Royal Ramble

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2011-03-15T22:59:00.008+05:30

Satirist makes fun of himself, fans take offence

2010-05-03T21:47:00.001+05:30

by Tony Sebastian who is saddened by the large number of humourless halfwits he has to put up with everyday.

In a most peculiar turn of events Pagal Patrakar, one of India's leading satirists, has been asked to apologise by his fans for making fun of himself in a post on his website Faking News. Mr. Patrakar had earlier written a piece in which he described Faking News as "a site which is not an original idea by itself, so many people have faked news before me. The posts on Faking News are rarely funny beyond the title itself because it seldom uses wordplay or other such humour devices. It has become so popular only because the updates are regular".

Fans of Faking News have reacted strongly to the post claiming that such comments were "unwarranted" and said that they take offence to the statements made by Mr. Patrakar. "Faking News is a really humorous website which pokes fun at so many things. How can Mr. Patrakar trivialise it by making such ludicrous statements?" said Abhishek Verma a long time Faking News fan who shares each Faking News story on his Facebook account. "By making fun of himself, Mr. Patrakar has insulted the intelligence of his readers and we, his fans, take offence and request him to apologise for the hurtful statements" said Ankit Garg a well known offence-taker who then proceeded to update his twitter status with "How can you guys make fun of something so serious? It's not cool" replying to a person who had said "For Kasab, the court ruling is really a grave situation"

Mr. Patrakar in an exclusive interview with er.. Faking Faking News News said "I had had enough of people taking offence with each and every post of mine be it about religious figures, film stars, politicians or even Lalit Modi. I just wanted to write a post which wouldn't offend anyone, so I chose to take a dig at myself." Irony fans the world over were seen smiling from ear to ear at this revelation from Mr. Patrakar. When asked about how he was going to react to this development Mr. Patrakar said "Oh that's easy, I'm going to take offence to the statements made by them. I have realised that in this day and age, taking offence is the best form of defence." He said signing off with a wink.

Inglorious Bus tales

2010-03-31T23:28:00.011+05:30

By Tony Sebastian whose stories are most often met with the phrase "Bus karo yaar" by his readers

There are few things in life as trying as travelling to and from Kerala. Don't get me wrong, those travel brochures speak nothing but the gospel truth. You won't find a more scenic place than Kerala. In fact, a bus in Kerala is perhaps the only place where you are allowed to make the statement "Vista from windows is awesome!". However, what the brochures fail to mention is the heat and humidity that'll liquefy you in next to no time, irrespective of the season. And if you think that you'd be fine travelling in a non a/c bus from Kochi to Bangalore because it's February and Bangalore was cold when you left it and after all nights are generally cool, that's fine - we have a huge population crisis anyway. I made this incredibly stupid mistake and I am alive only because I had a window seat and I paid attention in Sunday school when they taught about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

I had just got into the bus and completed one of the many sweat baths that awaited me when the phone rang. This particular fiery furnace is the last place you want to have a phone call except for the ones that go "Hello... er Hello? Hello? Hello, Hello, Hello.. Ohell it got cut". To have any kind of meaningful conversation, one must shut the window and that is when the backseat boys pounce. "Who?" you ask? The guys you share a window with of course. They, for some weird reason, assume that you've begun to sympathise with the many animals you consumed for lunch and dinner and now out of guilt and remorse, you want to feel what they felt like just before they were turned into a delicious meal. To help you in this noble cause, they slide their window over yours and you are left with all of the window and all of the pain and unless you are the kind of guy who likes to shout at random strangers in a bus, that window stays shut even after you are off the call. I knew this because I had done it to them 10 minutes back.

And the last thing you want to do is have a long-winded conversation with a girl. I'd rather prefer a short wind-ed conversation like the one I previously mentioned. But when a friend calls; you answer the phone, if it's a girl you answer double quick and if you have your phone in general mode which you use only at home and your ringtone is set to a backstreet boys song, you answer immediately.

However I hesitated for a bit. It's not like this girl was the bad sort, she actually did appreciate my humour. Once. I was telling her how one could tell if summer had arrived -

"If you go out somewhere and you come back and you feel so tired that you gulp down two glasses of water back to back, you know summer's here." I said, setting her up.
"Why? It's not summer if I only gulp one glass?" she asked walking into the trap.
"No, haven't you heard? One swallow doesn't make a summer :D" I grinned, delivering the line, pleased as punch.
"Tony, do you watch 9X?" she asked out of the blue
"Er no I've never been beyond triple" I answered, very much in the blue, surprised by her brazenness
"Eh? Anyway, there are these small bits on that channel called Bakwaas Bandh Kar, ever seen them?" she continued, obviously talking about something else
"Not really, why?" I answered laconically, giving the narrator of the story more space to describe this routine conversation in a lame way. Okay I must stop this.
"Well in that bit, there is this green, ugly looking thing - sort of like a frog, but uglier"
"Ohkaay...!?"
"You remind me of it."
"I remind you of a green thing that is uglier than a frog?"
"Yes. Oh also it cracks horrible jokes like this one"

So you see she was the kind of girl I loved talking to. Having not spoken to her for the past couple of days when I was in town, I knew answering the phone would be my death. But I chose to be brave. I shut the window and answered.

"Hello"
"You rock!"
This was rather unexpected. Even though I was being slowly roasted in the oven, a compliment lifted my spirits.
"Why thank you :)"
"Eh? Why did you thank me?"
"Oh you said I rock.. so.."
"I didn't say you rock, I called you a rock, you rock."
"Oh"
"You insensitive iguana, you were in town and you didn't even let me know you numbskulled nincompoop...."

I interrupted her at this point to enquire whether she was in some way related to Captain Haddock, but she did not stop. It is very difficult to get a word across when a girl is in that sort of form, kind of makes you wonder why girls don't do well in JAM competitions or group discussions. The alliterative allegations carried on for an hour during which time I was thinking about purgatory and how much more difficult it could be. And suddenly she asked me some question. I hadn't the slightest as to what she was asking so I took a random guess. "Belinda Clark" I said, going with probability based on current affairs. This apparently wasn't the answer she was looking for, so she carried on with some more creative cursing and then she abruptly hung up.

By this time it didn't really seem to matter because I was reduced to a small lump in the middle of an ocean of my sweat. My polite request to push the window back gave me about 10% of ventilation. I decided to get off the bus. There was no point in doing this for another 8 hours. And then just when I was about to do the you-open-the-window-or-I-puke-in-your-face routine, it happened. He closed the window. He picked up the phone and he called home. I had the window all to myself now. I was not going to die of heat. I had the full window to myself and it appeared he wouldn't hang up any time soon. The finale of "Star Singer Junior" was being telecast live and he wanted to know about the results. It appeared the show was still going on and there were only two contestants left. So he was getting a note-by-note update of all that was happening and he was tense. As was the rest of the bus. Everyone shut their windows and eavesdropped in rapt attention as he narrated the happenings. I couldn't care lesser. What a bunch of idiots, I thought to myself, those judges were. How could they kick little Vishnu out in the first elimination round?

And then just as he had hung up when the show ended and took back his 50% share of the window, my mom called - to tell me that Swetha had won and I told her I was about to lose my life. I thanked her and hung up and got up to get off the bus. I was too young to die this way. And suddenly everyone started closing their windows. It had suddenly become cold and all was well again. I got back to my seat and wondered why. And then it struck me. We had crossed Palakkad and we were now in Tamil Nadu, the climate was very different here. I facepalmed at my stupidity. How could I have even thought of getting off the bus at Palakkad? How could I have forgotten that wise and inspirational saying passed on by our ancestors? That one saying that was tailor-made for a crisis like this? I closed my eyes with the cool breeze on my face and smiled and whispered to myself "No ghats, no glory."
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In case you missed my post on Yahoo! Here it is. And if you liked this piece, why not share this on twitter or Facebook using the helpful buttons below?

Kerala's Tryst With Destiny

2010-03-29T16:18:00.000+05:30

It was that time of the year again. While my friends were busy cheering for their IPL teams, I was trying to figure out which team I should support. Why don't you support the team from your state you ask? You see, I am a Malayalee and there is as much chance of there being an IPL franchise from Kerala as there is for Sreesanth to complete his allotted overs with an economy of less than six, even if it was in a test match, against a school team of girls.

So when a Tamilian friend of mine called me last Sunday and said "Dude! Heard the latest from the IPL bid? There's a group from Kerala involved" I was quick to see through the whole thing and I cut to the chase "Alright wise guy, I get it. Bid from a bunch of guys in Kerala = Tender Coconut. Very funny. Har har " But apparently, he was not kidding. There would be a new IPL team from Kerala starting next season!!! Wow! Maybe Sreesanth would get the purple cap this season. (We Malayalees make fun of Sreesanth in public, but secretly hope and pray that he does well)

My scepticism regarding a group of investors making a respectable bid for an IPL team from my state was well-founded. I do not really have to mention the strikes which are an every day occurrence, they actually made an Oscar winning movie about it - Hartal O'Ker. For those of you who are not familiar with the political situation in Kerala, here is how it goes. Every five years, the opposition party and the ruling party would switch roles and do nothing else except chase away investors, be them Indians or foreigners. The twitter-compliant elected representatives of the state assembly (there are 140 characters in all) would ensure that the state remained stagnant while others surged ahead. In fact, Kerala has always reminded me of the "Mark Time, March" from school days : Stay rooted to the same spot and switch between the left and right periodically.

So it was indeed a huge, pleasant surprise when the news of the Kochi team came through. And God knows that his country deserves it. Kerala has produced some of the finest sportsmen and sportswomen over the years. Of course, most of us don't know them because they did well in athletics, volleyball and football which quite sadly our race can never do well in (and with the advent of this new IPL team, I am sure there'll be more famous cricketers from Kerala in the years to come). But the passion with which Malayalees support sports is legendary. If you're travelling to Kerala this summer and you happen to pass through its northern districts, you would be surprised to see it adorned with flags of Brazil, Argentina, Portugal and other footballing nations. The posters and cut-outs of Messi and C. Ronaldo will line the streets and various local football clubs proclaiming their support for their favourite nation will organise football-viewing centres.

That doesn't mean Malayalees don't love their cricket, they just haven't been exposed enough to it. I was there at the Kochi stadium when India beat Australia, cheering with 70,000 others when Tendulkar took 5/32, his best ever bowling performance. I was there when India beat South Africa twice in the same match (because of a scoring error) and the atmosphere was spectacular. I can't wait to experience those magical moments again : the non-stop percussions and the spontaneous Mexican-waves, the tremendously loud and sportive crowd which chanted "Po-llllloh-ck, Pollock" every time he was at the third man boundary and much much more.

I don't know what the team will be called, but it will probably be written fully in lower-case to appease those staunch opposers of all forms of capitalism. Whether they name the team kerala strikers or cochin cowboys (no cattle-class reference intended), one thing is for sure - the whole of Kerala will be there cheering its team till the very last ball. I cannot wait for Kerala's tryst rendezvous with destiny.

Farmville players demand SOPs from the government

2010-01-25T15:56:00.002+05:30

by Tony Sebastian who will most probably get hooked to Farmville if he starts playing it.

Thousands of engineering students, who plan to apply to universities abroad, launched a protest today demanding SOPs from the government. "It is the least the government can do for us e-farmers. We are already struggling to attain the stipulated attendance requirements even with proxies and fake medical certificates. How can we find time to draft our SOPs and play Farmville at the same time?" asked president of the Farmville Union of College Kids (FUCK), Vignesh Siva. "Besides, if the government wants to win the next elections, they should support a-GRE-culture. Heh. If the government fails to meet our demands, we shall cut all the ministers' FB profile pics in half. That's right, we'll crop their pics. Heh heh" he added, letting us all know that he was very serious. "Hey that's a copyright infringement. We're gonna sue them" said an over enthusiastic lawyer of FCUK before realising his gaffe. "Oh fuck! my bad. But fuck FUCK all the same"

This surprising turn of events has evoked mixed reactions from various fictional factions. "I think it is very important that the government did something for us. We are paying them to study just so you know, the last thing they should do is be enemies of Farmville players. Oh wait, could you make that last sentence 'Fee FYI, foe farm?' ? It'll look more stylish in print" said Haritha Malladi a farmous Farmville player who crossed level 1357 when we last checked. "SOPs for Farmville players? That's ridiculous! What will those fools do next? Commit suicides so the government meets their demands?" Asked Anup Aditya, president of Foes of Union of College Kids for Farmville (FUCK Farmville) "Have you heard our tag-line? It is 'we rape what they sow' " He said grinning wide . "Hey the ones who commit suicide are from the Union of College Kids for Farmville, we are from the Farmville Union of College Kids!" said a guy named Brian. "This is all turning very Python-esque. But then again you can't cast PERL to the swine lovers" Chuckled 'Chuck' Gopalakrishnan before adding "Oh hey have you read that post of mine where Sachin and Sidhu code?" spectacularly managing to plug a link to his blog-post in a spoken quote.

"This a matter of utmost seriousness. We are all behind FUCK. We've been fucked from behind for too long. We shan't take this any longer" Said Abel Joseph, president of Farmville and Mafia Lovers (FML) offering their complete support to the movement. "Dude, you also should start playing these games. It's a great place to add foreign chicks on Facebook and half of them have put up naughty pics" he said after being assured that the last quote was completely off the record. "Even I have started playing Farmville. It's great fun" Said veteran Scrabble player Menino Pereira "I have a natural talent for it since I am already so good at Sow-pods. Heh. Oh hey I have a bingo! 'Antliae' or is it 'Antilae'? Doesn't matter, no one's going to challenge me anyway" He was crushed soon after, as this reporter played ZaNJEROS, connecting the A of Antliae , over two triple- word- scores with J on a double-letter-score for 343 points.

No one from the government has made any remark about this development. Even Shashi Tharoor the Indian minister for social media has remained quiet, though in the past he had echoed support and solidarity for the cattle class. Meanwhile, the agitators have warned that they will take their strike to new levels such as posting the colour of their bra as Facebook status updates. When asked how that would help their cause, a spokeswoman of the movement said "Some jobless idiot will start a hash-tag mocking it on twitter soon enough. We will receive much needed publicity" before poking this reporter in his ribs. "Hey if they are giving out soaps, I want one too" Said a bleary-eyed Jagdheesh Singaram who had finally decided to break his 8 year no-bath routine.

The press conference also saw other associations voicing fresh demands: The Fishville Organised Operators League demanded better net facilities, Cafe World Players Association demanded better IT personnel who could make good java beans and the Mafia Wars players demanded better Italian food. The meeting was dispersed soon after and all the attendees were served coffee and Zynga burgers.

CAT 09 Tales

2009-12-15T01:12:00.008+05:30

by Tony Sebastian who more often than not looks like something the CAT has brought in.

The CAT had it easy until the year 2008. They had 2-3 lakh takers every year, they had enough and more media coverage and most importantly they had a name which offered multiple punning possibilities. They were by far the nation's favourite three letter acronym. And then one Mr Lalit Modi walked in with his IPL and stole their thunder. The CAT was not going to give up that easily though,it would fight tooth and nail. It would claw its way back to the top. It had a plan to go about this purrsuit, one that would leave you and me ow struck.

So they hired consultants. With MBAs. Like any self-respecting bunch of MBA folk, they sat together and ~~made fun of their HR colleagues who simply weren't MBAs~~ analysed what made the IPL so much more popular than its ODInary counterpart. They drew up the following list of points and put it on multi-coloured slides with word-art and animation so it looked more impressive than it actually was.

- Involvement of foreign players in Indian teams

- Spread out over a couple of weeks with matches twice everyday

- Folks not allowed to take their own pictures and put it up online/in the press

- Lesser time

- Better strike rates

And so it was decided that since they didn't have any better ideas, they would emulate the IPL as such and reclaim their lost glory. They went forth and included a giant foreign player in their team. They threw the one-day format out the window and spread the CAT over a couple of weeks with two sessions everyday. They forbade people from discussing anything that went on inside the CAT online/ in the press. They reduced the time duration of the CAT and they changed their question pattern to 20-20-20 (One twenty more than IPL. Ha! Score!).

But one question still remained. How were they going to improve the strike rates? If you've taken the CAT sometime in the past then you'll remember that the questions looked something like this:

Suppandi and his master can do the same piece of work in 17.33 days and 3.1416 days respectively. They set about doing this task together. On the 3rd day at 12:37 PM (GMT), Suppandi's master hits him with an empty beer bottle weighing 200gm at a speed of 5 m/s (on impact) which cures him of his idiocy. In how many days will they now complete the task assuming the only breaks they take are spent in the restroom and they do not eat any Andhra food? (Normal temperature and pressure, take pi = 22/7)

At this point, the average person will wonder how A hitting B with an empty beer bottle will cure B of B's idiocy. A very valid question. Allow me to explain. The beer bottle which was travelling at 5m/s comes to rest after hitting B's head. We all know that an object which was travelling at a certain speed needs some induced retardation to come to rest. This retardation cannot have come out of thin air (The case would have been different had we been dealing with thick air). So where did it come from? That's right, it came from B's head. Further proof of this induced retardation of the beer bottle can be obtained by asking it some elementary question. It will not respond. In some cases, the induced retardation causes the victim to turn into a broken shell of its previous self as well.

So now how do we solve the question? If I had known that, I'd have been in an IIM acting self-important by now.

No wonder then that the very few who do manage to get through questions like these eventually have their revenge by setting up evil games like Klueless. You haven't heard about Klueless you say? Let me give you a brief idea. On a page like this will be an image like the one below, you have to get to the next level.

How?

Simple, enter your answer at the end of the URL. But what's the answer you ask? I thought it was obvious, no? Okay first you have to save the image as a text file. Somewhere in the middle of a whole lot of gibberish, you'll find the letters "ODD". Now look at the content of the tweet. You see IDRAMIU in capitals. This anagrams to I Radium. Radium is radioactive so we have "I radioactive". Who is radioactive? That's correct, an RJ. Now look at the "ODD" letters of the handle "notytony" we get NT/TN. TN => Tandoori Nights -> Himesh who acted as an RJ recently. The answer is himesh. And the rest of the stuff? It's there just to mislead you. Very simple and straightforward no?

But I meander. And how. So in a bid to improve the strike rate of the CAT they decided to move on from Suppandi and his master and the beer bottle and make the questions simpler. Like this:

Shamu gave his brother Ramu hundred rupees. How much does Ramu owe Shamu?

A) Rs 100/-

B) One Hundred Rupees only

C) $ 2.14707

D) Nothing (bailout package FTW!)

Thus they had done everything Lalit Modi had pulled out of the hat. Surely this was going to be a huge hit? And now their world has come crashing down like another superstar who decided to give the IPL a shot. So what went wrong you ask? Remember the HR who the MBAs always fun of? She had had enough of their taunts and decided to take revenge. She would remove the nail from the horseshoe and derail their exercise. While the consultants where away celebrating their powerpoint skills, she deleted the last and most important point of the multicoloured slide. It read "-Cheerleader girls in short skirts"

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Disclaimer: The contents of this post are figments of imagination of the author and are not truthful in the slightest.

The Klueless model question was made up with the help of @shenoyn and @i_r_squared who are two of the funniest people I know on twitter.

Chic ka baap

2009-11-11T23:00:00.004+05:30

By Tony Sebastian who thinks the most stylish Malayalam actor of all time is "A la mode-an "

When my Dad decided to repaint our house earlier this year, he chose a colour that was like a siren. I don't mean a seductive woman who can knock you off your feet with one look, I mean the kind of siren your mom uses to wake you up when it's time for church if you (fake) sleep like me. Very loud. Very unpleasant. This was the kind of colour that circus clowns would think twice about when choosing their attire.

If you decide to put a very jarring violet on your house and walls, you had better have a good reason for it. So upon seeing my home in this condition for the first time and after identifying which the earth was and which my jaw, I collected the latter and put it in its proper place - it is essential to have one's jaws in the right place when one wants to articulate - and said "What in the world happened to our house?" And mom replied "You look thinner, don't you eat anything at all?"

After surviving the initial shock I managed to regain my calm - my upper lip was stiff, not just because I fell flat on my face. My dad is a man of great wisdom. His genius is unsurpassed in all of God's own country and elsewhere (Not really but he does read my blog and I do want to go back home and taste mom's chicken.). There had to be a purpose behind this chromatic crime, one that eluded my eyes. I was blinded by my short-sight (and also by the colour of the wall).

"Dad" I asked "why did you choose this colour?"

"What do you mean why? It looks good."

"Um... so there is no purpose behind this chromatic crime, one that eludes my eyes?"

"What?"

"I am not blinded by my short sight?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You actually chose this colour because it "looks good"?"

"Yes"

"Looks good?"

"Yes"

"Looks?"

"Yes"

"Good?"

"Yes"

"Oh"

"It's awesome. Most people who come home now are rendered speechless by it."

"I am sure. So you picked it out on your own?"

"No our contractor suggested it. It's called violet rage"

"Violent rage?"

"Violet rage"

"Let me guess, you asked him what the latest rage was?"

"Yes how did you know?"

"Vague guess. Are you sure he understood what you meant?"

"...."

"So this "colour" is purely because you think it looks good? Sure? Or did you want to make our house the second man-made structure, visible from the moon?"

We Kochukudys - Wait. I see that some of you are thinking up wisecracks along the lines of Kochu-Kudy and Small Drinkers, before I continue I'd like to dampen your spirits by pointing out that my classmates in IInd grade came up with that joke. This in turn led to the axing of my lineage from my name. This may seem shocking to most of us in this generation, but there actually existed a time when the single most important criterion for naming your kid was not the availability of a GMail id in his/her full name. I, unlike a lot of you lucky ones out there, am a self made man - while the Shashi Tharoors and Manoj Night Shyamalans got there without doing anything, I had to earn my name's Search Engine Optimisation.

Where were we? Ah yes. We Kochukudys may be a lot of things, but fashionable is not one of them. Among the adjectives which people use to describe me, stylish would rank in the lowest tier, sandwiched between neat and vegetarian (This might be the only time I have used vegetarian and sandwich in the same sentence. My stomach has excused me only because it thinks neat was a typo of meat). As my friends will readily agree "Tony" is one of the most ironic names I could have been given.

Right from the time I was in school, I have always been ridiculed for my choice of clothes - my white shirt with frills which I wore for my holy communion, my colourful, very pleasing to the eye shirt, my soft coloured T shirt which my friends alleged was pink in colour, my trendy Kurta upon wearing which my cousins nicknamed me Mallika Sherawat, my hairstyle and anything remotely related to fashion. I was late to sprout facial hair, so after repeatedly chanting the Lord's prayer modified thus "Give us this day our daily beard.." I finally got it and then people started laughing at my experiments with that too. Over the years the surest way for a person to decide between two sets of clothes has been to ask me which one I like and then pick the other. You will understand how bad my fashion sense is when I tell you that I was ridiculed even in Andhra Pradesh - Tollywoodland for crying out loud!

Imagine my surprise then, when I got this mail from the Spring Spree core committee "Spring spree brings you the glam, panache and vogue with Allure '10. Some couture, a dash of fashion, a sprinkle of glamour and a dose of avant garde, NITW's Annual Fashion Competition comes your way, a smidgen of everything and a mix of it all........... We request your esteemed presence for this function as one of the three guest judges....." My juniors had told me that they had some high profile professional team picking out judges for events, but little did I know that it would be the same team that picked the Nobel peace prize judging panel. I also hadn't realised until this point that the term arbiter was the comparative form of the college slang term arbit.

But that, as they say is how cookie crumbles. A Bihari villager ends up correcting your English board exam paper, Mayawati gets statues erected in her honour, Lalit Modi claims that a Twenty20 league is his brainchild, I judge fashion shows. So in case you are one of the hot girl participants preparing for this event, you know who you will have to ~~sleep with~~ look good in front of, to win this event. Do not hesitate to get in touch (heh) with me and seek suggestions. I may criticise you, I may give you a dressing down (heh heh), but remember it is all going to help you do well and win this event. And to you fashion foxes who hounded me to no end, I say ha! Bow down to your new God - The little master of the fashion world, - Such in Trendulkar.

Tweet Tooth

2009-04-12T12:01:00.004+05:30

By Tony Sebastian who can't think of a witty by-line

Yes, people who are on Twitter do not have a life. More often than not, they also do not have friends. But I just love the way it works, instant karma at its very best. There is also the added advantage of finding and interacting with people in a way you would never have thought possible - Exchanging a volley of puns with Anand Ramachandran or getting a response to your tweets like this - rashmibansal: great.. I want to feature a Tony's word of the day on JAM homepage. What say?

Here are a few of my tweets from over the past few days. Hope some of them put a smile on your face.

Tony's Twisted Tech Term for Today - Tight Coupling: Drunken sex.

Eufeminism: A gentler way to tell women they suck.

Canonball: A blast (party) in the Vatican.

Me-me: A cultural pattern created by a Narcissist.

Foolproof: The percentage strength of alcohol that will make you act like an idiot.

Shoevinism : Fanatical support expressed by throwing footwear at someone.

Gramma' queen: Someone who makes a fuss when Queen's English is not used.

Tangenital: What happens when you sunbathe on a nude beach.

Yellow Pages (n): Where you can find important information, also called Post-it notes.

Stagnation : When population growth comes to a standstill because there are too many single men in the country.

When you alienate your girlfriend over tea, there will be flying saucers.

When you make out with your girlfriend in a stadium, you score.

When you beat a girl on online chess with your least powerful piece, you Pwn her.

When your girlfriend starts crying because you cheated on her, you give her a tissue of lies.

Yes, everyone knows it's "Maggi" and it takes two minutes. RT @flyyoufools See, that's why some people hate Twitter - "@CruciFire: Makng maggie wil b bck n a min"

Vi-MasOcH? RT@Vimoh I have this *strange* relationship with pain. I have come to appreciate it over time.

Q: What do you say when the Pillsbury mascot does something awesome? A: Atta boy! :-|

Why are mathematicians not considered a threat to the government?Because they attempt only pseudo coups.

The BJP and The Hindu's editor have a common thing at the top of their head - Ram Temple. :-|

A school friend just scrapped me saying "how are you...long tome... " Does he mean my writings are verbose? :(

A fur coat maker is a softwear engineer.

A marriage counsellor is a marital arts expert.

So it's Pi day today? What does that mean, you have a license to behave irrationally?

Just wondering, If people on Twitter are Tweeple, People on FB are FeeBle?

What will one write on the last Post it note? "Get more post it notes" ?

I'm not forgetful, you were just not that memorable.

People who misspell words are loosers.

Went for watchmen, didn't like it at all. My sentiments were echoed in the graffiti which appears in the movie "Who watches watchmen?"

Why do they call it waxing hair? Shouldn't it be waning hair? :-|

If it is called a pair of underwear and a pair of trousers, why is it not a pair of bra? Singular eh? ;)

You know it's summer when you gulp down two glasses of water back to back - after all one 'swallow' doesn't make a summer.

A company in recession is like a burning building. Only one thing can save both - Fire men.

Today (Maundy Thursday) @sidin 's meme will be endorsed by the catholic church. #confessionthursday

Hugh Hefner's joy-spreader for the season would be called a Teaser Bunny?

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You can follow me on twitter here.

SemAntics

2009-04-07T07:42:00.010+05:30

By Tony Sebastian who is a wannabe verbo-Nazi

I have been invited to write a pilot piece for an upcoming online mag (Holy Cow - The Moo Point). While they are still deciding how (or more likely whether) to put it up (or not), I thought I'd post it here. Please do read (and comment).
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SemAntics - I - The initial piece

I know the question on your lips - "What on earth is this guy doing here?". I will tell you all. The recession has hit us IT folk pretty bad. When you have to cough up from the coffer for a coffee that used to be cost-free, your mind wanders wistfully every time you code a java bean. You venture into desperate measures to fill your cup of joy again. When Satyam fails, you have to lie to earn your free coffee. Now, that is something I am adept at. I am so good at lying that one time I didn't get up from the bed for a 24 hour period. Well that was a stretch.

So anyway I had my interview with the "Holy Cow" folk. It went something like this.

"So what do you bring to the table?"
"Um... columns?"
"Go on..."
"and when you refuse to pay up on time, I will bring up rows as well"
"Oh but we don't really pay our workers at the Holy Cow, we just have livestock options hahahahaha"
"Hay that was funny (LOL) Guess you will want me to pen(n) about milk huh?"

The rest, as they say, is hysteria. I've always believed that the people who bond fastest are the ones who frequently make bad puns. They are hated by almost everyone, and they are shunned by society. But they are needy and they think they are very clever.When two of them find each other, they go crazy and are hell bent on giving vent to the pent up puns.To cut a long story short, we fell in love with each other and we have a date once every week.

Since this is our first ever meeting, let me tell you a bit about this column. SemAntics will deal with a little bit of English and a whole lot of wordplay - A lot of cow fodder with a point here and there (A needle in a haystack, if I may say so). So without further ado, let's get started.

The initial post is in fact going to deal with initials. An initialism is a shortening of a set of words formed by using the first letter of each of the words. If you are saying WTF after you read that sentence, I think you've got the picture. Acronyms are also similar to initialisms - for example NATO is an acronym for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In an initialism, you pronounce each of the letters separately (WTF = Double U- Tee- Ef), however an acronym is pronounced as a word itself (NATO = nay-toh - not to be confused with "nahi toh"). Sometimes, an acronym is written with only the first letter in capitals (Nato or Laser) but an initialism always has all letters in capitals (WTH). There is no standard way of pluralising an acronym or an initialism - some pluralise with an apostrophe, whereas others don't. Hence both FAQs and FAQ's are valid plurals for an FAQ.

I asked a friend of mine "Which came first the chicken or the egg?" She replied "I don't know but one of them must have been laid before the other". There are some acronyms where the chicken comes first and then its egg. A "backronym" is the term used for an acronym which comes first and then its expansion. A popular example would be Adidas - The term Adidas comes from Adolf (adi) Dassler, the company's founder. The "expansion" which some of us use came later. Hence adidas- All Day I Dream About Sports can be considered a backronym (sometimes also bacronym).

Initialisms are also used by poets - sometimes for effect and sometimes even for conveying hidden messages. A poem of this kind is called an acrostic. Usually in an acrostic, the first letter of each line when taken out forms a phrase or a message as desired. The Dutch national anthem Het Wilhelmus is an acrostic and spells out "WILLEM VAN NASSOV", in honour of William of Orange.

Initialisms / Expansions serve as mnemonic devices. We have all used "My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets" to remember the nine planets in the solar system. Initialisms are also used as a kind of clue in cryptic crosswords. In this case, "initially" or "at first" or "starts of" etc are used to indicate the use of an initialism. For example - Bovine cream overly whipped initially (3) would give COW.

On that note, having covered initialisms exhaustively (exhaustingly?) I bid you adieu with this question - What prayer song do cows love best? Answer - "Amazing Graze". Cheers.

Ad nauseam

2009-03-23T09:07:00.005+05:30

Advani to contest for the elite panel of umpires of the ICC
by Tony Sebastian who is very, very tired of seeing the same Advani ad on all blogs.

L.K Advani surprised everyone today by announcing at a press release here that he was not in the running for parliament but was actually contesting for a membership in the ICC's elite panel of umpires. "Ngyeah?" said a reporter taking the word right out of our mouth. "What did you think the promotion meant when it said "Advani for PM (Panel Member) " and "A leader who can make tough decisions"? I've always wanted to be a cricket umpire. " replied Advani. "But you do not know anything about umpiring!" Said another perplexed member of the press. "Why should that stop me? You think I know something about governance? " retorted LK effectively quashing all logical arguments. "We are going to build the Ram temple" He added, sending his supporters into a wild frenzy.

"I knew this was coming. This actually makes more sense. What is the point of advertising to be Prime Minister on every other blog when the blog reading crowd in India is less than 1% of its population? Besides how many of them would actually vote? If he is contesting to be an umpire however, he gets to impress cricket commentators and analysts and other informed decision makers" Said Aftab Khanna displaying his remarkable ability to foresee things after they have happened.

"I think this is a great idea. Isn't Advani the really fat guy who made that super cricketing song sometime back? Aa eh oh, eh oh ah! no? Oh then I have no opinion" Said a college going girl with red streaks in her hair identified only as 'Scarlet O'haira'. "Be abreast, your country needs more breasts" advised @bigfatphoenix, but the girl had already gone... with the wind.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he makes it, He is a tall man" Said Ravi Shastri using his permanent explanation for anything that happens and widening the spectrum of the amazing things tall men can do like bowl a bouncer, hit a six with ease, field well at the boundary, run well between wickets, peep into the answer sheet of the guy in front of you etc.

"Hmmm this should be interesting. #india09 #advani #indiavotes09 #cricket #icc #me #you #theentirehumanrace" said Nikhil Narayanan speaking in twitter-tongue and generally making a hash of things. "People who use hash are dopes" Said Jagdheesh Singaram returning to Royal Ramble after a long hiatus before returning to his ganja. "What withdrawal symptoms do dopers exhibit?... joint pain hehehehehe" he added ensuring that his presence was felt.

"I am stumped! I mean, he is definitely over-stepping the line. He needs to think it over. The only creases he is used to are the ones on his forehead. You get the pitch...er..." Said Chuck making full value of the limited space he received in the hope that people will be enticed into reading his blog.

"I am really irritated with the same "Advani for PM" ad on every other blog. It is seriously getting on my nerves. If I see it one more time, I am definitely getting myself registered and voting against him." said a frustrated netizen without realising that Advani was actually vying to be an umpire. "Well what do you expect? Advani anagrams to 'Vain Ad'. Always check for anagrams. Machi dum irukkaa?" Said Jagdheesh Singaram reappearing again in the hope that his witty anagram would fetch him a cigarette.

In unrelated news, Kunjunni of Std. III B has also decided to launch an advertising campaign on all blogs to find his rubber pencil. Royal Ramble wishes both of them all the very best.

Disclaimer: All the content in this post are part of the author's imagination and has nothing to do with the truth.

Drowned in-un'-date

2009-03-17T11:16:00.004+05:30

by Tony Sebastian whose ability to screw up is dateless.

Hey, guess what I got a date!
For your GRE? when is it?
No not like that, I got a date!
I don't think I follow you.
I am meeting a girl for coffee - a date, quite the tiger I am no?
I'm not buying that. Maybe if you had said lion, there was much more of a chance. They are yummy no? Lion dates? Especially the seedless ones, I'd buy that any day. You should try them sometime. They are wonderful really. But wait, you were saying something? Ah yes, when is your GRE?
Eh? I'm not taking the test.
But you said you were! Started preparing and all? Maybe I should take it too, hey how is it structured? you know what is GRE's anatomy like?

I said I have a date.
Yes, for your GRE.
No, for Valentine's day.
Are you sure you didn't bump your head somewhere? you are talking rot.
I just realised it's not a big deal asking a girl out, the power was in my hands all along.
I think you just misinterpreted the term "date palm".
Haha very funny.
I hate it when people speak to me in italics. What's with the rightist leaning anyway? Blame those Advani ads on every blog.
Eh?
The italics.
Eh?
The slant.
Eh?

Never mind. Dude check it out, hot girl at 3 O clock.
Oh, I don't look at girls anymore, now that I have a date.
Eh? It's only a date!There are no string attached are there? What's with all the faithfulness?
It's called wireless fidelity ;)
It's a good thing you are not writing GRE. Anyway I have to push off now.
Whoa! Where are you going?

Sigh! I've to meet the Dean Of Student Affairs.
DOSA? whatever for?
That Anagha complained I was sitting idly.
What a chutney! She did the same thing when I did samba in class on a dare. She might have added some masala also to DOSA no?
Big time! I have it up ma @$$, I have to go have a chat with him now.
Good luck!
Why don't you come along? vada!
Thodi dher bath, I have a date remember?
Dude, I really don't think we should speak Hindi. Poori satyanash kar denge.
Yeah whatever that means LOL
Good luck with the date

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Hi does this top make me look fat?
No
Phew I was so worried
This one doesn't make you look as fat as the blue one.
huh?
Er.. I mean, you are fat no?
I am fat?
Not as fat as you will be when you are older :D
WHAT?
Er.. I mean you are wholesome, well rounded. Not fat. What am I saying?
Hmmm you didn't even wish me.
I did! I sent you a DM on twitter.
Well you didn't even say it.
Say what?
you know... 143
But Twitter has a character limit of 140!
You could at least have said IDIOT or something.
I should have called you an idiot?
No, you don't know what IDIOT means?
I think I do, do you?
IDIOT is I Do Ishq Only Tumse.
er... okay, you are an idiot!

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Hey how did it go?
Bad.
What happened?
She said I had big teeth and that was the best part of the date.
Eh? What is wrong with big teeth? Didn't you tell her it helps you with biting sarcasm? hehe
I don't know man, I guess her utopian tryst will be with a guy who has no teeth.
Eden-date? (or is it edentate?) hehe At least it was better than the previous time or the one before that.
Bah! I don't understand girls, they are odd.
I am sure the feeling is mutual, so you're even.
Sigh, thank God you are around.

I wonder what Freud would have made of us.
Sigmund Freud?
Yes.
If that creep had dated this girl previously, I would have had no problems.
According to Freud, Jack and the beanstalk is a metaphor for a boy's discovery of masturbation.
Wow what a pervert! Although that does seem like a wordplay possibility
Hey how about we name the virtual stock exchange "Jack and the B-stock"?
Nice! With the tag line "Are you the Jack of all trades" ?
Cool
Although with its uncertainties and suspense, it would be more apt to call it B. Stocker's Dracula or something.
Hmmmmm
Ditch all this. Game of Scrabble?
Sure! It's been such a long time!

This Spells Disaster

2009-02-22T19:15:00.012+05:30

by Tony Sebastian who is an elephant when it comes to English syntax (an ana-grammar) and a hopeless PJ-ist.

I admire people who know their spellings. I have always prided myself for being amongst the 5% of Indians who can spell “Embarrassed” right. (What are you looking at? You used to spell it “Embarassed” till now. Yes you did. Try searching your G-Mail for reference.) And thanks to Jimmy and Prathiba, I am now also amongst the 1% of people who type properly over chat. Therefore, it was a little unsettling when my subconscious rhyming/punning syndrome acted up.

Has it ever happened to you that you’ve typed a homophone of the word you intended? For example you type “where” instead of “were” or “right” instead of “write” or “thing” instead of “think”? That is what happened to me on quite a few occasions (I promptly christened it “sounds like trouble” ;) ) and left my ego crushed. But as is often the case, something inevitably happens which feeds my ego and turns me back into the narcissistic jerk you know and love. We have already discussed about how typos can cause trouble . This time, let us look at a few pics/screenshots which I clicked here and there. So go on and laugh out loud at the grammar/spelling mistakes and feel good about yourself.

Er… okay, I no urine here

This made me laugh so hard that I had to pee all over again (in a different urinal)

Do I really have to say anything about this pic? How anyone can spell “BEAUTY” as “BEQUTY” is beyond me…. Wait! Unless they meant B-Equity or something?? You know, they would buy shares at the “par large cap” prices or something? Wow! Really cryptic stock brokers!

This is the first time I came across a penalty for not smoking. So I did it and coughed (up 200 bucks)

I don’t think I want to spoil the hilarity of this pic by adding a caption to it. But I had put up this pic somewhere and received the following comment “Man !! send this pic to Times of India .You can even win the context ..” :-| (In case you missed it, take a look at Zameer's surname.)

This was a news article on DAWN’s website – you can find the actual article here. (Thanks to Nikhil)

Even Shell pumps are run by gults! Let's be thankful they at least wrote it lezibly. :P

(Addendum: Thushar has very adroitly pointed out that "squeege" is not a mis-spelling of squeeze, but squeegee. Thanks for making me feel stupid again Thushar :) )

I guess I saved the “worrest” for the last?

Tweetering on the brink

2009-02-15T15:43:00.008+05:30

By Tony Sebastian who is no stranger to desperation

For those of you who can't believe it, yes this page still exists. It may be choking, it may be worthless, but it exists nonetheless. And I will go to any extent (read desperate measure) to keep it alive. Usually when bloggers can't think of anything to write about, they come up with the smart cliche of Tags. You've all seen it (some of you have even done it) - "25 things about my pet cat that you didn't know" or "5 Girls I have secretly had a crush on" (in the hope that they will see my blogging prowess and come crawling to me), so on and so forth. Sure, I'm great with taglines but I don't think I'm prepared to carry that tag around quite yet. I have played Tag, but that was in kindergarten when there was no distinction between caste, colour, creed or sex. I'm a grown up now. I am intelligent, therefore I discriminate. That's right! I hate you veggies :P

Not only am I out of ideas, but I am also going through work-purgatory at the moment. That is the amazing thing about karma, it is too damn efficient. So over the past few days, my status message changed from "I feel like a contraceptive at my job - I get paid for being unproductive." to "I feel like a tree in autumn... I have no leaves." And to cap it all, there arose a fleeting suspicion of my turning into a techie. The reason for this was the following joke I saw somewhere - "An SQL query walks into a bar and sees two tables. He walks up to them and says 'Can I join you?' " I laughed at this for a good two days, wrote it on my office scribble board and continued laughing whenever I saw it. And then I couldn't remember my machine's IP or access VNC from the linux terminal and the myth was promptly quashed. There is still hope.

Yet I can't think of anything worthwhile to pen down here. So while I try to get rid of a K from the "Writer's block" to get back into action again, here are a few of my tweets (twitter updates for the uninitiated ) which will hopefully elicit a chuckle or a guffaw. Read on. Until next time, may the farce be with you :)

PJ of the day:Q: What do you say when a close friend cheats you by uploading a private video on the internet?
A:You tube Brutus.

NASA scientists reclaim water from urine for space ships http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7748818.stm Wow now if we have a bunch of drunk astronauts, we can generate alcohol-fuel.

Matches are made in heaven... It's the cigarettes that come from hell.

Q: What do you call a guy who has a strong fetish for Oral sex? A: a :P ervert

And now we have the pink chaddi campaign. What fun to launch eerie campaigns and be a kabab mein chaddi!

A Cupid sena to confront Valentine trouble makers http://is.gd/j9r8 We can call them "The Heart Attack".

We will send 1,000 sarees as return gift: Muthalik http://tinyurl.com/c97hkj I guess they are men of the cloth.

With all the pink chaddis and sarees being exchanged,this is the right time to venture from the text field into the textile field. No?

Daffynition for the day- Shadow of a doubt: A person suspected of espionage.

Domino Effect: When a price cut by one Pizza chain causes a fall in other chains as well.

Multitaksing : When it becomes arduous to do two things at the same time.

A jail is a criminal waste of space.

Forgive me tweeple. I just woke up from sleep, I'm still in my PJs.

Lesson Learned. Make one draft and just stick to it. If you try to trim it, it just becomes "daft".

The Husseys in the morning and now the Pathans, Now I know what they mean when they say "Success is relative"

The scorecard looked fishy, everyone was out bowled. There had to be a catch somewhere.

I was afraid I was turning colour blind, but the doctor said it was just a pigment of my imagination

I've decided to go to the gym. I'm not gonna do anything special, just the regular run-of-the-mill stuff.

I always knew I could get away with stealing from the library, I mean what were they going to do? Throw the book at me?

Stoop(id) to conquer

2009-01-17T23:36:00.004+05:30

by Tony Sebastian who is as bright as a tube light.

So Bush is finally hanging up his boots; and a couple more belonging to some Iraqi journalist. How he evaded those two shoes I'll never know. But strangely enough, I've referred to Dubya as a ducker many a time - mostly over SMS. Eight years ago when he took charge, Al Gore might have felt ambushed. Today at the end of the Bush rule and The Arabic Bloodshed, where he lived up to the name of his adversary from the election, I feel pretty much the same thing - I am bushed. Now that the ordeal is over with the mass voting for the ass (the animal this time), I guess people will have similar hopes for George and the country that he left barren - that they would both be Bushing up daisies.

It was only natural that the "bushmen" chose a hunter as the vice president. Though Dick Cheney didn't get much limelight (he was the lamp hidden under the bush-el if you will), he amuses me for more reasons more than one. Primarily, his first name. English, I've always maintained is a very weird language. How is Chuck short for Charles? They are as similar as Chalk and Cheese if you ask me. And Dick is apparently short for Richard. But I guess that is acceptable - it widens the range of euphemisms. For example, you could now say - "The African-American had a Richard" ;)

But where was I before I started beating around the bush (wow triple meaning!)? Yes Bush and Dick took us through eight years of amusement ( It is pure coincidence that they were the same eight years since I attained puberty) and we are definitely going to miss them. Whenever they made statements, we knew there was something missing, it was plain to everyone that there was an elephant in the room, but they were entertaining nonetheless and ruled the most powerful country in the world. In the process they screwed up a few nations - no big deal, they waged a few wars - acceptable casualties, they found no weapons of mass destruction - mere human error, the important point is - they were great leaders!

What makes them great leaders you ask? Looking at the qualities that define a leader, or someone who is popular, if I had to name one quintessential mannerism that would get you there, it would be idiocy-n-crazy. You have to be stupid enough and/or be obstinately stubborn about your own stupidity and the world will fall at your feet. And they were simple enough to be elected twice. Mediocrity is the only required quality to run the world - There is a rule that states this of course - The law of averages. Carrying on with the mathematical angle, I wonder if that is why something considered greater than normal is called obtuse.

Real genius, like this clever corner by Manchester United against Chelsea, is never appreciated and,more often than not, is disallowed. Look at what happened to Copernicus's theory for instance. LOL Copernicus. Funny name that. It gives you an imagery to its etymology doesn't it? You know, Copernicus's parents were English and they relate how they were caught one night by the police - "So yeah, we were drunk that night and we started making out in public, and that made the copper nick us". Over time, the P and the K were lost and we have the cruder form Copernicus. Much like how A Napron became An Apron.

We digress. But then I guess that is what my alter-ego and I are expected to do - me and er... what is that guy's name now? Anyway that is not important.. No discussion on the success of stupidity would be complete without mentioning the big money making machine from Mumbai - The mind-numbingly mundane, mediocre movie industry which mints money like magic - Bollywood. G3 once said " Bollywood is a proof for the existence of God - if people are actually as stupid as the movie makers/ characters in the movie, there is no way the human race could have survived so long without some divine intervention." I couldn't phrase it better.

I used this to my advantage.Whenever I got my answer sheets from school, I'd feel pretty low. I do not know if my teachers foresaw this and thought they should offer some aid in the form of some red crosses on the paper. To make myself feel better, I 'd (try to) watch a Bollywood movie and voila I'd feel smart all over again. How on earth can anyone name a movie Singh is kinng and make money out of it? Did you know that Bollywood anagrams to BLOODY LOW. I agree that isn't really great wordplay but quite frankly, bollywood doesn't deserve any better (or any more words on this piece).

Next time you want to conquer something, try colouring your hair blonde, gray matter was never in vogue anyway. So what about me? Well I am modest enough to state that I am stupid and single-mindedly stubborn (no not just with reference to the relationship status of a girl whom I court.) - yes that's right... I rule! :)

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Afterword: I simply cannot refrain from making this corny Republican Elephant joke.

Q:Why did the Republican Party sign read "Republican Pary"?

A: Because elephants never forge-T.

Randomonium

2009-01-11T00:24:00.002+05:30

by Tony Sebastian who is proud that he has used a semicolon for punctuation for the first ever time :D

Its been a while since I've blogged in first person. Actually its been a while since I've blogged. The reasons for my being bashful - I don't mean to say I was having new year parties - are many. For one,this has been a particularly difficult time for me to blog since Satyam has come down. Before you jump to conclusions, I did not buy any Satyam shares. Although I am quite the Jack of all trades,I am in no way related to Jack and the B-stock.

What I mean to say is; it is extremely difficult for a guy, who relies on wordplay to induce laughter, to add a new post on his blog when everyone seems to have gone into a punning frenzy - so much so that there is not one original pun I can think of about Satyam! I swear! ;)

What compounded my misery is that I can't really think of anything as being Blog-worthy as of now. It would gladden you to know that I'm tired of blogging the dead horse - just inserting random puns with a really thin plot line. And since I'm not talented enough to come up with something that is actually good, it is very difficult to find some natural situation that seems bloggable.

Christmas at home was er.. nothing to write home about. Makes you wonder about the English language doesn't it? Wodehouse would have had something to say about that phrase, I'm sure. Like for instance, the other day, a friend of mine was telling me that he went out on a date with a girl, but they weren't exactly "seeing each other". I had naturally concluded that it was because "Love was blind" and told him so and he pretty much looked like a cheetah which had been told that it was supposed to go on a vegetarian diet for the rest of its life.

Vegetarianism is yet another thing that boggles me. I mean how can one not be tired of eating the same aalu boiled, then fried or fried and then boiled and chopped up and mixed with rice or sauteed till it turns golden and what not. My vegetarian friend countered this by reminding me that there was not just one kind of vegetable. Yes, I conceded, there were two kinds of vegetables - Po-tay-toes and Po-tah-toes.

But where were we? Ah yes. The reasons for my absence from the blogosphere. Something happened that further shook my belief in the ability of puns to elicit laughter. In fact it has left me wondering if it is irritating to have too much of it in one's ears. I'm talking about the iPOD of course - intensive Pun OverDose.

The aforementioned incident was a five minute skit about a firm which delivers human souls to its clients. I managed to squeeze in a few soulful puns ( Spirited Soul-utions, Soul-ar System, Quantum of Soul-ace, soul-itaire diamond...) into the script without it sounding too contrived. But as the show went on, while slapstick humour and overacting raised many a chuckle and guffaw, the puns were received with glassy eyes and upper lips as stiff as an engineering student on farewell day.

So while we are on the subject of souls, some jobless person actually weighed some people immediately before and after their death and based on the weight loss concluded that the human soul weighed 21 grams. Correct me if I'm wrong, but does he mean that the human soul is crap?

Which is pretty much what I feel like right now after the CAT licking (Malayalam translation "Jeevitham CAT nakki") which proved to me yet again that too much pride and arrogance always, always goes before a fall. So while I brood about it and make a promise to actually start working for once in my life, you guys go on and look at the top right part of the blog where I have added a new snippet - The Wit-a-min Tablet, the archives are a collection of some of my status messages and neologisms.

To sign off, here are a couple of neologisms from this week.

Ownerous: Burdensome nature of the landlord.

Presumptuous: An appetizer before a great meal.

Cheerio!

Slumdog Millionaire - A Review

2008-12-30T12:32:00.008+05:30

Posted by Tony Sebastian who has made a new year resolution - 1280*1024 pixels

Rated by many as the best movie of the year, I set about watching this movie with a whole lot of expectations. It would be unfair to say that I was disappointed, however, much like The Dark Knight, I was left only partially satisfied.

This movie wins the appreciation of the viewers with its novel premise, one which makes you want to watch the whole movie - What if a guy from the slums with hardly any education- a slumdog, were to win a much celebrated KBC-esque gameshow? Although the subplots run along predictable lines, the premise is so fascinating that it contrives to make the movie likeable.

Jamal Malik enters the gameshow 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' and wins Rs 10 Million, He is accused of cheating and is picked up by the police. He tells us his fascinating and (at least for the foreign audience) a fairy tale of a life story. Jamal relates his answering of the questions on the show to various incidents which occurred in his life.

Although the incidents are longshots and more often downright outrageous (the blind kid knowing Benjamin Franklin for one) and very frequently conflict with character sketch of the slum dwellers, the premise comes to the rescue again and works like a magic glue which produces a (nearly) seamless bond.

The movie follows the very interesting lives of Jamal and Salim Malik, through the slums and streets of Mumbai and Delhi. Their intelligence and improvisation get them through the hardships of life. Their impishness and cheek puts a smile on ours, and sometimes makes us laugh out loud. The underlying satire is very obvious and tugs quite hard at our heart-strings and conscience strands.

The cast keeps changing throughout the movie as Jamal and his brother grow up, and although the newer Jamals and Salims bear hardly any resemblance to the older ones, each of them have performed commendably. It was nice to see Tanay Chheda (Rajan Damodaran from Taare Zameen Par) do a reasonably good "middle" Jamal.

The cast and the crew have done an exceptional job in portraying the India of the slums and the underworld. The dialogues alternate between Hindi and English and though there aren't many that pack a punch, they sound believable and adequate.

The movie has all the stereotypes of the modern Indian story, the pathetic life of the slum dwellers, communal riots, inhumane police officers, call centre executives and the underworld mafia which runs Mumbai- cliches dark enough to make the foreign viewer watch the movie in awe. Although there is the occasional mention of how Mumbai has become the centre of the world, it is only for a fleeting moment and one which would go unnoticed by most viewers.

I personally would like to have seen something which paints India a little brighter, but I guess not all is rosy in my home country, and a point (if it is one) which should not reflect on the quality of the movie.

And, as Shashi Tharoor pointed out, if a heavily misinformed movie like "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" which portrays Indians as monkey-brain-eaters received 93% fresh reviews on rotten tomatoes, there is no doubt that Slumdog Millionaire with its very original depiction of a section of Indian lives will make waves far and wide.

The reason Vikas Swarup's novel failed to gain much public attention (as was evident when I had to point out to at least 10 people that the movie was a remake of a book by an Indian author) was perhaps its mediocre branding. The name "Q and A" just doesn't hit you hard enough. There has to be something more to make you pick up a book and read it. Slumdog Millionaire overcomes these obstacles by being a movie and having an enchanting name.

Make no mistake, this is (what most people would consider) an awesome movie and a very Indian one at that, with great music by A.R Rahman, and remains so down to the last scene where the protagonist gets his long lost lover when the movie ends with destiny's own tag line - "It was written".

To-neologisms

2008-12-28T09:11:00.006+05:30

By Tony Sebastian who wonders if a sexist compere would be called an emcee-P

Here are some New Words for the New Year :)Wishing you all a great 2009 :)

Abdomenable : Unequivocally fat and disgusting.

Saridonic : Possessing such biting sarcasm which gives the listener a headache.

Aftermath: The result of a disastrous math test.

Sexpensive : When one contemplates not going to an exotic hooker because it costs too much.

Condominimum: An apartment with barely enough room.

Feedback: When you make the chef eat his own unpalatable cooking.

Soothsayer (Language of origin -Tamil) :One who talks out of his ass.

Couch potato: A bean bag.

Withdrawal symptoms: Frequently taking out cash from the ATM for booze to get over your ex.

Peer pressure: The urge/tendency to take a leak when someone tells you he is going to take one.

Buy-curious: When you can't decide between two products and decide to try both.

Purse one's lips: Pay someone to shut him up.

Bill-Gates: Controversies involving a lot of Dollar notes.

Party Animal: The Democratic Donkey, or the Republican Elephant.

Blogal Warming: The rise in temperature of the computer because the user browses too many blogs.

Sunny disposition: The bowlers' frame of mind when they dismiss Gavaskar.

Sitter: An easy chair.

Window shopping: Buying a product through Internet Explorer.

Mind your Ps and Qs : Follow ethics when you have to wait in line to take a leak.

____________________________________________________________________________________

PS: If you like having fun and winning tons of cash for horsing around, do take a look here www.springspree.org.

IT's my life

2008-12-22T10:13:00.001+05:30

Posted by Tony Sebastian who does have a life. Really!

Hey! Check out this really awesome crossword clue which Vinod made – Mum up-to-date about IT recession (8)
Oh she knows?
Eh?
Your mum knows about the current recession? She’d be worried sick, right?
What does that have to do with anything?
You said “Mum up-to-date about IT recession”
Yes it’s a cryptic clue! Up-to-date = RECENT, IT recession = TI. The answer is RE{TI}CENT.
Oh and Mum?
Mum as in……
Mum as in?
Mum as in….
As in what? You’re not saying anything!
That’s precisely the point! Mum as in silent
Oh! Quiet?
Quiet
Quiet! Nice!
Quite nice, yes.
I thought it was like Aamir As,in Ghajini hehe

Eh? You see, a cryptic crossword is like the girl you court. Initially, you know nothing. But there is something enchantingly beautiful about her. You don’t understand what she says, you don’t understand the signals she’s giving you, but you persevere… and before you know it, you are stuck with her for life! Now you understand bits and pieces of what she says, like when she says “no….” she means “yes!” And when she says “mum” she means “mum”. Still, she’s quite the puzzle.
*Snore*
Sigh! You fail to see the beauty? I have an amateurish presentation which I whipped up sometime back; it might help you fall in love with cryptics.

No thank you! But tell me, when did you get rejected?
Eh? I’ve never been rejected… er except when I used to play basketball, but that’s beside the point.
Well then what’s with the relationship analogy and all? You hooked up with someone?
I can’t have a girlfriend… how can the best have a better half?
Yeah right! Let’s face the facts, you can’t get a girl. Period!
Are you kidding me? “It” means sex appeal and I am an IT professional!
Whatever!
What’s more, CODERS and SCORED are anagrams! We’re naturals at getting laid.
At getting laid off you mean.
Haha very funny! I can go over there and ask that girl out right now.
What will you go ask her “I don’t have a life, can I share yours?”
Hey! I do have a life!
Raaaaight!

Um…where do you stay?
Koramangala 4th block.
Oh okay, own house?
No no mad or what? Rented apartment. It’s got hardly any room
Ah like a condominimum eh?
Very funny! How’s your work?
Work is okay, it keeps the food on the table
Eh? You are a waiter?
Grrr! No, but come to think of it, I do work with servers.
So why don’t you switch to something else?
WHAT! Leave my job? Are you crazy!
But I thought you wanted to be in ads or something? Or make crosswords?
I like doing those things because that’s not what I’m supposed to do. If it’s a responsibility for which I earn much much less than what I do now, I’d start hating it. Don’t you get it? The grass is always greener on the other side. We all go through this.

Ah! So you just write random stuff on your blog?
Don’t talk about the blog man, I just found out that my Dad reads it.
WHAT? So he disowned you?
No no Dad is a really cool guy.
You sly fox! You are gonna blog this aren’t you?
I have no idea what you are talking about ;)
So you like your job? You are good at it?
Well, I feel quite dumb at times. Not that I could have expected much else - from NITW-IT is quite the recipe for disaster.
Speaking of recipes, I’d certainly like to know who made this awful culinary concoction. I’d like to see him eat it.
LOL Feedback huh? I think it tastes okay.
Oh what do you know about food? How much do you weigh? 38?
No 38 is your waist size! You are fat and disgusting – you are abdomenable!

Ok I think I should push.
Oh wait don’t go! Vijay said he’d be coming over.
No, he just messaged me, He is at his girlfriend’s place apparently, and he won’t make it.
Oh! So where are you going? I’ll come along.
Sure, Gaurav and I are going to check out this new pub with some girls from my workplace.
Oh, but I don’t drink.
You can always start.
Eh? No, no no… I’ll just go do er.. um… I’ll go home.
You wanna do some hookah?
Dude! I maybe a corporate whore, but I’m not that shallow!
Eh? Not hooker, hookah.
hookAH! No not interested.
No girls, no booze, no smoke. So what do you do on weekends?
Oh, you know… I just er.. um… Ah! The cheque is here, I’ll pay
Alright I’m off, nice meeting you!
Bye! But what exactly do I do after work hours….? *scratches head*

Ex-pensive

2008-12-12T18:27:00.000+05:30

By Tony Sebastian who is so funny that people have started calling him a joke!

Hello! What ho what ho what ho!
Just leave me alone, I want to die in peace!
Whoa! what happened to you?
My girlfriend broke up with me man!
No wonder you look down in the dumps hehe So how did it happen?
Well we were on the phone and she said "We're breaking up"
Ah! Are you sure she didn't say "you are breaking up"?, the signal might have been bad you know.
No no I'm quite sure. I can't make out how any of this happened.
If you can't make-out, there is no wonder any of this happened, you should know how to keep your woman satisfied
Stop fooling around!
I will, but that's what you shouldn't have done.
Bah

So you have no idea how any of this happened? What were you talking about with er.. what's her name?
Sheetal
wow, cool name hehe.
I think its because I said something about maths. You know how she likes maths?
No I don't, but go on..
Yeah so well she likes maths.
Maths?
Maths
Maths?
Maths
So why were you going out with her again?
So she likes maths and we were talking about calculus or something...
Wow this is what couples talk about? Sheesh!
...I've never really understood calculus, so I told her I thought it was stupid

Ooooh!! Why would you say that? Calculus is an integral part of mathematics you know. You should never have done that! Girls like all kinds of weird stuff which reason can't justify. They like pink ponies and Shah Rukh Khan and what not! You have to put up with all that. She will, in all probability, have a little brother who bops you on the nose real hard, and she will think its cute - if you so much as lift a little finger against him, you've had it!
I thought you didn't know what couples talked about?
I know enough to give advice :D
Well I abused math and now I am minus one girl friend. That sums it up.
So how are you going to deal with the "aftermath"?
I don't know
No more dates?
Nope! Sigh! Guess I'll finish NFS Carbon
Ah! Carbon-dating? Do something more constructive da, Start a party against all the politicians in the world! That's right they screw everything up, politicians suck - That's the latest fad, join in and you can reap rich rewards. With my brains and your cash, we can take over the world!
Bah
Wait a minute, you've been boozing?
Yep, don't I look like I'm in high spirits?
Well I don't know about spirits, but you look like a ghost of a man, does that count?
Blah!
Well hang in there man, you'll get over it soon. At the very least you'll get a hangover hehe

Oh damn! I've finished this bottle! Could you be a dear friend and go and get me another?
This early in the morning?
I got this bottle at 6 in the morning
Whoa! ok, I'll take your bike of course. And where's the cash?
You'll have to get it from the ATM, here's my card... I hope there is enough left I just took out a lot of cash this morning
Ah! Withdrawal symptoms eh? hehe
Just go man!
Hey I'm grabbing some extra cash ok? I feel quite hungry myself
Sure whatever
I'll get some chicken for you as well, you're in a fowl mood aren't you?
I guess
Ok get ready by the time I come back, I have a whole plan lined up, We'll have lunch at City Grand and dinner at Suprabha. I'll let you pay of course and entertain you with my wit. Oh btw do you need this I pod? Can I borrow it for like 3 months?
Take whatever you want
Thanks man, these headphones too ok?
yeah just get me the booze
Hey, how do I get the booze past the guard at the gate? What if he squeals to the savage warden?
Just give him some money, he'll shut up
oh! purse his lips eh? hehe
Go! And close the door behind you
Bye bye...... Hey Pedro you wanna go to Hyderabad today? I've got a lotta cash man and a bike... we'll party tonight....

Vee Yes Can

2008-12-03T17:29:00.000+05:30

by Tony Sebastian who is a major contributor to trash on the blogosphere

In an innovative move to rid Kerala of its garbage disposal problems, the dynamic Chief Minister Mr. V.S Achuthananthan has introduced a scheme that would ensure that the streets of Kerala are clean. In a press conference here yesterday, V.S said "This is the statement which you have to read out to the press (Please don't read out this sentence). The people of Kerala can now rejoice as there will be no more garbage disposal problems. We are introducing a new trash can which can contain all the trash which any human can produce. This apparatus, called "Vee Yes Can" will be distributed to all families. Lal Salam!" "Oh I almost forgot - mafia, syndicate" He added hastily, showing off his impressive command over the English language.

Can Vee Yes?

The scheme has been much appreciated by the scientific community "It is sheer genius- VS can [can] be full of trash and yet appear presentable on the outside" Said Nipun Manjooran, also famous for his theory which states that Buoyancy actually doesn't exist.

"Hey isn't Vee Yes Can a play on Yes we can? Mallus can never come up with anything original can they?" asked well known Mallu-basher Sravani Gullapalli. "Yeah we mallus are truly shameless - we don't mind admitting it, we are unique. We've got no Gultee conscience and we don't give a Tam!" commented Naveen Murali cleverly crafting his first sentence to fit in with his punchline.

"But we do come up with original stuff, look at Tony's idea of faking news for instance" Said a beaming Thomas Kappen on being given the auto-critique duty in Royal Ramble. "Shouldn't you have put the vee yes can on the left in the picture?" Asked Abel Joseph, sounding politically correct for the first time in his life.

"So now every house in Kerala will have the burden of a trash can? Doesn't that mean all Keralites will be 'Bin-Laden' hehe" Said Jagdheesh Singaram laughing hysterically at his poorly framed but clever joke.

"Why don't we just pick up all the trash and put it in our treasury? It is empty anyway" Said Cherian Philipose, widely renowned for his biting sarcasm, before getting his 30th Air frag in the Q3DM17 arena for the day. "Hey then we could call it the trashery! And if you look closely at the Vee Yes can, you can see V.S's image on it, its uncanny really!" Said Amplemon Mathukutty.

"Trash disposal problems in Kerala? Priyadarshan is the man to sort it out, look at all the classic Malayalam movies he has converted to trash and sold to Bollywood!" Said Nikhil flaunting his MBA degree. "Trash disposal problems in Kerala? Priyadarshan is the man to sort it out, look at all the classic Malayalam movies he has converted to trash and sold to Bollywood!" Said Priyadarshan keeping his reputation (of flicking anything clever which someone else makes up) intact.

"Hey how come no one asked me for a comment? I'm an expert at trash talk" Said Indian pace bowler S. Sreesanth before doing a jig from Chiranjeevi's immortal Indian thriller.

The various ideas did not reach the CM's ears however as he was too busy making retarded remarks in Bangalore. Royal Ramble earnestly hopes that Vee Yes Can keep all the trash within itself.

SOB Story

2008-11-24T15:04:00.001+05:30

//Son Of Bosey is an amazing blog where they fake news and do it really well. I just wanted to try and replicate its style in the following article.

Manchester United outFoxed?

Posted by Tony Sebastian in a desperate attempt to make his blog sound less desperate.

Fox Broadcasting Company has announced that they have been having talks with Nemanja Vidic of Manchester United to replace the Prison Break character Michael Scofield currently played by Wentworth Miller. "Ever since Scofield started bleeding all over the place, we've been looking for possible replacements and Nemanja seems to fit the boots perfectly. Scofield and Soccer-field are not very far off heh heh" Said Sepp Blabber president of Fox In Football Arena (FIFA) .

"Apart from the fact that they look similar, it will improve our TRP ratings to have someone from an exotic country like Serbia and Monte...er..um..African-American"said Fox's brain of Seeking, Luring and Yanking department (SLY) showing the whole world how TV personnel have to become too obsessed and too cautious of ethnic/racial slurs.

An understandably irate Sir Alex Ferguson said "First, an attempt to swoop Ronaldo and now Vidic! I'm sure it's another evil scheme of Real Madrid" sounding Real Mad in the process. Barack Obama said "Outsourcing is a wolf beating down our door, we urge Fox not to do this".

Jagdheesh Singaram appeared distraught at his exclusion from the first two quotes on the article and said "Machi, when you said you were writing a Son of Bosey esque post, I assumed it would have something to do with me looking like Pedro Collins" proving to the world that what matters to him and the IIM he studies in consists of one letter - I. "Sir Alex Ferguson anagrams to regular foxiness - I'm sure he will figure a way out of this... oh wait a minute even this channel is used to regular Fox-iness... hmmm" he added, showcasing his amazing ability to spew useless trivia and mediocre wordplay without really saying anything.

"Prison Break is really out of fashion, you should watch Heroes" Said Sravani Gullapalli who juggles between serials and 10 point GPAs making others look pretty ordinary in the process. "Now that he is fired and has lost his value, the old Scofield has lived up to his real name -WentWorth" She went on to add before laughing out loud at her own joke.

"Scofield? Oh! That's an 8 letter word!" said a gleeful looking Menino Pereira. His excitement seemed short lived however, as he carried on saying "Oh! its not valid in CSW! I can't play it on a Scrabble board.Who cares about prison break or Manchester United? I support Valencia" trying desperately to make himself sound different from the rest of the crowd and thereby improve his sex appeal. "I also play guitar for the church choir and weigh 350 pounds" he said, making sure he added weight to his argument.

"Huh? What what what?" said Phalgun Nelaturu late to react as usual "oh! I've always felt they shared a striking similarity hehe one guy left central shack and the other guy is left centre back hehe" he said, in an attempt to show the world that Royal Ramble always loves PJs. "Yes, I have three U-s in my name, I'm a pretty U-s-ful guy to have around" he added making sure to drive the point home and arousing suspicion of drug abuse.
"I haven't seen Prison Break lately, someone deleted it from the LAN. The guy who did it was a serial killer" said Chuck, the well renowned comical engineer.

"Who is Nemanja Vidic?" asked celebrity singer and lyricist Shakthisree Gopalan, a long time Manchester United fan who(like many other girls) has never seen a football match. "Hey that's not true, girls are interested in football, in fact we follow football with the same passion as Nemanja... we ditch " she said grinning from ear to ear (while simultaneously trying to hide the blonde streaks in her hair), surprised and delighted at her newly found ability to pun.

Stay tuned for more updates. Until next time, That's all ~~hoax~~ ~~Fox~~ folks!

Woo doves

2008-11-16T17:28:00.000+05:30

Posted by Tony Sebastian who has been rejected by chicks even before he asked them out

“Dude what’s with you man? What was that last post?”

“Why what is wrong with it? They were just cursory rhymes and yeah, well, I took a cheap shot at girls for being stupid ;) They should be smacked once in a while”

“Well it smacked of desperation, I can tell you that”

“Huh? What? Why? :O”

“I’ve decided I’m gonna be your wingman, you really need a chick!”

“Er and why are you doing this again?”

“I want your happiness man! (And maybe I can make a blog out of it). How about that girl you stare at in the cafeteria?”

“Hey! Hey! I can get her if I want to ok? I don’t need your help”

“Sure! What will you do? Go up to her and then choke and die?”

“No, I’ll just tell her a joke, like - Hey Why does Lalit Modi wear spectacles? I thought he had a 20/20 vision!”

“Do you know anything about girls? You expect her to know who Lalit Modi is?”

“Hmmm I get your point. How about this -

Q: Why was the guitarist such a party pooper?

A: Because he fretted too much.

Or this

Q: Why was the civil engineer acquitted of all charges in the glass-building scam?

A: There was nothing concrete against him”

“*Raises one eyebrow* THIS is how you are gonna woo doves?”

“Wodehouse? These are not from Wodehouse man, I made them on my own”

“Not Wodehouse you fool, WOO DOVES”

“Woo who?”

“What makes you so happy?”

“No no not woo hoo, woo w-h-o?”

“Oh who! Ok woo doves – you know, chicks, birds, whatever you wanna call them”

“Oh doves! Ok ok. So what do you suggest?”

“What’s her name?”

“The dove’s? As Shakespeare said “What’s in a name?””

“Alright Mr.Shakespeare quoter, how many Shakespeare works have you read?”

“None, but please don’t tell my blog readers about it!”

“Anyway what’s her name? I’ll show you how it’s done”

“oh um Chattampi Kalyani I think”

“Chattampi? What a strange surname! Is she gult?”

“Maybe”

“OK anyway, now here is what we do…. Google search ‘Chattampi Kalyani’ That’s the spelling?”

“Yup”

“Tadah! OK NIT Trichy, EEE, whoa! 9.2 CGPA! Dude she is definitely gult! You sure you wanna woo her?”

“Eh? Yeah sure why not?”

“Hmmm OK then, let’s just hope she uses her real name on Orkut. Search ‘Chattampi Kalyani’ Bingo! Chattampi Kalyani, F, 21, Hyderabad/Trichy… hmmm she hasn’t updated since moving here”

“Hey wait! Are you logged in from my profile?”

“No, relax! Credit me with a little intelligence; I’m your alter ego after all!”

“OK”

“Well, what do we have here? Hmmm... favourite music ‘Arbit Band’. Nice! I don’t know many people who like their music. Hell I don’t even know the band! You are in luck”

“How?”

“Its simple, we wiki Arbit Band, you listen to a lot of their songs and read more about them before your rendez-woo with CK and then when you do meet, you talk a lot about the band, maybe even sing a few lines”

“Yeah right I’m gonna do that!”

“Hey face the facts. You are not exactly Brad Pitt. You’ve got two options – you can get 10 cosmetic surgeries, start working out in the gym and carry on for 10 months till you get a six pack and then proceed to woo her, or you can sit on this couch, eat lay’s and read about this band and woo her next week appearing to be the stranger who shares a lot of common interests with her, and of course you can ramble about omens and signs and fate and destiny and whatnot! With rhetoric you can take over the world, look at Obama for instance.”

“Hmmm I guess you have a point”

“Of course I do! Interesting! “Best Feature: Hands” really unique! I think we just hit on another line you can use about 3 days after you start talking to her and are actively wooing – ‘Your hands epitomise what a lady’s finger should be’ Neat huh?”

“Lady’s finger? You want me to call her a vegetable?”

“OK ra! I didn’t intend it in the vegetable kinda way… but yeah, I see what you mean. How about ‘Your index finger, is a fine exponent of… er… add some nice word after that”

“And she’ll say ‘yeah you are pretty close to that too’ and show me the middle finger _^^!_^^”

“OK this – Your hands are so fine that there are so many beautiful things it reminds me of, I can’t exactly remember what, but how I wish I could put a finger on it!”

“*Raises eyebrow* How many chicks have you actually wooed?”

“Um... er... That’s beside the point. Hey! Her birthday is in two weeks!”

“So?”

“Don’t you see? It’s the perfect opportunity! You can get her a surprise gift, there is no way you could have known it was her birthday. Get something that will knock the stuffing outta her!”

“You want me to get her food poisoning?”

“Haha very funny!”

“Ok what do I give her, a book of my jokes?”

“No dude, something meaningful!”

“Meaningful? How about a dictionary? hehe”

“Lame! Something that reminds her of you everyday, like a sweater maybe – it’s like you, it keeps her warm and is always there for her in the hardest of times and well... it feels really soft”

“Sweater? You want her to remember me as a sweater? This is probably what she will say ‘Oh The-unnamed-character from-Tony’s-blog-who-suspiciously-sounds-very-much-like-him? He is a sweater! Remind me to get him a deo next time’! The only thing a sweater would symbolise (apart from body odour) is me pulling the wool over her eyes. Forget it. I’m just gonna go up to her and talk normally”

“*Sigh* Don’t say I didn’t warn you”

**************************************************

“OK dude, there she is. All the best man! (*sigh* Poor guy)”

“Um.. Hi…”

“Excuse me, I think it is best if you don’t disturb me, you can go now”

“What happened?”

“Dude, I couldn’t even say a word, she asked me to go boil my head before that”

“Its OK man at least I’ll get a blog out of it”

“Dude but will she file a harassment case against me or something? Will she take me to court?”

“At least that way some girl will be courting you hehe”

“Hmmm I guess you’ll call it woo doves? A post named after Wodehouse - that sounds like a tasty offering!”

“Yeah sort of like a plum cake huh?”

“Nice one, though I don’t think anyone will get it”

“That’s alright; we are the only people who care about wordplay man. How many people are gonna notice the lady’s finger –okra bit?”

“I guess you are right. But you really have to stop using throwaway jokes that have no bearing on the post at all!”

"Hmmm yeah"

"Hey! How did the cartoonist beat the cowboy in the duel?"

"How?"

"He drew faster!"

“*LOL* That's what you were going to draw her out with, is it?"

"Yup, draw her out and then win her over *sigh*"

"You’ve had a rough day, come let’s solve a crossie”

“I love you man!’

Cursory Rhymes

2008-11-12T18:19:00.000+05:30

Posted by Tony Sebastian who is renowned for his "laid-back" attitude

Deflowered

Single Single little flower
sipping vodka at the bar
looking lost and oh so high
like a her-she's to my eye

When the very last shot is done
I'll pick her up and we'll have fun
she's sexy but ain't so bright
we'll mingle mingle all the night

From bed to verse

One two, girls to woo
Three, four, I want more
Five, six, pick up chicks
Seven, eight, lay them straight
Nine, ten, more women
eleven, twelve, dump and shelve
thirteen, fourteen, routine couplin'
fifteen, sixteen, fun's abating
seventeen, eighteen, back to baiting
nineteen, twenty, score aplenty

Cream de la Scream

Throw throw throw your coat
and rip the top's seam
hurriedly hurriedly hurriedly hurriedly
and spread some whipped cream
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Thanks again to Priya for the doodle :)

Rein, Rein go away

2008-11-09T15:48:00.000+05:30

I love the rains. I always have. It reminds you that someone is up there - that the sky is not as empty as one supposes it to be. When those little drops trickle down your face, you know that you are alive - that you are not just another inconsequential block of concrete.

I love the rains almost as much as I hate waxing. It hurts. It is not worth the effort, just to look good for ONE function, I have to endure this abysmal pain - yet I have to do it, just because everyone else does it. It is more or less like joining a coaching centre for CAT preparations. You pay them to waste your time, just because everyone else is doing it.

Maybe it was because I'd just been waxed that I was cursing the rain. I was stuck just outside the beauty parlour and it was pouring. I just wanted to get home but I didn't want to ruin my well done hair. There was nothing I could do, I had to wait. I wondered why my larger-than-necessary handbag didn't have an umbrella in it.

He was standing not more than 10 feet away from me, looking away into the rain. He had a knowing smile fixed on his face. He turned and looked at me. I looked away. He held his gaze, I could see him looking. Strangely enough, he wasn't checking me out; he was staring straight into my eyes. I turned. He was smiling.

"What?" I said, sounding ruder than I had intended to.
"Its just funny"
"What is?" This time I had meant to be rude.
"Oh nothing" He said and looked away.

Now I had to know! If he had set a trap, I was going to walk into it.

"What is funny?" This time I adopted a politer tone.
"You know you are ultimately going to get wet, but you still stand here... waiting... grumbling... cursing"
"Well if you are so smart then why don't you walk?" I hate know-it-all guys.
"I just like watching people in the rain, there are so many things you can see around you - how the rains bring people closer together, makes them less afraid of touch - like those two people under the same umbrella. The irony of course is that they do it because they value their things more"

I had to admit this was weird. There was no hint of flirtation in what he said, or in his tone. This was something I was not used to.
"So that's why you are standing here? To look at people?" He had a "Nokia" tag around his neck. I rarely talked to strangers. Maybe I was bored. And this guy was different.
"Yeah, pretty much. And I was hoping I could talk to you"

Who am I kidding? All guys are the same!

"And why is that?"
"I was hoping I could convince you to walk in the rain"
"You think you can make people do what you want them to?" I was seriously irritated now.
"No I'm trying to see if I can make people do what they want to."

"What do you mean?"
"Just what I told you. I think people care too much"
"And caring is bad because....?"
"They care about the wrong things. If you step out into the rain and forget your hair and your cell-phone and your clothes, you'd be free... you'd live... you'd be happy, yet people can't get themselves to do that"
"So what you are trying to say is people should stop caring?"
"Maybe. If you do not care, you can't be hurt, you can't feel sad."
"Yeah but you can't be happy either"
"That is why I said maybe. I think people should stop caring about things"
"But if people stopped caring about things, there would be no progress. Everything would just come to a standstill"

"Would it really be progress if we stopped doing things we wanted to do? How different would we be from machines in that case? We are all tools to a finite end? I don't want to believe that. I don’t think we are progressing when we are in the middle of a financial meltdown. All around me are people who are willing to put their money into stocks and shares – volatile, fickle, but they still do it. Yet they are not willing to invest in themselves – their dreams, their goals, their ambitions. Shouldn’t that be so much easier? We carry on denying our natural instincts on this path of progress.”

I could see he had a point.

“How do you know I am not following my dream?”

“Are you?”

“Your dream was to work for Nokia?”

(I will almost say anything and everything to gain the advantage in an argument. I don’t care if the other person gets hurt in the process. Strangely enough, I don’t think I regret it either. Why should I apologize if the ball hits the net and falls in my opponent’s court when we play table tennis? I don’t feel sorry about it. In fact I’d love it if it happened all the time.)

He just smiled. So did I. I had gotten the better of him. I felt quite content.

“Are you religious?” I asked

“No”

“You are an atheist?”

“Of course not, I believe in God. I just think there is a bit of him in each religion - bits which do not add up to the whole, substantial bits nonetheless. Most of all I don’t believe that God is an egotist as most religions seem to portray him. If his purpose was to give us stuff when we make him happy, he’d be just another man –come to think of it, I guess he is. I believe God exists in each one of us. We are our own Gods. ”

“So religions are pointless?”

“No that is not what I meant to say. Spirituality is personal. I would never have talked about it unless you asked me about it. In the bible Jesus Christ uses this phrase often when he heals someone “your faith has saved you”. He could have said “The faith” but he chose “your faith”. I think that is the essence of spirituality. It would be unfair if I expected you to believe in what I believe in – it would almost be like a non-vegetarian expecting everyone to be one, a teetotaller expecting people not to drink, a straight person thinking homosexuality is wrong – Its all a matter of personal taste – one is not necessarily better than the other. Abraham Lincoln once said about democracy “As I shall not be a slave, so I shall not be a master”. While we would all fight for our right to be the first bit, I doubt how many of us would follow the second. We all have a way of justifying our vices and decrying the follies of others.”

I do all that. I thought to myself

“So do I” he said with a smile “I think I should get going now, I have to get home before the rain stops”

With those words he was off. His arms outstretched, chin facing up, he started running and then he turned around in a circle.

I switched on the radio. The voice sounded familiar. The RJ was interviewing someone.

“How hard was it for you to bring out your debut album when you were working for a company?”

“Not at all. It would have been hard for me not to do it. I feel, whatever you do, you can still follow your dream, and achieve it too”

It was him. I felt quite stupid and strangely enough I smiled. And then I stepped out, into the rain, I felt free. I stretched out my arms and looked up to the skies and I told myself - I can fly too.

Breading a fine line

2008-10-31T23:15:00.000+05:30

Posted by Tony Sebastian who didn't eat his food last week until he got into the Klueless 4 Hall of fame.

When Shakespeare said "If music be the food of love, play on" I do not know if he meant it literally, but the lyricist for "Tandoori Nights" certainly seems to have thought so. This particular "love" song, as irritating as it is addictive, (at least for my roomie) gave me a really bad splitting headache, contemplation of turning into a lyricist and some food for thought. And it has resulted in one of my theories! ha!

You will all agree that every man is irritable when he is hungry - and when you are irritable, you can't do anything. The world appears a better place when one has had his fill. You are overflowing with the milk of human kindness and anything is possible, I'd go so far as to say you would do things which you never wanted to.

My mom used to put this to excellent use whenever I came home from college. She would stuff me with the RCSC Mallu culinary concoctions which Moses dreamt about when he was wandering in the desert. Then she'd watch me transform from Gult-Tony to GlutTony and say "Tony go get a haircut, take a shave, shower and wear some fresh clothes". And I would say "Sure Mom, right after I water your plants :) " and if you know me you will know that I'm no plant-waterer, except for that one time when I had to pee pretty badly.

But that is just circumlocution. I'm beating around the bush, being unnecessarily verbose, talking all the time but saying nothing. I hate authors who do that. You are in the middle of a gripping story and the guy goes on to describe every thing around the place in gross disgusting detail. You know what I'm talking about.

Sample Jack and Jill for instance. How does it matter that they went up the hill to "fetch a pail of water"? That line is just redundant. Would it have made any difference if they had gone up the hill to "Kill Patrick Rafter"? Actually yeah, it would rhyme better. But that is not the point. The point is... er where was I? Yes redundancy and repetition are just really pissing off. What matters in the Jack and Jill story is that they fell. If a smarter man had written that verse, it would have read "Jack, Jill went up the hill and tumbled down, the former suffered a head injury". Writers shouldn't meander - they should be clear, concise, to the point.

So yes - Lyricists like other humans get hungry. And when they do, they eat. And when they are full they write - they however have no talent or inspiration. So what happens? They think of the last thing they were passionate about - the food which they ate.

Not that I blame them, when you write lyrics, you have the strain in mind hehe (I'm sorry I just couldn't refrain from doing that lol! and you thought it couldn't get any verse?). My exploration of lyrics from Tamil and Malayalam songs have brought some interesting conclusions.

1) If you exhaust the cliches of comparing your loved one to a flower or the spring or an amazon forest, you can go forth and compare him/her to the last thing that passed through your oesophagus (or use it as a setting).

2) As regions change, so do food habits and hence the difference in lyrics.

To illustrate this point further, let us see how Tamil lyrics are written. I understand Tamil lyricists eat a lot of fruit, mainly mangoes, apples come a close second though.

Sample this song from pokkiri "Mambhazhamam mambhazhamam malkoova maambhazham seelathu maambhazam neethandi...azhaka parichu unnai appadiye naanthaan thinga poren". Roughly translates to " Mango Mango Malkoova Mango Seelathu Mango you are lassie... Beautifully pluck you like that itself I am eat going to" .

Another song from the same movie goes "En chella peru apple nee size-a kadichikko" which means "My pet name is apple, bite me"...er.."adroitly"

Or this song from sachin "Gundu manga Thoappukkulla Nandu Poala Vandhaayae" and of course who can forget the song with the "vadu manga" and the "Thair saadam" in it? Maybe I should start writing lyrics for Tamil movies, it definitely seems like a fruitful affair.

Moving to God's own country, though there is the occasional lyricist who is a fruit lover ("Pachamanga Pachamanga, nee nattu maavile manga", "Pineapple penne chocolate piece-e"), Mallus as a rule are predominantly at the top of the food chain and hence our songs have a distinct non-veg taste. For instance "Ko ko kozhi chumma kokki paadathe, chicken chilli fry aayi vetti vizhungum njaan" (Cluck, cluck chick don't simply cluck and sing, I will gobble you as chicken chilli fry)

But what is most amazing about Malayalam lyricists is their love for liver. It is almost as if they eat liver 3 times a day. Liver is the most (ab)used word in Malayalam songs.

Example "Karale Karalinte Karale, ennodu onnu chirikku" meaning "Oh Liver, liver of my liver, please smile for me". Can you picture that? Imagine if it actually happens! Your liver decides to smile! Think of the sheer agony you would go through if your liver muscles decided to contort themselves and form a curve around its middle - you would just die. What an irony, you say liver and you become a dier!

Another Mallu song goes "Karale nin kai pidichal, kadalolam vennilavu" (Liver if I hold your hand, there is moonlight as deep as the ocean) Like duh! you put your hand inside yourself and hold your liver, you won't just see moonlight, your whole life will start flashing before your eyes!

Sheesh! I guess we mallus just like big glands!

Maybe I should just write songs about mallu food! oh wait I already did that. Now to go forth and make cash out of it!

However the food theory just fails when you come to Gults. Gults will always be illiterate about fashion and almost always in IITs, IIMs or Stanford/MIT. There is no wonder their lyrics read like this " romeo ki clone ve nuvva, rainbow ki twin ve nuvva dream university ki dean ve nuvva"
I really don't understand how you can describe your lover as "The dean of my dream university"! That takes the cake.

Hmmm maybe that is the way to get to the hot gult gal I meet in the cafeteria, I guess I'll go call her "the root of my quadratic equation"! wish me luck!
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Thanks again to Priya for the doodle :)

Mud-till-head

2008-10-25T00:43:00.000+05:30

Posted by Tony Sebastian who will never get "bogged" down in the quest to salvage his rightful first position in Google search for his name.

A wise man once said "Never get angry in life, you end up screwing your sandals, ruining your favourite jeans and searching through shit for headphones which you didn't lose"

Quite frankly, that is about the dumbest thing any wise man could ever have said. But that is the thing with these people - their sayings have an uncanny knack of coming true when you least expect them to. One can't exactly put a finger on why this is always the case, it could be one thing or it could be another, but in my opinion I think it has got something to do with them being "wise" men.

Onwards with the story. The best of men are testy after work and one full day of TT. All they really want to do is keep away from pests and eat a slice of bread that is meaty. But in order to do so TSEBASTI (don't look at me, I didn't get to choose my GUID ), the best of men who is testy has to avail a cab which would take him home. So on he goes to get into the cab with music in his ears (from his phone) and fire in his belly.

By he I mean I and by his I mean mine. So I sing out loud along with the music, sounding like a cross between a foghorn with a cold (it is dashed difficult for an inanimate thing to catch a cold, but you can bet a tenner that it is even more difficult to replicate my unique tenor) and a wild animal caught in a trap. Meanwhile on my shoulder there is a tap, the cab co-ordinator asks me to move to another cab. I know at that very instant - disaster. The word spells out clearly before my eyes. The alarm goes off! I switch it off (I really should switch to 24 hour clock one of these days!) and I know that this is it - yet another blog post!

The cabby gets angry at this point, very reasonable I would say. I mean he doesn't want to drop an extra person. So after giving the co-ordinator a mouthful and telling us how adept he would be at giving the co-ord a lobotomy, he starts the cab, but not before shooting me a dirty look, and by dirty I mean as dirty as Pedro in his longest run without a bath.

He drops the first guy at some place I've never been to before, and then asks me in Kannada "Do you know how to get to your place from here?". Ignorant of Kannada I may be, but my extra large cranium is designed for situations like these. "No" I answered triumphantly with a smile on my face. The cabby points to me and abuses like a senior in an engineering college who has just been told by a first year that he just won't do the former's assignments. Although not filled with glee, I believe in karma, so I put up a brave facade like B.Lee did with Ishant Sharma.

He finally figured out the way and we moved on. So upon reaching a fork in the road from where I could get to my destination I directed the cabby through the shorter route (shorter by about 4 kilometres), through Byrasandra main road. Given below is a picture of the road from about a month ago. Although it looks like the Nile in its prime, I assure you that it is not. THIS ladies and gentlemen is Byrasandra MAIN road! Very much so - in flesh and blood or mud and water, tar and mortar, asphalt and whatnot.

So when this road was repaired by unloading some red soil and flattening it out with a road roller, my cup of joy (like the Byrasandra main road of the past) was overflowing. I directed the cabby through this path with no hesitation whatsoever. What I failed to realise was that when it rains in Bangalore, the roads resemble melted Cadbury chocolate - quite sweet and mushy you might say, but not at all in a romantic way.

Halfway through this treacherous embarkment, the cabby stops near the embankment. This time the abuses have gained in acerbity, with a fine concatenation of the worst possible expletives he tells me that he won't go any further. Now there are limits to a man's patience, and mine had been breached. This had been the last straw. So I said "Hay! how was I supposed to know the road would be like this? i DON'T MAKE ROADS AROUND HERE YOU KNOW? Fine if you won't go, don't! " And I get out of the cab and slam the door angrily.

I strode off triumphantly showing a mental middle finger to the cab driver. There is something you should know about cabbies, they are in cohorts with Murphy and God. They have a clandestine conspiratory group which traps innocent victims. You need proof? Of course you do! when will you ever believe something without proof, even if I say it? So here goes CABBY-GOD-MURPHY anagrams to "Broach by mud gyp" - In other words a scandal where they make sure your chest is decorated with mud! Coincidence? Could this possibly be the origin of the word CABAL, I wonder - A secret conspiratory group of Cabbies with Baal?

Ignorant of the existence of this clique,I take my first step on what appears to be firm red soil and the next thing I know I'm shin deep in mush. Still angry I put my other foot forward and remarkably the same thing happens again, except of course it is a different foot this time. With dogged determination I persevered and finally got to the other side of the road.

When you want to lose your temper and shout at someone, you want to do it properly. I, therefore had detached the earphones from my er.. ears (wow we would never have guessed that Tony!) and let it drop into my lap. This scheme works perfectly when one is sitting but it is not meant for one who intends to door-slam angrily and walk away with his nose in the air.

As I walked on I happened to notice that my earphones like Houdini had pulled a vanishing act. Now if you live to 21 and eat chicken, you know that earphones are not designed to pull off vanishing acts. If you also eat beef, you figure out that it is not in your pocket because you have lost it. Having satisfied all the above conditions, I knew that it was missing. "What next?" is the question on your lips!

But of course they don't let you eat chicken unless you have brains. I must have lost it (the earphones not the brains) during the door-slamming extravaganza - I figured. I took a second to marvel at my own intelligence and 10 seconds to pat myself on the back from behind with my palm, a very difficult thing to do if you've ever tried (Oh my God! I can't believe you are actually trying it! How lame are you?)

I went back to the scene of the misfortune being the cynosure of all eyes, with what appeared to be the latest in fashion a jeans blue-ish till the shin and very brown below it. They are wearing it in Milan these days, but our humble b'lore folk are not aware of it and continue staring. So I bend over and search for the best part of five minutes (the not-so-best part of the 5 minutes was spend answering questions in Kannada, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu) with no luck.

Battered and bruised I decided to make my way back to my lair. Just as I was about to jump the adobe-wall that grants me entry to my grand abode, I felt something move between my hips and the bag, something distinctly wiry and lean, quite like a snake. A lesser man in my position would have flinched. But my name is not S.Tony for a reason, Stolid Tony they call me at times. Remaining calm and extracting the snake I realized that it was in fact the lost coin, the prodigal son - For he was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found, Rejoice with me; I have found my lost earphones!

And then the wise man said as he jumped the wall "Never get angry in life, you end up screwing your sandals, ruining your favourite jeans and searching through shit for headphones which you didn't lose"

Moral of the story - Tony maybe dirty, but he is always right ;)
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PS: Thanks a ton to Priya (Ruthless Knife) for the doodle :)

Around the 'curb'

2008-10-19T20:26:00.000+05:30

Hey sweetie,get in the car. how was your day? :)

It’s just a stupid world! I’m meant to be unhappy forever. What? Why do you put on that stupid smile of yours all the time? Is it even real? Nobody is allowed to be that happy in life. You are just faking it.

Am I? :) I think the world is as perfect as we are. I’m ready to accept it for its imperfections as I’m ready to accept mine. I love myself and I love the world.

Well you’ve just had the perfect life. You would love the world for all the goodness it has showered upon you.

That is just a skewed way of looking at things. I have had a great life because I wanted to have one. I became a good footballer because I wanted to be one. You are what you want to be.

That is just nonsense! You mean to say I can be a footballer if I want to be?

Well do you want to be one?

There you go. So how can you ever tell that you wouldn’t be one?

So you are saying if I wanted to do it, I could?

Yes if you wanted it enough - If you were willing to train hard everyday of every week of every month of every year, if you wanted it enough that you wouldn’t care about a million failures, myriad rejections, even more dejections. If you wanted it so much that even after your first fracture you were willing to go out on the field again, intrepid, inspired, with the inner strength to hold yourself together - If you believed in yourself enough. Yes dear you could be a footballer.

I don’t believe it.

And there lies the answer to all your problems.

But why should I believe it. I’m free to be the way I want to. Dreams? I’ve had dreams too. But I had to give them up. Not out of my own volition of course. Society made me do it. Oh well you wouldn’t understand. You just wouldn’t know what I am talking about. You’ve had great parents a trouble free life.

Maybe I have and maybe I wouldn't understand it. But I believe anyone and everyone can be happy. It is again just a matter of how much you want it. I can crib all day about how I'm losing pace now that I am 30. How I can never be as good as I used to be. How I'll have to sit on the substitutes' bench for a lot of my remaining time. How my career is going to end almost when everyone else is just starting theirs. I can complain that I don't look good. That I have scars on almost every part of my body. I can't dance. I'm dense about music. I can crib about how unlucky I was that I took so long to be a star. I just choose not to.

But you are so popular, everyone would want to be you. You are just lucky. I'm not. you know that is true.

I just made my own luck. I worked hard to be a good footballer. I fought my parents who wanted me to do an MBA and become an investment banker.

Yeah you are just talented and that is nothing but luck - you didn't earn that. There you go with that smug smile of yours again.

:) Sorry! I just think that everyone is talented. I just found out what I'm good at. Find out what you are good at. Be the best in that. Accept your limitations and there you go, you have a smile on your face all the time.

Who wants to be good at flower arrangement? what do you get out of that?

Who doesn't love flowers?

Well I don't. I won't ever be happy.

Of course not. You don't want to be happy - you just don't want to enjoy life. No one can help you but yourself.

Fine! Stop patronizing me.

I'm sorry. Just ask yourself. what is so bad in your life that makes you unhappy? For that matter what is happiness? Is it earning enough money to lose your sleep? Look at that guy ahead of us.

Look at how peacefully he is sleeping. I can picture a million people tearing out their hair right at this moment because the stock prices are falling - successful investment bankers and the like. The very people who were proud graduates of IIM or Wharton. yet in front of us is this simple man who can sleep on a sack of potatoes. Happiness to me is having a smile on your face when you rest your head on the pillow.
It has nothing to do with fame or fortune. It has nothing to do with what you are good at and what you are not. Consider Kurt Cobain - he had fame, he had a fortune, but was he happy in life? Did he really feel the "peace" which he wished everyone? NO, he committed suicide. Now think of Randy Pausch - he was dying when he became known to the world. Did he care about the fame? No. did he care that he was dying? No. Did he smile? yes! and he left a message for the whole world. He showed me how unfair it would be to say that I was unhappy. Surely my problems weren't as big as the ones he faced. Surely at this very moment there were a million people in the world who would trade their lives for mine. I just believe that every moment I spend not smiling, is a moment wasted.

Alright! That's enough. Stop the car. You are just an arrogant idiot who is lucky.

:) If you say so. Just think about what I told you. I'll wait for you. Get around the curb and you will find me.

Kink Floyd

2008-10-15T09:25:00.000+05:30

Posted by Tony Sebastian who hates plagiarism more than he loves himself

Here is a spoof of "Brick in the wall -2" by Pink Floyd. You know, the part that goes "we don't need no education". Sing along :)

We don't need no contraception
We don't need no birth control
More dark orgasm in the bathroom
Preachers let them kids be born
Hey! Preachers! Let them kids watch porn!
All in all it's just another prick in the hole.
All in all you're just another prick in the hole.

-Kink Floyd

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PS (Plagiarism Sucks) When I made this up, (I wished I could marry myself) I thought that this was too short and too perverted to be put up on the blog. However being the praise-craver that I am, I did send it to a few close friends who would enjoy it for the wordplay and forget the implied meaning.

There comes a day in every writer's life when he feels like he has swallowed a whole bar of chocolate the wrong way. It is supposed to taste good, but then it doesn't. I of course am referring to the day when he is plagiarised. It is a fine compliment to his creativity, yet he feels rather sick.

Now I'm not familiar with Shakespeare or his works but I believe there is a play in which chappie A is plagiarised by chappie B. This chappie B is someone who is close to his heart and chappie A dies because of the sheer shock and agony of being plagiarised by one so close to him. I'm not sure if I remember right but I think chappie A's last words were something like "You too B?" or something to that effect.

You get the point I'm trying to make of course - Shakespeare and I hate plagiarism. So stop doing it. How did this come up now you ask? A very pertinent question. This is the reason why I love my blog readers. All of them are full of intelligent questions. Look carefully at the picture below. If you can't see it well enough, click on it so it enlarges.

If you are still not convinced that plagiarists are antisocial morons of no particular use to society, consider this anagram of Plagiarist - I gal rapist. So what are you waiting for? lets stone pedro! oh wait pedro is an anagram of doper, he probably likes being stoned. Bah!

Punnin' dented

2008-10-08T14:25:00.000+05:30

By Tony Sebastian who has shamelessly ripped off Anand Ramachandran's idea of adding witty bylines to posts

T: Dude! Got screwed man!
P: Literally or figuratively?
T: Latter-ally
S: Why what happened?
T: She called me a shallow-good-for-nothing-perverted-loafer!
E: wow talk about describing it to a T!

T: But I was an altar boy in 10th standard and all!
P: you were an all tar what?
T: ALTAR BOY, you know I do the first reading etc
S: oh! you did your first reading in 10th? I did it sometime in kindergarten
T: No you ass! I used to assist the mass! (Wow poetry hangover!)
E: assist mars? Tony : Mars :: Atlas :: Earth?
T: not mars! mass! M- A- S -S
S: oh so that is supposed to be a weighty argument in your favour is it? hehe
T: yes!
S:you were hoping it would bring about a mass-ive change in her attitude?
T:groan! yes!
P: hey don't kid around guys you don't understand the gravity of the situation! :D
T: I mass say this is getting kinda lame! So anyway as I was saying...
E: Oh wait! I got one! What do you call a place where Tony bores people to death with his first reading?
T: sigh! what?
E: a mass-acre! er ok that was sad..

T: Yes it was! Now will you people let me tell the story? Thank you! So there I was all poetic, romantic and all and comparing her radiant beauty to that of a tube-light and what not and then my phone rings. You know how it is when you come up with a pun and you HAVE to say it to someone and make them tell you that you are really smart and funny don't you? so well I was lured into the same.. ok I'll just take you to the conversation

G: Hi so why did you call me out?
T: Hey I'm all poetic and romantic. I hereby compare your radiant beauty to that of a tube-light and what not (Phone rings) Hey HEY HEY! LOL :) What do you call it when someone makes out over the phone?
G: *Raises Eyebrow* What?
T: Phone-ication :D :D
G: huh?
T: Never mind, you are a tube light! I love myself :D
G: Are you going to answer the phone?
T: Oh yeah! thanks! Yellow!!
Voice over phone (v): Hey T I wanted a good caption for the photography club tee shirt, can you think of anything?
T: hmmm... How about "If I flash you will you smile?" or this...
Fill in the Blanks
Everyone loves P_ _ _OGRAPHY
(Hint: Flash, Exposure... its HOT)
V: hey nice! Thanks
T: Sure :)*Click* Hey so G will you go out with me?
G: No way in hell! you are a shallow-good-for-nothing-perverted-loafer!
T: Well with a person who loafs, at least you won't have to worry about the daily bread hehe and hey I was an altar boy once
G: Sure you were! And I hate your puns!
T: Hey now that is just mean!
G: I'm serious, one more of your stupid puns and I'm going away
T: hey c'mon don't tell me you look upon it as a pun-ishment.. er.. ok I can't stop it!

P: Wow dude talk about blowing it!
T: well it was a legit pun ok?
E: hey I'll split, I think I'm gonna get diarrhoea
P: How do you know?
E: *Shrugs* Gut feeling
T: LOL! Run along then! hehe

S: So what did she say then?
T: She said "You think you are smart" and I seized the chance to sweeten her, I said "Honey, you make me smart :)"
P: Nice touch! so what did she do?
T: She did just that
S: huh?
T: She made me smart, she hit me!
P: And then you said "Ow that smarts!"?
T: duh! and then she said "Pandaram" and I said "Wow! Pun-daram! nice word play G!" and she just continued to look blank and so I said "Oh P(un-intended)? and then she kicked me in the crotch! ow!

S: So that settled it?
T: yeah and then I discovered she is too perverted, so I chucked it...
P: How did that happen?
T: Well she told me I could kiss her ass! C'mon I don't want to go out with a girl like that!
P: Ok so you came back to college for the convocation, asked a girl out and she kicked you in the crotch! well at least it was better than your first asking out.
S: What happened then?
P: He ran away!
T: I didn't run, I walked away fast, I had to pee!
P: and then came back only the next day
T: well I had to pee real long ok! and like you say its not like I can pause while I'm peeing, its not like ctrl+P would work!
P: oh yeah that was a good one! Hey what was that caption you suggested for the metallurgy T shirt?
T: "Ingot we trust" :)

S: Hey why don't you go into the advertisement field man or journalism? That is what you want to do right?

T: It would pay me only one-fourth as much as I earn now and well I'm not brave enough to take a leap like that, I'd like to think I am, but when it comes to the nub of it, I'm the biggest coward there is. I guess I'm not alone either.. hell I'm part of the majority! All of us had childhood dreams, we gave up on them somewhere along the way, we lost that all-consuming flame which burned within us. We convinced ourselves we were just ordinary sea-gulls whose purpose in life is merely to fight for the fish on the docks for our subsistence. We lost our self-belief and resigned ourselves to mediocrity. Sometime in school when I read the lines

"If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss..."

it sounded really inspiring, now it just sounds purely impractical. we like the comfort of monotony, it is peaceful, it blinds out the reality, we don't have to struggle to be great, we can just sit back in my chair and have an easy, insignificant life.

Dreams are nice of course, but then by definition they are not supposed to turn into reality... if they do, they would just lose their charm. One does admire Chandler Bing for quitting his job and starting a totally new career in advertising but then he can afford to, he is a TV character. We're not - If we lose, there are no script writers to bring the smile back to our faces.

We walk the world ignorant of the extremes, always choosing the middle path - maybe we will never feel the excitement and exhilaration of real success, but then we don't have to risk the perils of failure either. We are scared to go into the war field and die a brave death, instead we die each moment of our lives, without realising it, without realising our potentials, we die a thousand deaths, we never live - we merely exist.

P: Wow that makes me wanna get drunk man!
T: Ok let us do it...
S: Ok and no more puns today, I've had an overdose, one more and I will punch you!
T: .. lets go to Sreenu, I'll buy you chai
S: I thought you said we would drink?
T: Yeah chai, I drink only chai..
P: Machi! Don't say it!
T: .. I have to da!
P: ok don't say I didn't warn you!
T: ok :) I drink only tea, I'm a tea-totaller!
S: *Punch* *k'thunk* *K'plow* *bam* *biff*
T-Totalled

Nash-ty Poems

2008-10-04T21:13:00.003+05:30

All aspiring humour writers are (at some point of time or the other) influenced by P.G Wodehouse and Ogden Nash. Here are a few verses inspired by the latter :)

Bad Investment

I met this chick called Anandita Sen

Talked her up and took her to my den

We did the deed,then she dumped me with a smile

I should have known that SENSEX is volatile

Spooner

My new secy's intro read

"Miss key, brain-my-dead

Slow bum, Lanky spooner! "

she's kinda dumb but I get to spoon-her

Mal-nutrition

"Paalappam - white with frill,
chicken for whose taste you'd kill
Kappa with neymeen curry-
In which your face you'd bury
Porotta and beef
'nuff for an army chief
and roasted pork
till the tip of your fork"

"Mom,that's for breakfast, what about lunch?"
"A school of karimeen or is it bunch?
oh! honey don't look murky
we also have prawns and turkey!"

Those were the salad days,
(though about the salad no one cared)
full to the brim, stuffed to the face
only 50 days to make me scared -
"Mom did you slip in the kitchen?
I see only fish, where's the chicken?"
"Son, its lent, forego your wish"
"There's no meat? Oh Fish!

And now I've to eat veg food
I'd rather chew on wood!
or cover my mouth with gags!
Sigh! Chicken to chutney- riches to rags!

"How about Dosa and Sambar?
Or Upma?" "Bah Humbug!"
"What? No rhyme? That's treason!"
vegetarianism has no rhyme or reason!

Can I at least have a sausage?
my hunger it will assuage
Indians love meat that is treated,
rolled up, stored and heated...
There's even a movie about it" Said me
"And pray what might that be?"
"You know it of course - salami ishq"
*punch* *pow* *thud* *dishk*

Popeye can eat his spinach
I think Life is just a 8!7[#
"Let's not be rash or hasty,
Veg food is really tasty!"

Vegetarian food? That's an oxymoron!
"you beef eater - you are the ox-y-moron!"
That's so lame that's super weak,
That's the worst PJ I've heard all week!

Sure veg food is good
and The Taj Mahal is made of wood,
Zidane's headbutt was no foul
and KFC cooks no fowl!
NITW has hot chicks
and I can carry a 1000 bricks!
The Hindu has no leftist leaning
and Mallu names have deep meaning!

Vada-idli, Idli-vada
you get more variety from a cow's udda!
I'm as saturated as cyclo-butene
Where's my chicken? I want protein!

Here I'm idly fiddling with my idli

with only a vada to chew.

How I used to hog fervidly,

how I miss paalappam and stew!
________________________________________________________________________________
The lazy knight has taken commenting to new heights!

Bombasts of the Little Man and Fat Boy

2008-09-23T23:05:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: All characters and incidents depicted in this post are purely factual. Resemblance of this work to anything fictional is purely coincidental ;)

/*The title is not to be confused with Bomb blasts of the Little Boy and Fat Man. Little Man is a reference to the author of this blog (Tony Sebastian) and many know Fat Boy as Menino Pereira. Henceforth they shall be referred to as LM and FB. The following is one of their routine conversations. By that I mean they have just started a Scrabble game in a hostel room in NITW. */

FB: *Smirk*

LM: Bingo? Don’t tell me! CTENOID?? WTF is that man?

FB: 76 points if you don’t challenge

LM: Like duh I’ll challenge! CTENOID it seems! Couldn’t you just have played NOTICED? HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! CTENOID IS VALID!!!!!! What does it mean?

FB: Why would I care? I just mug up words from the list and play them. I don’t bother about the meaning. 81 points :D Thank you!

LM: What rot man! I hate CSW (Collin’s Scrabble Wordlist). What’s more I have crappy tiles!

FB: T-H-E-M-E? dhemey? What is dhemey? Challenge!

LM: :O er dude! Theme?

FB: oh! Theme! I thought it was dhemey. I was wondering what it was.

The game proceeds… some unfortunate soul (US) walks into the room.

US: oh you guys are playing scrabble?

LM: *smug grin* You should say Scrabble^TM.

US: Whatever! Hey MM is a word?

LM: yeah like mmmmm the sound you make when you are enjoying something.

US: AA?

FB: yeah AA is dry cindery lava

US: UTU? OO? OI? IO? OU? UT? PULU? CWM? HWYL? These are all words? Chumma pulu adikkalle!

LM: Whatay pun! PULI! that is also valid BTW. :D You can refer this for the valid two letter words in CSW.

US: But what do they mean?

FB: Who cares!

US: This game is bullshit!

LM: By the way, TONY and PEREIRA are also valid words in CSW, we f***ing rule :)

US runs out of the room

LM: Dude we are awesome man :)

FB: I know!

LM: May be I should blog about us playing Scrabble^TM.

FB: Oh yeah man that will be nice, You can brag about us, but hey you have to put it subtly… you know, it shouldn’t look like we’re bragging.

LM: Of course I’ll be subtle about it. About how we won at Saarang by winning all the games that we played and our least margin of victory was 93 points and highest margin was 267 points :D

FB: Yeah and about Spring Spree. And about how we beat Kurella and Nair 720 to 205. That was some game man! FIVE BINGOS!

LM: Yeah and Incident!

FB: But I wasn’t there for Incident.

LM: That is kind of like the point. I don’t really need you to win :P

FB: What nonsense! I’m like ten times better than you are!

LM: Why? Because you are a DASAavatharam? LOL I crack myself up! But seriously who won the college Scrabble tournament in 2^nd 3^rd and final years by beating you?

FB: Whatever man! I beat you at the nationals.

LM: That was dead rubber man! It didn’t count for anything. Anyway I’ve got horrible tiles again. I’m exchanging.

FB: What did you have?

LM: I had EEAUUOS

FB: :D

LM: Ok I’m just unlucky… I’m still leading in case you didn’t know!

FB: You missed a Bingo!

LM: yeah and you are sexually appealing to women. Shut up FB.

FB: Dude! You had EUOUAES and you could have connected it with PLAY. Youplay (U-P-L-A-Y) is valid.

LM: No way!

FB: Check if you want to

LM: :O dude where did you pick up this stuff man?

FB: I don’t have a life dude. This is all that I do. Did you know SHAITAN, SHEITAN, CHAPATI are all valid?

LM: Really? Damn! I should have played PALAPPAM last time! What in the world is EUOUAES? And youplay?

Pedro walks into the room

LM: Machi apparently youplay is a word!

Pedro: youplay aa?

LM: Yeah U-P-L-A-Y

Pedro: It is up-lay you ch**t! You suck man! What does LM stand for anyway Lame Mallu aa?

LM: haha very funny Pedro! Get outta here!

LM: Hey I just remembered! You lost to Pedro once didn’t you? :P

FB: Yeah whatever man! You lost to Srav

LM: THAT WAS ON FACEBOOK! IT DOESN’T COUNT!

FB: ok

LM: Dude! Please don’t tell anyone about it! Pretty please!

FB: Hey, on the blog, you sure it won’t sound like we’re bragging?

LM: Dude we are in Bangalore! Have you heard the Normal Public Speech of the youth here? If ego inflation contributed to weight, they’d all be sumo wrestlers! Trust me no matter how much we brag, we’ll still be the most modest people around thanks to those smug-cool-lingo-spewing-wannabes

FB: you suck

LM: Eh? Why?

FB: You just said we’re in Bangalore but you started the blog saying we are in a hostel room in NITW

LM: Oh I did? Let’s hope people don’t notice man!

FB: Well your blog is going pretty much haywire man! You try too much stuff. First humour then philosophy, don’t tell me you’ll try and intersperse philosophy into humour now! Why can’t you just stick to one thing?

LM: I am genderless er I mean genre-less, no barriers, no boundaries. But humour interspersed with philosophy? Even I wouldn’t do something like that!

FB: Hmmm hey you won’t rip on Scrabble^TMor anything no? You’ll present it in a good way so more chicks start playing right?

LM: Of course I’ll rip on Scrabble^TM! That is how stuff works in these times man. Would you buy an album titled "Sunshine and Flowers"? No! But you would mop up the same stuff if it were titled "Carrion Carnage", you would rather be called a bad ass than a goodie-goodie, negativity is the soul of our generation!

FB: oh so that is why you rip on yourself?

LM: LOL no man. Imagine if someone else were to rip on me, they’d literally tear me apart, but when I do it myself, it’s got an “impish charm” to it and no one else can do it now because it would be redundant, old stuff! ;)

LM: Hey BTW, my blog made it to the number one position in a Google search for Tony Sebastian. Might as well help it along by saying my name a few more times huh?

FB: If I say Tony Sebastian, will that help?

LM: I don't know, Let's try it... say it

FB: I already said it

LM: Said what?

FB: Tony Sebastian

LM: yup! that should do it :)

LM: Anyway bingo :D TURBINED

FB: you should have played UNDERBIT man, you would have gotten more points

LM: Underbit? I’m not familiar with the various forms of sadistic perversions… anyway I win! :)

FB: you’re just lucky man! That’s all!

LM: Whatever! Hey you wanna go grab some beers and hang out with hot chicks?

FB: Sure, but I don't like beer and hot chicks don't like me. Wanna play Clabbers and scare people who walk in?

LM: Hell yeah!

_____________________________________________________________________

For the curious ones among you, the picture is of an actual clabbers board I played against myself :) The bingos on the board are UNEASILY, TAUNTERS, FIERIEST, LOONEYS and HURDLERS

Joker Face

2008-09-18T11:13:00.000+05:30

Whenever I look through photos of myself in any album, I find that the expressions on my face fit one category - Stupid. I'm not one to boast about my achievements, but it would be grossly unjust if I don't mention that my 6 year old nephew eats all his vegetables only to avoid the threat of seeing a picture of me.
The initial tendency of course is to delete an awkward pic when you see one. I used to do that too. Let us face the facts, no one really likes to look ungraceful. But why? Is it such a horrible thing? When do people look stupid? These are questions which are considered pretty petty. No one would give a second thought to such questions - and that is precisely the reason it merits great importance.
Given below is a picture of three sportsmen (Muttiah Muralitharan, Rafael Nadal, Didier Drogba), who are arguably the best in their field, doing what they are most adept at.

In all honesty (and I'm sure you'll agree) those are three of the stupidest faces I've ever seen. The stupid faces are not just limited to sportsmen, you can readily imagine what a singer attempting a high note, or a great scientist who is engrossed in a challenging conundrum would look like. But does that necessarily mean they are doing something worthless? On the contrary, the stupid "phase" is almost always followed by moments of triumph and jubilation.

So does nature have a penchant for irony? Maybe so. To me, it is but natural that we look stupid when we do the most important things in life. The greatest of feats can be achieved only when we can forget our bodies and concentrate every bit of our energies on the task at hand. In the process, we may not look great, but we definitely achieve what we want to.

I believe, that it is nature's way of telling us that what you think is infinitely more important than how you look, that the mind is the CEO and the body is just another software engineer. I'm not saying that the software engineer is not important. I'm just saying we would rather sleep with the CEO to get something done. If half the time the world spend trying to look good and trying to be good-looking was spent on becoming mentally stronger, we wouldn't have been so insecure or so shallow or so uptight that we can't enjoy life.

When we are doing something physical, the process of giving it our all (and thereby appearing gauche) is automatic. It isn't something that we have to consciously work on. But what about when we are doing something intellectual? The willingness to appear dumb is entirely our choice and therefore infinitely harder.

A couple of years back, a friend of mine, whom I respect greatly, asked "Tony, do you know what the most powerful words in the English language are?" I had no clue. I replied "I don't know". She smiled and said "Exactly". When you can say those three words unabashedly, when you are willing to humble yourself , when you are willing to look unintelligent for a moment, the doors of wisdom open up and let you in.

I'm pretty sure that most of us think that it is an easy thing to do. I can bet my bottom dollar that 90% of my blog readers do not know who the vice president of India is. It is something we are expected to know. If this question were put to us over the internet, wouldn't we rely on Google to save us from the embarrassment of admitting that we are ignorant of something so cardinal?

Does the Google syndrome affect our real lives? Would we rather pretend we know something just so that we don't look stupid? Modesty is perhaps one of the most underrated qualities in the modern era. The real winners are always the people who can accept their limitations and are willing to admit them - The people who are ready to learn new things everyday, the people who are humble and modest, the people who are willing to put on a stupid face at this moment so they can have a thousand smiles in the days to come.

Like the storm that brings about the clearest, rainbow adorned skies, like that land which is ploughed to sow the seeds, like the pawn that is sacrificed to save the queen, sometimes in life you have to take one step back to take two steps forward. Do not be afraid of looking stupid. "Losing face" is nothing but a contronym.
_____________________________________________________________________
On a completely different note, here is a pretty amazing song (titled The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) written and sung by Shakthisree (a dear friend and the winner of the SS music voice hunt). The music is composed by Kedarnath. When they become household names, you know where you heard them first :) (The first ten seconds or so of the song are blank)

Blogal Warming

2008-09-11T08:56:00.000+05:30

Introduction: With the number of blogs increasing exponentially, the blogosphere is under a severe threat. The writing has always been on the wall (and I’m not just talking about facebook). Too many blogs and too many heated discussions have led to the inevitable – Blogal Warming.

Of course not everyone is aware of this affliction, but it is all around us. Its tentacles have already engulfed our community and it is only a matter of time before it squeezes the life out.

As a responsible citizen of the blogosphere, I consider it my duty and privilege to inform the ignorant of this great malady.

Blogal warming broadly refers to the increase in the average temperature of systems the world over, in the past decade, caused by excessive blogging, mindless link forwarding, blog whoring, blog rolling etc. The more specific problems associated with BW will be discussed later on.

Reasons: Studies conducted over the past few days by this astute observer have helped in identifying the root of the problem. As can be readily imagined, the trouble starts when a layman decides he should start a blog. There are various reasons which can be ascribed to this.

1) Green House Effect – Sidin Vadukut says “Everyone and their mother-in-laws think they can write”. A statistical survey conducted on young bloggers has brought to light the reason for this belief – Almost 90% of the subjects admitted that this belief stemmed from having won a prize for creative writing in some inter-house competition at school.

Since the majority of our subjects happened to represent the “Green House”, we’ve dubbed this the green house effect.

In anomalous cases, winning a second prize in flower arrangement in 5th standard has also been deemed as reason enough to start writing a blog.

2) CFCs – The mere feeling that one can write would not have generated so much blogal warming. There had to be a secondary reason. This is of course well known to all of us. The glitz and glamour and the charm of blogging is a feature called comments. The number of comments obtained on one’s blogposts has become a status symbol of sorts. CFC or Craving For Comments is the major driving force behind increased BW.

Effects: The effects of Blogal Warming can readily be guessed. Some of these have been discussed.
1) Temperature Rise – As discussed before, the major effect of BW is the rise in temperature of systems. With the increasing number of blogs, the 35th tab of Mozilla Firefox (a feat once deemed impossible) has become the standard for an average browser. This devil-may-care attitude towards browsing has put immense strain on the system, causing it to heat up more than usual.

2) Holes in the Awe-zone layer – About 5% of the blogosphere consists of readable material and among this close to 1% of the bloggers are particularly awesome. This one percent, called the Awe-zone, occurs at the top of the Blogosphere. Its function is to keep out aspiring bloggers by instilling a feeling of inferiority in them.

However the rapid increase of blogs coupled by inactivity of some bloggers in the awe-zone layer, have caused holes to start appearing in the awe-zone layer. The gap between the awe-zone layer and the rest of the blogosphere has reduced.

This in turn has caused more people to take up blogging as there is someone (whose level) they can relate to in the blogosphere. (The analogy is similar to a person setting out to buy a phone for 6000 rupees. The salesman convinces him that if he can afford 6000, he can afford 7000 and get a much better phone. Once the customer agrees to this, he convinces him that he can get an 8000 rupee phone…. Finally the customer ends up buying a phone worth 13000.)

Holes in the awe-zone layer cause skin trouble. The most commonly observed affliction is an itch to blog.

3) Blogal warming as defined in the Oxford dictionary, also has a secondary meaning – “The delusion that Blogs can be used as a way to warm up to hot chicks”. The first casualty of this delusion was Paul George Tharian. Given below is the photographic evidence of this claim- a screenshot from the Orkut Scrapbook of a blogger. Start reading from the bottom and proceed to the top.

Although this can at best be defined as delusion, it is only fair that this should be included at least as a theoretical effect of blogal warming. We will call it Paul George Tharian’s ice-breaking with girls or simply melting of the Paul-ar ice ;)

Remedies:
1) The only way to combat Blogal Warming is by restoring the Awe-zone layer and putting the rest of the blogosphere way out of reach. You can all help this cause by pouring out your unbounded admiration for this blog.

2) Some people out there think that they can land chicks by blogging. It is of vital importance that we prove them wrong. This can be achieved if all girls out there fall for a single guy and tell the rest of the world that they are not available. To save the blogosphere, I’m willing to take up the cause of being that single guy. :D

Bungle-ooru

2008-09-01T21:25:00.000+05:30

In the past, I have, on numerous occasions, remarked upon my unfortunate incidents with various modes of transport (The uninitiated may please read up Railwoes -I and Railwoes -II written when Srav used to be half this blog's readership (The other half being me) and the more recently written Cab-age Soup ). It's almost as if my whole life is a basketball game where traveling is a violation. Of course people who know me well will agree that I'm no masochist and that none of these misfortunes are self-inflicted by any "stretch of imagination". Interesting things just seem to happen to me.

Though the correlation between my bungles and stupidity is too strong to be set aside as a mere statistical oddity, it would be erroneous to assume that I am a complete idiot. Anyone who knows me from childhood, will vouch for this fact and remind you of my ability to use my supreme intellect and sizzling sinews to overcome the toughest of odds as exemplified by the 2nd prize I won in flower arrangement when I was in 5th standard.

I don't know if you have observed, but whenever you are waiting at a bus stop, every other bus except the one which you want seems to come by. Every other person in the bus stop (except the shady guy who looks like one of the many psychos you've seen in movies -like that weirdo from No country for old men for instance) would have left and you wonder how much longer you should wait. Then you decide you'll wait another 15 minutes and if the bus doesn't show up, you'll willingly go into "auto"-destruct mode and then just as you tell the auto guy "No no I wont give you anything more than the meter charge.... plus fifty" and get in, the bus you were waiting for reaches the stop.

Having had numerous such experiences, I finally decided I should wait for a bus irrespective of how long it took for it to arrive. I would think of this and that and remember what had happened to Vishal chettan on a bus in Bangalore and laugh out loud. Vishal Chettan an alumnus of REC Calicut had just arrived and started working for IBM and like any other mallu working for a big shot software company in Bangalore, he had received that priceless piece of information - I'm not talking about how for any girl you see around, the desirability factor (Beauty*Brains*Availability) is always equal to zero - That Bangalore is filled with malayalees and that Malayalam words starting with "Pa" would turn into Kannada words if you change the first syllable to "HA" for example Paal (milk) would be Haal, Pallu (teeth) would be Hallu, Padu (sing) would be Hadu and extending the argument, Paul would be Haul, Peter would be Heater and Paapy would be Happy... OK OK I'll stop, I can hear people shout "Enough already... ab bus karo yaar!" (HA!)

So anyway Vishal Chettan gets into a bus and with this priceless piece of information uses his "Kannada" skills. He asks the guy sitting beside him "Majestic Hogumo?" and the guy replies "Hogumayirikkum" LOL :)

And presently my bus had arrived and I wrestled my way inside fighting for my right to my own body parts (that is another thing, every other bus except the one you want to get into will be free as an Engineering student during his study holidays and your own would be packed like sardines in a mallu oven). Then along came the conductor with the tickets.

Conductor:Tickets please
Guy1: Indiranagar
Guy2: Pass
Guy3: CMH Road
Guy4: Pass
Guy5: Pass
Guy6: BhimaNagar

Having previously remarked upon my astuteness, it would be redundant to mention that I spotted the obvious - namely on a BMTC bus, you had to take tickets only if you wanted to - you were free to say "pass" if you didn't want one. Not being one to pass up such an opportunity so to speak, I promptly replied pass and found a place to stand. There was a guy whom I knew sitting in the next seat. I smiled at him and was about to make small talk when I heard another voice, namely that of the ticket checker's.

TC: Ticket?
TS: Pass :D
TC: Torso
TS: Yes mine's quite small-ish, thanks :)
TC: Pass torso lo
TS: ???

This proceeded for quite sometime. To cut a long story short, I discovered that tickets were not optional and that BMTC buses fine you quite heavily and also that it doesn't matter whether you know a language or not, when someone abuses you, you almost always know what he is talking about.

I had a sheepish grin on as I faced the "guy whom I knew sitting in the next seat". "I got most of what he said" I told him "But what was that bit about my torso? He kept repeating it a lot". LOL "Thorsu in Kannada means show" he replied. "Oh so do they ask you to show your pass everyday?" "Nope very rarely, may be once a week" "Oh so that explains it!" "What?" "Today is Thorsuday!"

I got chucked out of the bus at this point and I'm still nursing my bruises. ouch! gtg now, see you guys around!

Tech-ila Shot

2008-08-20T12:15:00.000+05:30

//I have previously indicated my dislike for alcohol on this forum, so it is up to the intelligence of the reader to interpret the mood of the topic ;)

I am by no means a techie. Not with computers, nor with metallurgy or anything else that falls under the banner "tech". Of course I did carry out a "scientific project" at IISc after my second year. But the way it went was while my lab mates and fellow NITians carried out lab work to bring out papers and make theses, I carried out "dessertations" at corner house. I'm inclined to laziness, procrastination and more laziness - I'm much influenced by Edward de Bono's "later-al thinking" techniques.

This being said, it was with a mixture of apprehension and excitement that I looked upon my first job. It is not really easy to get into conversations with your fellow workers when all they speak is Java and Tamil and all you speak is English. Though not great with English, these fellow workers of mine are as sharp as a guillotine when it comes to the coding bit. Still in my early days, I believe its my duty to share some anecdotes of my work life.

Day 1: Manager pings fellow worker( T1) with very limited knowledge of English.
Manager: Please drop into my office..
T1 is confused. However he is not one to be put off. So he replies
T1: What to drop?
Me: ROTFL

Day 2: Training
The trainer talks about some Java stuff. He asks us to add something called facades to the code. Terribly busy with Scrabulous at that moment, I miss what he said. I ask T2 (another fellow worker, a gal this time)
me:"What did he just say?"
T2: "He said FUCK AIDS"
me: "?? WHAT? :O"
T2:"FUCK AIDS! "
me: "Um can you spell that?"
T2:"Sure F A C A D E S - FUCK AIDS"
me: LMAO, That would make a great caption for December 1st!

Day 3: T3 sends T1 a gtalk chat invitation
T1 to T3 in tamil: "Did you send me a gtalk invite?"
T3:"I did?"
T1:"yeah, some p annachi(respectful Tamil word for elders) or something is your id right?"
T3: LOL
T1 and me: What happened?
T3: "My gtalk id is p4panache not p annachi!"
me:ROTFLMAO!!

Day 4:
Me: Hey guys rally round! I just came up with something. Tell me how it is ok?
T1,T2,T3,T4: Sure
Me: Ok. So this traffic police guy walks down the road one day and he finds a couple "doing it" in a car. So he tells them that it is against the law to be doing it in public and that he is going to arrest them if they don't go away. So the guy tells the cop "Hey its totally cool man, we have permission to do it here". The cop is confused, he asks for an explanation. The guy replies " There was a sign about 10 meters back which said "hump ahead" "
T1,T2,T3,T4:Blank face
Me: well?
T1: That was a joke?
Me: Aaargh!! I don't care, I like it. I'm putting it in my next blog post whether it fits into the plot or not!

I start suspecting something... hmmm is the tech empire going to strike back?

Day 5:
I can't find my facebook wall! I'm serious! Here's my profile link, Tony Sebastian anyone who can find it is welcome to do so.
Me: boo hoo!

Day 6:
Even Orkut is pissed off with me. It asks me to decipher this.

Now honestly guys WTF is that? is it aalowd or aodowcl or aalowcl or.....
Me: :( :(

Day 7:
I need to install some software on my new Linux Box :D .
T1 : oh you just go to the command prompt and you blah blah blah blah system blah blah blah server blah blah blah
Me: Ok one step at a time. First I go to the command prompt right?
T1: yes
I've never worked on linux. I try to find the command prompt. I can't. I try pressing the windows button to get the start menu. nothing happens. I feel quite dumb.
Me: Er T1 how do you get to the command prompt?
T1: LOL,ROTFL, LMAO, ROTFLMAO!
He promptly pings T2, T3, T4 and everyone in the office eventually gathers around my cubicle
All: You don't know how to get to the command prompt?
Me: :( no..
All: *point finger at Tony and laugh*

My mobile phone rings
Me:hello?
A Lot of people (over the phone) : HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, You don't know how to get to the command prompt. HAHAHAHHA
Me: :(
Someone in the crowd(over the phone): Whatever did they hire you for? Its not even "face value". You are ugly and you're stupid!
I forgive him. It isn't his fault of course, there is a certain psychological term for it - When you are on your mobile phone and with a lot of people, and you know the guy at the other end can't strangle you, you tend to be more aggressive - I believe its called "mob mentality"

Currently listening to Savage Garden: Affirmation - "I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned". How true!

//Especially in cricket. After beating India hollow in the first ODI, Sri Lanka are 44/6 in the second ODI at the moment! As Srav would say, TAKE IT!
____________________________________________________________________

Trivia: On being asked to give the music band of National Institute of Technology a name, Tony Sebastian suggested the name Tech-ila Shot. Everyone unanimously agreed it was a great name until Abel got excited and said "Adipoli da! Too good it even rhymes with Shakeela's hot!".
They went on to name the band Phoenix Connexion (yuck!)

'Key' mistakes

2008-08-05T12:22:00.001+05:30

Have you ever noticed how messed up the keyboard is? I'm pretty sure the guy who invented it wanted to have a good laugh out of suckers who committed typos, and I'm pretty sure he is laughing his ass off somewhere. You can imagine what something harmless like duck could easily become just because the d and f are just one key apart. I'm telling you it is a disaster waiting to happen!

Real smart chap that keyboard designer! He and the guy who designed the English alphabet. I'm sure you've observed how the letter m looks like r and n together - you haven't? well try now - m rn. I have a friend who uses the gtalk status message to tell you what music video he is watching. So when he watches a puddle of mud video, his status would say "xyz is watching pom" following which he'd be submerged under an avalanche of pings saying "Dude, share it on DC++" - you're catching my drift aren't you?

And of course there is the stupid T9 dictionary! Did you know curd is not part of the T9 dictionary? These are the suggestions T9 gives you when you try to type curd - cure, bure, burd, buse, curf. What in the world is bure or burd? Try typing out cotton candy - it gives you "bottom candy". Would you like to eat some bottom candy? So what I'm trying to say is - you have to be darn careful when you use keyboards of any kind. One typo could cause great harm.

//Just to enunciate, let us have an illustration of what typos coupled with unfortunate puns could lead to

So yesterday I got this mail from a classmate of mine who by sheer chance happens to be a girl. We'd both graduated from metallurgical and materials engineering. Where I had taken the moral high ground by refusing to work for a field that is materialistic to the core, she had gone ahead to do a core job. She is as reckless as anyone when it comes to typing - no apostrophes,no punctuations, no proof reading - no nothing. She had mailed me telling me about her work.

Given below is what she actually sent me. And below that is the corrected, punctuated, edited version of her mail.

Dear Tony,

They've given me a boob job also now, hence I've become really busty. The implant work is not as bad as I thought it would be, and the rewards I must say are excellent. However it does attract unwanted attention and envy from my female counterparts. I'm glad the company gave me this job, they must have really liked my lean-curve. Now I'm part of a special class of workers - we whores hook up often get paid well too. People who work with me are "broad-minded" and do not think that a girl like me is unfit for this kind of a job. I almost forgot to mention - We have a dress code - stripped shirts are a must.

The only downside is that the work is rather dirty - I have to bend over a lot and work with tools. I started washing myself with Dettol everyday because I developed a anall infection. The morning shit is the hardest. It hurts too much.The doctor suggested ass pills to the diet.But my manager tells me that my next promotion will get me a desk job - that is much easier and a lot of fun. The best part is I get paid even if I am "bed-ridden".By now I'm sure you're regretting your software job :P

Bye for now
Bitch

Dear Tony,

They've given me a noon job also now, hence I've become really busy. The in-plant work is not as bad as I thought it would be, and the rewards I must say are excellent. However it does attract unwanted attention and envy from my female counterparts. I'm glad the company gave me this job, they must have really liked my learn-curve. Now I'm part of a special class of workers - we who're shook up often get paid well too. People who work with me are broad-minded and do not think that a girl like me is unfit for this kind of a job. I almost forgot to mention - We have a dress code - striped shirts are a must.

The only downside is that the work is rather dirty - I have to bend over a lot and work with tools. I started washing myself with Dettol everyday because I developed a small infection. The morning shift is the hardest. It hurts too much.The doctor suggested - add pills to the diet.But my manager tells me that my next promotion will get me a desk job - that is much easier and a lot of fun. The best part is I get paid even if I am bed-ridden. By now I'm sure you're regretting your software job :P

Bye for now
Butch

Yup I'm definitely regretting a software job! Too much time, too much unhealthy imagination! sigh! cheerio people, stay safe and type carefully! :)

'Gate'ing away with murder

2008-07-29T18:30:00.000+05:30

The major reason I read papers (other than for the hot chicks on nearly all the pages of Times of India) is for the immaculate wordplay which they showcase. Some of the finest examples are Dennis Bergkamp being dubbed the non-flying Dutchman because of his aviophobia, SportsCentre describing the EPL title of the 2006-07 season (fiercely contested by Manchester United and Chelsea) as being between the devil and the deep blue sea, and more recently SportsStar attributing the great Indian collapse in the Asia cup final to the 'Preying Mendis' .

The past few months have seen the Indian media taking a fancy to some US seventies style. Following in the footsteps of the infamous Watergate scandal, the Indian media has decided to gate-crash the party and add the gate suffix to any kind of controversy that arises -be it murder or corruption. What with slap-gate, Nazi-gate, cash-gate etc, one cannot help but wonder what has happened to the creative juices of the scribes.

But then again my job is to offer you guys with a logical albeit farcical explanation. It is quite simple really, all you have to do is apply some good old grey matter and use your unhealthy imagination, and you readily arrive at the answer to any question that is possible. So with this prelude, let us delve straight into the case at hand.

It has been my astute observation that women of all ages in general despise puns. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with long hair. Any slapstick show will contort them into conniptions of cackles but throw a good pun at them and you will receive a (point)blank stare! If I were to give John Gray a suggestion for his book's foreword, it would be "Men hate foreplay, women despise wordplay".

Returning to the case at hand, the only logical conclusion from the above argument is that the people who came up with the names slapgate and cashgate are journos of the fairer sex.

So what about Nazi-gate you ask? Well the pen pricks are way too awesome to be female. So does that mean I am stumped? Does it mean I have no explanation for their erratic deviation from awesomeness?

Nope no way. Nazi-gate was the product of um.. what's the word I want? You know what I'm talking about of course - Chappie A tells Chappie B that cold weather makes him want to take a leak and proceeds to ask if Chappie B doesn't think so. At this point in time, Chappie B feels a strange but compulsive urge to take a leak himself. Ah! now I remember! Its called 'pee-r pressure'.

Whatever the reason, the trend of adding gate to any and every controversy is too cliched,very unfunny and most disappointing. Very soon people will start thinking that India Gate is some kind of scandal, don't you think? I cannot help but wonder what they will do if ever a scandal arises in the GATE examination - call it GATEgate? And will scandals involving a lot of dollar notes be called 'Bill Gates'?

So here is a slap in the face of the Indian media for being below par and a wake up call to all the journalists out there. Don't you know it is hazardous to tail-gate?

Cab-age Soup

2008-07-18T19:05:00.000+05:30

Shakespeare said there are seven ages in a man’s life. Where he classified the ages based on the characteristic features of people at a particular point in time, I’ve classified them on the basis of the mode of transport used at different stages in life. There is the stroller age, the tricycle age, the school bus age… and finally the ambulance age. At this point in time, I’m in that stage of my life when I’m playing pool, drinking coffee, eating noodles er I mean coding for a multi national conglomerate and then taking a shared cab home free of cost – the stage called the cab-age.

So on the second day at my new office, I called for the cab that would drop me home after work.
“Where do you want to go Sir?”
“Bairasandra”
“Byrasandra?”
“Yes, Bairasandra”
“Ok sir at 8 o clock right?”
“yes”
“ok”

and I promptly returned to Scrabulous with a song on my lips. Life couldn’t be any more in the pink.

When the cab driver took a right turn from the office campus instead of a left, I hesitated, but then again there were three others in the cab who were to be dropped before me and the list of places I knew in Bangalore read as follows -
Forum.

Hence I thought it better to keep quiet and let the cabbie do his job. So when he reached close to dairy circle after approximately one hour of transportation and went beyond that point and stopped in the middle of nowhere and turned to me and asked

“Where to now?”
I said “I don’t know, wherever these people want to go”
“But this is Byrasandra!”
“WHAT!!!!!!”
“Where can I drop you?”
“But this isn’t Bairasandra”
Rapid abuses in kannada followed
“This is Byrasandra – look at that board”
GULP! “But my Bairasandra is close to DRDO? Bagmane Tech Park?”
“There is no such place”
“Um I’m pretty sure there is”
The cabbie frantically converses with fellow passengers in Kannada.
“where are you from?” asks a fellow passenger
“Kerala”
“hmm may be you didn’t say the place correctly, the cabbie says this is Byrasandra.”
“Um ok.”
“Don’t worry, we can’t pronounce your place names either”

That was true, I’ve heard enough of IIM COZY-Code and IIM Kolikode et al. to ROTFLMAO. So if you are a mallu out there, having a really boring day, just turn to your non mallu neighbour and ask him to repeat this phrase after you “Mazhayathu vazha pazham kazhichu” and then make sure you don’t fall off your chair.

“But my place is called Bairasandra!”

The cabbie calls up the office and hands the phone over to me.
“I’m sorry sir, I thought you said Byrasandra”
“Yes I did say Bairasandra!!!”
“No you don’t understand, there is a Byrasandra near Dairy circle and then there is your Bairasandra and both of them around 60 Km apart. I’m sorry, we’ll give you another cab when you get back”

So that was that. The other three people got dropped in the following hour and I had a splitting headache by now. It seemed like we were traveling forever. Then I look out the window and I see “Srinagar” written in green and yellow! Surely we hadn’t traveled that far! “You traveled a lot of distance unnecessarily, we are a long way away from the office.” GULP “in fact right now we are in the northernmost…” SRINAGAR, NORTHERNMOST – it couldn’t be could it? Thankfully it wasn’t “…part of Bangalore”

So another 2 cabs and 2 hours later I finally reached my house at nearly 12 in the night. For the curious ones among you, here is the route I traveled (twice)

From : Byrasandra, Bangalore Rural, Karnataka To : Bairasandra, Bangalore, Karnataka Via : JP Morgan, Marattahalli, Bangalore, Karnataka Distance : 60.1 km Drive time : 1 hr 37 min (approx.) (courtesy www.mapmyindia.com)

Net time : 4 hours, distance - 150 km , displacement - 7 km :)

Add Girinagar, Srinagar and other places to the list and you can readily imagine the extent of my peril, not to mention the humiliation and embarrassment! When the guy at the induction said “if you have to go home after 8 in the night, all you need to do is call the cab, they will take you for a ride” I just assumed he spoke bad English.

Oh God its eight o clock! I need to go! My cab is waiting! Tata! Indicab!

Cunning linguist

2008-07-14T12:40:00.000+05:30

/*Since I'm stuck at work, here's a little something to keep people engaged - it was part of the word games set for spring spree. The rules are described below - have fun solving :) */

There are two sets of words – set (1) and set (2). The five letter word in set (1) is obtained by adding one letter to the four letter word from set (1) and anagramming it. (Similarly the five letter word in set (2) is obtained by adding one letter to the four letter word from set (2) and anagramming it.)

Proceed to finally get a ten letter word from set (1) and a nine letter word from set (2)

Find an(other) anagram of the ten letter word and the nine letter word to get a phrase which is analogous to Worldly Pleasure (hint : evil temptation).

Ten points per blank. Twenty points for filling fully. Thirty points for the phrase.

I hate doggies!

They say a dog is a man’s best friend. I beg to differ. If one _ _ _ _ _ _ _₍₂₎ the imbecilic things they do, they are nothing more than huge pains in places you don’t want to mention. For one, they make too much _ _ _ _ _ ₍₁₎ at the mere sight of anything strange. Even more irritating is their tendency to meddle with your wardrobe for no apparent reason when they are irritated! Nothing is spared – not your shoes, nor your trousers, shirts, _ _ _ _ ₍₂₎ – not even your underwear! Just last week I had to throw away my new Nike shoes because my stupid dog ripped out the _ _ _ _ _ _ ₍₁₎

My friend Arsene Wenger thinks dogs are worked up when they have too many fleas on them. He _ _ _ _ _ ₍₂₎ the example of the noodle incident. (Of course I’m not allowed to talk about that, you can ask Mr.Watterson yourself if you like.) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ₍₁₎ my dog became top priority upon hearing this. I soon discovered that it was no mean feat. It is not like there are just one or two fleas – the _ _ _ _ _ _ ₍₂₎ multiplies and forms _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ₍₁₎ of fleas and most of them are war-trained. Finally upon Arsene’s advice, I _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ₍₂₎ my dog clean using a vacuum cleaner. It didn’t help one bit! Arsene is a jackass!

People claim that it is fun to walk a dog. Well its not! The stupid creatures move in a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _₍₁₎ manner. It is almost as if they read De Bono’s Lateral Thinking books! And of course they chase anything and everything and they run like mad. Believe me when I tell you this – I once had to chase my dog across two _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _₍₂₎ ! The _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ₍₁₎ indicated that we were in a different time zone altogether! That’s how much we had run. I haven’t given my dog a walk in _ _ _ _₍₁₎ . Hmmm may be I should! Doggy!!! Where are you??
______________________________________________________________________________________
ps: you can comment anytime :) and the first 10 people to finish the puzzle get their names in the roll of honour - good luck :)
pps: Happy bday srav :)

Bang’ Heading!

2008-07-02T21:27:00.000+05:30

Being a Metallurgist can be a tedious and dull prospect. I mean you can’t expect much joy out of digging into the earth’s surface and extracting metal and so on. I strictly don’t “dig metal” and hence I believe I am entitled to have a life that is anything but “boring”. Bringing the above facts into consideration, lady luck has made it her personal mission to make sure that my life is interesting to say the least. “Unpredictable” is the word which my biographer has earmarked to describe it, that, as we writers call it, would be the mot juste.

So when the company I work for chose to relocate me from Hyd’ to Bang’ two days before I was to join, I merely drank to Lady Luck’s health - for she was truly working overtime.

Touching down in Bangalore at the scheduled time, what struck me first, ignoring the suitcase that landed on my head, was the out-of-the-world airport, and I don’t mean just the facilities. It is a good 40km from the city and the 45-minute flight seems like a distant memory when one finally reaches his destination.

Needless to say the cabby got rather crabby with the infinite number of traffic jams by the time I got there. I was to stay in Koramangala and on getting there; the cabby enquired, “ Is this the 4^th block?” “I haven’t been keeping count, but I’d say this is about the 100th hehe” I replied and I swear, he swore. And that is not an exaggeration by any stretch of imagination. The traffic in Bangalore is so bad that one might save a lot of time, money and patience by walking.

The time when it is going to get really messed up is when some Marketing MBA grad, figures out the possibility of fleecing tourists. “Step this way and get yourself a can of Bangalore’s finest offering – Traffic JAMS”. A good number of you are not amused as I can see. But if you hail from the “God’s own country” and know the kind of tourist attractions that we offer, you wouldn’t think it was too outlandish. Just last week, a TV channel showed a Russian tourist, lets call him Mr. Drunk-on-whiskey, paying 100 dollars to a mahout in Kerala so that he could bathe the elephant!! So five years down the line, when the papers report the sale of “Traffic Jams”, remember where you first read about it.

Meetings in Bangalore often take place in some coffee shop or the other. My cousin took me to Barista the other day and she ended up arguing with the auto driver over one rupee.

“Why would you do that?” I enquired

“What?”

“Fight over one rupee, you realize we are going into a coffee shop which ridiculously over-prices everything there is right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well would you fight in there if they increased the prices by 10 rupees?”

“No… What is your point?”

“Well it strikes me as kind of ironical, that’s all”

“So? Let me tell you something, if two days from now, you aren’t in a fight with an auto driver, I’ll start watching football – that’s a promise! Why so much love for auto drivers anyway? Are you a Himesh Reshamaiyya fan or something?”

Back where I did my B.Tech, in Warangal, this is how it worked – There are two systems – share auto, when you paid a certain amount per person and direct auto – when you pay for the whole trip. So here is how it would go…

“NIT Warangal, we know its 4 rupees per person, but there are 7 of us, so we’ll pay you 3 rupees per person. Ok?”

“No no, 4 rupees per person..”

“hmmm… ok how about direct to NIT Warangal?”

“20 rupees”

“Ok then [:D] lets go”

As I learned in a span of two days, things work much differently around here. On exiting the coffee shop, waving down an auto and enquiring “Ejipura, last bus stop?” I merely got a shake of the head. At least 8 other autos followed suit. Exasperated and exhausted I asked the 10^th auto guy hopefully

“Ejipura last bus stop?”

“No”

“Hmmm.. Koramangala 4^th block?”

“No”

“Forum?”

“No”

“Malleshwaram?”

“No”

“Majestic?”

“No”

“Airport?”

“No”

“Do you really go anywhere?”

“No we just like to ride around and irritate people. * Grin*”

Sigh!

Nth auto guy

“Ejipura, last stop”

“Yes, but you have to pay me 10 rupees extra on the meter”

“Oh alright! Just get me there!!”

So when the meter ticked past 20 rupees and he asked me where exactly I wanted to go, my patience was really on wafer thin ice.

“EJIPURA LAST BUS STOP!!!!” I muttered through clenched teeth.

“Oh Ejipura last bus stop? I thought Koramangala”

U-turn

“But why would you think that?” “you told me that” “no I didn’t!!!!! GRRRRRRR…”

Half an hour later, I was at the spot where I started with the meter at 40 rupees, and of course I had to pay an additional 10 rupees as well.

Renting a house in Bangalore isn’t exactly a fun thing to do. The quality of a house is inversely proportional to its proximity from the city, which is directly proportional to the rent and it resembling the annual gdp of Pakistan. Finally having settled on a fairly decent apartment, the house owner asked me for a ten month advance! “That’s like One Lakh Fifty Thousand Rupees!” I exclaimed. “How do you expect me to pay you so much? Should I rob a bank?” “Oh! HSBC is right down this road.” *GULP!* That wasn’t all – “Sir, you have to pay me Twenty Thousand Rupees for my services.”, said the realtor. *CHOKE!* Well I was broke before, now I guess I am “Broker”. [:O]

I still love Bangalore however. I love Bangalore for the gorgeous chicks, for the corner house ice cream, for its immaculate weather. But most of all the willingness of the people to accept outsiders as their own is what pleases me. They have no qualms about speaking in Tamil, Telugu or Hindi – it is a lesson to people like me who crib about learning their own national language. A beautiful city with wonderful people – Bangalore definitely rocks [:)]

Bangalore reminds me of a particular scene from Chak De India – The one where Vidya Sharma steps forward. “Cochin, Kerala” “Chennai, Tamil Nadu”, “Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh”, “Bangalore, India”

Take a look at this http://www.penpricks.blogspot.com/ and see how these bloggers made the Indian media look like a bunch of fools and deservedly so [:)]

New Moronology

2008-06-20T12:24:00.000+05:30

Mallus as a class are very emotive and temperamental - We don’t mind crying our hearts out on television when a crazy Punjabi has beaten the life out of us.

But if there is one thing that doesn’t produce any effect on a Mallu’s demeanour, it is a funny name. The reason is simple of course – if there exists a funny name, we created it.

Just yesterday, I learned that my friend Rahul’s cousin was called Tushy. You can readily imagine what goes on in her life. “Tushy? She’s such an ass!” quips friend 1, amidst chuckles and guffaws, to which friend 2 replies “Yeah she is a useless bum!”. Suffice it to say that in the circles which she frequents, she is definitely the butt of all jokes.

So on my way to a-place-of-no-consequence, when I saw that “Hotel Paragon” had changed its name to “Hotel Aragaon”, it did nothing to disconcert my debonair disposition. I had seen way weirder names of course.

A couple of days ago, on my way to Bangalore, the bus had stopped outside a restaurant which called itself “Hotel Runs”. A vivid picture of their advertisement campaign conjured itself before my eyes.

Just when you thought you had seen it all…

Here is a restaurant that will blow your insides…

We give you hot food, spicy dishes…

We give you THE RUNS!

- A Tushy and Gastric Juices concern

Manager: LAX-man

As I proceeded past “Hotel Aragon”, and moved further ahead, I came across a well-to-do electronics shop in town which was formerly called MAJESTIC. Now they had renamed themselves to MAJESTIK – I raised an eyebrow at this of course. Bad spelling was something that I was allergic to. And then the next shop which used to be called CITI SUPER SHOPPE (another electronics shop) had renamed itself CITI SUPPER SHOPPE!

Enquiries had revealed that the change of spellings for the aforementioned enterprises had been a certain new fad. Someone somewhere had developed a novel way to fool retards – ~~New Moronology~~ Numerology.

I had seen it discussed on a talk show on TV.

An excerpt:

Advocate of Numerology: Changing the spelling in one’s name causes different vibrations and concentrates energy in certain specific patterns which turns luck in your favour

Questioner: How does changing the spelling make the pronunciation different? If it doesn’t how does it cause different vibrations?

AON: It doesn’t change the pronunciation, I’m talking about the vibrations caused when one writes his name.

Me : WTF???!!!

Questioner: So what about languages that are based on sounds? Malayalam for example, How do you change your name in Malayalam to bring luck?

AON: No no we consider only the English alphabet for luck.

I had of course been LMAO throughout this – how could anybody believe in something as stupid as that? Yet Mr. Paragon, Majestic and Super Shoppe had believed it! So I suppose had a lot of other people. With all due respect to whoever believes in numerology, I have to unequivocally state that you have about as much intelligence as a brain-dead broiler chicken.

Though I must admit, it must be fun being a numerology consultant of course! It would be fun to change people’s names and make some money in the process. Here is what it would be like

Customer: Hi, I need some luck going my way; I’ve had a series of misfortunes.

TS: But of course! The moment you step out of this room, luck shall engulf you like a pack of locusts. Do tell me your name.

Customer: Ashish Ganjawala

TS: *pretends to make quick calculations* Ah I see the trouble here. One more letter added to your name and you will turn lucky. Please place Rs 10001 on the table. Thank you. Do you need luck with something in particular?

Cus: yes my Visa application.

TS: oh ok. Hmmm as per my calculations, you need to add an H to your name so let us make it Hashish Ganjawala, shall we? It’ll bring you all the luck in the world.. People will hold you in high esteem. I’m sure your name will remain H-ed in their memory hehe

Cus: Thank you so much

TS: No no, thank you!

Cus2: I need my fortune changed. I want to get lucky!

TS: Why sure! What is your name?

Cus2: Shitendra Bhatacharya

TS: * Pretends to go into deep meditation* Ah! I see the problem. You are lucky you came to me. The remedy to your problem is a technique I invented myself. First we have to change a little of your surname. If you don’t mind, let us make it Buttacharya.

Now comes my own inspirational masterpiece – Whenever you write your name, write the first four letters of your first name and surname in capitals that is to say, write your name as SHITendra BUTTacharya.

I call this technique “FOURPLAY”. Fourplay generates positive strokes throughout your body and it is bound to bring you luck. I’d go so far as to say fourplay is a pre-requisite to getting lucky.

Cus2: *lays Rs10001 on the table and smiles* Thank you so much sir!

TS: Oh don’t thank me, it is my divine call to help people in need.

You get the drift. The strangest thing of course is that people will claim numerology works for them. Well of course it does. The two strongest human emotions are Faith and Hope. Faith – in anything- lets you accomplish deeds that you deemed impossible. If you firmly believed that tying a dead mouse to your hand brings luck, it most definitely will. While I am envious of these people for their strong faith, I’m glad I have something more concrete to believe in – myself.

Ultimately the people who get lucky in life are the people who believe they will – the people who do things are the people who have faith and hope – in themselves, in their talents. If Rafa Nadal picks out the corner of the tennis court each time, it is only because he believes in himself. He believes in his ability and trusts that luck will follow.

I believe in my ability – to write, to make people laugh, to make them think. If at the end of this post, I can make one person think, I am a happy man. I believe what makes a difference is not the vibes writing my name creates, what matters is the vibes a writing in my name creates.

SAINT COBAIN you say?? You need GLASSES!

2008-06-11T13:53:00.001+05:30

Yay! JAM had finally sent me a cheque for my article and very thoughtfully included the issue in which it was printed. As I flipped the pages of the complementary copy, this caught my eye

Poster requests

Aakash : Kurt Cobain

Pranav: Cobainnnnnnnn!!!!! Hz rokin…… yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

Rakesh: Krt Cbn fkin rlzzzz

Prateek: Coban izzzzzz god!!!!!

Sunidhi: Kurt Cobain…. Or Che Guevara

And a lot more of the same. Using my superior intellect and cryptic solving skills, I had deciphered what Pranav, Rakesh and Prateek had said and so, I surmised, had JAM - For they had obliged by providing a poster of Kurt Cobain.

It always annoyed me when people put up Kurt Cobain wallpapers on their comps or wore Cobain T-shirts with taglines which said “you inspire us” and “the philosophy of Cobain still defines our lives”

Quite frankly it amused me. I mean wasn’t this the guy who was hooked to drugs, failed rehab and committed suicide – in short a total loser? Why would anyone want to have him on their wall or on their T-shirt?

Prejudice is one thing which I have been accused of in the past – hence I decided to listen to a song of this “great” man. It went something like this.

Rape me
Rape me, my friend
Rape me
Rape me again

I'm not the only one, IIIII [3x]
I'm not the only one...

Hate me
Do it and do it again
Waste me
Rape me, my friend

Well as you can see, Mr. Cobain wants me to rape him. And I shall proceed to do so momentarily.

However I decided to give him another chance and asked the greatest “music” freak I knew about the silliest lyrics I have ever heard in 21 years of my existence. He said “you don’t understand, there is a deeper meaning to the lyrics. You have to dig for it” “Well I don’t dig it!” “Well you suck” was the kurt er I mean curt reply.

However, feeling extremely kind towards Kurt, I decided to wiki him before making up my mind forever. You’ll never believe what I discovered.. er.. unless of course you have read the wiki article or um.. written it. So I wiki Kurt Cobain and here is what I found.

1) “He was arrested in 1985 for spray-painting "HOMO SEX RULES" on a bank.”

Okay so he was born a dumbass!

2) “His first band was called FECAL MATTER”

I kid you not! Imagine that! There isn’t a shittier name you can give your band! Hey have you heard Kurt’s new band? It’s crap!

3) “Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain were formally introduced at an L7/Butthole

Surfers concert in Los Angeles”

BUTTHOLE SURFERS? Seriously?? That’s where their love blossomed? I can’t even think of a gross enough analogy for that one! The way in which love works is truly weird and amazing. As Dr.Spooner would have said – CUPID STUNTS!

4) On August 18, the couple's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was born. The unusual middle name was given to her because Cobain thought she looked like a kidney bean on the first sonogram he saw of her.

BEAN?? KIDNEY BEAN?? For the love of God!! Did this guy have anything in his bean? And you tell me HE is capable of deeper meaning?

Well that did it. The workings of the meathead er I mean metalhead’s mind were beyond me. Just a couple of days back the metalhead had told me about some jackass who had gotten “high” on music that he decided to give a um… seminal performance! And a bigger ass of the name Marilyn Manson had taken off a couple of his ribs so he could bend better and er… “blow his own trumpet” if you know what I mean.

It didn’t really take any creativity to make a band – all you had to do was use the words rape, hate, waste, fuck, motherfuck, whore etc in your lyrics, interspersed with high pitch screaming, and give your band a lame name. One of the metalhead’s favourite bands was called SALIVA!

SALIVA – that is the name of a band?

I’d like to let my readers know that I’m forming a new band. It’s called GASTRIC JUICES. We are currently working on our first album – its called VILE BILE. And here are a few lyrics from our first song called MUTILATED MATTRESS. These lyrics were written by self and Haritha Malladi when we were totally wasted and lying in an excellent gutter. NOT!

MUTILATED MATTRESS

You bitch

You make me itch

You’re a whore

A dino-sore

Ok I’ll stop there. If I go on any further, I’d have to risk dumbasses wearing tee shirts with my face on it.

So yesterday I meet this guy whom I went to school with. He was wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. “It’s a pity we couldn’t meet yesterday huh?” I said. “yeah man stupid harthal! I hate these f***ing commies!” he replied. “er aren’t you like wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt?” “yeah so?” “um.. who was Che Guevara?” “Oh he was into motorsports I think. He was a great motorcycle rider” “oh!”

Yeh hain youngistaan meri jaan!

____________________________________________________________________

Epilogue: Its not like I hate Cobain, Manson et al, they are just frustrated losers whom I feel “peace, love and empathy” for. I hate the people who don’t understand stuff. Heroism is not about being frustrated with life, writing a couple of hateful songs, getting wasted and then shooting yourself in the head – heroism should be made of sterner stuff. Unfortunately the new generation, which I am a part of, does not recognize real heroes. Why else would there not be a T-shirt of Abe Lincoln? Or Mahatma Gandhi? Or Mother Teresa?

Have we turned into ill informed imbeciles who cannot appreciate real heroes? Why else would a show (ROADIES) in which the participants who clear high profile auditions, not be able to identify the president of our country in a photograph? Why would anyone let this show run into a sixth season?

Why would a great blog as Aftab Khanna’s get only 2 comments on an average per post? Have we forgotten that we have become the torch bearers? The whole world is looking to us, are we going to disappoint them?

NIT Where-angal?? A.K.A Mallu Aunty-matter

2008-06-04T19:38:00.000+05:30

The AIEEE results are out!!!! Yay!! Yet another batch of fine young boys and gals has decided to bury all its talents and is about to commit hara-kiri at the altar of engineering. Yup, life, most definitely, is a btech!

So here’s wishing all you hapless chaps ( you will notice that I could have implied what I wanted to say through the last two words before the parenthesis with the two letters ‘cs’ – as in HAP-less cHAPs, but then, sadly, not all my readers are as sharp as you. And besides, I call myself the MEANDERthal man and it is my duty, therefore, to be verbose and put in a branch here and a stream there and endeavour to ensure that I keep my readers’ attentions on their toes and their hands on their heads – essentially as you can see, I cover everything from “hair-do to shoe-sole”.) all the very best in your effort to kill the creativity in you.

Now for those of you who know me, you will know, of course, that I did a part of my life sentence in a shady little shack known as NITW. For those of you who don’t know me, I guess by now you realize that I did a part of my life sentence in a shady little shack known as NITW.

I remember a day roughly four years ago when I did ecstatic leaps as I went into peels of hysteria only to stop when the Fosbury flopped. The reason being of course that I was admitted into NIT Warangal (the reason for the hysteria i.e. not the Fosbury flopping). When I conveyed this news to the loved ones, I noticed a good many of them didn’t know about NIT W’s existence. So if you are one of them, I suggest you take a look at this and look carefully at spot number seven.

The initial enthusiasm to explain all about NITW had worn off by the time I was on the train to NITW and when confronted by a mallu aunty, I tried my best to be laconic. Now the reader should realize where there is a mallu aunty, there is trouble – They are ill informed and generally make you ill. You know the reason for your illness of course – The Aunty-Virus! guahahahahaha – ok I admit that was a PJ… moving on..

MA: Where are you studying?
ME: NIT Warangal
MA: oh! What course?
ME: B.Tech
MA: oh! You didn’t get anywhere in Kerala?
ME: er.. This is an NIT??
MA: oh!! NIIT! Isn’t there one in palarivattom? They don’t offer B.Tech courses, more like diplomas.
ME: oh!
MA: you could have gotten into Tera-Para college of Engineering at least right? I believe the closing rank there was 2lakh?
ME: …
MA: You didn’t write the entrance did you?
ME: No, when I failed my 12th standard, my dad couldn’t stand the shame anymore, so he sent me to NIT Warangal and he tells people I’m doing a B.Tech.
MA: Oh, you poor dear! Say warangal… that sounds familiar… isn’t that where the naxalites are?
ME: yes
(I said as I picked up a pen-knife to cut an apple)
MA: Gulp! *Vanish*

/*Addendum: Google analytics tells me that a great deal of the traffic I get here is from the search keywords “ mallu aunty” with a 100% bounce rate. I just want to declare that I scorn at all you horny freaks (oh wait did I just increase the frequency of the term mallu aunty and add the word horny to the equation? Way to go you ass!) and I request you to kindly buzz off, because all I serve here is poor .. er pure, unadult-rated (hehe I crack myself up! ) cornography. */

All this excitement about NIT Warangal was before I got to learn the etymology of the name. Warangal, derives its name from the words “war-on-gal” a war which took place in the ancient past and destroyed everything female in a radius of 150km. Centuries have passed but the tragedy still lives on. One can see a handful of specimens of the female variety in Warangal, but they too are mutated and disfigured and do not appreciate healthy humour as the comments on this post will perhaps reveal. When will human kind realize that war is not the answer to anything!

Jokes apart, I still love NIT Warangal dearly and miss it for all my life… oh except I think the Director sucks oh so does the dean.. er.. and my department profs really really suck.. no wait… seriously NIT W is awesome  and thanks to my brilliance, a lot more people are aware of the existence of the seventh best t-school in the country! Yay! I rule!

I want to give you guys a good ending, but I just can’t concentrate. Two neighbour-aunties are gossiping. May be I’ll just type out their conversation.

NA1: Yeah yeah she had another proposal today
NA2: Any good?
NA1 The groom looks good and all but he studied in some place called NIT Warangal
NA2: NIT Where-angal? hahahahahaha
NA1: Exactly! And he claims he is placed in some software company
NA2: Oh Infosys? TCS?
NA1: NO NO NOT THAT GOOD AND ALL! He is placed in some unheard of company. You know there are so many these days – it is called Texas Instruments. I guess he will get 12-13000 a month..
NA2: oh why are you even considering it then? Your daughter is a B.Sc nurse!!
NA1: yeah we are not considering it…

I guess we had a good ending after all – an aunty-climax if you will ;)
____________________________________________________________________
PS : The latter part of this title is credited to Swati. The pun War-on-gal is Pedro's original.

Eternal sunshine of the 'sport'less mind

2008-05-28T19:32:00.000+05:30

There comes a moment in everyman’s life when he has to make a choice - The red pill or the blue pill, fight or flight, cigarette or ganja … you get the drift. When I sat down to do what is rated by adventure enthusiasts across the world as the third most dangerous thing to do, ahead of fighting a grizzly bear with your hands tied behind your back and bungee jumping from a bridge unattended to by the PWD, little did I know of the path that lay ahead.

The daring deed I describe of course is watching a sports channel with a gal. So without further ado, let me go forth and tell you the amazing tale of Tony Sebastian (me) and my cousin LincyMol Antony Ouseppachan (LMAO for short, I swear I didn’t make this name up ;) ) watching an IPL match.

LMAO: Which side are you on chetta?

Me (As Salman Butt drove R.P Singh through the covers) : Deccan chargers.

LMAO: Oh I support Kolkata

Me : …..

LMAO : Shah Rukh is soooooooooooooooooo cute!!!

Me: * displaying an outward calm similar to the Tibetan monks while a tempest raged on inside me * oh!

LMAO : Hey this guy who is bowling, Rudra?

Me: yeah

LMAO: Doesn’t he look like R.P Singh? I mean not so much front on, but from the side, he is a dead ringer for R.P Singh.

Me : :O

LMAO: ok well a slight resemblance at least…

Me: That is Rudra Pratap Singh!

LMAO: c’mon now don’t fool me, I’m not that stupid!

Me: oh I’m sorry, I thought I could get away with it. *The tempest turns into a tsunami*

Commentator: “ Vaas bowling to Ganguly, 5 fielders on the off side….

LMAO: Hey that is a foul isn’t it?

Me: eh?

LMAO: you told me yesterday no one is allowed to be offside. It’s a foul! Deccan cheaters! Give him a red card!

Me: um.. that was in football.

LMAO: oh! There is a difference?

Me: ….

LMAO : Chelsea should have won yesterday!

Me: WHAT!! WHY?? Man Utd controlled the entire first half and Chelsea just got a lucky break. We were definitely better throughout the season. We didn’t lose a single game in our champions’ league campaign, Chelsea did!

LMAO: But… Ballack is sooooooooooooooooo cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuteeeeeeee!!

Me: * “screw the Tibetan monk!” picks up a vase and is about to throw it*

Commentator: Vaas! It’s up in the air… and taken! Tried to be cheeky and Butt holes out in the deep.

LMAO changes the channel during the break and stares at some guy in a hindi soap.

Me: Do you watch this?

LMAO: *stares at the tv screen intently*

Me: DI!

LMAO : huh?

Me : I said do you watch this?

LMAO: oh no no

Me: Well change the channel then!

LMAO: But this guy is sooooooooooooooo cuuuuuuuuuuuttttttttttteeeeeee!! Do you think he is married?

Me: #$^%#^%

Match proceeds. LMAO enlightens me about the existence of a show on MTV which she watches regularly…

LMAO: you watch Roadies?

Me: What is that? No.

LMAO: YOU DON’T KNOW ROADIES??

Me: er no?

LMAO: you have to see it, it’s on right now!

Me: What is it?

LMAO: *with a metallic ring to her voice* it is a reality show… these roadies ride all around India and abroad and do tasks and one gets eliminated each day!

Me: Tasks like what??

LMAO: quizzes and stuff and if the girl doesn’t answer, the guy takes off a piece of clothing etc.

Me: er… ok

LMAO: The questions are really hard though. They ask you stuff like what is 4+3 whole divided by 7.

Me: Oh! That is tough!

LMAO: and then they bitch about each other and get each other eliminated.

Me: Guys do that??

LMAO: yeah but mostly the gals, they lie and cheat all the time!

Me: *grins* Ever wonder why they are called the fairer sex?

LMAO: *looks lost*

Me: never mind! That must really be a fun show!!

Commentator: Gilly needs a slip here; he is exposing too much in that area and attracting unwanted attention.

LMAO: Cricketers wear slips?? :O

Me: *slaps self on the forehead and nearly pulls out the well coconut-oiled mallu hair* um... Well not all of them, some of them just wear dhuppattas …

At this point mom sends me to the nearby shop, when I return I hear joyous screams from LMAO… Ganguly must be smashing, I surmised.

I return however to see that all I had missed were three dot balls.

Me: Why did you shout?

LMAO: They just showed Shah Rukh, he is sooooo… *aaaaaaaaaargh I covered my ears*

As LMAO raged on about the cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuteeeeeeeeeeeeeeness of a million other guys, I threw in the towel. A man should know when to quit, so that he can live on to cook up, er I mean tell, the tale…

LMAO: Cricketers can learn from roadies. All Gilchrist has to do is go to Ponting and bitch about Ganguly and tell Butt that Gul stole his make up and…

Me: *switches on comp and goes to cricinfo* Sigh! Here take the remote, lets watch roadies…

HINDIcapped!

2008-05-18T14:11:00.001+05:30

The single most important reason why the word Mallu has made it to WordWeb (gult and bong or boca have not, ha!) is the ability of my people to survive the harshest of conditions all over the world. You may be lost in a desert without water, food, a compass or anything useful and feel like Will Smith in I am legend, but take a few more steps and voila! You will bump into a mallu nurse and her “gelff” husband - who refused to work as a clerk in a bank back home, but will readily give you a piggy-back ride in return for cash in the desert.

Given this faculty of adaptability outside one’s home, it would be a piece of cake for a mallu to live in an NIT – you would think.

It is typically in the first week of a mallu’s incarceration (read tenure in an NIT) that s/he gets the urge to learn Hindi – a desire that in my case remains unfulfilled to date. Faced with this desire, I walked into a hostel room filled with people speaking Hindi. I didn’t understand a word – apparently at this level as opposed to 4^th grade, where my hindi speech on “ghai” won much critical acclaim, you cannot speak what your tuition teacher has taught you and get away with it.

“What ho!” I said cheerily. They were apparently discussing something rather secretive and were visibly displeased with my presence. They were still angry with me for directing a senior to their room – quite accidentally I might add. One of them went so far as to say “You will hear everything with sharp ears like a snake in the grass and go snitch to our seniors”.

Of course I could have crushed his argument by reminding him that snakes have no ears, sharp or blunt as a pig’s face, with which it can hear everything one says – a snake in the grass is as deaf as a … er … well a snake in the grass. But I was on a mission, to learn a language and therefore decided to spare his ego. These words hurt of course, but where others pull out their hair, we mallus merely apply some coconut oil to ours and remain calm.

They started talking again. It wasn’t really clear what they were saying though, but we mallus are shrewd and patient and strike at the right time. Er we pretty much strike all the time, sometimes it just turns out to be right. Well anyway, so hostile er hostel room full of people speaking about something, me – that’s where we were.

Then it happened. I heard one of them mentioning Nani , Kaka and Dida. Cool, I thought, they were discussing football. Yet I maintained a reserved calm - just to ensure that they were, I waited. The next guy said something which I was sure had Pirlo in it and he went on to mention Jankulowski and Dunga (though he pronounced it Doonga). Ah ha! They were talking about football.

“Manchester united are really awesome don’t you think? I mean Rooney, Ronaldo, Tevez and of course Nani ” I said. At this juncture one of them got up and yelled “Makalele saale!” or something to that effect. He pushed me out the door and said “Hilalio” “It is Hilario” I corrected him as the door shut in my face. Sheesh damned Chelsea fans.

As I later found out Nani , Kaka and Dida (or is it dadi?) were all relatives of the hindi people along with potha, pothi , jeeja, jeeju, mama, mami, chacha, chachi and a lot more good enough to make 3 football teams. And well Makalele and Hilario weren’t so respectable in Hindi circles. They weren’t Chelsea fans after all.

As time passed by, I got to learn a little hindi here and there and its lack of logic was astounding. I’m not going to bore you with my 42 point report on why hindi is an illogical language, I shall just state my fundamental objection – ‘ Hindi belongs to the older generation of puritans and hypocrites’

I know you doubting Thomases need proof. So here you have it.

This is how we talk

Tony: Dude that hot chick is going to beat me at scrabble

Pedro: Why?

Tony: Can’t you see? She’s got a great rack! Hehehehehehehe hahahahahahaaha

And here is an extract from a hindi song

“Dhodi si dhool he meri dharthi ki meri vatan ki, dhodi si khusboo blah blah mast pavan ki yadda yadda yadda”

Simply put : we objectify women, hindi womanifies objects!

So while the mallus around me graduated from arguing with the auto driver who asks for “pacheez” by saying “Pacheez?? Nahi nahi hum roz jaata hain. Pacheez zyaada hain chaleez doonga” to speaking properly, I stuck to not learning hindi on a matter of principle.

I simply refuse to accept the fact that a bed is a man and a cot is a woman (or is it the other way round?) and so is a phone and a phone booth (I’m just guessing here, I know f^(| all!) . What is even more astounding is the fact that there are some things which are sexless! Simply amazing - among objects there are he-s, she-s and it-s. Hindi can go screw itself… er… himself… um… herself??

Though it would be an injudicious inference to think I’m a complete dunce in hindi – I once had a huge audience in hysteric peels of laughter during a Hindi JAM :D . I won the round purely based on humour for my impeccable grammar and immaculate accent ;)

Thus with my tale of hindi learning malfunction, I sign off with Mohanlal in Gandhi Nagar 2^nd street “Mera naam Ram Singh hain… hoom… hain…. huh?” cheerio!

The journey of life

2008-04-21T20:32:00.000+05:30

Just happened to chance upon this on my comp today. This was written about one and a half years ago on a friend's laptop for a creative writing competition. I have preserved it in the original, unedited, hastily written poorly punctuated form. The four words ipod, chutzpah, bolero and saddam were supposed to be part of the story. ****************************************************************************

As if by destiny, four things remained amongst the debris- A book, a painting, a flash card and an I-Pod. Only moments ago these were integral parts of two lives- two lives which, perhaps, in the unrelenting pace of our lives today, would have been deemed unworthy to write about. But, the most important things in life come from the smallest and the most inconsequential.

Stacy was an average 20 year old, or at least it would appear that way. When the sun set on an average day, she would have heard the words “Man she looks so fat, dark and ugly” at least 10 times. She wished the world would go blind, for she was sure that the sense of their touch would be kinder to her than the sense of their vision.

Now, going back home on the metro after settling her visa issues, she felt happy and empty at the same time. A GRE score of 1540 was hard work, but it was worth it. The world would respect her soon, no one would dare call her ugly anymore, and she would be rich and famous.

She opened her bag and took out her I-Pod. It was her only solace. She played her favourite song. Her mother used to sing it whenever she was feeling low. But those days were long gone. Dad was in the US and mom in Australia. They hardly talked to each other. But Stacy knew they loved each other. At least she hoped they did. The only form of contact she had with them was the occasional e-mail and a monthly check signed “love Dad”. She would scream out every time she got one… “This is not love Dad!! This is not love!” It was a cruel and confused world, a world with no sense of direction, a world with no rhyme or reason.

The music calmed her. She took out the only flash card she still kept. It had a single word on it “Chutzpah”. She found it powerful… it was what she wanted to be, defiant, not giving a damn about the world or the idiots running it. The chutzpah to stand up and shout out loud “You are going the wrong way people!” She liked looking at the card. In a few weeks’ time, she would be in another country, leading the same meaningless life. That’s what bothered her - the lack of reason and understanding. She contemplated suicide many a time. How wrong were the people who claimed suicide was cowardice! It was the thing that took the most bravery of all.

Sitting opposite to her, Yasir looked up from the book he had been reading. He had an equally troubled mind. He wanted to be a famous artist. He knew his paintings were good. But nothing ever came of it. Recommendations were the only way to get into a good university and there were always too many relatives in the waiting list. He was beginning to get frustrated. At 23 years, he wasn’t close to earning a living.

He had a huge crush on a girl who he knew. He used to adore her. When he finally asked the girl out and she told him to go boil his head, his whole world collapsed around him. As most love-struck guys do these days, he had googled her birthday, 28th April the first link that popped up was about the 28th of April street in Iraq, and that brought Saddam into his life-a champion of the Arabs leading a lone crusade against the corrupted westerners. Although he didn’t like Saddam’s ways, he found comfort in his words; he realized that even the meek could be strong.

Now sitting in the compartment, reading Saddam’s autobiography, he felt powerful. Then he heard a voice, it was the girl opposite him humming along with the music in her ear-phones. He looked up and saw the most beautiful eyes ever. But there was a tinge of sadness in them. She saw him looking at her and took out the earphones.

She looked out the window. The view used to be so serene when she was a child. Now it was just a concrete jungle.

“You dropped this” He said.
“Huh? “she was surprised to hear a voice talk to her so kindly. “Oh thanks”, she said and picked up the card.
There was something about this girl that made him ask the question “what does it mean?” “Huh?”
“The word… on the card…CHUTZPAH”
“Oh um… it means something like defiance or gall it’s my favourite word”

What was wrong with her she wondered. He hadn’t asked her for all that. She was just excited because this was the first time a person was genuinely interested in talking to her. She had grown tired of the ephemeral online relationships.

“Your eyes are very pretty..” he said. She was sure she heard it wrong “… Why do you distort it with sadness?” He wasn’t really sure if he should have. Then it happened… she smiled… that hadn’t happened in a very long time… the ice was broken… she saw the painting he carried with him. It was a depiction of a Spanish dance- Bolero. He liked it a lot, because deep inside that is what he wanted to be, free and careless. She loved it too. As they poured out their troubles, they seemed to vanish. They were amazed at being able to make a person happy. But they knew this was the last he would probably see of each other. She was flying in a week’s time.

When the train jolted violently, everyone knew something was wrong. It would be a very tragic ending for the two people who had just discovered happiness or would it? Hadn’t the universe conspired to give them a perfect ending? One with no ifs buts and maybes. Just the feeling of each other. Nothing could spoil this moment, not even death.

Or may be it was a new beginning, and the death only metaphorical, the only things that died were the book, the flash card, the i-pod and the painting, for they had discovered the true meaning of life was not hidden away in gizmos or complex mathematical equations but in the things considered most trivial, the most unimportant and the most old fashioned- listening and understanding.

Success expression of a proxy(S.Ex) - A "technical paper"

2008-01-15T22:27:00.000+05:30

//Winner of IGNOBEL at Lit-o-sphere 2008

Abstract : A study was conducted on the various aspects of the proxy. It was observed that multiple factors contributed to the success of a proxy. Some of these factors were analysed in detail and their results have been discussed elaborately. The Success Expression of a proxy, (S.Ex for short) has been found to depend primarily on five parameters. Various other special cases/ techniques are also discussed. The effort to derive a specific mathematical equation for the Success Expression of a proxy was not fruitful, however much of the ground work has been laid down for further advancements in the field.

Introduction :

Since time immemorial, warriors have always been fighting the cosmic evil forces of attendance requirement. A memorable quote that springs to mind is that of Proximus in the movie, Gladiator “My name is Proximus, loyal servant to the true emperor, Classes Ceaser. Father to murdered fun, husband to a murdered life, and I will have my attendance, in this class and the next.”[1] This work derives its inspiration from Mr. Jagdheesh Singaram and his unfortunate shortage issues [2].

Experimental Details :

The sample space consisted of classes containing between 10 – 120 students. The proxy trends were observed for one year and the following results were obtained. An expression called S.Ex of a proxy was proposed which indicates the probability of success of a proxy.

Results and discussion :

In general S.Ex (of a proxy) depends on

1 How big it is (class size)

2 Amount of lubrication (how much you have buttered/ soaped the prof)

3 Depth of penetration (how deep you are seated in class)

4 Speed (how fast the roll call is being taken)

5 Performance anxieties

1.1 How big it is

1.1.1 Bigger it is, better the S.Ex (of a proxy)

1.1.2 The 69 rule

This rule states that “If there is 69( students), there will be S.Ex (of a proxy)”

This is a rule that has been developed from observations and stands true in most cases. Commenting on the ease of S.Ex (of a proxy) in the case of the 69 rule, a specimen of the sample space says “At 69 S.Ex (of a proxy) is like licking a lollypop. It is a very easy job.” [3]

Lt CS ->69 S.Ex = 1

2.1 Lubrication

Lubrication has been universally regarded as a key ingredient for better S.Ex (of a proxy). Usually, more the lubrication better is the S.Ex (of a proxy). However excessive lubrication can result in undesirable effects on S.Ex (of a proxy). [4]

3.1 Penetration

Penetration is an essential component for a screaming S.Ex (of a proxy). The deeper you are, in the hall, the better is the S.Ex (of a proxy)

4.1 Speed

Speed is desirable for S.Ex (of a proxy) and we would go as far as to say that there is a “Hard and Fast rule for S.Ex (of a proxy)”

4.1.1 Speed (Time) dependence of S.Ex

The u – f(u) curve

The u – f(u) curve explained :-
u represents the time and f(u) represents the S.Ex (of a proxy). Initially, S.Ex(of a proxy) is zero as the people are getting ready. The initial peak in the graph of S.Ex(of a proxy) is pretty obvious as the probability value increases from zero to its initial low value. The S.Ex (of a proxy) rate is pretty low as the process proceeds at a slow rate. As the speed picks up, the S.Ex (of a proxy) rate also increases slightly.

The sudden dip in the curve and value of S.Ex (of a proxy) falling to zero is due to the time taken in turning to the next page. For that short period of time, number of roll calls is zero and therefore S.Ex (of a proxy) is zero.

The rhythm picks up again and so does the S.Ex(of a proxy) rate (till the prof has to turn to the next page) and hence the alternate rise and fall of S.Ex(of a proxy).
Before I proceed to explain further, due credit has to be given to my fellow researchers, whose pain staking observations have brought about this curve. I’d like to thank the ORGanisation of Academic Studies, Michigan (ORGASM) for their continued support throughout my work [5]. And it is with great pride that, in their honour, I christen the topmost point on the S.Ex curve, The ORGASM Point.

After this point, the S.Ex rate decreases steadily – This can be attributed to a lot of factors like the exhaustion of the proxy warriors, slowing down of the process etc.

5.1 Performance anxieties

Failing to rise to the occasion has been the major nemesis of S.Ex(of a proxy). Relaxed and confident people enjoy better S.Ex (of a proxy) than their less gifted counterparts. Performance anxieties can result in premature ejaculation (of the name) thereby ruining S.Ex (of a proxy).

6 Special cases / techniques

6.1 S.Ex (of a proxy) in case of “The Missionary”

In each class, there are certain people who execute the process of giving proxies with religious zeal. The author would like to term these people Missionaries. The missionary is the surest and simplest way to achieve S.Ex (of a proxy). It is less complicated than the other known techniques and is the most widely used form.

6.2 The Deep Throat approach

Attendance can be of two types – written or spoken. The special case involving the latter leads us to consider the case of Oral S.Ex (of a proxy). The author has observed that a certain technique called “The Deep Throat” approach is very effective in this case. It involves modulating your voice so that you catch the prof. off guard. The deep throat approach definitely leads to better Oral S.Ex (of a proxy).

6.3 Rear End S.Ex ( of a proxy)

As is obvious from the name, this scenario occurs among the back benchers. ANALysis of the data show that this occurs mostly among guys (data show that guys usually occupy the back rows). There is an increased chance of S.Ex (of a proxy) in this case.[6]

Conclusion :

S.Ex (of a proxy) depends on a multitude of factors and cannot be presented as a mere mathematical equation. The techniques involved are many and varied. The emphasis should be on safety first, using unsafe aids may lead to catastrophic results.

References :

1 Proximus in Proxy Gladiator
2 “How Jagdheesh Singaram got short, got caught and got a back” – a SHORT story.
3 The summer of 69
4 “There is plenty of room at the bottom” – Richard. P. Feynman
5 “The best of ORGASM” – a hand book for every job.
6 Annual ANALysis - published by the American Studies Society (ASS)

'High'ly Stupid!

2007-12-10T18:14:00.000+05:30

//Published in JAM Jan 1-15 2008 issue

“Hey! Good afternoon man! Sup?” I said. “Terrible headache man! I got so drunk last night!” Said he. “Oh! Sad! So what’s the point of drinking anyway??” “Later man, I got diarrhoea too, terrible hangover”. And he was off. I would have tried to argue with him in any other situation, but then you can’t really argue with a person who has diarrhoea right?? That would just be one 'shitty' argument. I mean it’s pretty obvious what’s happening – 'it goes without saying' if you will!

Well anyway what was the point of getting high? I’ve been asking this question to at least a 100 people who get high on a regular basis, yet I have not gotten one intelligible answer to this seemingly tricky conundrum.

So let us consider this objectively – Person A (Please note that as I prove my case, I may substitute the word person with the word dumbass) bangs his head on a metal block, thereby considerably damaging his brain, then he says, let me go get drunk. What follows is the most ridiculous sequence of events ever (and no I’m not saying he goes to watch OSO!)

He goes to some extremely dumb, dingy, unhygienic, good-for-nothing place and orders a couple of “drinks”. He pays roughly 500 bucks and then downs the vilest tasting fluids on the planet. Then he capers on causing disgust to the populace around, before puking on his bed, sleeping in this unholiest of messes and waking up to an ungodly head splitting hangover!

According to my estimation, there are roughly 5 types of people who get high

1 Idiots

2 Dumbasses who forward the “Hey this is Dianna from Orkut scrap” (they are a whole different kind of IDIOT altogether!)

3 Wannabes

4 The social drinker

We’re still on idiots with the last two categories, but I’d like to put in a word about these people – these are the kind of people who cannot think for themselves, gullible morons who take to drinking monkey piss (or go cough up on “flavoured smoke” at mocha or CCD) because everyone else is doing it. These categories include a lot of dumb blondes and they remind me of “The emperor’s new clothes” not only for being as imbecilic but also because of my desire to stitch new clothes for the hotter female specimens of this variety.

5 Brain damaged or so called “frustrated with life” people

I’ve got one yahoo smiley for all of you L-) (that translates to Loser in case you didn’t know!)

And please for God’s sakes don’t kid me with the ‘it-tastes-awesome’ bullcrap! I guess you should try the exquisite culinary delights of the Vth mess in that case, or better yet, Cochin Corporation is having serious garbage disposal problems, it’d be great and tasty if you could come and eat it!

The most irritating part however is when these morons brag about a high as if it were like making a bingo over two triple word scores ( forgive the scrabble lingo).

But of course acting and exaggerating is a basic rule of being a boozer as the candid Pedro admits.

I think that is enough said about a worthless topic.

/* I will conclude with an improvisation on what OSO ripped off… what’s that? you want to guess?? Ok go ahead…

Um… is it “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn?” LOL no!

Hmm Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist "When you really want something, the whole universe conspires to help you achieve it."? Oh! OSO ripped off that too right?? But no!

Hmm “All hot girls c’mon make some noise and say OSO” ? No no!! That is 100% original OSO, it’s too dumb to be ripped off!

Well the Youtube video called Japanese comedy which OSO uses as the spoof for ‘Return of the Khiladi’? now that is a classic rip-off but no…

And that’s enough, OSO has ripped off from at least a million places… let me just finish this ok? */

“All endings are happy, if its not, it just means you decided to get drunk!”

- Tony Sebastian

____________________________________________________________________

Snap trivia: The deadliest spy during world war II, Fictitiousch Naziche , on being caught, couldn’t be cracked with any of the known torture techniques. The German secret plans were revealed only when he was given a deadly dose of what he believed was primate urine (sources have confirmed that it was in fact the finest scotch whiskey from the Churchill cellar).

O! SO horrible!

2007-11-11T19:03:00.000+05:30

Facts you should know :

1 This is not a movie review – it is just an honest opinion about *surprise surprise* yet another sucky Hindi movie.

2 I didn’t know Farah Khan was a female till yesterday.

3 I never wanted to do this but dumb idiots like Priya (or more aptly a numbskull) pushed me into it!

4 Criticism is welcome but it’ll just be directed to my trash bin.

5 To quote a Reebok Tee “ I don’t have an attitude problem - I have the attitude, you have the problem”

6 I won’t give you a spoiler alert because frankly I can’t make it any worse for you.

I woke up. I was brushing my teeth. Jebby said “you coming for OSO?” I blinked. “Om Shanti Om, we’re all going”. I nod. 3 hours later everyone agrees the movie is pathetic.

With all the hype that surrounded OSO (which you’ve to say is the dumbest acronym ever for a movie title!) I guess I should be forgiven for expecting something remotely watch-able.

Ok I’m not going to prejudice your decision in anyway except tell you what the movie is about. Please read this with an open mind and make your own informed opinion about this sad, pathetic, mind numbingly stupid movie!

Here’s the deal - some dumbass in the 70s is a wannabe star or junior artist to be more precise, and his name? Yes you guessed it smartass! OM. Ok now for the heroine – a mega star in the 70s who our hero is in love with - yeah you’re right again Shanti! And their kid who completes the movie – Om you think? Well no way Jose! We ain’t gonna make this movie so damn logical!

Instead OSO makes spoofs of some more dumbass hindi movies – spoofs which could have been done much better by Parth et al. Sample this for the spoofy names the O! SO brilliant makers came up with - "Dhoom5" *scratches head*, "Phir bhi dil hai NRI" *contemplates standing on the head and yelling wooga wooga*, "Return of the khiladi" *wants to scream but can’t find the voice*, and "Main bhi hoon naa" (I swear my lap top crashed at this point due to over-exposure of unfunniness). Now compare this to Pedro’s “Eternal moonshine of a spotless behind” and judge how pathetically amateurish OSO is.

Oh and what happens in the rest of the movie you ask? Some more dumbasses get together and sing “all hot girls put your hands up and say OSO! All cool boys come on make some noise and say OSO!” Could it be any lamer? And the best dialogue in the movie is an internet rip-off! (for people who think I’m making this up please read the last line of this blog )

Om and Shanti die or rather are killed by the villain. Om reincarnates as a great star and suddenly an apple falls on his head and he remembers everything about his past. He finds a Shanti look-alike and nearly scares the crap out of our villain. But he is smart enough to know the look alike is not a ghost so he says BOO and is about to get away. But then the real ghost of Shanti appears and kills him!

What a great way to get revenge! Wait for 30 years till shah rukh khan grows up again, and a look alike sprouts up from nowhere. And then kill the villain who ( now in his sixties) in the mean time went to Hollywood became a limousine riding, high flying American badass and lived his life to the fullest! Too damn brilliant! Here’s an advice to the cops - don’t bother searching for murderers they’ll eventually die of old age!.

Oh and in between somewhere Shah Rukh has a word for his fans’ criticism for this post “shove it up your nose, shove it up your nose!”

A forward-minded generation

2007-09-21T17:59:00.000+05:30

Have you ever received absolutely irritating and irrelevant forwards that bug you beyond death and make you feel like all the intelligent life in the universe has just migrated to mars? Oh wait aren’t you the moron who sent me the forward in the first place?

Well you know what I am talking about, those ridiculous forwards generated by totally jobless pranksters who just want to have a laugh, which are forwarded by dense morons who skipped the brain servings in heaven because the queue was too long before they set their dumbasses on the planet.

The kinds that go like :

My grandma in Somalia hasn’t eaten in three days because Somalia has no supply of food grains. Kindly forward this message to everyone you know so that she can eat the enormous amount of pointless data that will get circulated.

Or the ones that say

Forward this message to 12 people at 12 in the night and 12 beautiful girls will tell you how good you look.

(C’mon you can’t blame me for forwarding that one the closest I’ve gotten is “Its good to look ugly da” and a comparison of my appearance to some ridiculous looking tree, near the CSE department, by two members of the fairer sex. Well the forwarding really worked. Next day, a dozen female pigs chased me from the 14th block till we parted ways half the way to the mess!)

Anyway you get the drift. The last straw was when I got the “get Kalam back” forward. Incessant forwarding of the same mail by a million people drove me up the wall to say the least. The essence of the mail was that since Kalam was a very great president, it was our duty to get him back to office by submitting a petition on Lolappan Chettan’s website designed by his son Mandan Kunju who had just learned HTML! This would cause the scales to fall from the eyes of all the politicians in India and Kalam would be gloriously reinstated!

I was happily rotting away in my room today, as jobless as Stuart Broad after bowling to Yuvraj (that is to say I was merely staring at the sky and hoping that an alien space ship would appear from somewhere and brighten up the day). Pretty much laidback you could say and no pun intended either! Sigh!

So well my phone beeps and I see a dumb message which goes on to say if I forward it to 10 other Vodafone users, I would get 75 mins absolutely free! Not surprising that this message was forwarded to me by the same numbskull-fairer-sex-ians who called me ugly and compared me to a tree (as if we didn’t know they were dumb enough already!).

Bored beyond irritation, I set about to test if the rest of the world was dumb enough. Immediately I made up a message (which many of you imbecilic jackasses forwarded with great fervour may I add?) which reads as follows

Today, 21st September, is the Vodafone (formerly hutch) pug’s birthday. On this joyous occasion, we would like to reward our esteemed customers. Night calls between 10 pm and 6 am will be made free for everyone who forwards this message to 10 other Vodafone users today. You will have this offer till September 29th, which is when the pug was baptized.

(If in spite of the capitalization, making bold and italic of some letters a bell dosen’t ring in the peanut you pass off for a brain, it stands for the name of the author of the message - TONY .)

Well it apparently wasn’t a very smart thing to do as my phone keeps beeping twice a minute with the same dumb message and its nearly four in the morning and I honestly can’t sleep!

so here I am begging you

PLEASE STOP FORWARDING DUMB MESSAGES YOU MORON!

RAILWoeS II – The Departed ;)

2007-06-01T11:39:00.000+05:30

First time readers of the blog check out RAILWoeS I before reading this....

The train departed from the station as I fished out the 200 bucks from my wallet and handed it over. He was staring into the distance, and without moving his gaze, slipped the cash into a concealed pocket. For an instant he reminded me of a kitten lapping up milk from a bowl with its eyes closed, thereby supposedly blinding the world. One closer look at him and the kitten image was a thing of the past, and I’m not saying what follows because he took 200 bucks from me. :-“

He was wearing what appeared to be linen from an Egyptian mummy patched up pretty badly in the form of a wannabe white pair of trousers, a shirt which someone had doubtlessly puked on and a coat that had faded so much that even Leonardo Da Vinci wouldn’t be able to say what colour it had originally been. His hair was much like the Amazon undergrowth, and his facial hair looked like the bristles of an overly used toothbrush. Whether he was an ambassador of the surf excel ‘daag ache hain’ campaign I couldn’t tell, but he sure could be!

Using my superiorly developed intellect and deduction skills and due to sheer lack of something better to do, I figured out an explanation. We start with the saying by a great Greek philosopher “Greedy people are also stingy.” Don’t raise your eyebrows now there was a Greek philosopher who said that. What you think you know them all you conceited clown? Humph!

So here is what happened – as usual Mr. Thamarakshan Thazhe Edayil (um lets just call him TTE for short) woke up at 4 in the morning and squeezed the toothpaste tube which had served him well for three years. He used a little extra that day, what the hell thought him, the expiry date finished last week. After putting on his clothes sans the coat, he jumped into Mr. Shallow Joseph’s banana field and (b)lithely made his way over to the scarecrow, stripped it off the coat it was wearing, put it on and away he came to work. Ah elementary isn’t it? All it requires is a little logical reasoning. If someone from Scotland Yard is reading this, Thanks for the offer, but sorry I’m not interested ;)

With a heavy stomach, a light wallet and the satisfaction of solving the case without so much as lifting a finger, I settled down into my special seat. That’s when the kid next to me thought it might be fun to spill some motta curry on my new pair of jeans. Since it was the 2^nd of Jan and one of my New Year resolutions included not screaming at kids who spill egg curry on my new pair of jeans, I smiled- to say I was composure personified wouldn’t be stretching the truth. I got up to wash myself, but the composure was broken when I heard the kid wail “waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! How do I eat the appam without curry?” Sheesh!!!

Soon Naveen got in, and after sheepishly explaining to him the predicament we were in and praying in the back of my mind that one of his New year resolutions included not beating up friends who screw up train reservations, I tried to show him the bright side – we had a berth till Gudur where we were supposed to reach at 3, but since it was the Indian railways, we’d reach there only by about 5 (one would think!)

After some casual banter and the passing of Chennai central, I decided to call it a night and promptly slept at midnight. I had a pretty cool dream in Technicolor with commentary by Martin Tyler “ Manchester United have just completed the treble under their new owner and here is the captain handing over the trophy to Tony Sebastian… what a dream ….” And then it happened. The idiotic captain dropped the UEFA champions league trophy on my head! I was ready to fire him when I felt another impact on my head.

I forced my eyelids open and saw a little girl who was knee high to a grasshopper banging my head and singing the chorus of the sutta song and followed it up with other pleasantries. HINDIcapped though I may be, I knew she didn’t say “ What Ho! Lovely night eh?” I jumped out of her berth asking her to spare my life. I checked the watch, it was 1:30 in the morning and sure enough, we’d reached Gudur!

Mr. TTE I hope Shallow Joseph gets you with a shotgun next time you sneak into his farm!

I looked around and saw at least a 100 people and all of them seemed to know each other. I guessed a whole village was migrating. One of them passed by me and let’s just say I got a whiff of the reason as to why they were moving - Water shortage or may be even a lack of bathing bars!

Naveen and I sat on either side of his suitcase illustrating the proverb “ Oruma undenkil ulakka melum kidakkam” which translates to “if you’ve got a buffalo, you can recline on a stick”. Oops! Sorry eruma is buffalo, oruma is unity! Make the appropriate changes will you? Thanks.

Sleep deprived as we were, we recounted our tales of woe. Naveen told me how the chick we saw the previous week at the movies was Ms. South India or summat and that her name was Shana. She sure was a hottie, but then she was with a guy chiselled out of stone. Is that all gals care about? We wondered. I mean have you ever seen a gal go “oooooooooh he’s so hot, he makes cryptic crosswords!” well if you have, mail me the details at tony.nitw@gmail.com ;)

The train stopped almost as soon as it started. And we lay there not more than 10 metres after Gudur station for TWO HOURS! If I get my hands on that Coelho dude who said something about the universe conspiring in your favour I’ll, I’ll…..aaaaaaaaaaaaaargggggggggghhhhhhhh!!!

1000 mosquito bites, one broken back and a badly aching butt later, it was dawn. I caught Jijo ( a fellow college mate) by the collar and dragged him out of his berth and promptly crashed. I caught up on the dream “ Manchester United have the ball now. It’s a brilliant move, Smith to SHAAAAAAANNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! OH! BEAUTIFUL G(O)AL!!”