Anti-Virus Support

Bob is usually a happy person with a really wide smile. He always smiles, in fact it is a condition that needs to be treated, his face is just stuck smiling after competing in a Best smile audition for a 2 minutes advertisement. But Bob has problems like many. Bob’s laptop is infected with a virus that cannot make it stay on for a long time. He still smiles even though he is sad inside. Bob’s laptop turns on, works for a while, but the virus gets on to it and the laptop automatically shuts down.

Bob does what any average American would do. Bob Calls the customer service of the laptop company (while an Average Indian, who eats KaBobs will call his/her cousin and get it fixed, or fix it himself/herself).

Bob: “Hello, I am having  a virus problem with my laptop, it won’t work for long”.

CSR: “Hello, Can I have your full name and address please!”

Bob’s full name was not long, yet he had to spell it out letter by letter. He went on to tell the address of his home.

CSR: “Can I have the maiden name of your great grandmother’s mother in law for security purposes?”

Bob was stunned. Bob was a surrogate born and adopted, so he didn’t know who his parents were, leave alone the greatness of his grandmother or her mother in law. Bob gave up like he usually does.

Bob then decided to go and ask the Computer Geek Almighty – Bill Gates.

Bob: “Hey Bill, Can you help me fix my laptop? It is virus infected and doesn’t go longer.”

Bill: “Try restarting!”

Bob: “I did, it wouldn’t restart!”

Bill: “Try restarting again!”

Bob understood that Bill had no other useful solution than just restarting. So he decided to go and meet his Arch-Rival and Friend – Steve Jobs.

Bob: “Hey Steve, my laptop is infected with virus …”

and before Bob could go any longer, Steve interrupted.

Steve: “Just Get a Mac. Look at this Get a Mac commercial, I bet you will buy it in a flash.”

Bob was flashed with a heavy reality distortion field (RDF). But poor Bob, even the RDF didn’t last longer on him, so he didn’t buy the Mac and he just bolted out of there.

In a sheer piece of luck, Bob was invited to Chicago at the big O studios to feature in a segment of the Oprah Winfrey show as “What about Bob?”. Bob was excited that he was going to meet Oprah and he couldn’t believe he will be in a one hour TV show in front of the national audience.

Oprah: “Coming up next, we are going to see how a virus in a laptop has affected the life of an American, Bob, right after this commercial break!”

(Crowd claps fades … as music fades in)

Oprah introduces Bob and along with Dr. Oz and Suze Orman who will be helping Bob to resolve his Laptop issues.

Oprah: “So tell me about the problem you are having Bob?”

Bob: “I don’t know what the problem is, but everytime I keep my laptop up and running, it doesn’t seem to go beyond a few minutes. It keeps crashing down.”

Dr. Oz in his characteristic Pink shirt, gets up to the screen to explain the audience what a computer virus is. One of the slides involves a Gory picture of a Laptop’s remnants after the virus infection.

(Audience goes “Awwww……”.)

Oprah: “Eww… Don’t show me that. You know I don’t like such pictures!”

Suze: “You see people, this is why we have to bailout poor Bob. If we don’t bail him out then his laptop is going to be infected a lot more and it’s gonna get worse by affecting your laptops. So we all have to pool in $10 cash and give it to Bob so he can get his laptop fixed or just buy a new laptop.”

(Audience – still faced with no expression)

Oprah: “We also have the Couple from Oregon who had faced a similar tragedy.”

Couple from Oregon: ( A sorry looking Male, with a worn out face, gelled hair, made to wear blazers by his wife. A Wife, who has been wearing make up continously for 2 weeks, with a lot of blush applied to the cheek and a really expensive hairdo. Both of them are in the verge of a bankruptcy due to a virus infected laptop)

“We just miss our laptop so much” (Wife breaks out, starts weeping) …

Husband continues “Yeah, this is the best thing happened to us in our life!”( a tiny drop of tear in his eyes, while he really thinks about all the lost pron in his laptop, that he forgot to backup).

Oprah: “So, that wraps our segment, What about Bob. Bob will be getting $2000 as a bailout for his troubled laptop.”

Oprah: “But wait, I have a gift for the audience. A cool new shiny aluminum 13 inch Macbook Pro for all of you as my gift”

(Audience goes wild, cheers and applause everywhere! while the eardrum of the real audience watching the show on TV, blasts into 1000 pieces).

Bob’s show ended shorter than he expected.

Bob goes home with $2000. But his virus problems are still not resolved. Bob doesn’t know how to fix the laptop with the $2000 bailout that he received. Bob goes to someone named Dinesh Babu in a random IT Office.

Bob: “Can you fix my laptop from this virus for $2000?”

Random IT guy named Dinesh Babu: “Sure.”. Dinesh Babu goes on to fix the laptop in 5 minutes and claims $2000.

Bob: “Thank you so much. I am so happy now. My laptop can now run for a long time.”

Random IT guy Dinesh Babu goes on to buy a new Macbook Pro with the $2000. Lucky Random IT guy Dinesh Babu.

PS: No offense to any of the personalities mentioned above. I think they are great people and I really like them. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Oz, Suze Orman are all great personalities and It is an honor for me to feature them in my totally insignificant and completely crappy humour post.

Terms and Conditions

Humans don’t trust each other anymore. I mean look at the webpages and their Terms and Conditions. Each time you try to open an account with a new service you end up clicking “I agree” without reading the entire blah known as Terms and Conditions. I wonder what will happen if we start including T&C for every mundane portion of our lives:

1. Wife cooks a delicious looking Aloo Paratha and Paneer butter masala on the table. Husband hurries to the table with his mouth watering, only to be shown a 10 page document called T&C to be signed before eating the delicious meal.

2. Newly married couple having a nice conversation during their first night. Suddenly the God of Love showers an excess of flowers on both. The love scent pulls them into the pure divine marital connection, only they pull each other a bundle of sheets titled T&C to be signed before performing the act.

3. A Mother in Labour starts pushing the baby out. The baby wouldn’t come out. The mother tries hard as the doctor and the husband say “Push, Push”. Usually the placenta comes after the child, but this time the placenta comes before with a lot of writings on it titled T&C. The Mother goes (while she keeps pushing) “arghhhhhhhhh …. I ….arghhhhhhh…..agreee…..arghhhhhhh” and then the baby is born.

4. You had an awesome andhra meals for dinner last night. So you are woken up 7AM sharp in the morning due to the effect of the spice in the meals and you are rushing to the bathroom to attend the nature’s call. You sit on the commode and try to let go, but nothing comes. The commode’s seat has T&C written all over it and a sensor that will sense your voice. You hurriedly get up and dance on your feet as the bowel tries to rush out, and you say “I agree” to the commode. As soon as you say that and sit down on the commode, the flow begins and you feel relieved.

5. Touser pandi Ramarajan gets ready to Milk the cow in his usual way. He sings the song “Shenbagame … Shenbagame…”. The cow refuses to give milk. He thinks may be the cow is sick and tired of hearing the same song, so he remixes it and sings it in the hip hop style “ooh ahh oh shenbagame …ooh aah oh shenbagame!”. Still no milk. In a few seconds the Cow goes Moo and releases a full roll of tissue paper from its rear that reads its T&C. Ramarajan goes “Ooh aahh oh shenbagame … I agree… ooh aah oh shenbagame I agree”. The Milk is on!

And finally how can we be sure that the end user has read the Terms and Conditions? We all usually just skip and click the I agree anyway. So just to make sure we are covered we will throw in another Terms and Conditions that states that “Make sure you read the Terms and Conditions in Full.” and request if they agree or do not agree.

Finally Here is a Brainstuck Cartoon on T&C.

Soulful Music

Soulful Music, originally uploaded by ubababu.

He was playing it for the love of music. Of course there were one dollar bills in his Tip Bucket, one of which was mine, but they were there merely to take care of this survival. So that, this man can live and bring the music alive. In the noise of the Kansas city Farmer’s market, The African American Man in a Cool shirt provided a beautiful ambience in a corner. It was simply beautiful. Can you see the music he is playing?

For more photos, Please checkout my Flickr Pool.

The Body Builder

Suresh was getting ready for his Mr. Madras body building competition. He was very fit, had nice bulging biceps and V-shaped body. He was honest in his body building and used no shortcuts like steroids to get where he is right now. He knows the evil effects of steroids and has avoided it ever since he started this.

With 7 days to go to the competition, Suresh was getting a little bit nervous. He usually wakes up by 6 AM and after a brief warm up session and a few raw eggs, he goes to the Gym and gets trained by his master. He evenly spreads out his exercises – curls, presses and weight lifting and keeps hydrated throughout the 2 hour long session. He follows it up with a nice healthy breakfast. He doesn’t eat 1 lunch but splits it into two and has one at 11AM and another at 2 PM. His dinner is also spread into 2 one at 5PM, and then at 8PM.

It was another day of routine for him as he woke up at 6 AM. He heads to the bathroom, spits and takes a leak in the commode as he wanders his mind around how he was going to go about the competition. The urine flowed out of his body making the noise of a stream of water hitting a pool at an intensity that showed how tall he was. He relaxed as he took a deep breath. As he came out of his thought train he noticed there was a chunk of blood floating in the commode. Blood! He panicked.

It is said that if you take Anabolic Steroids to build your body, the first few symptoms of its effects are bleeding when you pee. Suresh was scared now, he hasn’t taken any steroids. He has taken protein supplements and has a very uncommon diet. He wasted no time and he rushed himself to the doctor.

Suresh: I don’t take any steroids, but I saw blood this morning in my urine.

Doc: Don’t worry, we will take these blood tests and we can find out what has happened. You will get the results in a day, you can come back tomorrow at 8 AM.

Suresh was very worried. His entire body building and perhaps his life is now hanging in balance. That night he didn’t sleep properly. He had nightmares of seeing himself bald, sick and dying. He didn’t know what it would feel like with the testosterone level as low as a 12 year old girl, but he couldn’t sleep at the thought of that. But he didn’t have steroids and hence he was not worried as much as he would if he had had.

Suresh waited for the night to go by. It was the longest night he ever spent in his life. The next morning he rushed to the hospital without showering, eating. He saw blood in his urine even today.

Doc: The results have come Suresh. They all look normal. Your liver is functioning very well. You have nothing to be afraid of.

Suresh: But Doc, I saw blood even today. Please help me, I have a competition to go to in a week.

Suresh went close to the doctor and pleaded. The doctor moved away as his breath was stinking.

Doc: Let me see your teeth. Say eee and aaa!

Suresh was bewildered but did what he said.

Doc: Do you spit in the commode?

Suresh: I don’t remember, may be I do!

Doc: Your gums are inflammed and bleeding. You must be seeing that blood in the morning as you spit. You need to see a dentist!

Suresh laughed out loud. He couldn’t believe it. It was his teeth. His teeth was inflammed and he was glad it was just his teeth. He was relieved and happy. Compared to what it could have been, inflammed gums was nothing to him. He ran out of the hospital excited.

In a few days, a happy Suresh won the competition and became Mr. Madras and of course he went to the Dentist after a week.

So folks, Don’t spit in your commode while you pee!

PS: This is a humble attempt at Story Telling like Sakhi combined with Nikhil’s Whackiness and Rambodoc’s Body Building 101’s with an ending twist of my own style.

PPS: Virtual hits with Rotten eggs and Tomatoes from “Pissed” off readers welcome

Indian Companies, Raiders of the Lost Chair

Long Long ago there was a Chair in a busy IT office, brimming with people. There were just too many people in the building that there was limited room for breathing. They called it the boom, every single maintenance work was getting outsourced to India and the executives called it “Strategic Outsourcing”. No one even imagined the magnitude of growth and hence people were hired by putting fliers on the trees on the roads (Which were later cut by the corporation to build a Metro rail).

Coming back to the chair, this was one special kind of chair. It had a really soft cushion with adjustable height and nice tilting push back. The texture of the fabric was nice and smooth and one could really sink into it after lunch for a nice afternoon siesta, I mean a productive coding session. This chair was really unique, but the office was full of this unique chair. In fact there was one chair like this for every desk. But during boom time, people come in faster than buildings can rise and/or be leased. So people had to double up in cubes/desks/conference rooms/empty dining halls in cafeterias, lonely table by the restroom (which could seat atleast 3, with monitors positioned like the lions in our Indian Emblem on One Rupee coins and oh by the way the Emblem has 4 lions even though you can only see 3. You can’t see the 4th lion because it is a Tenderloin).

They wanted more and more people, but they didn’t have enough chairs. As a result, chairs were stolen from conference rooms which began to look like a big pool table room with no chairs. But that wasn’t sufficient, so chairs were put on Time sharing mode until new chairs slowly arrived and unbundled. In any case, the number of new people coming in out numbered the pace at which they could buy the chair because of all the process involved in procurement and number of signatures needed to buy one chair was equal to the number of people working in one floor.

During conferences with the onsite team, the offshore team usually 10 to 20 in number (or in some case 20 to 40) gang up on that one speaker phone in the conference room with no chair. The American on the other side speaks in his stylish English and the team standing offshore stare at each other, while the Team lead says yes, without knowing that he was answering a question, “Can you participate in a Rodeo contest next week?”.

Chairs were stolen, because people couldn’t understand a thing that the customer sitting onsite said without grounding their asses on the chairs. It didn’t matter whose chair it was, it was vandalised. You could go to the restroom for a 2 minute break but you will be back to no chair to sit on. Heck, you could even get up to connect that PS2 mouse port to the back of the Pentium II desktop, suffering loose contact, and you may sit down and fall to the ground, because that was enough interval time for your chair to be whisked away. “No Mercy”, they shouted and continued “Give us chairs or we will steal it!”. For sometime, it became the motto of the company, I mean not the company just the employees of the company. The shareholders had nice chairs at their home, except those poor souls who bought employee stock with no chair to sit on at work and with no idea that the bubble would burst in 2 years.

Chairs were shuffled, you never sat on the same chair once. So, the chairs were always showered with variable aroma of farts by multiple unrelated employees, whose only connection was eating the food served in the cafeteria.

There was only one way out of this misery. Onsite. People wanted to go onsite because they didn’t have a chair to sit on, while the management keeps taking surveys over survey trying to find the real reason behind people wanting to go onsite (which actually yielded “Disneyland” as the answer), they never knew that it was the chairs. Sometimes, even the employees didn’t know why they were frustrated and unhappy over their career. They kept insisting it was their career, but no it was just their carrier, the chair! All they needed was a chair that can be raised and not a raise.

But then the bubble burst. Everything slowed down. New buildings were leased, unfortunately when people were laid off or when the CEO gets involved in a huge conspiracy, and now there is more space than people. There are more chairs now than people. It can be so unpredictable that between the time interval that the chair is adjusted the person would be sent home. The companies were cutting costs by cutting projects. They were laying off the Developers and restructuring the management during touch economical conditions. It was quite logical. With no work to do, they had to lay off Developers because they were the only ones who did the actual work. Management is quite essential to the company because they had to run the company and they were the only ones who had the power to lay off, so unless every single developer was laid off there was no way that the management could be laid off. Besides it is cheaper to lay off a Developer when you think about the severance package that needs to be given in millions for an executive and in thousands for the ordinary Developer. It all makes sense.

But the employees are now happy because they have more chairs. They can sit on one chair everyday and it will still be enough for the whole year. Heck, they can now fill every chair with the sweet aroma of the fart every single day and not having to sit on the same chair again.

The chairs got back at their theives. They finally got their justice, but they still get farted on.

A Foreign Language Irony

As I hold out a copy of the latest India Today (Ok, I was really reading Anantha Vikatan) and counting down the minutes for the arrival of Bangalore Express, My “then fiance, now Wife” (TFNW) reminds me I have to get Idlis from Murugan Idli shop for dinner. It was one of my several trips to Madurai a few years back to see my TFNW. The Railway department even went to the length of tracking me down and sending me a qualifying letter for getting a Season pass from Bangalore to Madurai (Ok, I made this up!). Those were the times when whoever bought shares of Bharti Airtel became millionares simply because of the talk time I spent with my TFNW.

Coming back to the story, I had about 45 minutes before the train arrived. I worked my way through the crowd at the Platform, accidentally hitting people like a snooker ball on rebound, reached the station side Murugan Idli shop and was ready to order, what else, Idlis. Along came a Woman from the other side to the shop. She was tall, fair and definitely didn’t look local, and didn’t look Tamil, and didn’t look Indian either. She was a Foreigner, was a tourist. Here is my chance to provide the utmost hospitality to a tourist who was kind enough to visit my hometown. I was brimming with a sense of helpfulness and I wanted to give the best explanation possible and help her order the dinner that she will love.

We both got close to the counter. I opened my mouth to start my train of Peter English, just when the shopkeeper tried to utter something in his own English, and the dear lady from a foreign country without pausing for a moment and without directly interrupting us, simply placed the order in Pure Tamil.

“Oru Dosa, Oru set Idli, Sambar Vendam, Chutney neraiya venum!”

Three Mosquitoes, Five flies and a Cockroach made its way in and out of my Mouth as I kept it wide open watching the foreign lady utter the purest form of Tamil. She wasn’t Foreign anymore. I exchanged a few more bewildered look with the foreign lady and the shopkeeper’s half petrified half clueless eyes and place my order for idlis and went back to reading the jokes in Anantha Vikatan.

Tamil Thai (Mother) was dancing disco in the tongues of an English Madam. I bowed to her sense of respect to the language I had lived in, picked up my order and walked away expecting no more surprises for the day.

Read one more interesting Irony here.

You and me Locked up in a Room

This is how a famous Bollywood song goes:

Hum tum ek kamre mein bandh ho, aur chaabi kho jaay!

Such an ambiguous song it is. You and Me locked up in a room – which one? Bedroom or bathroom or the Kitchen or the store room? and the Keys are lost, what keys? You have keys for rooms? is it the House Key or is it your Car keys? or is it even your key! With so much ambiguity in the song, the Guy must be an idiot to expect romance from the girl and the girl must be “idioter” to romance him anyway!

But this is not the point of the post, this is just a pointless introduction of this pointless post.

People have weird experiences when they shop in weird Indian stores in US. Let me assure you that the Indian stores in India are a 100 times better than the Indian stores in US.

This particular Indian store is more like a Godown or a storage room. Seriously, I have stopped going there as I had a few bad experiences with Billing and Customer service. There are other Indian stores here that are not weird, packed with nice friendly people and a neat place. Coming back to this one weird store, it was sometime last year when I went there for regular weekend Grocery. My job as a husband was simple, drive the family to the store, hold the then 1.5 years old daughter in the arms and just randomly move around the store.

I like random, you can be at your will. You can have a sense of freedom. But in this particular store, there is only a few ways of being random. There are only 3 aisles with each aisle enough for just one half of a skinny person to move freely and that half is his lateral section and not his cross section. On the extreme left there will be a lot of varieties of bags of Rice and wheat stacked like a mountain. You will see people desperately trying to pull out a bag of rice, without impacting the balance of the bags placed one over the other. If you walk through this aisle, there are chances of bags accidentally falling on you. Perhaps they should have a sign that says “Falling Bags” like the ones you will find on the freeways through mountains that says “Falling Rocks”.

The walkways between the aisles are not left alone. They are stacked with more stuff that can be sold. It is a marketing technique. People don’t look down, so what happens is they very likely stumble upon the stuff on the floor and fall flat. Then all they have to do was see a nice shiny glowing Potato and go “Wow!” and then grab a pound or two of it. Trust me, it really works, even though you will see more people falling than walking, it is more business this way than having less stuff stacked around.

The best way to stock up the merchandise is during the peak hours of people shopping. How else you will see the store’s stock person goes around the aisle arranging and stacking up new merchandise. It is like the Old Hutch cellphone ad – wherever you go we follow. This guy is just like that, he will be there whereever you go, he is omnipresent. He can shout at the top of his pitch to the cashier when the cashier asks him the price of a certain item. He is usually a Middle aged Indian Uncle who is a partner in that store business, with neatly Dabur amla oiled hair, a belly with the shirt unable to cover it fully.

Sometimes it can be a check mate with all the stuff lying around. As I was trying to work my way randomly through these flow restricted aisles, I entered an aisle to look for some ready to eat stuff. It was a trap, I couldn’t get out of it one way as the stock person had left a bunch of items there blocking the way. He then walks through me literally and begins stocking things in the freezer on my other side. So you see now I am in a check mate position and I can’t move out of the aisle until he finishes stocking, and I am left there reading the expired expiry dates of freshly stacked Ready to eat items.

My worst nightmare came true. The stock person sang the famous ambiguous Bollywood song -

“Hum tum ek kamre mein bandh ho, aur chaabi kho jaay!”

This time, it wasn’t ambiguous. It was straight on. I started sweating profusely and was about to faint but my love for my 1.5 year old daughter held me up on my feet and reminded me that there is still room for hope in life. I looked around and I saw there was not even room for placing one bag of chips around me with all the things lying around, where would I keep hope. Besides, the Stock man was insisting on singing the next lines of the song.

I was saved by a ray of hope. Some guy walked from the side where he was stocking in the freezer and said “Ekskuse me” in a thick North Indian Accent. That’s it, the gap was made. It was enough for me to sneak through and get to the other side, like the South Indians who sneak through in the Tirumala Tirupathi queue for Dharshan of the deity.

Perhaps Clint Eastwood should make a movie with this “Escape from Indian Store”.

PS: “Dimple Kapadia” is in the tag list, just to increase the marketing value of this post.

The Desperate Husband Facebook Quiz

After answering too many Facebook Quizzes, I think I am now in a position to create a Facebook quiz of my own in my own unique style. Like Sokka says in “The Avatar” – “This is the kind of Time wasting nonsense I have been waiting for!”.

This quiz will help you find How Desperate a Husband you are, Yes this is “The Desperate Husband” Quiz and here it goes!

1. What is your Favourite TV Show?

a. Get Lost.

b. Villains.

c. American Bridal

d. Anderson Hooter 69 degrees.

2. What is your Favourite drink?

a. Beer.

b. Whiskey.

c. Milk.

d. Coconut water.

3. What do you do on a Friday Evening?

a. Beer, Dinner, <Censored Event> and Sleep.

b. Dinner, Beer, <Censored Event>, <Censored Event> and Sleep.

c.  Dinner, <Censored Event>, Sleep, <Censored Event>, Beer and Sleep for real.

d.  All of the above.

4. What is your Favourite Transport mechanism?

a. Bullock Cart

b. Horse

c. Big ass 4 Wheel drive Pickup truck, even though I don’t pickup anything and just drive that to work with lunch and laptop.

d. Instantaneous Travel by Worm holes, I mean through the holes created by Earthworms.

5. What is your Favourite movie that you would like to watch with your Spouse?

a. Star Wars Episode IV

b. Star Wars Episode V

c. Star Wars Episode VI

d. None of the above, because I would really like to watch Star Wars Episode I, II and III.

6. How bored are you?

a. Just Bored.

b. I am so Bored, I will even take “Desperate Housewives” Quiz even though I am a Man.

c. I am so Bored, I thought this was a real Facebook quiz and started writing down answers.

d. I am so Bored, I wrote a Blog post named “Desperate Husband Facebook Quiz”.

Strange thing will be that even though this is a “Desparate Husband” Quiz, it will be taken by every one of every age and sex in spite of their marital status. What will be even more strange is, though there can be at least 24 combination of answers to the above Quiz, every single one of them who take this quiz will get only one answer.

How Much of a Desperate Husband are you?

Answer: Pretty Desperate

Buckles of Belt

As a young boy once I had fascination towards various styles of Belt Buckles. Big Oval ones, Shiny big rectangle ones I have tried all sorts of gaudy belt buckles before. But Time (thankfully) helps us mature and grow out of this Gaudy Belt Buckle syndrome (BBS). I can safely wash off my past and say that I have grown out of it. I had realized that the special kinds of Belt Buckles are only supposed to be worn by Bobby Deol and once that moment of self realization set in, I not only gave up the Gaudy buckles but developed hatred towards it.

I now prefer to wear plain simple formal belts for work and a slightly wider brown leather belt with the jeans. I have simplified my belt choices to these 2 and am not planning to look back.

The prejudice in this is that you would expect anyone in your age range or higher to follow this same simple principle. How wrong I was. It disturbs me to notice the Gaudy belt buckle syndrome from someone who definitely looks much older than you. I can forgive every single annoying thing done by anyone, but wearing a huge eagle Belt buckle is simply a no no. For a moment I would have pulled my eyeballs out, but wanted to keep it to see the other pleasant things in the world. It was one of the WTF moments that haunts you throughout your work day.

I may have to give them a “Wearing a decent belt 101″ lesson which will really consist of just 2 points – simple 1 inch black for formals, simple 1.5 inch brown for jeans.

It is ok if you have a small crocodile on the buckle as long as it comes from Lacoste. But if you really want to wear a belt with a crocodile on the buckle, please make sure the crocodile logo is not inverted, otherwise I will find you, tilt you upside down and make you walk on your hands!

Airport Transit

It is easier to cross the city of Madurai from One end to another by foot, than it is to transit from One terminal or a Gate in an Airport to Another. So, in a 24 hour Flight journey from US to India, it is actually difficult to transit than sit and burn your ass off inside the aircraft.

The amount of effort required for the travel is governed by the following equation:

E = F + iT

Where E is the Total Effort for Travel. F is the effort required to fly in the aircraft. T is the unknown amount of effort required to walk from one Terminal to another. “i” is the ego in you that tells that “I can definitely do this” and it gets reduced from “This is a piece of cake” feeling to “Holy shit! I am completely screwed” feeling.

The above equation is valid only for those who travel alone. For all those who travel with family (especially kids or 1 kid who can do stuff that 2 kids do) the equation grows to the power. The modified equation is:

E = (F + iT)^n

Where ‘n’ is the feels like factor of number of kids ( and not the actual number of kids). So you may have only 1 kid but that kid might put on a nice airtime travel show equivalent to 3 kids. In this case your n is not 1 but 3. Usually if you have 1 kid, n is always greater than 1. But if you have a kid which yields a value of n < 1, I need to borrow your kid to brush off some of its characteristics to mine. Call me … Seriously!

The following are the challenges of Airport Transit: (what, you thought it ended with the equation?)

1. First of all, Good luck with getting down from the aircraft. The moment the seat belt sign is off there will be a race as to who will get up first, get their gear and head to the aircraft exit. It doesn’t matter that it takes at least 30 seconds for the door in the aircraft to open up to the exit, everyone including the folks at the last row will be up on their feet. If you feel you may not be able to compete with them, just sit back and be the last one to be out. If you think you can, you should have prior experience in Military, American Football and Wrestling, in order to succeed.

Note: If you try to accidentally push the guy behind you in the aisle, you might be able to see a beautiful sight of falling Human Dominoes. But don’t try that, you cannot run far off from the victims.

2. Let’s assume you got off from the aircraft in One piece ( 2 pieces if you are carrying a small handbag or a laptop bag, 10 pieces if you have a kid). The trick now will be to find the sign board that says “GATE C25 with an upper arrow mark”. After skimming through a crowd of people wandering the airport, security staff, airport staff, duty free shops, gorgeous European women you can finally spot something close – GATES C with a upper arrow.

NOTE: The GATES C sign arrow mark does not in anyway mean that your gate is right around the corner. I think they should intensify the arrow mark or color it to show how far your Gate is.

3. You will now start your transit locomotion by Walk, then get on an elevator to go one level down. From there you will walk a long way by foot, by flat escalator, by foot again, by flat escalator again and then finally you will get another elevator to go one level up. It is not over yet, You will have to now Catch a train because Gates C is in another terminal. All this while you will keep seeing the very same “GATES C with an Arrow Mark” board.

4. As soon as you get off the train in another terminal, repeat Step 3. It will seem like you are going towards the horizon, it actually is so! But don’t get too excited when you start seeing GATES C10-25 sign board with Arrow mark. You may still need to do 30% of step 3 before you reach your final destination. Back up 3 Gates, in case you want to Hit the Restroom.

I wish Airports were like Madurai Airport. There is only one Gate, you walk through that Gate you will be inside the airport and walk the other way you will be outside the airport. Humans love to make things complicated.

Read more >> Options >>

You There?

Vishesh, the Swami Smileyananda has tagged me to do a Tag of his own called Smiley Tag. The objective is to spread the smile and I took it literally by doing a post based on Smileys. I actually had done this post sometime back and kept it in draft for a long time. I waited for the right moment, but completely forgot about this post until now. I think It was meant to be posted for Vishesh’s Tag.

When people Instant Message you at work with a “yt” which means “You There?”, the way someone answers to that question can tell a lot about the situation. Let’s see what they are:

HAPPY STATE

“yt”

“Yes, what’s up! “

- A descriptive answer followed by a smiley. This respondent had a good tasty lunch and probably got a pat in the back from the boss or got a raise or going out for a fun party in the evening. He is just happy about something and he is much obliged to answer your questions.

I CAN ANSWER YOU

“yt”

“Yes, What’s up!”

- The person is not really in a good mood, but can take a few questions from the requester. This person is vulnerable to spiral down to Case 3 if not handled properly.

BUSY NOW, THIS BETTER BE SERIOUS

“yt”

“Yes!”

- For “yt” all I can say is I can acknowledge my presence. If you are planning on asking any questions for help, it better be serious. Don’t say “I need to borrow a post it, can I come to your desk”, because these questions can spiral him down to Case 4.

CRISIS, NO MORE QUESTIONS

“yt”

“s”

- Just one letter abbreviation of Yes. That’s it – s. The person is busy doing a lot of other things. It is really not advisable to ask anymore questions to the person unless you are the boss or boss’s boss and so on. Simply acknowledge his presence and move away, other wise you will push the person to Case 5.

BUSY WORKING MY A** OFF

“yt”

- The person doesn’t respond. He/She simply turns on the busy indicator on the Instant message client indirecly indicating to scram and not to bother. Do not dare to walk to this person’s cube, wait for the person to get back to atleast Case 3.

A Comic with all of the above emotions of “You there!”

Of course this applies only at work and not for Gtalk and Yahoo IM clients

If you like to spread the Smile, go ahead and take this as a Tag and do your own post that will make people Smile

Pictures from: www.wikimedia.org

Randomize(Things) * 25

Amrutha has tagged me to write 25 Random things about me.

What is Random? Is it something that is not in particular, that doesn’t belong to a category, something that you just pick with no reason associated with it?

But here is a truth, That particular thing is a Random thing only until you pick it. But the moment you pick it, you have it in your hand and you know what it is and you know how to categorize it. A Random thing that you picked is not Random anymore. It is sort of like Quantum Physics.

The Random thing that you are yet to pick can be anything from Freedom to Boredom, but the moment you pick it, you will be able to see that it is your Kingdom. You have a specific thing in hand now, not a Random thing.

Anyways, Here are 25 Random things from my life which became specific after I picked.

1. As a Kid, I once tried to look under the Godrej Bero (Armoire) and got my head stuck there.

2. Once, when my uncle was sitting in the living room, he pulled my head out, from under the Godrej Bero. Somehow I can relate this with point 1.

3. I used to be afraid of Rats, that my Grandma used that fear of mine to feed me (Not with Rats, but Just Food, Not Rat Food, but Human Food)

4. In those days, a candy used to cost 5 Paise or 10 Paise. That became my salary if I help out on a chore at home.

5. The First Rajinikanth Movie that I ever saw and liked was “Murattu Kaalai”.

6. The First Kamal Hassan Movie that I really liked was “Vikram”.

7. I used to make cricket ball out of a small stone and wrapping Paper on top of it, very tightly.

8. I used to play cricket on the terrace of our house with my homemade Paper ball. The ball was very durable until you hit that out of the terrace into the ditch in the road.

9. I once went into a dreamless deep sleep state when I was alone in the house. Calling bell, Violent shouts and Knocks on the door didn’t wake me up. People had to break in and wake me up. As a prize for doing this, I was given coffee.

10. I used to be among the shortest in school, but somehow I became relatively taller in College.

11. The first Six I hit was in my 6th Std, No one could believe I was capable of hitting Six, including me.

12. I learnt to dance from my Younger brother, who was a Natural dancer.

13. I wanted a Younger Sister who I was going to name as Kavitha. I consider all the Kavitha’s that I come across in my life as my Younger sister, except the older ones.

14. I was a Car Crazy Kid. I used to have a Sack full of Toys that were variety of cars.

15. I have the fear of Unknown. I am beating this fear by trying to know as much as I can.

16. When I used to live alone as a Bachelor, the moment there is a Power cut at night I used to come out of the house and sit in the balcony, unless I am in deep sleep.

17. I learnt the Guitar for 3 months and then quit. I still have the wish to learn to play someday.

18. I once won an impromptu competition to sit still for 1hour in school during Yoga Class. I have no idea how I did that, because I am unable to do that now!

19. My First Crush was when I was in 12th std, over a 11th std girl.

20. My Second crush was when I crushed a lemon with my bare hands for making Lemon Rice as a Bachelor.

21. My First car was a Fiat Palio which I sold before coming to US.

22. My First cell phone was an Ericsson world phone, which I lost in an Autorickshaw in Bangalore.

23. My First jeans was a local branded jeans named – Hara.

24. This blog is my second innings.

25. I found my Humor sense in this blog.

If I equate 1 Random thing to 1 year of my age, I am still left out with 5 years. Instead of writing 5 more things, I will just tag 5 people whose blog I read, but I don’t have them in my blogroll yet, because I am terribly lazy!

They are – Gauri, Chutneycase, Anu Ramakrishnan, Inbavalli, Kavi.

10 Things you should know about 10 Things

If there is a topic then there must be an article with 10 things on that topic. Since this itself is a topic, I am going to write 10 things you should know about all these 10 things articles.

1. There are not actually 10 things to say, it may actually be 7 or 8 but to make it a round number the author rephrases a couple of them and makes the count to 10. Or he writes a classic last one – “10. There is no 10th thing!”

2. The title is not written first. The author keeps writing whatever comes to his minds and then writes the final number in the title. That is why we have a non standard 7 habits, 5 things, 10 steps etc.

3. Readers attention span is very important. So the author will make sure he doesn’t exceed beyond 13 points. 13 is the unlucky stop point number. Any more number of points he is going to get with the article, there are high chances that it will get converted into a book.

4. If it was written as a book, it will be publicized as the NYTimes #1 Best seller with a round, starry edged, fluorescent green sticker on top of it. No such thing will be done to the blog article. Heck, it won’t even make it to the WordPress front page. I mean take this one for example.

5. If it is published as a book, the front cover will always have the 3/4 portrait of the author standing at about 30 degrees to the side, arms folded, dressed in a blazer with a silly grin on his face.

6. Women don’t write 10 things article or the book. They just have too many things to say to be written in One article or One book. So they just have a TV show by their name like Oprah Winfrey show, Suze Orman Show, Rachel Ray show, with the word “Show” following their names, even though every one knows that it is a TV show!

7. This is the step the author finds out that there is no clear direction in his article and he cannot give a proper meaningful name for it. He will simply choose to name it as “10 things You should know about …”. Also, You will notice that Point number 8 will be missing.

8. This point is supposed to be missing. So you should not be reading this. No stop, stop! Don’t read it. Come on, This point is hidden! You are not supposed to read it, argh!!!!

9. There is no 10th thing. No Really, I mean it. I am going to stop at point 9.

10. Oh what the Heck! There are actually 11 things about the “10 things” articles.

11. Point no. 10 was not actually needed and I could have simply written Point 11 as Point 10. But, I just added it to show how clever I am. So, In essence, There is not really a 11th thing.

There, if you always keep all of these 10 or 11 things (with the 8th point missing) in your mind, you will be able to judge what those 10 things books are.

A “10 things to know about” article or book never goes complete without written testimonials of experts. Hence, I had an imaginary conversation with my fellow bloggers and I am coming up with their testimonials on this Article:

Anshul @ Brainstuck: (Scratches Head) WTF, 10 things about 10 things Article! (Scratches Head again!)

KrishAshok: This article is very inspiring it will definitely make me write 10 things to know about Jalsa and Jilpa.

Maxdavinci: There is only one thing that is true in this world – Dappankuthu. Everything else is written in this article.

Nikhil: The author is a very nice fellow. He bought me 10 beers, one for each thing.

Vishesh:  (and then when asked to elaborate) LOL

Sakhi: There is Fiction and then there is true story. This one is neither!

Twisted DNA: Just put on your bluetooth headset and read this aloud, no one will even notice, these sexy supple white 10 things.

Rads: Yay! I mean Yay!

The Philosophy behind Recession

This is most probably what is going on everyone’s mind right now. “A Recession! Why God Why!”.

Why should this happen to us! There are already a lot of people who are very poor and struggle for even a single meal every day or for weeks, and now we have people losing jobs. The world is now consisting more and more of hungry and jobless people. Even those who are fortunate enough to have jobs are upset because their buddy, who was working with them for 10 years is no longer there with them.

Why is this all happening and what exactly is the lesson behind the recession.

From an economists point of view one would point to unwise business strategies as the reason and the lesson is to spend wisely from here on.

But if we think deeper, there is actually more of a philosophy to be learnt from this recession than just economics.

The Object of Illusion.

Everything that is materialistic exists because we need it, we want it, we lust for it. The electronics company makes 50,000 mp3 players because there are atleast 50,000 people who want it. But now due to recession there are probably only 30,000 people who are looking to buy these devices. A common man looks at this as a bad thing because it reduces the circulation of money. But think further. What if there is not one single person, ready to buy mp3 players, not because they are cutting on spending, but because they have given up the lust for such a device.

MP3 players will no longer exist.

Consider the house that you bought a few years back for $200,000 in a quite residential area. It was a beautiful house and you thought that it was definitely worth 200 grand and will probably be worth more in the future. But with this downturn you just discovered your house is worth much less. So how much is your house really worth? Here is the answer in 2 points that is very difficult to digest:

1. Your house is only worth how much a buyer is willing to pay for it and it can also be just ONE DOLLAR!

2. If there are no buyers willing to buy, your house is not worth anything in terms of money.

But here is an interesting thing, Your house is worth all of it for the memories and good times that you have there. So doesn’t this mean that your house being worth $200K was just an illusion? You see, that is why our ancestors were not willing to sell their homes not because they are attached to the monetary worth of it, but because of the memories and good times they had there.

The concept of money that we have is just an illusion!

I am not asking you to give away all your belongings and become a saint, all I am telling is if you are able to realize that the money that we made is just an illusion, you will no longer need to become a saint, you will already be in the path of one. This is easier said than done. It is a Journey into the reality and It won’t be easy but the only way to see it, will be to take up the ride, and travel, perhaps with rest stops.

Everything Belongs to Earth.

Now that we have identified money is an illusion, let’s go back to our house. How was that built? Did God build your house as a gift to your good work? Nope! Your house is just a complex physical and chemical composition of Mother earth that a stranger built it for you in exchange to an illusionary object called money. So the house is just actually Earth! It belongs to Earth! You just bought an illusionary object with an illusionary concept called Money. What kind of an illusion is this! The one that will completely blind us I guess.

Again, I am not asking you to sell your house or not buy any house in the future or give it away and live in caves. If you are able to think and realize that everything you own, including your own body ultimately belongs to Mother nature, Mother Earth to be specific, then it doesn’t matter if you have a house or not. Why do we struggle for it then, when the whole of Earth naturally belongs to us? If you are willing to accept this idea, then you are ready to take up this journey upon you.

A Living example of this would be Bill Gates. He is the richest and now he gives away his wealth and the world is becoming better because he has probably realized this. He has taken up the Journey of the real life, after completing his illusionary life. Bill Gates was born to be Bill Gates. When you realize it, you will also know that you were born to be you. You don’t have to struggle to become like Bill Gates, You just need to be you.

You will now see Life from a completely different perspective.

You will now understand that Recession is just another illusionary state created from things that were already an illusion. You will have a lot of questions, but they will be answered. Time has the answers for everything. When time answers you, your twitter messages will begin to look like mine

Of course, you will not be able to think of any of these without your survival. Once you take care of your survival needs and once you are able to take care of your survival needs as you go, your journey will be much more smoother. This is exactly why we donate goods to those who don’t have. We are helping them survive and think beyond survival.

In Indian customs, the idea of giving food and water to guests is to satisfy their survival needs. Once their survival needs are taken care of, they will be able to see the things around them beyond all illusions.

All of this is just my humble opinion. Your thoughts are welcome in the comments.

The Purpose of Life is to undertake this journey of breaking out of all these illusions.

Tag: Tamil and Hindi Songs

I love music. I believe music of any form puts us in touch with our inner self and gives us a sense of freedom. Reema has tagged me to list some music that I love. Music is always fun.

I grew up listening to some English songs, a lot of Hindi songs and a boat load of Tamil Songs. While Tamil songs were the main form of music I was listening to, my uncles introduced me to the world of RD Burman, Manna Dey, Kishore kumar in the Hindi World. My friends in School and College made sure I got some earful of Bryan Adams, Guns n Roses, George Michael.

My music love is from the 80’s, 90’s and the present time, though I prefer the oldies too (the ones that came before I was born).

This tag is about picking the songs that you loved and I will be listing 1 song each from the 3 periods of Time I have been in this Planet.

80’s:

Ilaiyaraja ruled the Tamil world. His melodies were more of a fashion statement. He brought freedom, love, compassion, happiness, sorrow in his songs, in a very unique style.

Ilaiya Nila from  Payanangal Mudivathillai (Journeys never end)  is one of the best from those times.

90’s:

Things had to change and it had to change because of one man – A.R.Rahman. The musical Genius was absolutely splendid right from his 1st album – Roja.

Thee Thee from Thiruda Thiruda is a mind blowing love song. This song is almost 20 years ahead of its time.

Latest:

Apart from A.R.Rahman and Ilaiyaraja we have some decent music directors in Tamil like Yuvan Shankar Raja, Vidhyasagar and Harris Jayaraj. I am going to pick one song from the lot and the only reason for picking this song is this is my daughter’s favourite. I think she likes Surya. She smiles wide when she sees him on screen.

Adiye Kolluthe from Vaaranam Ayiram.

If I have to call 2 Hindi movies that brought me into the world of Hindi Movies are Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and Tezaab. I really love this song.

80’s:

Kehdo ke tum from Tezaab

90’s:

Aamir Khan is a versatile actor. Rangeela is one movie where he surprised me. It was a role I never expected to see him in and play it with such an ease.

Mangta Hai Kya from Rangeela

Latest: (well almost)

Continuing on my belief that Aamir Khan is probably the only lead Bollywood actor that acts well (apart from character artists like Naseeruddin shah, Om Puri), I like all the songs in Dil Chahta Hai, but this one is the best.

Jaane Kyon from Dil Chahta Hai.

What’s your list? Would you like to share? Go ahead take this as a tag and put it up in your blog, if you got an interesting list. It can be any of the Indian Language.