some people will tell you that you must only look for people who fit your type and have the same interests. Most of those people have had arranged marriages.

Day 8

First day of your attack. Wear cool clothes, carry your cellphone and hit the cafe around the time your shortlisted women are expected to arrive. Once they are in the cafe, speak on your phone loudly. Use one of the following lines:

"Not yet Ravi. I hope to find one soon. I am looking for a girl who is not after my fabulous wealth, God-like body and hard-to-top lovemaking skills..."

"Sorry Diana. I am simply not after a physical relationship. I want a woman I connect with mentally. Sorry. I will not be treated as a piece of meat..."

And also:

"Hi Dad! What! Eight hundred responses on shaadi.com! Please Dad. I don't want an arranged marriage. When I find the woman of my dreams I will know it. Only then will I ask her hand in marriage. Only then will I give her the 17-carat solitaire that once belonged to my great grandmother..."

Beware of women approaching you at high velocity.

Day 9

You should have a list of potential alliances by now. Today is the day to swoop in on your chosen one. Spend all day talking to them one after the other. Always appear suave. Mention that diamond that belonged to your granny at sporadic intervals. When you think you have identified the perfect one, pop that all-important question: "Do you like expensive five-star food, or does a simple homely dinner at an Udipi and a romantic walk by the sea impress a beautiful, talented woman like you? (Cough) Solitaire (cough) diamond..."

Fingers crossed. She must agree.

Day 10

Today's the big day! Be there on time. Pick her up as scheduled. Don't order anything with ginger or garlic in it. Act reserved and classy. Get people to call you on your cellphone so you can pick it up and say:

"No Jerry. I don't care how much money I can make on this trade. I will not talk business on a date. Sorry. Three million? I don't care!"

But what happens from this point onward is really in your hands. We've brought you so far. You should be able to take care of yourself from here on.

A Quote to remember...

2008-02-25T05:42:00.001-08:00

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

- Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs Stanford address...

2008-02-25T04:19:00.001-08:00

I am a true blue fan of Steve Jobs (for the uninitiated, he heads Apple). He has given this great speech at Stanford which I think most of us would have read it. Yesterday I was reminded of it by a friend and it reappeared in one of the discussions with a program manager at my workplace. I wanted to share with those who haven't had the time or missed out on reading it...

Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

Read the entire address here

Oh and as long as we are on the topic of fans I should probably also mention another person that I am a fan of...

She is just WOW!

Nostradamus and Orkut...

2008-02-25T03:05:00.001-08:00

Orkut's forecast is becoming more and more accurate in a vague sort of way. Atleast it was on dot atleast this time around... Yesterday it informed me that there'd be a pleasant surprise in store for me... and lo and behold I had an invite to Xobni (Xobni is a great outlook plugin, it makes lot of your tasks extremely handy to deal with...Read More)

Some people would argue that this is nothing more than a coincidence but I am more of an optimist, when it suits me ofcourse... Oh and if you want an invite to Xobni do drop in here

Performance Appraisal...

2008-02-18T01:00:00.000-08:00

Performance appraisal...

(Click on the image to enlarge...)

Hello Mr. President...

2008-02-17T23:35:00.001-08:00

I wrote an email to the Mr. Balu Dorisamy, President, HP India. Appended is the letter. Corrections welcome.

Oh and before you read you'd need a bit of background on this which you can read here

Mr. President,

My name is Ankit Desai and I am a troubled owner or one of your products, a Compaq Presario laptop, Compaq Presario V2374.

On 11th Feb my adaptor burnt and my laptop stopped working, I took it to the reseller from whom I had bought the laptop from. I submitted my laptop for repairing on 12th Feb 2008.

Unique incidents that I think you should know about:

The service person said it will take 3 working days for him to confirm to me on what the problem is...

On 16th Feb I called to check and he said he'd revert by 5pm, he called me at 3pm saying I'd have to incur a cost of 5,000 INR. He further told me that he does not guarantee that my laptop will work after that. Essentially, he wanted me to spend 5,000 bucks so that he could test the board and then he would have probably told me to change the board. In the end I inquired about the cost of replacing the entire motherboard, he quoted INR 13,000, I am, well, shocked.

I am not sure how you would be concerned with this but just for your information the price that they offered for the working laptop of my model for buyback/exchange is INR 5,000. Funny isn't it? But I sure as hell am not laughing.

I work with an electronic design services company and I understand that the spares might be costly since the product is old, and I also understand that you'd have no interest in cutting your margin on spares because let's be frank, you have the monopoly and you'd rather cut your margin on new products where you can entice new customers.

A friend of mine bought Dell laptop from US. When he reached here the screen started giving problems but he had international warranty. He called the help-line and two days hence a guy came all the way from Bangalore to Ahmedabad checked the display and tried to rectify it. When he wasn't able to he took out a new display out of his bag changed the display and went off... This is called service. The thing that irked me the most was that every process had an apparently unnecessary delay. For you it might mean streamlined processes but for customers it's plain wastage of time.

HP - Compaq would surely need to remain absent from any service/quality awards function for the electronics manufacturers. I am surely going to blog about this, not to blight HP – Compaq’s brand name but to let other HP - Compaq buyers/users beware of the risk!

I am not sure how you can help me, but if you can I'd be obliged, and if not me I'd appreciate you work on improving your response times so that at least the others don't suffer. My whole purpose of writing a mail to you is to bring this to your notice so that you know that things are this bad.

Thanks for your time!

A disgruntled customer,

Ankit Desai

Let's hope that this results in some positive action, in the meanwhile I will not stop my constant fasting to ensure that my laptop lives again!

Service that does not serve...

2008-02-17T23:30:00.001-08:00

Recently my personal laptop died the most horrid death. One moment it was up and running, helping me manage my web presence (nice way to explain incessant chatting ;-)) It showed me a low battery notification so I plugged in my adaptor and [spark + whoosh...] my laptop died and left behind an acrid stink of burnt circuit...Luckily couple of friends were near to help me shoulder my loss...

The next day I lugged it to office so that I could take it to the service station and get it up right. I went to the same place I had brought it from. I was guided to their service station... They asked me if it was covered by warranty, I said I did not really remember what was the period of warranty... They checked it for me and reverted saying that I did not have warranty cover :-(

They said that they would take atleast 3 days to revert to me on what the problem was, I was dumbfounded, I mean WTF how much time can you take to just check the motherboard and the circuit? Apparently they were overloaded and they said it's three days there is no other option than to take it... So I sell my soul and take it, my acquiescing had nothing to do with the beautiful babe sitting there...

The next day I get a call from the service station saying there is collateral damage to my laptop's motherboard and it would take 2-3 more days to check that out. Had I been older, I would definitely have had a stroke that would have rendered me paralysed... They were asking for my permission if I wanted to go ahead... WTF, did I have an option? It felt like the surgeon asking the patient if he wanted to go ahead with the amputation of the leg which even otherwise would be useless due to the gangrene...

On the second day I call to check the service station in hope that it would have been rectified and he says that he will give me a status in another atleast 3 days. I had no option but to wait. On16th Feb when I called in the morning they said they'd revert with the status by 5pm in the evening. I get a call at 3pm saying "... there is some serious damage to your laptop, it would cost around 5,000 bucks to get it right..." then he adds "... but even after replacing those parts I cannot guarantee that it will work..." I was dumbfounded, this was an authorized service station of Compaq & HP. I was tongue-tied... I did not know what to say...

Ultimately I managed to ask how much will it cost to replace the motherboard? He replied with a number that outright shocked me... INR 13,000. F*CK F*CK F*CK...

Few Facts for people considering service/buying... HP - Compaq:
Any service station of HP Compaq takes 2-3 days to just check what the problem is with your laptop.
In this age of 'business at the speed of thought' for any replacement quote (just the quote, not the actual part) you need to wait for 2 working days (I am not joking!)
If you have a problesERm with your HP - Compaq laptop even if you contact the authorized service station it might not work - It has been my personal experience...

Comparison with an example of support after sales:
A friend of mine bought Dell laptop from US. When he reached here the screen started giving problems but he had international warranty. He called the help-line and two days hence a guy came all the way from Bangalore to Ahmedabad checked the display and tried to rectify it. When he wasn't able to he took out a new display out of his bag changed the display and went off...

Oh! and the icing on the cake is that they offer a buyback of my laptop in working condition pricing it at INR 5,000. So gracious of them!

I am writing a mail to the Mr. Balu Doraisamy, President, HP India. Let's see what Mr. President has to say about faulty service and lax response. You can check out that mail here.

Are you lost...?

2008-02-16T01:19:00.001-08:00

My sister is back and with her one more thing that's back is the semblance of me having a family too :-). It was in this blissful moment that I agreed to have dinner with her along with couple of her friends...

I had already mentioned to her that I will be getting Sikander (you can read about my previous encounters with Sikander here) along, primarily I took him along to ensure that I don't get cornered into anything by my sister's friends.

After office I met up with Sikander and he had not done anything the whole day. He was sick or so he said. He seemed surprisingly upbeat for a person not feeling well, I asked him about it and he brushed it off and said "Dude, it's just that I did not go to office for two days, by choice, and I feel great" This was the end of the conversation and by this time we had the time and the venue of dinner, Courtesy: my sister.

Before we reached the fixed venue, it had changed twice already, Courtesy: sister's friends! We, me and Sikander, reached the place finally they decided on and saw that these guys were still confused about where to eat. The elder-brotherly feeling started kicking in place and we told them they just had to follow us to a place. We led all of them to our favorite joint and sat down for dinner... Just chitchatting about mundane things like their projects, experience and the likes...

This was the moment when I realized that none of them knew what they wanted to do in life...While I mulled on the fact that they did not know what they wanted to do in their life I realized that even I did not know what I want to do in my life... Everybody keeps talking about how they know exactly where they will be 3 years or 5 years hence. I have no idea whatsoever. Forget about 3 or 5 years hence I am not really clear about an year...

Lot of my friends, my boss, couple of my colleagues, all motivational speakers, successful people giving speeches all talk about how they know or knew where they wanted to be and that's why they reached where they have or are sure of reaching where they want to go... One of the favorite examples of my boss is that of Mumbai and Delhi. Background: We are based in Ahmedabad. She argues that if you start walking without deciding if you want to go to Mumbai or Delhi, halfway thru' when you realize that you wanted to go to Mumbai you might be halfway thru in direction of Delhi and that will be wastage of time and resources... [applaud] But my argument is that what if I don't have that realization? What if I reach Delhi and am OK with that. Then I would probably become one of those people whose lectures you attend where they exaggerate how they made their journey in record time because they knew exactly where they knew where they wanted to go... Who is going to check if they had initially set out to become what they finally turned out to be... [roaring applaud]

Oh and if she is right about knowing where you want to end up Baz Luhrmann is in for a blast (blast - used negatively). We should then collectively criticize Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and more recently Steve Jobs... Not that I am considering myself in league with these people but what I am essentially trying to portray is that we are not meant to know... and nobody does... It's only that some people don't like to say out loud that they have no idea where they will be 3 years hence... and some do...

Any answers....?

Getting what you want...

2008-02-15T04:49:00.001-08:00

Are you getting what you want in life? No? Try this...

Little Ankit came into the kitchen where his mother was making dinner.

His birthday was coming up and he thought this was a good time to tell his mother what he wanted. Mom, I want a bicycle for my birthday.

Little Ankit was a bit of a troublemaker. He had gotten into trouble at school and at home. Ankit's mother asked him if he thought he deserved to get a bicycle for his birthday.

Little Ankit, of course, thought he did.

Ankit's mother wanted Ankit to reflect on his behavior over the last year. Go to your room, Ankit, and think about how you have behaved this year. Then write a letter to Krishna and tell him why you deserve a bicycle for your birthday. Little Ankit stomped up the steps to his room and sat down to write Krishna a letter.

Letter 1

Dear Krishna,

I have been a very good boy this year and I would like a bicycle for my birthday I want a red one.

Your friend,
Ankit

Ankit knew that this wasn't true. He had not been a very good boy this year, so he tore up the letter and started over.

Letter 2

Dear Krishna,

This is your friend Ankit. I have been a good boy this year and I would like A red bicycle for my birthday.

Thank you.

Your friend,
Ankit

Ankit knew that this wasn't true either. So, he tore up the letter and started again.

Letter 3

Dear Krishna,

I have been an OK boy this year. I still would really like a bicycle for my birthday.

Thanks,
Ankit

Ankit knew he could not send this letter to Krishna either. So, Ankit wrote a fourth letter.

Letter 4

Dear Krishna,

I know I haven't been a good boy this year. I am very sorry. I will be a good boy if you just send me a bicycle for my birthday. Please!

Thank you,
Ankit

Ankit knew, even if it was true, this letter was not going to get him a bicycle.

Now, Ankit was very upset. He went downstairs and told his mom that he wanted to go to temple. Ankit's mother thought her plan had worked, as Ankit looked very sad. Just be home in time for dinner, Ankit's mother told him.

Ankit walked down the street to the temple on the corner. Little Ankit went into the temple and up nearer to god. He looked around to see if anyone was there. Ankit bent down and picked up a statue of the Radha.

He slipped the statue under his shirt and ran out of the temple, down the street, into the house, and up to his room. He shut the door to his room and sat down with a piece of paper and a pen. Ankit began to write his letter to Krishna.

Letter 5

Krishna,

I've kidnapped your girlfriend. If you want to see her again, send the bicycle!!!!!!

I just hope I don't go to hell for writing this...

Luck at work?

2008-02-15T04:08:00.001-08:00

With a pile of 300 résumés on my boss' desk and a need to pick someone quickly, my boss told me to take calls on the bottom 50 and toss the rest.

"Throw away 250 résumés?" I asked, shocked.

"What if the best candidates are in there?"

"You have a point," he said. "But then again, I don't need people with bad luck here."

Well you can't argue with a logic like that right? I just went ahead and did that.

Socially aware technology...

2008-02-13T04:05:00.001-08:00

Viky recently blogged about a fantastic new mobile handset that is for the visually impaired.

"...Exclusive here doesn’t mean its some premium phone with some million-dollar price tag. But I think this phone is priceless cause it allows blind people to enjoy keeping a mobile phone.

This phone will be made by Spice for blind and visually impaired; the phone doesn’t have a screen and the keypad is in Braille and on the top of that if you press the button, the phone will tell the person, which button he/she has pressed..."

read the rest of the article here...

Vikram also blogs at takeonlogyk and fone arena blog...

Ahmedabad - A cold city?

2008-02-05T10:45:00.001-08:00

Ahmedabad shivers. The shivers can primarily be attributed to the sub-zero temperatures... just kidding... the lowest it has gone is 7 degrees but this is extreme cold by ahmedabad's standards.

Yesterday while returning after having a hearty meal at one of the better known 'dhaba' I happened to be see two distinct sights...

Sight 1

Cruising on the highway we passed a secluded area and then we stopped to answer nature's call (What?...Your bodily functions change in winter...) Anyway, while trying to find a dimly-lit area we came upon a secluded garden. We saw a couple sitting on the park bench. Of the 4-5 benches only one was occupied and I was surprised that they were unaffected by the biting cold. The couple seemed to be arguing about something. I mean the lady seemed pissed off and the guy was trying to please her.

After answering nature's call we were back on the highway and on our return we could not see the couple on the bench. I thought that the cold finally got to them. Further down the road I saw a couple walking. The guy was practically hugging the girl while walking...

I was glad that things had worked out for them and they were enjoying every moment of togetherness...

Sight 2

We got back on the highway making way back to the murky sidelanes of the city. While crossing over a bridge we saw an old man, sitting alone on the pavement. I could see that he was fidgeting, maybe he was trying to adjust his posture or something. This is when I realized that he was trying his best to fit himself into a jute bag (a jute bag that is primarily used to transport wheat) to fight off the cold. From the way he was shivering it was obvious that the jute bag was not doing a very good job of fighting off the cold.

As we entered the city limits my mind started to wonder at the two diabolically different ways in which cold affected people to a few it brought them closer and for some a question of survival...

Sight 3

Finally me... I dream about the mercury dropping further down all the time; but I forget that I am cozily tucked in three woollen blankets when I think about this.

I am sure that the couple probably would not mind the lower temperature but I am sure that the jute bag just might give up the losing battle against cold and this is true metaphorically too. He was shivering not only due to the cold weather but also probably due to the indifference of the world at large... What has caused us to become so insensitive to the outside world, I wonder and now...I pray for warmer weather ...

The hero lives on...

2008-01-23T04:59:00.001-08:00

In some bollywood movies this is what forms the heart of the movie, thankfully nowadays we don't see such endurance tests... unless ofcourse if you are watching an old Rajnikanth flick...

Testing times for Mr. Mathematics...

2008-01-23T04:13:00.001-08:00

One of the outcomes [I leave it up to you to decide whether its good or bad] of my post on Taare Zameen Par has been me getting to know couple of my friends better...

Sikander too came clean with me and here's his story...

[Background] Sikander is your typical guy next door. He comes across as a simple person who does everything by the book. Even though he is from a middle-class family he did his schooling from one of the best schools in his city. On completion of his 12th Science he went and joined B. Sc. (Maths) in the local University. At this place he won/was crowned the title of Mr. Mathematics (there is no easier way to say this but he did participate in a talent contest and won!) I will let Sikander tell his story himself... only the words are mine.

Sikander says:

I failed too, you know. I had just shifted to an Engineering course in one of the north-Indian institute. The name of the institute rhymes with IIT... (chuckles) I had just joined college and had a feeling of overconfidence in me, I was going to be an engineer, I was going to fulfill my parents' dream, I was going to be able to hold my head up high in society... All this crashed when I received my first year results... I had failed in 3 out of 7 subjects. I had lost my terra firma, and this was also probably the first time the thought that I might NOT become an engineer entered my mind. It was scary and was going to get worse!

This was semester one, I had two more attempts to go before I had repeat my first year. I know it's wrong, I know our educational system is faulty but there are very few things that you can change. I lost my second chance to a student strike, don't make faces, it was not me who had called the strike. Anyway, I had lost one chance and then in the next shot I knew I had to clear it and so I tried everything possible under the sun or the moon. Cheating, cramming, and studying too. I failed again.

Sometimes god screws things up, I don't know why he does that but he just DOES... There was no way I could have failed, but I did. I mean do you expect to fail when you copied the answer, not from somebody else's paper, the textbook itself...

Now, the only option now was to take special permission from the Vice Chancellor and take the last shot at showing to the world that I knew mathematics. If I cleared the exam I would ascertain two thing. Clear the backlog and avoid a very bleak future as an unemployed, but for that I HAD to get the permission to sit in the examination. Maybe I would have become one of those politicians. I mean there are very few choices if you are not educated... I did not like this option and was hell bent on trying to get that permission from our Vice Chancellor.

The Vice Chancellor sits in Shimla, and that's a good 8-10 hours journey from my college. I went there and stayed at a friend's place, I had a very short gap of 5 days to get the requisite permission because after that my 3rd year exams were starting and I COULD NOT afford to fail in them. I hanged around the Vice Chancellor's office the entire first day. Nothing happened. The second day. Ditto. In the evening on the second day I started thinking about any other recourse that I could take to avoid being a politician. Somebody suggested filing a case against the university, since they were not allowing me the valid chance that I had missed out on because of the strike. I tried that too, visited couple of lawyers who were known to my friend's dad. Lawyer's sage advice: "Talk to the chancellor, that's your only real chance". Day three gone. Now the only day left with me when the Vice Chancellor worked was Friday.

I still remember, I was feeling unusually low that day. I went to the University, sat at the bench opposite to the Vice Chancellor's cabin. It was 5pm. Closing time. The last visitor had left and I was just about to get my name called by the peon when 15 guys came running and entered the Vice Chancellor's cabin. It seems they had a dispute regarding the sports quota. All my hopes were dashed, and sinking lower every minute. And then it happened, one of the guys came out of the cabin and the swing door was closing slowly... the Vice Chancellor saw me and said, "Son, come here" I walked in his cabin, he said "Son, go home and study hard, you have got your chance" I thanked him and ran out. I went directly to the bus-station, called my friend that I was leaving for college.
I reached back and got into my books, and studied like hell. After going thru' the third year exams it was testing time, time for me to clear my backlog in Maths for which I had take the adventurous journey to Shimla. After enough preparations I was ready to face the questions. My friends had told me to visit washrooms at certain times so that they could solve any queries that I had and get me thru them. When I took my first washroom break they had solutions to two of the toughest questions and I was astounded as to how did they come to know about the questions... it seems that they were asking everyone who got out of the exams about the questions and two of my smartest friends solved them and shared it with me during the washroom break. Surprisingly, one of those persons was not even a friend, lest a close friend.

Even when everything goes right you have to wait and see if it comes thru as you had expected. The results were to be announce on 1st April. Seriously. A father of one of the girls of my class worked at the university and due to his position was privy to the information I needed to know. My marks, the number, my holy grail. We, me and all my friends, were waiting for her at the college canteen. She came in, I did not have the guts to ask her about my result. A friend stood up and asked her about my result. She replied saying "Oh! he passed", she continued "he scored 49 on 75".

I went numb, I did not know how to react. All my friends were hugging each other and were jubilant at the fact that I'd not have to quit engineering. I ran two kilometers down to the STD booth to call home, my mom.

Sikander: Mom, I passed!

Mom: I know that it's 1st April, but don't joke around with this...

Sikander: No mom, I really passed...

This is the only part of the conversation that I remember, by then one of my closest friends had come down and was screaming something about a party. Our celebrations lasted 15 days. I had conquered Maths. Following this I was suitably sensitized towards studying hard and subsequently in my 3rd Year I cleared Mathematics with a score of 61 on 75. End of story.

For some people things fall in place faster, for others, it takes its own sweet time. Either way know that good things are just around the corner...

Miniature terrors... Taare Zameen Par

2008-01-18T23:46:00.001-08:00

Yes, this is what the 'others' call them... miniature terrors. They can make full-bodied, mature, sizzling, and talented actors and actresses squirm in their seats. They are the new breed of 'miniature' actors and actresses [loosely translated: child-actors]. Some of the most notable ones that I have seen are as follows, (not an exclusive list at all)

Kunal Khemu: The first time I appreciated a child actor was in this movie, Kunal Khemu, he was brilliant and his performance spell-binding. He also performed in films such as Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke (1993) Raja Hindustani (1995) and Zakhm (1998). He received great praises by the audience and critics for his role in Zakhm.

Dakota Fanning (left): She is an American child actress. Fanning's breakthrough performance was in I Am Sam in 2001. As of 2007, her most well-known films have been War of the Worlds and Charlotte's Web. She has won numerous awards, and is currently the youngest person ever to have been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Ayesha Kapoor (right) is an Indian child actress who played the young Michelle McNally in the Bollywood movie Black. She lives in Auroville, Pondicherry in South India. Best Supporting Actress for Black - 2005. Playing a deaf and mute psychologically traumatized maladjusted girl, Ayesha Kapoor simply stuns you with her performance. Where does a nine-year-old glean those dark black emotions of a raging protesting tormented disconnected girl is above me...

Swini Khara (below): The girl who plays Amitabh Bachchan's 7-year old terminally-ill neighbour and confidante in Balki's Cheeni Kum, is arguably the most accomplished child performer we've seen in Hindi cinema. The little bundle of joy, all of 8 going on 9, takes compliments with giggles of pleasure. "I had great fun shooting in London with Amit Uncle. He was very helpful. Before every scene he'd take me aside for rehearsals. For the sequence where I had to talk with Amit Uncle on the bench my teeth were chattering so much I couldn't put the icecream in my mouth," she giggles with a child's joy at the memory of the shoot.

Jaden Christopher Syre Smith made his film debut in the The Pursuit of Happyness as the son of his father's character. He won the award for the Best Breakthrough Performance at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards.

Darsheel Safary(right) made his acting debut in Aamir Khan's directorial debut, Taare Zameen Par, which was a major commercial and critical success. His performance as a struggling dyslexic child in the film was unanimously praised. He won several awards for his performance, and was the first recipient of the Star Screen Award Best Child Artist. Dotcoy in his review of TZP wrote of his performance, "Ishan has done a phenomenal job in the movie and might get the 'Best Child Artist' award, the only real contender would be the 'sexy' girl from Cheeni Kum... Aamir is good too and there is apparently no actress in the movie but then it didn't need one"

I am sure I missed out quite a few but of the ones that I have seen in "action" above truly rocked the performance in their respective movies...

A 'Common' Child writes...

2008-01-17T04:03:00.001-08:00

Some of the people whom I met and heard from about the movie 'Taare Zameen Par' and their verdicts/opinions before I actually went out to see it...

My boss, "It's a great movie... superb!"

A neighbor "You've not seen it? Yet? Why?... it's a very good movie"

A senior person at my company "Very good movie but I felt that there was no need for the first part, the real movie start after the intermission..."

Actually when one of my colleagues suggested I go and watch this movie I reverted with a caustic remark saying "Who needs to see a movie about a little guy's sufferings? Everybody gets flogged once in a while at school, if he escapes that then he is made fun of at the school, if the lucky titter escapes that he is bound to get his fair share when he gets ragged at college. In case of he escaping all this he is sure to be screwed enough at work, and believe me that makes up for all the hassled years that he'd have spent... There is no chance but if he is the luckiest guy and escapes this too... he marries and that's the end of everything... he gets beaten up by his wife [this is more plausible than you think, if you are single, you are happy] and last but not the least it's the children..." By this time the colleague had given up any hope of me ever watching this movie...

But then all the channels were talking about it. Positively too. I don't know why but I just did not feel like watching the movie and the whole reason I went yesterday was that a friend pulled me along and frankly I had nothing better to do than to watch it. I wanted to watch National Treasure - 2 instead...

Ishan Nandakumar Avasti is a nine-year-old kid who is below average in class and cannot read/write properly and manages only single digit marks all the time, while his brother tops his class along with being active in extra curricular activities. Ishan gets his elder brother who is surprisingly nice to write him a absent note once, gets caught, 'evil' dad puts him in boarding school, much to the child's sorrow causing grief to his mom as well. The kid does not participate in any activities in boarding school and is made to sit next to the topper, who (curiously) is a nice guy...

Enter Aamir Khan, the temporary art teacher, with a "Bam Bam Bole" and every kid starts liking him. He notices Ishan's aloofness and has a look at the boy's records and stuff. He finds out the kid is dyslexic and tries to correct his problem. He works hard with the kid and the child gets back his self confidence.

He organizes a painting competition so that people recognize the talent that the kid has and resultantly the kid becomes popular. The kid's parents are happy. The movie ends.

Ishaan’s story is somewhat like mine and probably a lot of people would say the same thing – privately to themselves. But I don’t need to admit it privately. (Read Post Script - P.S.) I always had an idea that my incompetence in school was not something that I did on purpose. What Aamir succeeded in doing was to show me exactly how it wasn’t. The best portion of the film was the part when the world systematically breaks the spirit of little boy. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that Ishaan doesn’t encounter one sympathetic soul in life (except for his mother, like mine) – it is a de-sensitised world, where we have no patience with people who can’t keep pace. It used to feel exactly like that. Every little thing, like wanting to escape a class (I actually did runaway from one of my classes in 6th Grade since I had not got my test papers signed by my parents), worrying day in and day out about the class a mean teacher took once a week. The nail in the wall comes when his principal says, “Who will believe that he is Yohan Awasti’s brother"...

Ishan has done a phenomenal job in the movie and might get the 'Best Child Artist' award, the only real contender would be the 'sexy' girl from Cheeni Kum... Aamir is good too and there is apparently no actress in the movie but then it didn't need one.

My verdict on Taare Zameen Par: Simply Superb! Must Watch...

My Favourite Scene: When Ishaan sees the portrait Aamir made of him. He knows that the latter takes special interest in him but when he realises that someone actually loves him, a reassurance that he desperately needs after his parents abandon him, probably mean more to him than the award that he got and he feels more hugging Aamir than facing the world... (To watch the video - Click here)

P.S. - I always wondered if there would be any character ever filmed that would match my test scores during my school days. Ishan is me. One of the most loving people I ever met is my mom. (I was in morning school, sometimes when I got late she used to come to my school and carry warm milk in a maggi ketchup bottle to feed me - I love you, mom - Oh! Did I mention she used to tie my shoe laces and brush my teeth till 8th grade?). My sister was and still is one of the most considerate family members. I have had my fair share of slapping among other things, courtesy: my dad (but he does love me too, now). I realized yesterday how much I miss them. I never did say thanks to my most considerate teachers - Geeta Ma'am and Surekha Ma'am. Thanks!

Caution: Carry a handkerchief along, I had lot of trouble since I did not carry one!

Pervs Galore...

2008-01-16T05:44:00.001-08:00

I was just about to step into the shower when [ting tong] the bell rang.

Prologue: I had traveled to another city to celebrate the festival of kites and had returned yesterday early in the morning (that included waking up at the ungodly hour of 6am. 6AM.) I was a bit harried and wanted, eagerly, to wash that grime of travel off when this unwelcome bell rang. All this while the steaming hot bucket full of water enticing me to come clean...

I opened the door. It was Kris, an acquaintance. I tried to be courteous and opened the door while cursing him under breath for breaking my happy reverie...

He came in and said "I came over since I wanted to use Internet" [update: I have taken a broadband connection. Unlimited. Only for my blog and personal emails and chats. Swear. No ulterior motive behind this...] Thought: there are a lot of cyber cafes around the area that he stays why does he have to come to my home for using Internet... As if sensing what I was thinking, he replied "I didn't want to pay just for checking couple of emails and stuff..." My brow furrowed even as I said "No problem man, anytime" as my heart silently said 'Please never again...' To him I said, "I was just going to take a bath, go ahead it already on." [Saying this I went in to indulge myself in a warm steamy bath...]

After 15 minutes when I came out of the bath I saw him gawking at the screen. I thought it was funny, but I did not comment. I went in my room to get ready. When I came back he was still clinking away then gawking intermittently. It was something like click-click-click-pause-gawk-click-gawk-click-gwak-click-click-click... What could he be looking at with so much concentration. Now here's a guy for whom staying on one television channel for more than 20 seconds is an uphill task. 20 f***ing seconds... and right now he could bore holes in my screen with the intensity of his gaze...

I slipped in closer to him and then it dawned on me. He was going thru' some Brazilian babe's photographs. I could feel a question forming in my mind "What the heck are you doing?" or something to that effect... I was ~~still looking~~ now gawking at that girl's pictures... He sensed my presence and turned around and gave me a crooked smile... He said "My mom asked me to find someone suitable enough to marry and bring in my family" ... All I could say was "How.... What... Why... I mean are you really going to marry this girl... Silvia Azores?" He replied with a calm 'No", and added "but before I get hitched I intend to look at all the girls so that I know what I will be giving up"

I had this incredible look on my face that I am sure was worth a million... [don't snicker - it's true] In this reply he answered my question of why he wasn't browsing thru' a matrimony site.

We were supposed to go out for dinner and because of his 'interest/curiosity' we got delayed by 1 and half hours. By the end of it he had seen 227 profiles and rejected 226 out of them. The one that he selected was ... ummm... watch this space for updates...

Word of Caution: All females are requested to lock their photographs so that only friends can view them.

Earthly stars...

2008-01-14T19:14:00.000-08:00

With Aamir Khan's 'Taare Zameen Par' appealing the masses, the actor has surely made an impressive directorial debut. The sensitivity with which he has handled the subject is worth appreciating. However, one of the forwards related to the film being sent around on emails talks about what TZP would be like if the film was made by some other Bollywood filmmakers.

If Karan Johar made Taare Zameen Par …

Obvious starcast: Shahrukh Khan as the arts teacher (duh duh duh!!), Aryan Khan as the dyslexic child (even if he could not act for nuts), Rani Mukerjee as the kid's mom (assuming Kajol is unavailable), Abhishek Bachchan as the kid's dad, Amitabh Bachchan as the school principal (who cares if the role is ultra minute, he can afford it).

It would be shot in New York to appeal to the NRI audience.

The story line would obviously be different. SRK would fall for the dyslexic kid's mom. The last scene would have the mom running to the teacher rather than the kid. And again, like in so many other movies, SRK would get someone else's girl. It would have one dance number. The film would be titled 'Kuch Taare Zameen Par'

If Sanjay Leela Bhansali made Taare Zameen Par …

Obvious starcast: Salman as the teacher, Rani as the mother, Of course the whole film would be shot on elaborate sets. The school would be nothing short of Harvard University.

An orchestra would play every time anyone cried. Slow motion, different camera angles for every scene. The school uniforms would match the classroom walls even though that does not make a f***ing difference. The film would cost INR 60 crores.

If Farah Khan made Taare Zameen Par …

Obvious starcast: SRK as the teacher (yawn), In the original TZP, Aamir makes an entry at the interval point. In Farah's version, SRK would be on screen on for 2.30 hrs out of the 2.45 hrs and would be introduced in the first scene itself.

The story would be changed to make sure the above happened. The focus of the film would be a teacher who helps the kid fight dyslexia. To make it a complete entertainer, there would be a romantic angle, comedy, and action thrown in. Oh idea!! Nikumbh's character likes another teacher and the kiddo helps him… throw in some comedy moments there and you have romance and comedy settled.

For action… hmm.. lemme see.. Oh yah, the kid gets kidnapped and the teacher fights the baddies to save him. Wow!! I'm quite an imaginative writer. I can see how Farah can write a film from scratch in two weeks straight. The film posters would have a big SRK with the tiny image of the kid in the background.

If Rakesh Roshan made Taare Zameen Par …

Obvious starcast: Hrithik Roshan as the teacher, Since Rakesh Roshan cannot think beyond science fiction these days, this film would have that too. Instead of dyslexia, the kid would have alienositis or something, a condition induced due to him witnessing an alien abduction.

Instead of Nikumbh being an arts teacher, he would be a physics teacher, and instead of asking kids to be creative, he would ask them to challenge the science we know. In the scene where Nikumbh asks the kids to open their minds and make
whatever they want outdoors, the kid Ishaan, instead of making a boat, would end up making a working spaceship prototype.

Nikumbh would cure the kids problem by making a full fledged version of the kid's prototype, traveling to the alien planet, and asking them to give the kid his powers back. The film would have music by Rajesh Roshan ripped off from some world music.

The film's name would again start with a K probably 'Kuch Aliens Taaron Se Zameen Par'.

The director would make sure Hrithik gets to show all his abilities. This would mean a scene with Roshan Jr flexing his muscles and a dance competition in the end, instead of an arts competition.

And the worst part is that people would still give good money to watch these movies and have pseudo-intellectual discussions about these movies... hehehe... did I hit a raw nerve there?

The Bathtub Test

2008-01-13T21:58:00.000-08:00

It doesn't hurt to take a hard look at yourself from time to time, and this should help get you started.

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.

'Well,' said the Director, 'we fill up a bathtub, and then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub.'

'Oh, I understand,' said the visitor. 'A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup.'

'No.' said the Director, 'A normal person would pull the plug.

Do you want a bed near the window?'

Did you clear, or do you want the bed next to mine? hmmm?

History and it's lessons...

2008-01-12T21:54:00.000-08:00

History does have its lessons...

Next time someone starts to spread gossip, think of this:

In ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his
wisdom.

One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to
him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about
one of your students?"

Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me I'd like you to
pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my
student let's take a moment to filter what you're going to say. The
first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are
about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or
not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what
you are about to tell me about my student something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about
him, even though you're not certain it's true?"

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued. "You may still pass the test though,because there
is a third filter - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell
me about my student going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really..."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither
True nor Good nor even Useful,! why tell it to me at all?"

The man was defeated and ashamed.

This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such
high esteem.

P.S. - It also explains why he never found out that Plato (his student) was
having an affair with his wife.

A new day has come...

2008-01-11T01:56:00.001-08:00

08:00:00am: I am levitating 80,000 ft. above sea level basking in the sunlight and the glory of having saved the world again from the evil 'Satan' (Did you know: Satan is an anagram of Santa?) After enough basking I want to do that rocket thing that a superhero does... so... zoooop zoooop [Meanwhile I hear faint strands of Billy Joel singing 'River of Dreams', now I love the song but at this momentous occassion I was expecting something on the lines of 'We will rock you' by FIVE...] Secondly, I have always believed that background music happens only in fiction... All this while, the sound of song is getting louder and louder and I am desperately trying to figure out where it is originating from [some more zoooop zoooop zooooops - to try and figure out where this song is exactly playing...] Now I am flabbergasted, can't find the f***k**g source of this irritating music...

08:05am: I finally wake up to the grim realization that I am already late and that in my sleep I have accomplished the gargantuan task of snoozing my cell 5 times already! [No wonder I think I am the superman!] Now I had to get up and deal with monsters in real life and that too not to save the world but to save moi... [The monsters in my life are... well let's keep that for another day] - Already wasted 5 minutes thinking about monsters...

08:10am: Maid arrives... [she cleans the house and in the meanwhile I pick up the paper so as to keep me posted on the current affairs... (no, its definitely not for scantily dressed women on the last page...) and since it's that time of the month (pervs - get off my blog! - I meant salary day!) I pay the maid once she is done while she gives me a dirty look that says "If I was in US, I'd sue you for extortion" (and this is when her salary comprises to 7% of my salary)

08:25am: I am already running late for office... Meeting in office at 9:30am... Shit, shit, shit... no time for it! Brushing, bathing ritual take another 20 mins off my watch and the clock now reads 09:15:10am... (doesn't add up... does it? that's because the clock at home is 30 minutes ahead of it's schedule so that I am on schedule...) In real world it's 08:45:10am!

08:45:10am: Getting dressed... what to wear from the limited choice I have... [Mental note: Must to laundry TODAY!] Pull out a jeans and shirt, generous helping of Hugo Boss Dark Blue and I am ready! Shit, shit, shit... (Not now, not now, not now!)

09:01:10am: Shit forgot to wake up my colleague (if you are thinking why is it important - that's because he is going to drive me to work...)

09:02:15am: [It's ringing... still ringing and he is not picking up...] Finally...

Friend: Hey, good morning!

me: Good morning! Are you ready?

Friend: Almost

me: and that translates to what... you just woke up or you have brushed or you just have to comb your hair?

Friend: Let's not get into the nitty-gritty. I will meet you at the tea stall in 10 mins flat...

me: Please, I have a meeting with my boss!

Friend: Sure man, anything for you...

09:15:00am: I am at the tea stall finished with my morning cuppa heaven and no sign of the chauffeur... I have directed every invective at him known/unknown to him...

09:15:20am: [Brainwave: would time really fly if I was wearing Rado?, Rado advertises: 'Tempus Fugit']

09:20:07am: I have checked my watch for the 272nd time and he is still not here!

09:20:15am: Yippeeeeeeee, he is in sight, maybe I will not be late after-all...

09:20:45am: He wants to have his morning cup of heaven... [If looks could kill, I would have killed him!]

09:24am: Boss's SMS: I will be there in 10 mins [Sometimes, happiness comes when you are not looking for it...it's true]

09:25:00am: We leave for office and guess what? My chauffeur for the day does not believe in break-neck driving to save you from breaking your neck on the road so that you can preserve it to be broken by your boss...

09:34:00am: Boss's call: Missed: [Translation: Big trouble]

09:34:10am: Boss's SMS: "am at ur desk, where r u?" [I m dead!]

09:35:03am: Reach Office! A feeling of dread overpowers... I am trying to summon my super powers to find out a way to have her digress from the topic of late entry... I can see my desk, she is sitting on my chair... I enter and ...

09:35:20am: I walk up to my boss and ask her, "Hi Boss, new saree?" [Apologies: I forgot to mention that all my colleagues are from the 'fairer sex' ;-)]

09:35:30am: Everybody starts talking about the new discount in couple of saree outlets in the city...

[AD walks away with a smug look on his face; Word of advice: Disguise your smug look with a smile] - Luck might not always help you but you can always help your Luck!

How to irritate people - II

2008-01-09T01:12:00.001-08:00

If you have just landed here ... read this first... it will give you a little perspective...

I thought I should also publish a sequel to the previously successful How to irritate people - I. Appended is the list which is only for people who are already at the advanced stage of advanced stage!

Disclaimer: The blog (dotcoy) takes no responsibility for any harm that you/people cause to yourself. Anything that you choose to practice from the below mentioned list of highly respectable activities is of your own free will.

Sing the Batman theme incessantly.
In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sensual massage."
If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others. - Geeeee.. I never knew this one annoys people... need to have a go at it.
Amuse yourself for endless hours by hooking a camcorder to your TV and then pointing it at the screen.
Speak only in a "robot" voice.
Start each meal by conspicuously licking all your food, and announce that this is so no one will "swipe your grub".
Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 98 copies.
Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.
Sniffle incessantly.
Leave your turn signal on for fifty miles.
Name your dog "Dog." - This one's great.
Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions "to keep them tuned up."

Reply to everything someone says with "that's what YOU think."

Claim that you must always wear a bicycle helmet as part of your "astronaut training."

Declare your apartment an independent nation, and sue your neighbors upstairs for "violating your airspace".

Forget the punch-line to a long joke, but assure the listener it was a "real hoot."

Follow a few paces behind someone, spraying everything they touch with Lysol.

Practice making fax and modem noises.

Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and "cc:" them to your boss.

Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.

Invent nonsense computer jargon in conversations, and see if people play along to avoid the appearance of ignorance.

Erect an elaborate network of ropes in your backyard, and tell the neighbors you are a "spider person."

Wear a special hip holster for your remote control.

Do not add any inflection to the end of your sentences, producing awkward silences with the impression that you'll be saying more any moment.

Disassemble your pen and "accidentally" flip the ink cartridge across the room.

Holler random numbers while someone is counting.

Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you "like it that way."

Drum on every available surface.

Staple papers in the middle of the page.

Ask 1-800 operators for dates. (Reference: Romantic Dates)

Produce a rental video consisting entirely of dire FBI copyright warnings.

Sew anti-theft detector strips into peoples backpacks.

Hide dairy products in inaccessible places.

Write the surprise ending to a novel on its first page.

Set alarms for random times.

Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a "croaking" noise.

Honk and wave to strangers.

Dress only in clothes colored Hunters Orange.

Change channels five minutes before the end of every show.

Tape pieces of "Sweating to the Oldies" over climactic parts of rental movies.

Wear your pants backwards.

Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints by the cash register.

Begin all your sentences with "ooh la la!"

ONLY TYPE IN UPPERCASE.

only type in lowercase.

Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.

Pay for your dinner with pennies.

Tie jingle bells to all your clothes.

Repeat everything someone says, as a question.

Write "X - BURIED TREASURE" in random spots on all of someone's roadmaps.

Inform everyone you meet of your personal Kennedy assassination/UFO/ O.J Simpson conspiracy theories.

Light road flares on a birthday cake.

Wander around a restaurant, asking other diners for their parsley.

Leave tips in Bolivian currency.

Demand that everyone address you as "Conquistador."

At the Laundromat, use one dryer for each of your socks.

When Christmas caroling, sing "Jingle Bells, Batman smells" until physically restrained.

Wear a cape that says "Magnificent One."

Stand over someone's shoulder, mumbling, as they read.

Pretend your computer's mouse is a CB radio, and talk to it.

Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce "no, wait, I messed it up," and repeat.

Drive half a block.

Inform others that they exist only in your imagination.

Ask people what gender they are.

Lick the filling out of all the Oreos, and place the cookie parts back.

Cultivate a Norwegian accent. If Norwegian, affect a Southern drawl.

Routinely handcuff yourself to furniture, informing the curious that you don't want to fall off "in case the big one comes".

Deliberately hum songs that will remain lodged in co-workers brains, such as "Feliz Navidad", the Archies "Sugar" or the Mr. Rogers theme song.

While making presentations, occasionally bob your head. Like a parakeet.

Lie obviously about trivial things such as the time of day.

Leave your Christmas lights up and lit until September.

Change your name to "AaJohn Aaaaasmith" for the great glory of being first in the phone book. Claim it's a Hawaiian name, and demand that people pronounce each "a."

Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.

Chew on pens that you've borrowed.

Wear a LOT of cologne.

Listen to 33rpm records at 45rpm speed, and claim the faster speed is necessary because of your "superior mental processing."

Sing along at the opera.

Mow your lawn with scissors.

At a golf tournament, chant "swing-batabatabata-suhWING-batter!"

Ask the waitress for an extra seat for your "imaginary friend." and while introducing him mention his profession as that of a 'space cowboy'

Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn't rhyme.

Ask your co-workers mysterious questions, and then scribble their answers in a notebook. Mutter something about "psychological profiles."

Stare at static on the TV and claim you can see a "magic picture."

Select the same song on the jukebox fifty times.

Never make eye contact

Never break eye contact.

Construct elaborate "crop circles" in your front lawn.

Construct your own pretend "tricorder," and "scan" people with it, announcing the results.

Make appointments for the 31st of September.

Invite lots of people to other people's parties.

Are you having fun? If by now you are not nodding your head vigorously then...

How to irritate people...

2008-01-08T00:28:00.001-08:00

A brief but practical guide to leave people irritated and fuming with frustration!

P.S. - This totally works so keep a weapon for self-protection handy before trying it out!

For Starters:

Run one lap around the office at top speed
Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you.
Phone someone in the office you barely know, leave your name and say, "Just called to say I can't talk right now. Bye."
To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your head.
Walk sideways to the photocopier.
While riding in a lift, gasp dramatically every time the doors open.

For those into groove already:

Say to your boss, "I like your style" and shoot him with double-barreled fingers.
Babble incoherently at a fellow employee then ask, "Did you get all that, I don't want to have to repeat it".
Page yourself over the intercom (do not disguise your voice).
Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle (there must be a 'non-player' within sight).
Shout random numbers while someone is counting.

For “REAL” Pro’s :

At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the national anthem (extra points if you actually launch into it yourself).
Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times.

For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as "Bob".

After every sentence, say 'mon' in a really bad Jamaican accent. As in "the report's on your desk, mon". Keep this up for one hour.

While an office mate is out, move their chair into the lift.

In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter, "Shut up, damn it, all of you just shut up!"

At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce, "As God is my witness,I'll never go hungry again."

In a colleague's diary, write in 10am: "See how I look in tights".

Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask "You wanna trade?"

Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person: "Do you hear that?" "What?" "Never mind, it's gone now".

Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, "I can't talk about it".

Posing as a maitre d', call a colleague and tell him he's won a lunch for four at a local restaurant. Let him go.

Speak with an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very important conference call.

Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk.

Present meeting attendees with a cup of coffee and biscuit, smash each biscuit with your fist.

During the course of a meeting, slowly edge your chair towards the door.

Arrange toy figures on the table to represent each meeting attendee, move them according to the movements of their real-life counterparts.

And if that wasn't enough for you here are some examples of insane acts you can use anywhere...

At lunchtime, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hairdryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
Tell your children over dinner. "Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."
Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
Put your rubbish bin on your desk and label it "IN."
Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over his or her caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
Finish all your sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy."
Don't use any punctuation
As often as possible, skip rather than walk.
Ask people what gender they are. Laugh hysterically after they answer.
Specify that your drive-through order is "to go."
Sing along at the opera.
Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.
Put mosquito netting around your work area. Play a tape of jungle sounds all day.
Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.
Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name, Rock Hard.
When the money comes out of the ATM, scream "I Won! I Won! 3rd time this week!!!"
When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot yelling, "Run for your lives, they're loose!"

Danger - Do not, I repeat, DO NOT use with people who are heavier, stronger, or more powerful than you!

The Indian Chromosome...

2008-01-07T02:48:00.001-08:00

- By Dr Farrukh Saleem

Twenty-five thousand years ago, haplogroup R2 characterized by genetic marker M124 arose in southern Central Asia. Then began a major wave of human migration whereby members migrated southward to present-day India and Pakistan (Genographic Project by the National Geographic Society; http://www.nationalgeographic.com/). Indians and Pakistanis have the same ancestry and share the same DNA sequence. Here's what is happening in India:

The two Ambani brothers can buy 100 percent of every company listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) and would still be left with $30 billion to spare. The four richest Indians can buy up all goods and services produced over a year by 169 million Pakistanis and still be left with $60 billion to spare. The four richest Indians are now richer than the forty richest Chinese.

In November, Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark Sensex flirted with 20,000 points. As a consequence, Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries became a $100 billion company (the entire KSE is capitalized at $65 billion). Mukesh owns 48 percent of Reliance.

In November, comes Neeta's birthday. Neeta turned forty-four three weeks ago. Look what she got from her husband as her birthday present: A sixty-million dollar jet with a custom fitted master bedroom, bathroom with mood lighting, a sky bar, entertainment cabins, satellite television, wireless communication and a separate cabin with game consoles. Neeta is Mukesh Ambani's wife, and Mukesh is not India's richest but the second richest.

Mukesh is now building his new home, Residence Antillia (after a mythical, phantom island somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean). At a cost of $1 billion this would be the most expensive home on the face of the planet. At 173 meters tall Mukesh's new family residence, for a family of six, will be the equivalent of a 60-storeyed building. The first six floors are reserved for parking. The seventh floor is for car servicing and maintenance. The eighth floor houses a mini-theatre. Then there's a health club, a gym and a swimming pool. Two floors are reserved for Ambani family's guests. Four floors above the guest floors are family floors all with a superb view of the Arabian Sea. On top of everything are three helipads. A staff of 600 is expected to care for the family and their family home.

In 2004, India became the 3rd most attractive foreign direct investment destination. Pakistan wasn't even in the top 25 countries. In 2004, the United Nations, the representative body of 192 sovereign member states, had requested the Election Commission of India to assist the UN in the holding of elections in Al Jumhuriyah al Iraqiyah and Dowlat-e Eslami-ye Afghanestan. Why the Election Commission of India and not the Election Commission of Pakistan?

After all, Islamabad is closer to Kabul than is Delhi.

Imagine, 12 percent of all American scientists are of Indian origin; 38 percent of doctors in America are Indian; 36 percent of NASA scientists are Indians; 34 percent of Microsoft employees are Indians; and 28 percent of IBM employees are Indians.

For the record: Sabeer Bhatia created and founded Hotmail. Sun Microsystems was founded by Vinod Khosla. The Intel Pentium processor, that runs 90 percent of all computers, was fathered by Vinod Dham. Rajiv Gupta co-invented Hewlett Packard's E-speak project. Four out of ten Silicon Valley start-ups are run by Indians. Bollywood produces 800 movies per year and six Indian ladies have won Miss Universe/Miss World titles over the past 10 years.

For the record: Azim Premji, the richest Muslim entrepreneur on the face of the planet, was born in Bombay and now lives in Bangalore. India now has more than three dozen billionaires; Pakistan has none (not a single dollar billionaire).

The other amazing aspect is the rapid pace at which India is creating wealth. In 2002, Dhirubhai Ambani, Mukesh and Anil Ambani's father, left his two sons a fortune worth $2.8 billion. In 2007, their combined wealth stood at $94 billion. On 29 October 2007, as a result of the stock market rally and the appreciation of the Indian rupee, Mukesh became the richest person in the world, with net worth climbing to US$63.2 billion (Bill Gates, the richest American, stands at around $56 billion).

Indians and Pakistanis have the same Y-chromosome haplogroup. We have the same genetic sequence and the same genetic marker (namely: M124). We have the same DNA molecule, the same DNA sequence. Our culture, our traditions and our cuisine are all the same. We watch the same movies and sing the same songs.

What is it that Indians do and we don't: Indians elect their leaders.

(The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist.)

Kluless - The Puzzle without Klues...

2007-12-28T03:01:00.000-08:00

The most interesting puzzle that I have ever played to date is here...

Kluless 2 - A puzzle that IIM Indore guys have put together... (You can refer to the key on the right... i.e. if you get stuck somewhere!)

You can also enjoy Klueless 3 here...

Enjoy!!!

IIM Guys here SHE comes...

2007-12-27T03:01:00.001-08:00

Disclaimer: I am strongly heterosexual this post is about someone else stalking IIMites... (I should change this term, 'IIMites' that rhymes with termites before an IIM grad kicks my ~~butt~~ oops backside...)

During the 'DK-ephemeral beauty' episode, one of the things that came up was DK looking for the right guy for herself. This is what she wants in the 'guy' - ~~very~~ extremely well educated, extremely well placed in an MNC, and last but not the least extremely well paid/rich. When she brought this problem up the 'MBA' inside me woke up and started to find ways to solve this problem - among the things scrolling thru my mind were 'The Mckinsey Way', Fishbone, Pareto etc. I settled on to fishbone/Ishikawa/Cause & Effect diagram to find a solution and I found it too, it was all I could do to stop myself from shouting ~~'Eureka'~~ 'Ishikawa' out loud...

The solution was simple. DK needs to get married to an IIM Grad, no sooner was the solution out she wanted nothing doing but for me to take her to the IIM Campus here at Ahmedabad. Her face had lit up as if there were rows of christmas lighting instead of her face. She was euphoric, ecstatic, elated, and in the thrill of the moment even said this out loud 'AD you are the greatest...' She never got to finish her sentence as it was broken midway by us arriving in front of the 'Gates of Heaven' oops Gates of IIM Ahmedabad, DK's paramour might reside or have resided in the recent past. She flung open the passenger door and was out of the car before I could say 'STOP, this is the wrong gate', she returned suitably chastised by the security. We were guided by the securitywallah to the new entrance to the new campus some 100mts away. I had to put on my glares since the brightness of DK's face was hurting my eyes! Finally we had reached the ~~gates...~~ too many adjectives used, I will just stick to the normal tone now... Yeah so finally we reached the spanking (couldn't help...) new IIM Campus. DK's hopes soared. There was a visible bounce in her step, she looked back, fear of rejection loomed... I stepped up to the challenge, I had to act like a 'guy' - I mean I am THE guy.

(me to the security wallah at IIM Ahmedabad's new Campus)

me: Boss, hum andar ja sakte hai campus dekhne ke liye?

Securitywallah: Kya kaam hai aapko?

me: humein ladka.. ahem... umm walk ke liye jana hai...

Securitywallah: Office mein se Parchi le aao, without permission nahi jaa sakte

me: thik hai, thanks!

I could see DK's eyes starting to water, she brushed the onslaught with the back of her hand and said "the world is a cruel, cruel place, now how am I to hook up with an IIM Grad? Actually I don't need an IIM Grad anyways! AD you are the greatest fool for proposing such an outrageous idea". At this point I was sure that I would have to write-off the 'ephemeral' beauty off my list of prospects!

latest update: Some very trustworthy sources have informed me that DK has decided to stalk IIM Ahmedabad guys on her own, IIM guys BEWARE: Stalker on Prowl!

Date with Destiny...

2007-12-26T04:34:00.000-08:00

DK recently landed from the god-forsaken city of Chennai (It's she who calls it 'god-forsaken', Me, I just love it) so we were to meet up for coffee. Oh! and this was not 'Koffee with Karan' - a show where an obviously gay host shoots air kisses to almost everything alive... To avoid any semblance we went for 'chai'...

We fixed up a time to meet. I had already done my homework i.e. being 'prepared' with a list of topics that I could talk to her about... her career, her ~~success~~ failure at groomsearch (nice name for matrimony site, I think), and if all of this could not last an hour I thought talking to her on her favorite city [Chennai ;-)] should do the trick. When you are meeting a friend with whom you have spent more more airtime than the 'K' serials produced by Ekta Kapoor, you would think there would be an underlying uneasiness about what to talk about. Hence the 'preparation'.

I can hear you cry out 'Whatever' by this time. You are not alone in this agony. Welcome to the club, join the queue.

Yeah so we met up and it was great - all thanks to the beautiful lady, a friend of DK, who accompanied DK. We started off from DK's place and had no clue where we were to go - I know it's a given when you are accompanied with two very gorgeous females - I mean this was the time when the meaning of the phrase - 'once in a blue moon' - which Mrs. Thomas (my sixth grade class teacher) failed me in English for... go figure! During our conversation at a chai ki laari (tea stall)- yes, that's where we finally landed - there were lot of occasions where I cracked DK and her ephemeral beauty of a friend. (No, I was not holding a gun to their temple)

After this I didn't realize when the evening turned into night ~~and I am not sure if it was~~ because I was in a daze of the beautiful company I had ~~or I was lost in thoughts~~...

Me going back to the feeling of 'Blissfully Happy' and you can go haunt someone else...

Read Part two of the meeting here

Beware: Japanese UFOs are coming...

2007-12-20T00:15:00.001-08:00

OK so here's the thing. Please note that

Tooth Fairy regularly visits children who are at teething stage
Santa exists and only visits Christian families
Elves exist and they life in holes right below you (if you stay in a high-rise do not call the tenant below you an 'elf' - especially if he is a body builder... there are chances of some serious damage)
UFOs exist - the Japan government has confirmed - Do you even need more proof?

Japan's chief government spokesman has announced that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) exist.

Earlier, in response to a question from an opposition lawmaker, the Japanese government issued a statement saying it could not confirm any cases of UFOs. But Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura later told reporters he believed they were "definitely" real. It is the sort of question politicians dread but, under Japanese rules, are unable to ignore. A member of the opposition asked the government what its policy was to deal with UFOs. He said work should begin urgently to try to confirm whether or not they exist because of what he called "incessant" reports of sightings. The Japanese civil service swung into action. In a statement it said that should a flying saucer be spotted in the country's airspace, a fighter would be scrambled to attempt visual confirmation. But it emphasised that the government was not aware of cases where a UFO from space had been discovered. Most alerts turned out to be birds or other objects.

'Not confirmed'

The document revealed that Japan has not yet planned what to do should aliens arrive here. Many UFO sightings can be easily explained. The government's chief spokesman Nobutaka Machimura drew laughter from reporters when he admitted that this was a "stereotypical" response from the bureaucrats. Perhaps with his tongue a little in his cheek he insisted that he believed UFOs did "definitely" exist. Questioned about the existence of alien spaceships, Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda thought about it and then answered carefully. He said he had "not yet confirmed" whether they existed.

The conspiracy theorists will note that the answer was not a "no".

Quoted from: BBC

The Lonely heart...

2007-12-19T04:20:00.000-08:00

I am alone. I can almost picturise you tilting your head a little bit, raising your eyebrows and exclaiming “Oh!” but it’s not that bad. It’s worse. There are two parts of it being worse, first is that it’s only now that you realize the true worth of your near and dear ones and second is that all things considered I now understand why they say “Women make the best managers!” I agree with that statement 100 percent, I can actually give that in writing if somebody will just take care of all the household chores. (At this point lot of my friends would say “Don’t look at me, I cannot help you with that!)

About realizing the true worth of your near and dear ones – this is the point where you feel comfortable saying “I love you” and mean it. Almost always if the person is present in person you sort of take them for granted. I am not saying otherwise, but once in a while letting that person know how important he/she is would not be as bad.

Coming back to “Women make the best managers” part... There are a lot of aspects that automatically get taken care of when womenfolk are around (all feminists pls. stay away from my blog!). Cleaning, washing, paying the milkman, dealing with the maid, or dealing with pesky neighbors. These are some of the things that probably come naturally to them, I guess! They seem to do it so effortlessly that anybody would think it’s on auto-pilot (the word auto-pilot has a long history of household fights so pls. replace with a suitable synonym). When it has been a tiresome day you would want to come home to a welcoming home-member and not a heap of unwashed laundry, took care of this today by the way… (if you are thinking I made a bonfire of it in this chilly weather that we have in Ahmedabad – I didn’t).

Sorry. I digress but my point is that you would want to come back to a easy-chair and homemade delicious food and not wheat bread and 3-days old tomatoes (i will use the tomatoes as soon as I figure out where the knife is...)

I don’t have too much time so signing off now; need to get back to the pile of utensils that need to be arranged on the rack (don’t even think about the other rack, that’s the farthest thing on my mind right now!)

Anti-social Networking...

2007-12-18T03:56:00.000-08:00

Lot of us use social networking sites like Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, Del.icio.us, fotolog, imeem, live journal, myspace, orkut, shelfari, tagged, WAYN and Xing are among the few you would have definitely come across.

Besides these there are a few anti-social networking sites in operation like... Enemybook, Snubster, Hatebook, IFHY (I Fucking Hate You), NoSo (No Social) and isolatr and this is not an exhaustive list... there are more than these... look around...

Last minute; everything...

2007-12-15T01:41:00.000-08:00

During my MBA days this was the kind of schedule that we had to follow and more often than not we used to deliver... This doodle brings back too many memories...

Vikram & Pheobe

2007-12-11T01:39:00.001-08:00

Recently I was watching 'Friends' Season 9, Episode 4 and the following happened.

(Alert: Foolish Hype Ahead)

Ross stops by Phoebe's to find out how the date went, and she explains that she spent the whole date pretty weepy, because of what Ross said just before she left. He apologizes, and she says the worse part is that Mike could've been her "serious guy." Ross decides to fix things by paying a visit to Mike to explain Phoebe's crying on their date, which sort of freaks Mike out. Mike assures Ross that he's not put off by Phoebe's crying, and that they're going out again. Ross lets it drop that Phoebe's never been in a serious relationship, though, which does put Mike off, so Ross tries to cover it up by saying that she's never been in a serious relationship since her breakup with "Vikram."

Ross then has to make up facts about Vikram, the freelance kite-maker, which he then shares with Phoebe. She's furious that Ross is digging her in deeper hole, but when Mike shows up for their next date, she can't bring herself to tell him the truth. Ross leaves, and she continues the Vikram charade, until Mike kisses her. She then has to tell him the truth, and strangely enough, he's not put off enough to break up with her.

Now this clearly proves beyond doubt that my friend... ummm...

I think I will have to delve in deeper to understand if this Vikram is the same as my friend Vikram and if he really had a relationship with Pheobe Buffay.

Gujarat Riots - Let's move on...

2007-12-07T04:36:00.000-08:00

Recently I was invited to be a part of the NDTV show 'We, The People'. The show was moderated by Barkha Dutt (of the Kargil, 'secular' media fame). When she started with the show she was actually not aware about what she was to talk about. She kept screaming at somebody named Deepti in the collar mic saying "this is not enough, you have got to give me more, this is not how you are supposed to work..." after 5 minutes of this ranting a very apologetic Deepti appeared by her side. Barkha again started her harangue as Deepti stooped down besides her to explain who all were present in the audience.

Apparently Barkha Dutt was not happy with the kind of audience that was present. She wanted it to be a sensational debate. Now there were approximately 15 riot victims and as if this was not enough Teesta Setalwad was present and she was pissed off at something. I think somebody at NDTV had stuck something on her backside which made her lean forward every time she wanted to make a point.

Let me talk about the panelists for some time now. We will go sequentially from left to right. You need to see this show; you can catch it on 9th Dec, 2007 at 8pm on NDTV.

First from left: Jay Narayan Vyas BJP electorate from Sidhpur constituency
Second: Madhusudhan Mistry, A very dirty* Congress geriatric (a very-very-very -very old man)
Third: Mallika Sarabhai, a dansuese (reason for being well-known - daughter of Vikram Sarabhai)
Fourth: Mr. Nathwani, Senior management guy from Reliance
Fifth: Shiv Ranganathan (if you are able to catch the show, look for the very very very hefty guy in the center of the panel - that's your guy)
Sixth: Some professor from IIM-A (IIM-A actually has started suffering from brain-drain*)
Seventh:Teesta Setalwad, 'Social' activist (a fancy term for human coakroach, who feeds on human misery)
Eighth: Prof Bandookwala, Riot Victim, Professor at MSU

* - Madhusudhan Mistry said something questionable to Mallika Sarabhai during the second break and made her cry!. If you happen to watch the show on 9th Dec, 2007 at 8pm on NDTV you will tears filled eyes of Mallika Sarabhai after the 2nd break.

* - The professor from IIM-A said "Development in Gujarat has come because no other state has enough landmass available..." Further to this when the crowd booed him down he shouted this out to the audience " You don't know the facts" {This led me to believe that IIM-A has been having brain-drain}

"Mr. Modi says they got 6 lac crore in investments, but only 16% has actually come in yet" - What Mr. Madhusudhan Mistry missed during a comment of his was that during Congress' rule in Gujarat this was almost negligible.

Responding to Jay Narayan Vyas's comment of "How can marriage happen before engagement?" Mallika wanted to steal the show and her blooper was " With the rate of grooms eloping nowadays it might be better for the brides to go directly to marriage" now she might not be reading newspapers or might be illiterate but the actual problem is that grooms elope after marriages leaving the brides in India high and dry, no pun intended.

All in all it was a circus where new animals have been added to the old game of politics... (Media, Social activists, and Political activists)

(Modi) fied Gujarat...

2007-12-07T04:35:00.001-08:00

Narendra Damodardas Modi appears to dominate Gujarat, election-bound now, like no other political leader dominates his immediate constituency.

Modi has been assigned many adjectives, efficient, dictatorial, and ruthless. But, first and foremost, Modi will always be remembered because of the 2002 Gujarat riots (though many prefer to call it a pogrom). His famed administrative efficiency was not displayed in saving the lives innocents. Equally, it would be impossible not to acknowledge his role in making Gujarat an economic powerhouse.

Before he took over, Gujarat’s pre-eminence was declining. Economic growth was on a downtrend, and from the greater than 15 per cent growth in gross state domestic product observed in the mid-nineties, it had fallen to nil in 2000-01. But it was not just economic growth — industrial investment, infrastructure improvements, and so on, also appeared to be on a decline. This was due to a range of factors, not just related to state-level governance. But around the time the Modi government took over, a resurgence of the Gujarati economy began.

It is indeed difficult to assign responsibility for improvements or impairments on a single individual, even if he is the CM. But individuals can and do catalyze changes, and energetic politicians have been known to energize governance, even if it is limited to the economic front. And by most accounts Modi has been instrumental in Gujarat’s success though he has been aided by many factors that just gathered momentum around the time he came in.

The Indian economy entered a high growth phase in the early 2000s, and Gujarat with its large industrial, financial, and infrastructure base, access to the sea, and a large skilled workforce, was highly suited to benefit from these opportunities. No doubt, states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and, to a lesser extent, Andhra had somewhat similar characteristics. But Gujarat has also been known to have a relatively efficient bureaucracy. The combination of base conditions, an efficient bureaucracy, and a CM willing to circumvent standard rules, regulations and procedures paid dividends rather quickly.

Within a year or so, Gujarat’s GDP growth took off, to higher than national GDP growth. Investments took off, the speed with which approvals were received accelerated, the delays that typically characterise large investments reduced dramatically. And this was sustained for the following years. There are many stories in the informal circuit on how the government aggressively wooed the investors, circumvented procedures, pressured antagonistic pressure groups, to ensure rapid investments. This is by no means an easy task, ask the Bengal CM. And rightly or wrongly, it requires the bending of many rules and procedures.

But investment is only one part of the story. Many other successes have occurred in Gujarat, Modi didn’t cause them, but he catalysed them through action or deliberate inaction.

Take agriculture. Around the time Modi came to power, BT cotton had already entered Gujarat. There are broadly two types of BT cotton. The legal and illegal. The legal variety is one that is sold by one international company that holds the international patent on the seed. The illegal one is sold by a multitude of smaller operators and was much cheaper (and reportedly of somewhat lower quality). The Gujarati farmer quickly took to the illegal BT cotton varieties. Cotton production shot up dramatically, and today it is hard to find a farmer in Gujarat who would use a traditional (or indeed a legal variety) if he can help it. The role of Gujarat government was that of a silent spectator. The farmer benefited, and so did the agro-economy of the state. But the laws were broken once again.

Then take the famed Narmada dam. Gujarat was better at building some part of the water distributive infrastructure than MP. Water flowed into this system and Modi made full use of this PR opportunity. But unlike some other governments, Gujarat pushed on. They fought and won the battle to get the height of the dam raised. Again the forces preceding Modi had an important role to play in this, but he made them stronger. And Modi became even more popular.

But Modi’s energies were not only seen in activities where the vote-related PR value is high, but also those that electorates normally do not care much about.

The social sector is not something that is politically sexy. By all accounts, elections are not won or lost due to improvements in the social sector. But here as well the Modi government came up with a simple yet powerful innovation. Many women and children in Gujarat (as in other states) are highly under-nourished. The Central government adopted the mid-day meal scheme in primary schools and implemented it at the all-India level. But the mid-day meal typically consists of nutrients rich in carbohydrates and to a lesser extent proteins. A large part of the under-nutrition in children is however due to the lack of micronutrients in their diet, and women and children not in the school-going age do not benefit from the mid-day meal.

Consequently wheat flour supplied through the PDS is fortified with iron and folic acid. Moreover vitamins are mixed in edible oils (reportedly this costs merely three paise per kg of oil). As a result, reportedly, the number of women and children suffering from anaemia has reduced considerably in less than two years of the scheme’s operation, and reduced night blindness and other malnutrition-related diseases.

Modi is not only ruthless and efficient; he is also hungry and ambitious. He is looking for acceptance. He wants everyone to forget the riots.

What my heart wants...

2007-12-03T22:06:00.000-08:00

My heart has never learnt to walk. It only understands the language of leaps and bounds. I really don’t need to read the book “leaps of faith”, since my heart seems to have mastered that art.

I am sorry if I appear displeased with this nature of my heart. Many a times it is this innate nature is what lends light to a drab and dreary atmosphere. Just to be sure you know what really I am talking about spare some time and r ead the following example: A child who has just joined nursery/pre-school and is still learning drawing straight lines of alphabets is already dreaming of writing sentences in cursive hand. I know its funny but this is exactly what my heart does with me. And even while I am writing this the guy in nursery gets a hard wooden duster fall flat on his held up palm with a ‘SMACK!’

There are times when I see a ‘babe’, this happens more frequently than you think in Ahmedabad, and while I am still trying to find the courage to go up to her and speak to her; which rarely happens, and my heart is happily strutting off on the fourth date with that lady getting pretty intimate. Fantasies are good they say but sometimes they can lead you to only one place…the hard sole of the lady’s footwear; I swear this has never happened…

Partly I think my imaginative nature is to blame but that my heart deserves any gold medals… it is an equally eager and willing partner in this.

I see a guitar and it (my heart) is already off to a place where I am replicating the Hotel California’s Live guitar piece by Eagles to perfection. This is when I am yet to play anything that can be remotely identified as a tune :-)).

But like I said this nature also adds a brighter light to my perspective that if not today (Warning: Hype Ahead) someday I will be playing that Hotel California tune to perfection. It’s the effort made that counts, even if it is in your dreams… right? :-)

If Only...

2007-12-03T04:06:00.001-08:00

Recently a friend of mine, Volk, visited a conference in another city. The visit was 6 days long. We met up once he was back and here is the conversation...
[*Conversation suitably modified for underage surfers]

Me: Hey man, how was the journey?
Volk: Good but tiring
Me: So you enjoyed?
Volk: Yeah!
Me: What was the most fantastic part?
Volk: Girls!!!
Me: What?
Volk: That place had some awesome babes... one in every 2.5 girls was fantastic... I had such an hard time trying to remember everyone...
Me: ohhh
Volk: If there was an award for the person traveling the most in a month... I should get that...
Me: why?
Volk: I have traveled 7000 kms this month...
Me: wow... that's some number...
Volk: You know life mein aisa hi hona chahiye... auto pakdi... flight mein gaye... bus pakdi... auto mein gaye... again flight and then auto and then bus and then ship... (dreaming...)
Me: Sounds pretty tiring...
Volk: par kaam nahi karna padta na... and to top it off there are more chances of you meeting a girl...
Me: ohhh that's why it's your favorite...
Volk: oh and spaceship add karna bhool gaya...
Me: huh! ...
Volk: Haan kyun ghar to jaunga na... har time thodi na main ghoomta rahunga...
Me: true...
Volk: chal I'm going...
Me: Kahan?
Volk: spaceship kharidne... it's pretty late, I need to go home and sleep... [laughs...]

* Though I doubt if you can shield today's youngsters from the knowledge of what we do not speak of...
Read more about the world thru' a child's eyes (here) ...

Weapons of Mass Destruction!

2007-12-01T03:54:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you are put in a catastrophic position socially. Due to some bowel irregularity or too much garlic or too much coffee... whatever be the reason, the back-end releases a gaseous formation. Beware of this vile-smelling gas - some say it can actually immobilize armies (just thinking how easily terrorists can access this gives me the jitters!).

In this post, I am mentioning methods and techniques for disguising the fact that you have passed gas around other people this has been picked up from a forward that I came across.

Blame the Dog

This one is tried and true, especially if you have an old dog. Just make sure you release the gas very quietly and then blame the smell on the dog. If the odor is definitely noticeable, I suggest that you preemptively strike with the phrase "Was that you???" to the person next to you. Always a winner. If you don't say anything about a particularly smelly release, there's no doubt you'll get blamed. Just get it out there. If the odor is not particularly bad, however, I'd say that you should just pretend it never happened. If others notice, they may think it's just the way the dog smells.

The Barking Spider Defense

If you happen to release a little pent up gas and it comes out audibly, sometimes people nearby aren't afraid to call you out on it. When my wife says "Excuse me?" I generally point to the floor and say "Oh, that was a barking spider." Sure, she doesn't believe me, but it distracts her from the fact that the odor is wafting in her direction and will soon knock her to the floor. If she's giggling about the spider joke, maybe she won't even notice the harshness of the green cloud. I can hope.

Go Get a Tissue

If you have to let one rip and you know it's going to be foul, find an excuse - any excuse to leave the room. I'd suggest getting a tissue, since nobody ever seems to have a tissue box in the room you're in. It is important to remember that the odor of the fart will not be wholly contained in the area where you released it. Generally, the odor stays near you for about 10 seconds after the release, so if you toot and then immediately return to the room, it will cling and follow you. Always wait a while to avoid this unpleasant situation. Just pretend you have a particularly harsh boogie situation going on or something.

Disguise the Scent

Nobody will notice that nasty smell behind you if you're making dinner and you "accidentally" loose a vegetable onto the burner of your electric stove. Actually, I take this suggestion back. I would never advocate fire hazards in the kitchen. Plus, it's generally a bad idea to release noxious gases near a source of so much heat (or an open flame). Maybe you should just light a match and then a candle. That's like a double whammy - you get the sulfurous smell of the match and then the happy fun scented smell of the candle. My wife always does this when I'm in the bathroom.

P.S. - Bush pls. don't treat this as terrorists training cell brochure/manual...

Screw you, Organizers!!!

2007-11-23T04:07:00.000-08:00

One of my friend and his team was supposed to do a skit in employee day celebrations at their company. It was supposed to be a spoof on the meetings and agendas. The so called 'organizers' felt it had controversial stuff so it was screened out. This sparked an interesting mail trail appended here.

Text: "Hi Guys,

Sad news! Our skit has been screened out for being offensive. More in-person!

Regards,"

To this a member of their team responded in the following mail to vent his frustration, it had me cracking... and it still does...

Text:
"Nahiiii… did u tell screening guys abt the raunchy number we all were doing… or did u tell them we were going to do a strip dance … kuch toh bolo.. mujhe is mood par akele nahi chodoo.. mat chodoo (in hindi means left alone – if u were thinking something else )

Lets do a naked protest in front of organizers.. I am leaving … have removed my shirts,,, just tell me where these guys sit,,, or I will do a naked protest at the reception

Lead India…"

This is what counts as 'Office Humor'

Dera(rra)nged Marriages

2007-11-23T01:09:00.000-08:00

This is about my recent tête-à-tête with a friend who went thru' the process of initial round for 'arranged marriage'. The following post is written in his words...

He says...

“My parents got this sudden itch (it's not at all sudden; they have had it for quite some time it's just that the itch started harassing the hell out of them) to get me married! Now I am a believer that life could have been simpler if everybody believed in the traditional method of 'barter'; for the people of new generation (especially the ones who did not pay attention in their class when history of money was taught) barter was used as a way of 'buying' goods before 'money' as we know it came to existence.

For once, it would have been made the transaction of arranging a marriage simpler if not anything else. The prospective groom's father would go to a marketplace and shout out "my son is up (no I don't mean anything else; nothing else is up) for marriage. He is an Commerce Honors grad with Masters in business administration working for an MNC. His current salary is INR 30K per month" at this point, (since 'the father' thinks he's got the attention of the crowd) he would add enthusiastically “I am open to a girl from a good family with equal degree and a decent job"... The interested parties would then raise hands and meet. It would end with the highest paying party getting the 'boy'.

Well this was my dream, or this is what I thought would happen but it didn't. To my consternation I was driven to the marketplace, paraded in front of ogling-judgmental eyes trying to ascertain a suitable price for me. Believe me when I walked-in I felt that I was in a stadium with people staring at my nude form with unabashed curiosity. For anybody who thinks that 'arrange marriage' is a child’s-play.

How are you supposed to meet a person, talk to that person for 10 minutes and judge if you want to settle down with that person. How do you know if she loves 'friends' as much as you do? How do you know if she is a bollywood/hollywood movie junkie, just like you? How would she understand you in those 600secs? How do you know if you are destined to spend the rest of your life with her? It would have been great if it was like choosing clothes where you have an option of trying the product out before you finally buy it. Even afterwards you have an option of exchanging it for something else if that apparel does not work for you!

I am sure that after this harangue you will make the right choice!”

I heard to his ranting and by the end of that it seemed that he had cooled down. I told him that I understand his point but it's this uncertainty in life that I love and that's what makes it interesting. Life is never perfect but that's its beauty!

Did you have any other solutions in mind?

p.s. this is the first time I have tried to do a newspaper headline thingy... pls. let me know if it does not work for you!; deranged: crazy, unbalanced

Good God, NO !

2007-11-17T00:39:00.000-08:00

I was talking to DK after a long time and now we both know each other pretty well so we don't make an effort to 'put our best foot forward'... here's a snippet...

{Communication suitably modified/censored}

DK: So do you feel alone without your kid sister?
me: She is still around till 18th of next month, even my parents are still here...
DK: Oh! but tell me what will you do for food?
me: I work for food... I mean almost everybody works for food except for those lanky models modeling in those sexy underthings...
DK: Stop drooling like that and that's not what I meant
me: I get your point but you forget that I have a cooker - a cook who cooks for me
DK: ufff...another of your PJs... you should get married you know!
me: why?
DK: then your cooking problem will go away!
me: [rofl...] [reminded of a joke where a priest is persuading a christian to get married suggesting the cooking problem will go away and he says "there are more problems that will be solved apart from the gastric ones"
DK: you and your perverted mind ...
me: didn't you mean 'great minds think alike'?

Ok so here's the picture right now I pay approximately 1000 bucks to the cook per month and her solution is marrying a girl. Now if she is one of the normal girls, by normal I mean red-blooded, pink-loving, hyper-active with shrill high-pictched tone, then I am done for. Here's an example why I think so... yesterday my kid sister spent a goverment clerk's monthly salary for getting something done to her hair... It got me thinking about how costly, I mean, HOW COSTLY is it to have a wife...

Some of the common qualities that all the guys probably want in their to-be wife are... simple, caring, educated, accommodating, working girl...

This is probably how it translates...

simple - low-maintenance
caring - knows how to cook and should be ready to cook...
educated - well-versed in the art of communication so that hubby dearest does not feel odd taking her to a high-profile party
accommodating - puts up with irate in-laws, if there are any
working - excellent multi-tasker, earns and cooks...

[personal] not very particular about her hair style and does not spend exhorbitant amont by going to beauty parlors. Narayankaka (my personal barber) should be her favorite too... [He charges on 25 bucks and gives a dashing cut!]

Just kiddin... :-)))

Digital dreams...

2007-11-13T21:30:00.000-08:00

http://godspeedz.blogspot.com/

This is the blog that I head to when I need an update on all things digital! It is surprisingly up-to-date and written in a very lucid language and explains complex technical terms in layman's language!

A humble guy and an honest friend... Cheers to Viky for making the effort and succeeding.