Ek ladka ek ladki.....

...is no movie just a story :)

A couple of months back we had our boss and the boss's boss come visit us from 'Phoren'. My direct boss is a beautiful, tall chinese lady and her boss is a handsome young chap. We interact with both directly and hence we were glad to meet and put a face to the many mails & calls we have. It was one happening week when they were around with meetings and presentations and outlining other 10 things to do and words like roadmap, growth path, walkthroughs, entities, project plans, WSRs, WTSes, TWSes formed most conversations. All that is fine.

The thing I wanted to blog about was the way a lot of people(read guys) sneer wicked jokes at such business visits when there is a girl and a guy involved. You know what they mean when they say 'should be a good tour for thoes 2' and smile, what creative imagination could be screening in their heads and will joke about it at the next available opportunity. Unfortunately, these kind of jokes irritate me no end. It also ends up with me giving them a little piece of my mind. Maybe I would not have been so offended if I were not in such a situation a couple of years back.

A couple of years back, I was in Korea for 3-4 weeks. I was there to train a certain group on a product and there was also an another colleague(read guy), a good friend of mine to set up their servers and stuff like that. You would be lucky if you could find a English speaking guy in Korea around you. We had a tough time telling the people at the reception of the hotel that my colleagues phone was dead. We were making a good scene at the reception with lots of action with dialogues in English & Hindi too to take the steam off the frustration we were feeling. The 2-3 Weekends I spent there, we did visit a couple of places including the Disney theme park but made sure we never lost sight of each other. We also cooked together, rather it was me cooking whatever little I knew then, and he was busy chatting with colleagues across the globe awake at that hour about what he thought I was doing and making me popular for my cooking expertise. I was taking a few online classes from them as well on what do I do with a rice cooker, which had everything written around it in Korean and the manual as well was in Korean. There was not a question about asking anyone in the hotel for help so we were chatting with colleagues who had used rice cooker to tell us what could the possible options be. In office, when I asked a female colleague for where to get something to drink, she showed me the restroom (that was helpful anyway, since I wouldn't know how to ask for that). To cut the long story short, it was difficult times. We had a few things written down for us by a gentleman in office who knew English that we would need to take a taxi and mention our hotel, water, to ask for veg food at a food joint ...a few basics. So with all that hefty details you can make out that we would dare not loose each other on a street or even in office.

I could sense the sneer looks and suspicious smiles in the office that they were wearing towards the end of my trip. Made me very uncomfortable to be judged so unreasonably. After all I am a Bharatiya nari with the culture-vulture thing. I was only glad to fly out as soon as I was done.

When we are in a group, no one has their brains working overtime but the moment you have 2 people of the opposite sex in a new place, people just love to indulge themselves with assumptions for pure cheap fun. This is not just Indian men its just about men.

Note: To train them was easy since it didn't really matter what I said, I ended up spending hours creating snapshots and wrting down in as few simple words as possible 'all' I intended to say.

It's Corporate Culture...

....to wear your badge from the time you enter to the time you leave office. Somehow, I have never made my peace with this ritual till date. I can never wear my badge. I carry it in my bag, my purse, in my pocket or worse, in my hand but can never wear it. Everyday, while at the office gate, I open my bag and go hunting....while a sea of people will pass me through. P drops me off, drives to office, parks, reaches his desk, calls me and 9 times of 10 my reply would be "Just reached". After one such occassion he asked me

"So what exactly is your problem with just wearing the badge and getting through with the daily drama at the gate"

"Oh..It feels like someone is invading my privacy by looking at my name, I feel I should protect my identity."

"Protect from whom??

"from Strangers"

"What strangers?? for God's sake!! you have a blog by your name, you have snaps uploaded, you write in detail about your life with numbers and names, you comment all around, get trackbacked and that is not a problem? Your workplace of all is the most dangerous place to flash you name."

"Hmm.... thinking about it... the point is I dont want people I am looking in the eye as strangers to see my name but have no issues with strangers visiting my blog, seeing my pics or reading what I write ..... you see my point? "

"Freaking, NOOO"

:) Hmm .. I see your point.

Holkar Bridge

The Holkar Bridge in Pune is atleast 150 years old. It is built over the mula river. I pass this bridge to & from work everyday. You will invariably get into a traffic jam during peak hours around this place. The alternate route to this bridge is to travel around the city. This little bridge has side pavements & railings on either side. Other than the normal 2-wheelers & 4-wheelers, all kinds of heavy weight vehicles including buses, trucks, and military vehicles use the Holkar Bridge mercilessly. Most 2-wheelers use the side pavement and that truly in effect have turned out to be the fastest lane.

Yesterday while returning from work, in my 4-wheeler, at the onset of the bridge, I noticed the traffic to be moving at snail speed on the fastest lane. While I was wondering if we were getting into a traffic jam ahead, I saw a pretty young lady walking on the pavement and the 2-wheelers trying to keep their balance on the narrow pavement behind her. It is a dicey feeling to drive over that pavement because in all probability, the railings are also 150 yrs old and with the least help might find ourselves in the river below. Don’t worry, even if it is so, the river right now has enough water to cushion the fall so you might not break a bone or two just that you will emerge with dried flowers, plastic covers (from the flood last year) & algae all over, looking like a pretty little Christmas tree but smelling like shit. Everyone on the road were throwing her looks as if she was the sole reason for all the traffic jams in the history of Holkar bridge and only after she steps down from this pavement can they begin any improvement work and they have been waiting for it for the past 100 years. She realized the awkwardness and jumped on to the road. Now to say of the road, the extreme right & left sides of this lane is occupied by the 2-wheelers and also the gaps in between the bumpers of 4-wheelers. The precision & unsaid discipline is such that an ariel view would probably suggest VVIP vehicles moving. As soon as the confused lady jumped on to the road, the extreme left lane of motorist was all disturbed and started honking. Suddenly she started running, not knowing what to do next. I couldn't help but laugh at the sudden turn of events. So much for the rights of pedestrians & use of pavements.

The Holkar Bridge is under the cantonment administration & that is often used as the excuse for the bad maintenance of the bridge. Our finance minister Mr. P. Chidambaram, last year during his visit to the city is also quoted to have asked

"Which defence authorities' clearance is awaited? It is not the Russian defence authority. It's is our defence ministry."

Do we expect any changes this year?? Will keep you posted. Meanwhile "Long Live Holkar Bridge"(only then I will survive....yeah yeah selfish selfish me)

You know they are married

when ...

1) Walking togather but looking in different directions.
2) Having a quiet lunch.
3) The phone conversations are short. "OK", "No", "Fine", "You?", "5:30" "see you" and sometimes "love you"
4) Neither smiles when they approach each other
5) Seem to be arguing in a low-calm tone
6) The guy driving is not trying to amuse the lady sitting next to him (however pretty)
7) You hear the guy exclaim "OMG!!you spend way too much".
8) You hear the lady say "please go to the barbar today".
9) Too many talks about finances and how the other got to save.

Take these hints and try to spot the blissful couples when you are out. You might ask, why in the world would I want to that now?? Now dont tell me you dont play games on the street with yourself, Spot "the chinese girl with the black guy" and there you go, all turning their heads franctically trying to locate the couple.

Antics of the MEN species

After lunch, I along with atleast another 15 are waiting at the lobby on the ground floor for the elevator. A pretty face walks in wearing a Jeans, kurti and a shawl wrapped around her neck. Needless to say she has everyones attention. Other than just 3 of us, the remaining is this interesting species called MEN or GUYS. Every head turns her way every second under the pretext of looking for someone in the crowd, or carefully checking the security(is he bin laden) or checking on their shoes and then stealing a glance her way or appreciating the architecture of the otherwise opaque glass seperator at the rear end or just plain exercising their head in rounds, as if that is their daily routine.
Now there is this guy who walks in and seemed to have known her and started talking to her. Now all eyes are fixed on this guy with an unique expression on every face, if to be read would be the likes of, who the hell is he, how does he know her, is he her boyfriend, Will he ?? and the kind of things the male species are capable of thinking. The elevator arrives and opens. While these 2 are engaged in their talks, the lift is full with the 3 of us plus the hopeful hearts. Now suddenly just as the doors of the elevator are closing, the girl turns towards us and exclaims "oh!!!". Suddenly one of these species hits the open button and the rest of the species squeeze around to make enough space for the pretty face. But thankfully(thankful because I am already on my toes), pretty face smiles and nods her head in the negative. The elevator closes and the losers look at the guy who hit the 'Open' with the expression "What a looser".

Should I click protect?

For the ones who couldnt read that

"This option can prevent computer viruses from harming your computer or personal data, but selecting it might cause the program to function improperly"

This was while trying to use "Run As.." for Lotus Notes.

Please watch your "Ask"

After Google tried to protect its brand by trying to crack down on the use of its name as a generic verb, in phrases such as "I am googling.", Ask was being asked a lot of questions regarding their trademark and if people could "Ask" at all and here is what they came up with

The "Rules" (loose as they may be)

* "Ask" does not mean "ask." Ask means "Web search" and "search tools" and "smart" and "up-and-coming-growing-market-share-but-still-relatively-small-why-not-check-it-out."

* You may ask Yahoo and ask Google.

* You may not "Ask" on Ask Yahoo or Yahoo Answers, though you may "ask."

* You may ask Ask, but you may also search with Ask. A full question like "How old is Madonna?" will bring her age directly on the results page, and a keyword search for "Madonna photos" will work just fine.

* Regardless of gender, you may, of course Ask Directions, for example. You can also Ask Blogs and Feeds and other stuff.

Read the full post here

The number you have dialled...

My 8 year old nephew, yesterday night, wanted to call his dad. I was in the drawing room doing something.I see him dialing the number after reading out aloud judiciously. After a few trials

N:You shut up yeh correct hai(bangs the phone)
dials again
N:You idiot, give the phone to appa and dont eat my head ( bangs again)
dials again
N:Maine tujhe bola na, mera sar mat kha, ek lafa maroonga.

Since the STD at home is locked, he would be hearing the lady say "The number you have dialled is wrong, Please check the number and dial again...Tumhi dial kelela number chukez ahain etc etc".

The art of EmailId creation

Disclaimer: Any names, emailids mentioned below are fictional and the
resemblence is mere coincidence ;)

Off late with some considerable amount of time on hand, when I get forwards
that offers nothing new in them and in most probablitlity its the same fwd
I got in 2002, 2004-jun, 2004-dec, 2005...and now again, so these days,
time is spent reading emailids than the fwds themselves, i.e, to who all is this mail fwded to ...then keep searching for familiar names, long lost friends etc etc. Then shoot a mail to one of those long lost ones and tell them long stories about how I rang them umpteen times and never got a response ...you never pick up....oh how
mean of you ...oh is 98324324 not your number? ... thatz not even 9
digits...oh sorry .....and so on.


While this is on, I started reflecting on the art of email creation on
various sites which was evident in the mailids present on the fwd list.
Most times the best emailids like your fullname, name_surname are all taken
and the suggestions they give you are with some random number looks even
more pathetic. I believe ...

According to me, the most boring people create email ids using their first & last names like e.g sunitathomas, komala_priya_krish_anand_viswanathan(I
dont know if that length is possible)

Some geeks who play the 'I am not plain jane' try NOT to give away everything but still maintain the identity hidden like and_math(something to do with and gates & maths) or ro_jo(the one who cries) from which its very difficult to know what exactly is the name.

The creative group gets their kick by adding adjectives, verbs,birth dates
to their names like lazyjames, sexysam, smirkykap, amitatwork, rysaindian, nyve1214 or aminuk or imfun or blackrioruzy or even the self-imposing iamurfriend@xyz.com. Therez also the ones which can make a conversation difficult like

A: I will write to you, Your email id?
B: mailarvind@xyz.com
A: ok, got it, arvind@xyz.com right?
B: No, mailarvind@xyz.com
A: yeah yeah I will mail you

or
A: That was fun, how about I mail you next time
B: sure, writetome@abc.com
A: ok, abc? what site is that?anyway, ur email id?
B: writetome
A: yeah but your id
B: writetome
A: you mean snail mail?
B: who snail?
and so on


Then there is the 'I am single, ready to mingle' groups, the ones who do not want to give away anything in their emailid, generally used for bride/groom search or for chatroom searches, some samples of these could be bridesearch, f22delhi,
catchmeifyoucan and I am sure there are more entertaining ones as well

There is also the lovey-dovey emailids, the Iandmy wife or Iandmyhubby email-ids. A couple of years back, ok maybe a decade back(pretty old now..cough..cough) I also thought it was very cute but not any more. Recently I happened to see a mail from one of my ex-boses as "Sunil & Priya" where the email id still is sunil@xyz.com. This Sunil & Priya should be in their early 50's if not late and now I know there are quite of few of you who while reading this are thinking,oh, how chweeeeeeeet and are already dreaming about you having an emailid with your spouse's name as if thatz an exotic get-away in the maldives. At the risk of sounding unromanctic & insensitive, I see a few good reason why people have these ids, One (totally beaten), Guys, my spouse knows my password, Secondly, yelling out aloud, guys this is accessible to my spouse so pls dont send prohibitable content here and the day the password has been changed go change your name back to "SunilOnly" or create a new mailid and send it around.

This could be taken to a new level and make your email ids your name
plates, write to Mr&MrsSinha@xyz.com or take it an another step further
Mr&MrsSinha@2sukhwanicamppune.com ..uh so should i snail mail or email or
throw mail

Would be very unkind if I dont mention the "you half and half me" here.
They are they ones who will cut names of spouses & self into halves and put them togather. Now, this concept was totally driven by the malayalis of Kerala where they name their child in that manner pitilessly.A classic example would be of a girl named shitty bcoz her mom was shija and dad Itty(yeah, thatz a christian name) and obviously they didnt know what shitty meant too.

All said and done, in my opinion your emailid gives a sneak preview into your personality.

Do you have a good snap??

Can you guess whoz this cute lady? Though there is lots to say about the lady in the snap but thatz not my reason for the blog. Its the snap.


Falstaff writes here:
"In all the fanfare about her achievement and the lessons we can learn from it, everyone, it seems to me, is overlooking a key variable. The ability to have good passport photographs taken. No seriously. Go look at that picture again. Notice the neat hair, the eyes open and intelligent looking, the natural smile, the ever so slight tilt of the head. Do you or anyone you know have a picture from your past where you look even half as human?"


Its "The Tilt of the head" that interested me. Photogenic is just Aishwarya and handful of people and the remaining like me always try their luck with tilted heads and crooked smiles with great backgrounds but never quite make it. As the above blogger says I dont have half a decent photograph of me but I do attempt at it regularly whenever I have to click one and the tilt happens naturally to me. "Smile please" and I will go ..tak ....10-20deg tilt and smile...click. So in most of my snaps except for the visa snaps (where they keep telling you ...thoda idhar...thoda aur...) I have a tilted head .... Thinking about it I have no idea why I tilt my head probably to get a sympathetic look but then thatz not why I am posing for a photograph, or then probably ....(blanks). I have no idea why I do it except for I do it every time someone tells me to say "cheese". So as evidence, my snap on the blog, TILTED.


Here is an another snap of us friends. You cannot see a single face clearly but due to different attributes you can always makeout who each one is. Now there are 2 of us tilted to glory and I know who the other one is, competing with my tilted head.


And if you havent guessed already, the cute lady above with the right tilt and close-up smile is Indra Nooyi.

You thought only you had Arguments

OK, so I havent written anything but I have found yet another interesting link. Now this one is pretty huge and you might loose interest bcoz of the sheer length of it. How can I be sure? .... thatz bcoz inspite of being absolute jobless, I still couldnt read through all of it..... :( .... so I am copying and pasting a few excerpts here from http://www.thingsmygirlfriendandihavearguedabout.com/

One

It's getting worse. I've mentioned this, in passing, before, but it's getting worse. We were watching Hannibal on DVD the other week, and Margret was sitting beside me, looking at the screen, right from the moment I hit 'play'. This, incidentally, is because before we watch any DVD or video we have this ritual.
Mil - 'Are you ready?'
Margret - 'Yes.'
Mil - 'No you're not, you're clearly not. Sit down here.'
Margret - 'I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm just cutting out this magazine article and putting the kids toys away in an order based on the psychological warmth of their respective colours and making a cup of tea and wondering if we should move that mirror six inches to the left, but I'm ready - go ahead, start the film.'
Mil - 'No. I'll start the film when you're sitting here. If I start the film now, you'll sit down in three minutes time and say, "What's happened?" and I'll have to do that thing with my mouth. Not going to happen. You sit here right from the beginning.'
[Margret makes an injured pantomime of dragging herself over to the sofa and sitting down beside me.]
Mil - 'Thank you.'
[I press 'play'. The FBI copyright warning comes up and, knowing full well it won't work, I repeatedly try to fast forward through it for the annoying amount of time - precisely long enough for me to fully hate the FBI and the entire motion picture industry - it takes to fade. A logo swirls around the screen. Darkness. A single, threatening, bass note rumbles low. Swelling in volume as the first image seeps into life.]
Margret - 'I've just remembered, I need to phone Jo.'
Mil - 'Arrrrggghhheeeiiiiiieeeeerrrrgghhhhhhhhgkkkkk-kkk-kk-k!'
Margret - 'I only need to ask if she has a text book - carry on.'
Mil - 'No. Make the phone call. I'll wait.'
[Three hours later. Margret returns; I am still on the sofa, remote control poised in my hand, but now visibly older and covered in a light film of dust.]
Margret - 'OK, done.'
Mil - 'Right.'
[I wind back four or five seconds to have the moody intro again, Margret complains we've already seen this bit and - as it's getting late now - there's no need. I reply it's important for setting the mood, she thinks it's a stupid thing to do, the exchange degenerates into a twenty minute row about foreplay, and then we finally begin to watch the film.]
So, that's what happens, every time, and thus on this occasion as with all others, Margret has been sitting beside me since the very beginning of the film. Which, casting your mind back, you'll recall is Hannibal.
Titles. Silence. A face appears.
Margret - 'Who's that?'
Getting worse. I was watching the Davis Cup on TV and, as the players are sitting down for a of change ends, the camera idly pans round the crowd, pausing on a woman eating an ice cream. Margret says?... Louder - I can't hear you... Yes, yes she does.
I'm here to make an appeal for the population of the Earth to wear name tags at all times, three tags if you're an actor: your character's name, your real name and a list of things you've been in before. Please, do it. They only cost a few pence - please don't make me beg.

Two

Have you seen 'Good Will Hunting'? Of course you have. I was watching it with Margret the other day and she squeezed my arm and said, 'That's how I'd like you to look.'
'Ahhh,' you're all sitting there saying, 'But Mil, you're already practically Ben Affleck's double.' True enough. But Margret was talking about Robin Williams. Aged 45. With a beard. Kill me.

Three

Romance Masterclass.
It's Wednesday the 12th of February. It's early evening. Margret and I are sitting in the living room. Margret has asked me to do something the following day.
Mil: 'I can't, I'm afraid. I'm going into town.'
Margret: 'Why? What do you need to go to town for?'
Mil: 'Oh, I have to get some stuff.'
Margret: 'What stuff?'
Mil: 'Just some stuff... things.'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'Various things.'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'What does it matter?'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'It's not important what specific things, is it? I have to get things or I wouldn't be cycling into town, would I? All that's relevant here is that I have to go, not the details of the individual items I need to get - there's no point wasting time giving you a big list, when the only significant point is that I need to go to town.'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'Oh, for Christ's sake... Pizzas. I need to buy some pizzas, OK?'
Margret: 'We've got pizzas.'
Mil: 'We've got a pizza.'
Margret: 'So? How many do you need?'
Mil: 'Several. I want to have several in the fridge.'
Margret: 'Why?'
Mil: 'So that we have a stock of them.'
Margret: 'Why?'
Mil: 'So that we don't run out, obviously.'
Margret: 'What would happen if we ran out?'
Mil: 'I'd have to go to town.'
This flings itself out of my mouth while my higher brain is still racing along behind it frantically waving its arms and shouting, 'Wait! Wait!'
Margret responds with just the tiniest movement of her eyebrows. Absolutely minuscule. Sufficient in size, however, to make me wonder if I could get a UN resolution to have her bombed.
Mil: 'I have to get other things too.'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'What the bloody hell does it matter? Why can't I go to town if I want to, for God's sake?'
Margret: 'Why are you being secretive? What are you up to?'
Mil: 'I'm not up to anything.'
Margret: 'Yes you are.'
Mil: 'Like what?'
Margret: 'I don't know.'
Mil: 'Because there isn't anything.'
Margret: 'Yes there is - I can tell.'
Mil: 'There isn't.'
Margret: 'You bloody liar.'
Mil: 'You bloody mad woman.'
Margret: 'Tell me.'
Mil: 'Stop talking now.'
Margret: 'Tell me.'
Mil: 'I...'
Margret: 'Tell me.'
I think we've both risen to our feet by this point (it allows for better voice projection).
Mil: 'OK! OK! You want to know why I need to go up town, you relentless harridan?!'
Margret: ''Yes! You lying swine!'
Mil: 'So I can get your Valentine's Day card! So I can get your bloody Valentine's Day card and post it to here - so it'll arrive as a nice surprise through the post!'
A tiny flicker. It's the merest stutter of hesitation, though, then she's back on track before the beat is really lost.
Margret: 'You don't need to get me a bloody Valentine's Day card!'
(I can't imagine what makes her think she's going to get away with this move - she must be getting old.)
Mil: 'Too bad! Because I'm getting you a Valentine's Day card! And I'm posting it to you! Tomorrow! When I go to town!'
Margret: 'THERE'S NO BLOODY NEED!'
Mil: 'WELL IT'S GOING TO BLOODY HAPPEN - GET USED TO IT!'
And, indeed, I do go to town, buy her a card, and post it. Inside I write, 'Surprise!' She gets it on Valentine's Day and says, 'Thank you,' to me, through gritted teeth. (She gets me one too, by the way - it reads, "I'm not interested in a nice, normal relationship... I like ours better.")
Odysseus and Penelope? Pah - lightweights.

Reality Shows & Communist State(s)

Was it on Saturday or Sunday, I am not very sure, when the "Sa re ga ma" challenge 2005 finals were shown on TV. The winner was to be decided by an audience poll via SMSes. Just going by the participants, according to me, Vineet stood a greater chance .... u ask me to reason ... ok
1) Sings very well (big deal ...even debojit does)
2) Young chap
3) Unmarried
4) Cuter than Debojit
5) Better Style
6) And was falling at any feet visible with 2 kms (kitna sanskari hai)

I am not very sure how, but I did manage to see a couple of the earlier episodes too and sure didnt miss the Vineet & Debojit posters and fan fare. If you ask me, the real winners were the telecom companies who minted huge money on every SMS. They also do announce how many votes they received from each zone(north, south, east & west). Now given that Vineet was from UP and Debojit from Calcutta, votes for each, from each zone was announced and ofcourse zonal loyalism shouldnt be suspected & was very obvious.

During the finals, when they announced the votes from each zone, these were the figures on an approximation

Total votes - 5 cr somthing
east zone - almost 3cr
north zone - 1 point something cr
south zone - 21 lakhs
west zone - do your maths now

Now, if you look at the sheer maths & madness of the votes, you would realize east zone alone contributed to the babu moshai's narrow win, the rest of india werent a lot interested other than ofcourse the north zone who tried to be interested. Southies did try to participant but alas since the songs were in Hindi, it wasnt helping them decide.

There is something about communist states like W.Bengal & Kerala when it comes to 'their' people. Years of reading & watching communism, it runs thru their veins instead of blood or toddy. They will always try to divide people into 2, our people and the rest like for e.g, the employers & the employees or the landlords and the slaves and its always the sauve sounding community thatz actually dominating, like the employees or the slaves or the "our people". The passion with which each issue is dealt surpasses all.
The recent most famous being, the Saurav Ganguly case, though a disgraceful exit but many like me thought it really was high time. But who cares about the likes of me .... The Bongs took to the streets, harrased people at large VIA the media, took dalmiya to task, provoked sharad pawar to make weird statements & booed the Indian team at Eden Gardens and provoked the famous Greg Chappell's injured finger and thus proved their loyality to "Saurav".
You can see the Asianet TV News Reader(mallu channel) go, "2000 were killed in a stampede in Mecca and there was 1 mallu" and then the whole focus shifts to the family, neighbours and relatives of the ONE unfortunate Mallu. None other matter, the very least the count of Indians.

I think, the Bongs & Mallus, if you leave these cults alone, they would manage to destroy themselves without any outer intervension in the due-course-of-time due to ofcourse high population, high literacy level(lethal combination) & politics. But the moment a bong or a mallu is targeted by others, the entire cult turns against them. So that answers babu-moshai's win over the poor bihari.

Moral of the story:

Never get the audience involved when you want an unbiased opinion :) and the least when a bong or a mallu is involved.

Calvin & Hobbes

One of my favourites. Here are a few comic strips. Click on the strips for better visibility unless you are doing some ind of a Eye Test here.

1) Paragon of Virtue


2) Lets settle this!!


3) Christmas Tree


Will upload more soon :).

Mails & Style

While I hear a lot about formal mail communication, the do's and dont's and how's and why's, is there a style of informal or casual or friendly mails. Guess you should hear the person when you read the mail.
I still have the letter writing book dad bought some 20-25 yrs back when he had to write official letters. I guess he used to write a lot of them bcoz his mails to me would look like this

Dear daughter Sunita,

I hope this letter meets you in good health. We received a call from your office regarding your tax deduction. I have made the following investments for the same
1) LIC - 10000
2) NIC - 30000
Do call home on saturday. Your Mummy is waiting for your call.

Your's Lovingly
Daddy

I have read and re-read this mail n times, everytime it makes me smile.I can imagine him dictating the letter to my sister and she typing obediently. Always to the point and with instructions to call home.The best being Dear daughter Sunita and Your's lovingly Daddy.

Herez an excerpt from a series of mails from one of my friends. Lets call him A. A is a levelheaded guy with a great sense of humour from Junagadh. He did carry a lot of Junagadh accent initially but ever since he married B and with mean friends like me around (who used to nag him for all he says in the typical junagadh style) and probably being in England has taken its toll on his ascent. But when A writes mails, I can actually feel, he talking to me in his style.


Mail1

Sunitaben,

naya mail id kaun bhejega ??

aur good news kya B ke liye hi tha ??
you didn't tell me anything...by the way ..are you my friend or B's !!!!
yeah meri biwi..uska toh koi accha friend nahi hai..toh meri hi friend churane pe lagi hai....


My reply to Mail1:

arre i write to you................ B will complain .... and then u will also complain ki B is complaining karke........
If I write to her ...... then also u complain
so if i write to her the complains are less u see so that works best :p

Mail2

ha toh..important news muje bolane ka..aur time pass baatein B ko bolane ka..

by the way we didn't know that you have joined XYZ..le yeah to dono main se kisiko pata nahi hai...aab bataao

meri life toh aur bakwas ho gayi hai...aaj kaal croydon ja raha hun..(project transition)
cambridge se london kings cross...
london kings cross se victoria
victoria se croydon....yeah total 3 trains..takes around 2.5 hrs including some sprinting to catch the trains...
aur NCS ka toh pata nahi kya hone wala hai..mera project manager MUNIM jaisa hai...claim ke waqt bahut pange karata hai...aaj hi argument ho gaya...(jaise mein to croydon meri sasural jaata hun....saala 4 pound ke liye bhi rota hai..kya mere jaisa aadami 4 pound ka lunch bhi nahi kar sakata)...
mera uske saath aisa sab chalta hi raheta hai...aur baad mein bolata hai...A tum garam ho jate ho.... :)

And all I have to say to 'A & the likes' is I enjoy reading your mails bcoz they make me smile :).
And Reshma no prizes for guessing who AB are :).

The Gods must be Laughing

18th July, 9:11am Mahima's sister made an entry into this world. And so did Biju & Rose's son at 2.51pm, their first born. It was fun to see everyone around and the glow and happiness radiating from the grandmom's and the grandpa's faces. So with that the count down of 4 is done :). All the kids are in perfect health and may god bless them all.
While in the maternity ward, we saw this chart which shows the different stages a child goes through in its mothers womb to become a fully grown baby in 36-40 weeks time and ready to face the world. Its amazing if you think about it. Its life thatz formed with such perfection, each one very unique but still similar in structure. Hands, legs, eyes, intestines , lungs, ears, mouth, nose and so many more that need to function in tandem. Thinking of it I think God must be having a good laugh over news like

"RoboSapien is a recreational robot.He has two speeds of walking, can easily handle 180 degree turns, and can kick, dance, kung fu amongst his 67 pre programmed functions. He can perform a programmed set of commands in any combination of moves you select."

"My Robot can lift 18kgs"

"SOnSO Robot can recognize 18 words and respond"


God with a grin "HA HA HA .... When will they stop boasting"