Have a Nice Day!

In a different place, with a different set of friends, I guess my non-academic bachelor days are back into action. That means so back are those leg pulling sessions which we used to have in the past. Every evening, from different corners of Bangalore South, we get together in one of those umpteen Malayalee restaurants in and around Koramangala for dinner. Fortunately as of now I am able to get out from my office at 6 pm itself primarily because these are my initial days in the office. So here is something which came out in one of those dinner sessions.

One of my friends, lets call him O, works for a bank in Bangalore. His main job is to sit idle most of the times a year, ogle ‘attractive’ customers, and then fire up his ass to meet the revenue targets end of the year. So according to O, its hell of a time when it nears March since March 31st is the end of a financial year. Meeting targets, if not approaching people like me and coax us to take loans from his bank, employing people having muscle-packed body to collect money from defaulters and what not. Even for a guy like me who has zero banking knowledge and who thinks the much hyped ‘core banking solution’ sums up to not more than inserting a card, catch the money thrown on your face by the ATM machine and clean your hands with the paper that pops out from the machine as if using a tissue paper, it all seems to be so very eventful.

To continue the story, lemme introduce one more friend of mine to you. Let’s call him J. So one fine morning, close to 12 pm, when J reached his office, squeezing his bike through the Bangalore traffic, fully worn-out and marginally escaped from Lucifer’s hand at times, and opened his mailbox, he saw a forward from O. Since the subject of the mail was ‘Have a Nice Day’ J didn’t think twice before opening it. That was where it all started.

The first slide of the presentation was really interesting. Well, if a beautiful girl with a much more beautiful smile holding a bouquet in her hand wished you good day then even if it’s a photo, no man could say that it wasn’t interesting. J wasn’t an exception either. And he fell for the trap.

The twist happened in the next slide. It said that you would become lucky and would get all the material pleasures you wanted if you take a loan from the bank where O worked!

The third slide was even worse. It said “If you don’t wheedle five people to take loans from the aforementioned bank within two days then you will get injured in an accident with in the next five days!”

These followed in the subsequent slides.

“If you don’t cajole five people with in the next three days then you will die after falling from the terrace in the next six days!”

“If you discard this mail and don’t forward it to 10 people then you will lose 1 lakh from your bank account. Or else you will be raided by the income tax department!”

Heard that from the next day onwards there were long queues in front of O’s bank! He got a promotion this year for exceeding the targets! And J is paying EMIs of two loans!

PS: Purely a work of fiction.

Tommy – I, II, III

If you misunderstood the title of this post to be the hierarchy of medieval monarchs from the 14th century who ruled their kingdom to glory and subsequently to debacle, then let me tell you, you have got it wrong. Tommy is the name of the dogs we had over the years and since we were too lazy to find new names for the successors of Tommy the First, we christened each of the dogs we had henceforth as Tommy itself. Well I was a history freak that time and since I didn’t want to give the names of mighty European/Asian emperors such as Kaiser, Caesar, Tippu etc. anymore to such silly (forgive me SPCA guys, mere pun intended when I call dogs silly) creatures as dogs, I thought that let Tommy alone handle the entire twinge. So there were three Tommy’s we had till date.

Tommy the First
He was the one who started the great Tommy Empire in my house. He was brought home when I was in second standard, as a puny little creature that perfectly fitted in my father’s palm. A true torch-bearer of his genre, Tommy the first used to assault me and my brother whenever we tried to pull his tail or knock his head or take away his meals. We used to find rescue by clambering up the window grill or climbing the shrubs outside our house or sometimes going near the tap and opening it to full throttle in less than 2 seconds. Tommy feared water. Whenever he was given a wash, he shrinks beyond imagination, difficult even to see, that we felt ourselves humiliated thinking that we ran for our lives panicked by this skinny skeletal figure.

My quest towards knowledge wouldn’t have materialized if it wasn’t for Tommy. I learned simple harmonic motion when I dangled a bread piece to a stick using a twine and swayed it in front of him. His head followed the same simple harmonic motion. I varied the length of the string and noticed the change of pace in Tommy’s head movements. Once I made an arrangement of a battery and a LED bulb and went near Tommy. I placed the two wires on Tommy’s cheeks and with a loud scream, turned the LED ON and right after that I heard the first ever cry from Tommy. It took him three complete days to come out from that shock. Later whenever I show him my two hands pretending that two wires are there in my grip, I find Tommy becoming restive.

But he was a great dog. No one dared to enter our house when he was there. On his last day I saw him going out the gate, talking to another dog, coming back to his kennel and then drowning silently towards the depths of death. What he probably told the other dog was, “Friend, I am going, take care of my masters!”

Tommy the Second
He was a master tunnel maker. The dream project of interconnecting all the coconut-tree pits in our house by an underground passageway was accomplished by him. During rainy seasons, when the soil is wet and I and my family members, who have the least idea about these tunnels, walk over them, we sometimes succumb to these subways. We feel like soil has eroded from under our feet. And we collide into these tunnels. Thus we were able to relate ourselves with the emotions of an elephant when it falls in an elephant trap.

Tommy – II served the added responsibility of an usher. He used to lead me and my family members when ever we go outside the house. It was on one such mission that Tommy surrendered himself to the front wheel of a truck.

Tommy the Third
He was a traveler par excellence. There is not even a single village in Southern India that he hasn’t paid a visit to. He disappears on one fine day and come back after a week or so with travel sores and bruises throughout his body. He was the kind of dog whom you call ‘here’ and he manipulates the word ‘here’ and prefixes a ‘t’ in front of the word ‘here’ and act accordingly. Yes, he had a strong command over the English language and literature. He was not as efficient as the other Tommys due to which the Tommy Empire came to an end at my house. He passed away suffering from the repercussions of one such journey, in which he was out-rightly battered.

We haven’t had a dog in our house after that. And we are planning to get one. Let me try for a new name this time. Since I changed to a corporate freak now, I won’t be giving it names such as Bill (Gates), Jack (Welsh) or even Henry (Ford) for that matter. So Kaiser, Caesar and Tippu; here I come...

On a Valentine's Day

“Dey, I’ve to do a small shopping. Are you coming with me?” When Shaks asked me this at 5 in the evening, I was just woken up from a not so small slumber which I started after my morning class at 8:45. With quasi closed eyes I was contemplating about the possibilities of starting a ‘non-Valentines’ day from this year onwards. Might be the aftermath of a dream I had in which I was riding on a black stallion with 14 red roses in my right hand and seven in my mouth, but not finding anyone to sell those. Yes! You read it correct. Sell it is! Actually in that dream I was a sales guy who sells red roses to valentines! Too much of a dream and I felt it as an insult on my conscious mind by my subconscious mind, which generates all such arbitrary dreams! And then I decided to start a ‘non-Valentines’ day. Don’t know why St. Valentine forgot about such a huge majority in his shore up for people who love each other. We, the majority were always there, but still.

Shaks and me left our dorms within half an hour and we reached the factory outlet in another 15 minutes. He did all the actual shopping and I engaged myself in checking whether the shop owner had applied all the retailing and layout principles taught in our retail management elective.

“Hmm... not up to the mark” I told to myself.

“What?” a lady who was busy selecting shirts near the shelf, shot up all of a sudden.

“I mean, the shelves are not up to the mark.” I replied and then with a sheepish grin moved on to where Shaks was standing.

He was trying to make a choice between two shades with the same checks and in between, haggling on the discount they were offering for that particular range. Anyways he didn’t take much time to arrive at a decision.

It was at that time that Shaks noticed the lady whom I just had an eye-fight.

“Dey, she is a TV actress. I have seen her many times on television.”

“You sure? I haven’t seen her anytime.”

“I’m sure yaar. Ok let’s go and ask her.”

“Hmm… wouldn’t that be too much?”

“You should always be proactive man.”

Next second I saw him near the lady, about to ask her something.

“Are you an actress? I have seen you on television. I am a great fan of yours!”

“What? No I don’t act. By the way, I have seen both of you at the institute. I am wife of Prof. R. P Bhatia.”

Had I got a camera that time, I would’ve taken a snap of Shaks' face. It would've definitely won popular photography awards due to the presence of the maximum number of expressions in one face at one time.

Incidentally Prof. Bhatia teaches us Retail Management.

confuseD oF solutionS

We have an internal electronic discussion board (DBabble) here. The following post and replies appeared in one of its Notice Boards yesterday. Thought that it would be worth sharing. Needless to say, one of the replies was mine. Up to you to find out which one was that. ;-p

Q. Might sound strange, but any solutions to stop red ants from attacking your keyboard?

A1. He he he.. wrong Notice Board!
A2. U should probably stop snacking in front of the keyboard.
    AA2. Me not snacking, they have a liking towards the rubber inside.
        AAA2. Spill food stuff all over your room, they will leave the keyboard.
A3. Take a red marker and highlight the following keys, <'D' 'E' 'A' 'D' 'E' 'N' 'D'> or <'F' 'U' 'C' 'K' 'Y' 'O' 'U'>
        AA3. Tried, but two problems. 1) Only one 'E'/'U' on my keyboard. 2) Ants were not able to read such large alphabets.
                AAA3. Look at the 'Insert', 'Home' keys. They have more alphabets and are small.
                AAA3. Or better mark the 'Windows' key.
A4. Draw a Lakshman Rekha around the keyboard or whatever is being attacked.
        AA4. Wow!!! Mythology and Technology going hand in hand!
                AAA4. Or ignorant technology geeks. Lakshman Rekha is a product to ward off ants.
A5. Attack them instead! Attack is the best defence.
A6. Use 'Ant'ibiotics.
A7. Contact the pest control people for fogging the keyboard.
A8. Get a lady Ant and place her somewhere away from the keyboard!
        AA8. How do I know whether the ant I got is a lady ant.
                AAA8. Watch where they go at nite; Get the ones that go to girls' dorms (hostel).
                        AAAA8. Those would be male ants!

neW yeaR @ railwaY platforM

“How about going to Juhu beach to celebrate the New Year?” The idea came from George. Well, since it came from him, who had a proven track record of coming up with ideas which end up in scrapes, we were kind of reluctant to show the green flag. New Year happens only once in a year and wise men say that a bad New Year will have its effect on the entire year, made us think about it a bit more before jumping in. This coupled with our pathetic situation on the work front with more number of night shifts and heavy work load all under the swathe of an emaciated wallet; didn’t allow us to take a risk. But George was so convincingly propounding that it would be a nice time and we would get a chance to see the real chicks of Mumbai and so and so; we finally decided to give it a try.

By 6 pm all of us were ready. Everyone was dressed up in classic macho man attires to drive in the attention of the fairer sex. We moved towards Juhu beach which was like one, one and a half hours journey from our place. En-route we managed to have a heavy dinner also. Once we reached the beach, our usual leg-pulling sessions started. The baton got circulated several times and each and everyone in the gang got a chance to experience it. We did that relentlessly; without neglecting the “crowd” around us.

Came midnight and the crowd cheered themselves to welcome the New Year. Someone started the countdown and everyone else repeated it in one voice. Who knows whether the timing was correct or not! The moment the count down ended, a cracker went up the sky and exploded into a beautiful sea of light. Then there were a foray of them; of different colors, in different shapes and sizes.

At about 12:30 we decided to return to our flat as the metro train service of Mumbai stops at 1 am. Now came another suggestion from George, which was about taking a promenade to the railway station? He said that it would be interesting to walk to the station on a New Year eve that too in the night, having “fun filled” talks. He also reminded that we had 30 more minutes to catch the last train. We wouldn’t have agreed to his words if not we had seen the group of girls who started walking in front of us. In such situations, you don’t need someone else to guide you and make such strategic decisions.

Well, the stroll was interesting and all but realities nibbled us and let us realize that the distance to the railway station was more than what we had expected and by the time we reached there, the last train had already left the station. Kurla railway station, 1:30 in the night, seemingly empty platform and a few beggars here and there and then there was our gang. A few police men were roaming around and luckily, despite us making such loud noises, they didn’t turn towards us. The conditions were ridiculous and we had to go to our office the next morning. But all we could do was to spend time at the station in one of those old wooden benches and wait for the morning train to come. And the wait started by giving bumps to George for coming up with such an awful idea. The bumps sessions continued periodically.

But yeah it was fun. To spend a night in a railway platform that too on a New Year, engage in insane talks that too in the late night and have the occasional bumps sessions. Next day in the office I was doing coding that someone clouted me on my back. It was my Project Leader. I was wondering why the hell he did that even though I was busy in coding. Later I realized that I was doing coding in my dream. Actually I was dozing on the chair due to my lack of sleep the previous night. Gosh! That night-out at the railway station...

musingS oF aN earthbounD guitaR

Jithu owns a guitar. But the poor guitar never felt that it was owned by someone. Like an illegitimate child of an anonymous mother, it dwelled at one of the darkest corners of Jithu’s room. It used to think about its siblings and wondered how well they would have been kept by their masters. For keeping a guitar in good condition, its master has to know at least a bit about music right; it consoled itself. Thus, with a broken heart, a broken string and a body dressed up in dust, it spent its days in dismay.

Three years ago, in one of the unknown locations of Mumbai, popularly known as Vashi aka New Bombay aka Navi Mumbai, the guitar was bought by a ‘magnetic individual’ called Jithu. They were three. Jithu, Pramod and Sabari. Despite having zero knowledge about music, they didn’t hesitate to aim high and start a musical band of their own. The destiny was clear and set. To give a competition to Metallica, Iron Maiden and the like and drive them out of business! They joined a music class and paid 2475 bucks each (after a one and a half hour long bargaining session which resulted in the reduction of the fees by 25 bucks!) as part of the fees for a six month course. They bought three different musical instruments. Well not exactly three; Jithu bought a guitar, Pramod an electric organ and Sabari, not able to afford a costly drum set, bought two drumsticks instead. They named themselves as 'Musician J. I. T. Hu', 'Musician P. R. A. Mod' and 'Musician S. A. Bari' (pronounced like Berry as in Hale Berry)

They were working for a well-known IT company in Mumbai. Well, the company always made it a point to let them off from the office only after 10 pm so that they won’t start a music session in their flat and become a nuisance to other flat owners. With an extremely rancorous mind, they joined a weekend class.

In the beginning the guitar loved its owner very much. Jithu took good care of it by caressing and cleaning it every other second he got. He never kept it down, even for a minute. He always played meaningless notes on the guitar. And the contented guitar sang for him. The guitar used to showboat in front of its siblings.

Good things don’t last forever. So did the guitar’s kismet. After four classes, the three of them concluded that the music teacher was not up to their level and decided to discontinue the class. Some people may say that it is due to their laziness or inability to learn music that they did that. But that is not true!

The guitar got ignored in the dusts of time. Whenever the house maid cleaned the floor and the guitar fell down in her endeavors she used to give an awkward grin to its master but never did she clean the guitar. When Jithu left the job, the guitar thought that its life will become better now and that it will be taken to his home. But that was just a dream and it remained so.

Jithu took the guitar with him to his new location. But for the guitar the only difference was that it got replenished by the Ahmedabad dust instead of the Mumbai dust. The Mumbai dust had at least got that metro status! Oh! Jithu just came to the room. And as usual he didn’t look at the guitar...

i hatE traffiC jamS

“Ameerpet, SR Nagar”

I yelled at the guy who was patiently standing near his rickshaw and helped myself in to its innards.

The three-wheeler set a relaxed start with a few noisy growls and crawled towards the main road. Through the side of a new-looking fly over, it reached the main road.

Life has been easy since I made a strategic alliance with Prabhat, my colleague, in terms of sharing of his flat, which eventually extended to the sharing of his bike. His house became a place to rest my head and his bike a place to rest my... Today unfortunately he was blessed with a client visit that I had to depend on this odd looking vehicle for my way home.

A lady in pinkish red top and light blue jeans rode past in a two-wheeler. Utilizing a single second stole from her cautious driving; she turned to let off a sympathetic look at the crawling rick and me who was sitting inside. Then she geared her bike ahead.

There has to be a traffic jam today, The Nostradamus in me woke up! (Actually, even he doesn't require any special power for this, considering the daily traffic jams at this hour of the day). Yes!! There it was! Eventually we three (me, the rick and the rick driver) became a part of the jam. Vehicles behind us started crying loudly as if the traffic jam doesn’t exist in front of them.

To my surprise, I saw the pinkish red top with light blue jeans on my right. The owner of them was looking to the front in different dynamic angles, exactly like a crow, for a way ahead. She was beautiful; I never hesitated in admiring beauty ;-)

Vehicles inched ahead. And she moved along with the rick. It was at one such pit-stop that her bike fooled her. It turned off! Even after her repeated efforts, it refused to start. I was watching all these from the side. She pulled the bike to the side of the road and came towards the rick and said.

“Hi, are you going through Ameerpet? My vehicle got a problem. Can you give me a lift?”

Now that was so unexpected. Without saying anything, I moved aside to give her some space. The jam seems to have come to an end. And I was sitting in the rick with this beautiful lady.

“So what do you do?” she asked.

“I’m studying”

“You are a student?” I saw the same sympathetic look once again.

“Yup, I’m doing my internship here at Hyderabad”, I continued, “By the way, what’s your name and what do you do?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m Maya, I work for a software company here. And you?”

“My name is Hari, I stay in SR Nagar with my friend.”

“Cool! I also stay at SR Nagar. 4th block. So where are you from?”

“I am basically from Trivandrum, Kerala, but out for a while now. Currently at Ahmedabad. How about you?”

“I am from Ludhiana, Punjab”

“Oh, great, actually I like that place...”
... ... ...
... ... ...

And the conversation continued for a while, as we knew each other better. Maya was at Hyderabad because her job brought her there. Her's was a four-member nuclear family. Only she was outside the state. It’s been 5 months that she was here.

The conversation covered a lot many topics like the traffic problems of Hyderabad, Hyderabadi Biriyani being not good as expected, the ultra modern shopping malls of Hyderabad, the summer heat (water, water!!); with always herself leading the discussion. It is interesting to be a listener, I thankfully remembered the Spoken Communications Prof.

“So how do you spend you weekends here?”, She asked.

“That’s a problem yaar, The Sun Almighty ensures that I won’t go outside day time. Evenings, as for pubs, I need to get a girl”

“Yeah, that is something I hate here. So how about going to a pub this weekend?”

Whatt?? That was so unexpected of her.

“Sure”, I replied. We should never kick off chances.

I started enjoying the conversation that the rick came to a sudden stop. Even though I by-hearted Newton’s third law long back in school days and should’ve guessed there would be an after effect, I couldn’t take a precaution and my head hit hardly on the iron beam in the rickshaw.

“My head!” and I turned towards her. But she was not there. What happened? I looked around. The traffic jam was still on and the pinkish red top with light blue jeans and the bike was still at my right. Rubbing off the pain, I recalled. I slept late yesterday!