Phoren Phantashie

Whenever any of my relatives are coming from abroad, they ask about what they should get. Well, although we get almost everything here in India (a little costlier) the whole idea of getting an item from abroad is exciting in itself and moreover it's free!! so well why not."Foriegn is better" was the mantra that has been imbibed by us since our childhood. When we were kids, every relative who comes from Pershiyah meant lots of Yardley Talc, Nivea cream and Brut perfume. These items were kept in parents room and the only time we get to wear it was on Sunday morning.The trend is still the same. Go to any Syrian Orthodox church, you'll get a whiff of Brut from some elderly person standing behind you with kids in Pershiyah.

Well, this trend changed to gadgets over the years. Since, I have inherited the "Thomas Gadget Gene", I have become the quintessential gadget whore. I have a fetish for gadgets.. Whenever someone ask what I need from abroad I get totally confused on what to ask. So I decided to put up list of things for relatives and friends abroad.
Here are the list of items I need when you come from abroad. Choose any or all of the below.

A nasal Hair Trimmer: I don't think you get it here in India. And even if you do, I wouldn't go ask for it. We see advertisements of how to be a man and ask for condoms but Nasal hair trimmers.. Nopes.. no way.

A vibrating toothbrush: That's like a cool thing. I don't know how it's gonna keep my teeth clean but well I like things which vibrate. And yep! prefered brand is Oral-B because I kindda like to say I love Oral! B. Consider a situation where I go to a lady pharmacist and ask " How much for an Oral! B.. Nyiiicee.

A harmonica: Yes we do get harmonica here but well, I want an electronic harmonica which I never found it in here.. Guitar has kinddda lost it's charm thanks to every Tom, Dick and Harry playing it.. Those chicks in the opposite house didn't seem to give a damn about guitar the last time I played. They complained about loud music to the guards..
Ever wondered, why do people call it "Mouth Organ"?? I kinddda find it funny.. Probably it's just me.. apparently ya. hehe mouth organ.

I'll be adding more to the list as and when I fancy anything new. So keep watchin this space.

The day the dog spoke!

I was sitting at home doing what I love doing the most when parents are not around- Watchin Vikki Vetta of "Naughty America" fame. Suddenly I heard a hoarse voice..

"Master!" "Master!!" I looked around and saw no one. I shrugged and again got busy with the ongoing show. "Master! Master!!" said the voice again. It was then I realized that it was my 2 year old dog "Spot". "Did u just talk?" I asked. "Yep! it's me. I don't know but suddenly I can talk from this morning". "Whoa! that's great! It's a miracle.. So.. well how's life?". "It's very good. Truly it's a dog's life!! I enjoy it here". "That's nice! well, I need to get back to what I am watching.. so ya chitchat l8rs".. "But I have so much to talk to you master" Spot replied.
I realised that now that the dog can speak, it's better to switch off the laptop lest it decides to tell my parents about it.
"So tell me what do u wanna talk about?" I asked nonchalantly
"Actually I was wondering if you could serve me beef 4 days a week instead of 2, it would be great!"
"Are you kidding me! it's recession time.. Be happy that we atleast serve you beef two days a week!!"

"Well master! I am entitled to it ain't I?? Please think about it."
"Hmmm.. let me see what I can do.. I will think about it" I replied in a little angry tone.
"Also, I don't like rice that much. Could you buy 'Pedigree' in bulk? I kindda like it. Moreover, you'll get a discount on buying in bulk.. "
"Ahha! so now you telling me that you can calculate too!!"
"well, that's basic math isn't it?.. master?"
"Would you like anything else? Perhaps a day off or foriegn trip??" I asked in a very sarcastic tone.
"Naah! what would I do going for a foriegn trip. But ya, if you could give me a day off, I can go out on a date with 'Shadow'."
"who's that now?"
"Master! that's the cute roadasian bitch which chases the car whenever I am inside!! Haven't you noticed? Well, you are too busy talking on phone while driving.."
"Now a dog is gonna teach me traffic rules! I thought to myself but didn't say anything.
Spot continued- "Moreover! it's so hot these days, can I like move into the house??"
"Dude! you are a dog!! Firstly you aren't supposed to talk and now that you can talk, stop making demands!"
"Master it's a democratic country! I am entitled to all the labour laws of the land as anyone else"
"You Son of a Bitch!!"
"Master! c'mon now don't get angry.. I cost you much cheaper than a security guard!! Moreover! these are legit requests master!"
"And yep! one last thing! can I use the toilet instead of going out since I am kindda shy taking dump in front of so many people" - That was the last straw.

The shot echoed through the whole neighbourhood.
THE END

Moral of the story:
1.Dogs aren't supposed to talk.
2. Replace dog with employee and me with the organisation.

Valentine blues

(Picture courtesy: Google search)

It's been a month and still people ask me what I did for valentine.. Huh! well where were you?? Why was it that you were not near the phone when I called you?

With heavy heart I finally decided to write about Valentine's day: The day for "celebrating love".. A stressful day for everyone. Single guys pretending to have a date, when the reality is that they're gonna be drinking at home with some other dude and bitching about their ex.

"Committed" guys deciding how to take all their girlfriends out without getting caught (Yes, I'm at work thing used to work but not anymore!!!). Pramod Mutalik and his moral brigade busy trying out their latest pink undergarments.
Broke guys breaking-up before valentines to avoid giving gifts and then making up after two days.. Well, provided she din't find someone on Valentines night party
(.. read random stranger dude)

I was determined to not let this valentines go without date. You see, I had this certain lady in mind. But, alas, she was busy (read: uninterested) and gave me alternatives(..talk about audacity). Not a guy to give up so easily, I tried another number.. Well, the phone rang for some time and I got the return call only the next day. Everyone seemed busy. Even the usual "Let's-meet-for-lunch-'Insert expensive restaurant'-lady" was busy out shopping with her friends ("Girls"- She claimed).

So consecutive second valentine's day without a date had me thinking.. Am I like really getting old or something? has the attraction quotient reduced? I thought about the past years and made a chart and although the awesomeness level has increased over the years, the women (romantically involved) has decreased to an alarming rate. I thought about the past relationship and suddenly after the whole five minutes of pondering, I decided it's better not to think about these things. It's better to leave the topic lest I might wanna find out something about myself I shouldn't be knowing at the first place. well, I played "Call Of Duty 4" online for 6 hrs and took out the frustration on the 12-13 yr olds since the older ones are busy dating. .. alas.

Valentines day for me will always be the day to expect expensive gifts from the current BF/GF.. Mostly Hallmark or Archies card along with some "teddy" bear (.. Why are all the stuffed toy bears named teddy??) and yes choco-lay-te(..talk about aphrodisiac). You "prepare" for the date by wearing your favorite clothes and wait for her with the rose you bought paying much more than regular days. Once, she arrives you need to compliment on the strange colours she's wearing on the nails (yes, you are expected to notice that too..).

So after you've spent the hard earned or borrowed money to buy these things, a few days later it's all forgotten. After which it is the usual "what have you done for me" routine. By now you are either too broke after giving the money back to the lenders or you plainly don't give a damn anymore.

Well, after college, the gifts become more and more expensive till once day it becomes a gold ring studded with diamond. Rest is well left unsaid.


Ps: Just like last year I spent the evening with my equally valentine-less friends at Chandni Chowk and complaining about the expensive food.

New York is closer than you think!! :)

The year that it was.

First of all, Happy New Year everyone. The most anticipated date of the year other than V-Day (*I love to watch the news about VHP activists beating up people and closing greetings shops and stuff.. Followed by expert analysis by Barkha Dutt and others going about condemning their acts. Year after year). I was gearing up for New year from February 16th 2007 and yes it arrived in time.. This year's new year party was surprisingly very good.. I tripped on enough Mojitos (Courtesy Leila) which made sure I don't remember anything that happened the night before! including proposing a chick at the party who said "yes"... It's a different thing that I can't remember her name and I'm not even sure which one was that... Hope she remembers!! Ahh! who cares! Well, actually I do! ;)

2008 was a good year for me.

It will be remembered for:
1. My first successful Hello World program.
2. My tryst with kick-ass ps3 titles like MGS4, COD 4 and 5, GTA4, Resistance 2 and yes! Prince Of Persia!!
3. Made lotta new friends especially Minkies (Mizo Chinkies) as opposed to Ninkies the year before.
4. Movies: Some good movies but mostly crappy stuff.
Rock On: The movie where a dude is pissed off about his band breaking up years ago..
The Happening: It affected me so much that I wrote a whole blog on it.
Movies that question your sensibility: Singh is Kinng, Hello, Sorry Bhai, Golmaal returns and yes! Karzzzzz(Not sure about the number of Z's in it but epic performance by HR (Not Hrithik Roshan)).
5. Learnt a new word "Recession" which explains the reasons of night-outs at office.
6. "Obama" elected for Prez and "Osama" became more elusive.
7. Music sucking even more than the year before.. Well, most of it!
8. Megadeth and Sepultura touring bangalore!! :)
9. Roadies Obsession at an all time high! It's expected to achieve a cult status with everyone trying to be bitchy like "Bani". And yes! the spin-offs G-Talk (* Rumors are around for a male version of G-Talk too hosted by "Karan Joker") and other dumb serials like Splitsvilla.. MTv no more airs music, just reality shows. MTv needs to play more music like VH1 cuz even though the music with mostly be some hiphop or maroon 5, we get to see some hot nigga babes!! MTV stands for "Morons! Try Vh1". (Well, it sucks too, but well better than MTV.. I hate Yomomma which sucks mostly cuz most of the jokes are not in english.. It's some illegible "street/hood" lingo!)
10. Mumbai attacks.( Human rights activists especially Arundhati Roy and Shabana Azmi, please make sure Ajmal Kasab is provided with all the facilities to ensure he is comfortable whereever he is.)

AM-AWAY your friends and money!

Couple of days back I got this call from certain Mr. "Rajesh" working with Infosys. He was very cordial on the phone and was talking about some "business opportunity to earn extra income". I cautiously asked him whether it has something to do with MLM (Multi-Level Marketing)?? (ironically.. mlm also is a way to show the bird in sms) "absolutely not!! it's e-commerce"- Came the reply. So I fixed up a meeting on "Sunday". It was in an apartment and as soon as I entered, I was greeted warmly by Rajesh and one other guy called Mukund from Aztec. Those two overly friendly people took me inside and with a pen and paper described the whole process. It didn't take me long to realize that it was freaking "AMWAY" meeting. I was cornered and before I could make an escape, the "meeting" started. Most of the people over there were Software Engineers. The meeting were addressed by plethora of software engineers who were Gold, Platinum (All strange terminology to describe the level of deception they are good at..)
The speakers were very funny and er.. "motivating". One of them said
" Whenever someone says they don't want to join this excellent scheme, I just tell them one sentence: 'Happy working for next 40 years.. because I'm retiring at 30 viz. like 4 years from now"..
This kind of constant bragging continued for next one and half hours with different S/W engineers telling how "AMWAY" has transformed their lives. How the salary that they earn directly goes into saving and they don't even "touch" that money and are still affording this amazing lifestyle..
Finally the trauma ended and I escaped but not without a motivational CD and promise from Rajesh on him getting me down-lines to work on.

What is the best way to lose a friend?? I mean, how to make people repellent to you?
Being a rude guy or being a total "A******"??? Naah! you'll still have friends. No matter how insufferable you are, you'll still find friends who'd be equally insufferable as you.
So it doesn't work.
The answer: Join AMWAY.
You start by calling your close friends home or go to their house and explain the "Business Opportunity".. Convince them into becoming your apprentice by showing them the imaginary riches and money they'll earn though "Royalty".. Organizations like V.H.P a.k.a Vishwa Hatred Parishad and Bajrang Dal should look into this kinda forced conversion than going after the minorities. Before you realize, your friends are suddenly too busy or not picking up calls (* these are the smart ones).
But, do not be disillusioned, there are plenty of dimwits out there too who'd attend the "meetings" (Sorry for the over- abuse of quotations throughout the blog.. I am not able to "resist" it)..
You'll spend your weekends at meetings and conventions(*A convention is held in a big auditorium and consists of speeches from even more "Successful" people termed as "Diamonds", "Silver" etc.).. what a better way to spend your weekend other than getting drunk or spending time with friends and family. You spend more and more money buying motivational tapes and books and get sucked into this system. In some time you become so addicted to the system that you'd not feel any remorse converting people for your own benefit.
Your house is gonna be filled with AMWAY soaps, detergents which costs triple the amount that you'd spent if you'd bought it from the local general store. Anyone coming to your house by mistake will be getting gyan on how good these products are.. And yep "Protein Powders" and "Vitamins" which AMWAY guys will convince you to take as supplement since your body requires it so much. Soon you'll have superhuman strength and you'll be able to uproot trees with a single effort (supposedly).

Once you learn not to underestimate the stupidity of the humanity, you'd become a "diamond" and earn a lot of money without doing anything. Isn't that we all want???

(For further reference: Click here )

Call me Charlie!

Mobile or mo-beel" is a Leash or locating device which allows people to keep a track on you. Staying out of touch is virtually impossible.. If your phone is on, they'll be able to reach you.. If it is switched off or unreachable, they'll WONDER why they are not able to reach you..
Say You are on a secret date and that's when the real girlfriend calls you up to find out where you are.. If you don't pick up, it's the usual volley of messages and if you do, you gotta be really discreet to ensure she doesn't suspect a thing..
Another irritating feature of mobile is it's morbid ability make me have awkward and boring conversations with people I generally don't even care about.

However, you can't live without it either..

Think about emergencies like a failing date (When suddenly your roommate or relative has a medical emergency-- Usually employed by ladies to make a quick escape) or canceling plans when you realize the blind date is not exactly the Aishwarya Rai you imagined her to be, after seeing her from a distance...

Here are some of the things I hate about Mobiles:

SMS: Why do people send SMS when they can actually call? I've not been able to fathom the reasons till now... Is it the cost? Probably so but I think the main reason is because they want the other person to call up first. So the chain of messaging continues till one of them gives up and calls.. Mostly it's me.
Point: Repeated converstations by sms costs the same as it would if were to call..
What about the time wasted typing a encrypted messages with all kind of shorthand manoevers.. Hy wasup. hw u dng? OR hey wht da scne fr tngt? Its really irritating and time consuming trying to understand it.. People who are too lazy to type should be banned from Texting.


I have several friends (I use this term rather vaguely) who have this habit of messaging, whenever the conversation may include something controversial, or unpleasant . You see, there's this certain chick who owes me a some money say around a 1000 bucks.. No big deal.. Well the point is that she avoids real life contact at all costs... Not picking up calls and coming up with some great excuses every time i call up.. Yes! in messages.. So well, She must spend 10 minutes typing stuff that can be said in say 30 seconds.. Well, what better way to stay more detached and avoid any sort of confrontation whatsoever.. Well, there are many who wouldn't pick calls to avoid saying no.. Duh! a simple NO would be much better than coming up with all those excuses.. I can save time and money by just stop talking to you.
Also worst part of it all: Sarcasm doesn't transition well when messaging.
So people just call me, don't message. It costs me a lot sending you messages back since I have just 100 msgs free and I need to save them to harass my ex-gfs with messages..

Standing in a movie queue, a nice hot chick look at me and says: Hey lets watch this movie together
Me:uhh.. u talking to me?
She: Oh! come on we can go back to my place afterwards..
Me: Ahha..
She: Ok I need to hang up, some despo is staring at me.

Hands Free: Nowadays everyone seem to be talking to themselves. You can't really tell a person on a hands-free from a psycho talking to himself or someone else. So, I prefer staying away from anyone having any kind of gadgets on ears.. hearing aid?? No I don't think so.. It's some evil device u got there..

When SMS is such a problem, think about MMS when it catches up in India.
Scenario:
Husband bored at office thinks of biryani and messages his wife a picture of biryani.
Wife is busy cheating on Husband at home. So she sends him the picture of genitals of her boyfriend to tell him that she's not interested to make anything.. She's busy.
Husband sees the picture and thinks that she wants to get all naughty in the night.. I look pretty bigger than I thought in pictures.. Nice..

Additional services like PTT(I don't know what it is for yet), GPRS or video call are just a wastage since I don't know anyone who uses it. I mean hell, I don't even know anyone who actually use Web cam when they chat.. As far as I know, It's only used by underage girls trying to give a hard-on to their internet boyfriends..

Back to topic again, Camera on cellphone is the only useful feature so far they've come up with. You can take all those candid picture and videos you thought you'd never take. Remember the whole DPS thingy?? Would we get to see such things if it wasn't for the camera on cellphones. Take a video of you cheating on your girlfriend and keep it until after you break up.. Then, send it over to her to show how fast you got over her...
Now that i-phone is out, there's a huge gung-ho over it. What's the point of owning such a phone when all you are gonna do with it is to message! I'm not gonna buy it because I want to make a statement here.. Naah! not really, it's too costly you see!