Sachin: Great batsman, or Greatest batsman?

A few weeks ago, somebody took an exception to the constant usage of media’s pet phrase: “there are two Indias, one who XYZ and one who XYA” (fill in the blanks as appropriate). His point was that diversity in India can’t allow for such simple bisection. I replied:

There ARE just two Indias: One who think Sachin is a God, other who don’t.

Mind you, this was before the 175-run knock. But those who saw that piece of batting display would probably be wondering whether they were back watching Sharjah in ‘98, watching the same man demolish Australian (the same side) bowling, while the rest of the team (again) stands by thinking this is a one-man show. Not to mention, occasional wins aside, we are still being badly beaten by the same #1 side, Australia.

Well, if it is really 1998-‘99, it means I haven’t yet given my 12th std. exams, my engineering and grad school is in future, so is my first and second job. We have yet to see the greats like “Yaadein” (remember that one?) and “Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna”, while Ram Gopal Verma has just one “Daud” in a line-up of Shiva, Rangeela and Satya. Then again, while my colleagues would agree that having 4 more months in Hyderabad is fun, and I am pretty comfortable about undergrad and grad school, I am not so sure I will get anywhere near the marks I got in 12th std. again. Wow, that particular fantasy didn’t last long.

So, let’s get back to the point. Before and after that knock, there has been (once again) a plethora of articles about Sachin, his place in team, his greatest hits and misses and so on. Many of his critics accuse him of playing a selfish game, point out that his first 7 runs (the ones he needed to get to 17000 mark) were very slow. Personally, I think a player who is playing for himself, not the team won’t score 168 runs after he has achieved a personal milestone. He will probably check out of the game mentally and be far away from the crease by the next ball. And seriously, if a mentally checked out Sachin plays an innings like this, I wish he would do it more often and more batsmen should start playing selfish games like him.

The other criticism is that even when he scores big, he rarely stays there till the end of the game. Then again, what says about our team when a batting line up comprising of 5 of top-50 players in ICC batting ranks (including #1) cannot together equal a single player’s contribution? One player overshadowing the entire team happens in other sports and other teams too, though I don’t believe it happens with such regularity.

So, while the critics point out his batting lows, his low strike rate series, his propensity to make one huge knock to “silence the critics” once in a while, I will reiterate my original point:

Sachin Tendulkar is a God of the cricketing population in India.

Then again, let me put that statement in perspective: Sachin is an Indian, a Hindu. And our Hindu Gods are not exactly known for their infallibility, are they? I mean, except for some notable exceptions (Ganesh), our mythology is filled with gods making mistakes, falling prey to all too human emotions (Indra, anyone?). So, cut that guy some slack. Losing against a few asuras (due entirely to the boons you gave them earlier) is all right once in a while, if on other occasions you are essentially lifting entire mountains on your hand, or decimating entire asura armies single-handed.

- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

P.S. This post is just a space-filler till I get back to regular programming, whatever that means for this blog.

P.P.S. Re: The header, I am aware of the futility of having “Greatest ever” debate unless it really is end of the universe for once and all. But viewers of Colbert will know where that question came from.

Are you kidding me?

Statutory Warning: This is going to be complete rant. If you don't want to get into a royal funk, you can skip to the photos at the end.

I am assuming all the people reading this love to read rants, so here goes:

Search for "Indian Government + State Funeral" on Google, and you will get two results at the top, about Ishmeet Singh and Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. Look at the wording in those news now, and you will know who gets the honour in India. The honour is limited to "public figures", which of course includes people in government, influential leaders, and apparently, winners of reality shows*. But evidently, you have to make an exception, sorry, a "rare" exception for India's first Field Marshal, a man who won a war which created a nation, a man who is a national Hero in his own right.

Oh, and the Defence Minister was not able to make it due to "long flight followed by journey by road". You think the family of the deceased should have had more sense to have the funeral in a more accessible place, don't you?

And while we are on the topic of Indian Armed Forces, did any of you remember that 26th July was Vijay Divas? Nobody? Don't beat yourself up, neither did our Government.

And we wonder why there is a dearth of officers in Indian Army**.

On a positive note, I have changed my opinions about the new and improved Mahabharat. I didn't know it would prove to be such a veritable nail-biter, not to mention a great source of knowledge. I mean, how else would we have known that the "son" Satyavati proposes to use to continue the Kuru lineage is Ved Vyasa and not Bhishma? And in the recent episode, I was completely sure that the God had pulled a fast one on Kansa by talking about Devaki's 8th son, when it was clearly a daughter. Luckily Vasudev cleared that mystery up, otherwise the suspense was killing me.


Now that I have put you in a very bad mood, here's something to make you happy. There's something for everybody in there:





And don't worry about me. Reading Spanish novels on top of everything else does this to me sometimes. Not to mention, the database and the server refuse to start properly, thereby dashing all my hopes of getting any work done today. I will be back to my regular self soon.


- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

* I haven't heard Ishmeet Singh sing and don't know much about him or his life, and I am not commenting whether he is worthy of the honour or not.
** I am completely aware of my status as armchair critic in this matter. I know that my only connection with Armed Forces is some cousins and friends serving in different branches, and the closest I have come to the service is 2 years stint in NCC. So don't send me any comments saying "if you feel like this, you should join army". The point here is not that.

The New Updated "Spamming 101" - Part I

It's been an year since last time I gave you the sneak peek into my course "Spamming 101: Tips for New Spammers". And given how things change in today's fast-paced world (the fact brought to me by this great article by Aditi), what then was cutting edge is now commonplace. So, I think it is time we need to make the course known once more for the syllabus which is truly the ahead of its time.

Here's your look into the new, updated "How to Spam: Spamming for Beginners" (yes, the changes start from the name, and no, we don't like calling potential customers "dummy").

The new course will be split into two parts: the non-earning part, and the monetizing part.

Non-earning or social part:

The slew of social sites and suchlike have opened up new ways for the learning spammers to hone their skills. And since this is more of irritating, and not exactly "spamming" (except for some people), you can easily get away with a lot, while getting less brickbats and flames coming your way.

The coursework will consist of topics like (as usual, my comments are in brackets):

• Social Networks and Invitations:
  
  • How to make sure invitations are sent to all your contacts
  
  
  • How to make sure all your address books are used for sending out invites
  
  
  • How to optimize contact lists so as to make sure nobody is left out
  
  
  • How to avoid the temptation to add anything personal to the invites (mass-invites are always more efficient)
  
  
  • How to add all the Facebook applications you come across, so as to multiply the amount the mail
  
  
  • And for extra credit: Sending invites to people who will be least interested in the app you are promoting


• Social Networks and Requests: With social networking, you are in an enviable position to keep your contact list always growing, thereby giving you new people (and mailboxes) to experiment with.
  
  • How to give personal touch to the requests with creative new words (who said the orthodox word "friendship" sounds better than the new-age avataar "fraanship"?)
  
  
  • Experimenting with grammar (these two points come in handy in next part of the course, too)
  
  
  • How to use smsese and other forms of not easily understood words (today's kids should excel in this)
  
  
  • For extra credit: Only for girls, sending "frndship" requests (told you we are ahead of our times)


• Forwards: These have been around for ages, and yet, the importance of forwards in spamming can never be underestimated.
  
  • How to send all the forwards you get to everybody you know, however remotely.
  
  
  • How to write effective "If you don't send this to X people in Y minutes" appendices, and add them to all forwards which don't have anything at the end (that's a waste of a forward if you ask me)
  
  
  • The optimum number of daily forwards you should send so as to irritate people an optimum amount
  
  
  • The main point: Never ever, at any point of time, for any mail, put the e-mail addresses in anything but "to:" field. In fact, remove "cc:" and "bcc:" fields from your mail application. Remember, the more the "visible" number of people you send the mail to, the more people will think of you as a famous person.

But remember, since this is done mostly to the people you know (or people in your address book), this can go either way. So you should carefully monitor the amount of "social" spam you generate. On one hand, if you irritate the people a lot, they know where you can be found. But on the other hand, your "friends" may be able to forgive you a lot more worthless e-mails than the people you don't know.

So, the main part of this course will deal with the determining frequency and amount of spam you should start with. Research positions are available for this topic.

The course will also cover other media, like scraps, blogging (and comments on blogs) and so on.The successful candidates who finish this part will graduate to the "Hardcore Spam" part of the course. For details of that part, stick around till next post.

- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

Quote of The Day:

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.
- Robert Wilensky, speech at a 1996 conference

1-Star, Anyone?

Yesterday, I was talking to a fellow blogger friend about his blogging experiences. He is an aspiring writer with a pretty decent writing style (and a good sense of humour), and has contributed a piece or two to magazines (that I know of). He looks to blogging as a medium to improve his writing. So, I was very surprised when he suggested he was very demotivated, and was thinking of shutting down his blog.

When I asked why, he told me that this was because of the feedback he was getting. He has a gadget for ranking on his blog (rather like the stars I have in left sidebar), and there are some 15-20 people who have managed to put him down in the last 20% on quality.

He told me he was planning to take down the gadget, as he felt it was not a nice advertisement for his blog that so many people feel his blog is so bad. I told him he cannot do that. That is like taking away freedom of expression of his visitors, and as we all know, you cannot do that. In today's world, every person should be able to say how he feels about everything, for it is their right.

Secondly, he is not the one who is clicking on that gadget (at least, I assumed that in the interest of fairness). So all his shouting was like a kid who is not allowed to vote, ranting against the elected leaders in democracy. i.e. completely pointless.

What really got his goat was that none of those people wrote any comments or criticise him, which would help him improve his writing. I told him that he should be thankful that people took time from whichever site they frequent, to let other viewers know how they feel about his site. And he cannot expect them to take more time off to write him any comments. Because although it is the viewers' right to give him feedback, it is not their responsibility.

His other option was to stop writing the blog completely. I told him he should do that, because if so many people think he is not good, does he really believe that he can improve given time and practise? But then, if he continues writing, I would respect that too, if only for his stubbornness.

And now that the markets have spoken (in the words of US Presidential candidate Stephen Colbert), I am wondering whether I should stop visiting my friend's (well, he is more of an acquaint., to be precise) blog, even though I like his writing.

But that also prompted me to think about how we give feedback to somebody. In today's fast paced world, if you can rank somebody on a scale of 1-5 by just a click, is there any point writing any comments and giving any "constructive" criticism? Isn't constructive criticism an oxymoron anyway?


- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

P.S. In the interest of security (mine), some of the facts of this case might have been changed. I would suggest you not to go around hunting in my blogroll looking for the subject of this post.

Quote of The Day:
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.
- Christopher Hampton

In Your Face

What with the inflation and collapsing economies, we increasingly find it hard to live our life without advertisements and sponsorships¹. Product placements seem to have penetrated every aspect of our visible life².

But the product placements we see in everyday life can go two ways (like songs in Indian movies) : subliminal messages blending the ads with the content seamlessly, or in your face marketing.

Recently I came across these two different approaches in two TV serials:

Scenario 1: Eureka is a township housing the best of the best scientific minds in US, working to push the boundaries of science, in a military contracts company. In one episode, the head of the company is in a video conference. When he finishes the conference, the screen shifts to the logo of the phone manufacturing company³.

Now the fact is that logo belongs to a real-world company working in telecommunication and software field, and you just watched a highest-security-clearance video conference taking place on the phone by that company (or at least, using the software by that company). Clever? Oh yes. Subtle? No doubt. Now that's what I call genius⁴...

Scenario 2: In every episode of CID on Sony channel, you get at least one instance when someone, mostly Fredericks⁵, gives you the "Coming Attractions" on Sony in as subtle manner as Peeves' practical jokes⁶.

I am not comparing Hindi vs English serials, or Indian vs American advertising here. I mean, perhaps the best ads I have ever seen are the Fevicol and Feviquick ads on Indian television, while I am still wondering how a caveman who parties, uses airports, has access to news channels and psychologist, and knows the words like "existential meltdown" is different from a modern man. What I am saying is, many times, in your face marketing gets opposite results than intended (telemarketing, anyone?).

I have just come across a product placement in a book. A character (maybe main, I haven't gone that far in the book) thinking that shifting to Mac from PC has changed her life for better, reducing the booting time. What do you think of that? Subtle? Jury is still out on that.


- The Great Eagle Has Spoken...


Quote of The Day:
I LIKE ads. It's not that we don't like ads, we just don't like ads when they are out of place.
- Bill Barnes, How to Blog for Money by Learning from Comics


Footnotes:
1. In unrelated news, have you seen the Amazon search box in the right sidebar here? And the google ads?
2. I still haven't seen anybody putting company logos on the underclothes for advertisement, but I cannot be entirely sure here, can I?
3. Something like when your Dell laptop has Dell desktop image as default originally when you buy it.
4. But then, you swing a microbe and hit 10 genius in Eureka, but that's for another post.
5. The guy seems to have been added to the cast for comic relief. As if the other goings-on were not humorous enough...
6. For the ignoramuses, these include statues falling on your head and suchlike.

Indian Comics vs English Comics

Now don't get me wrong. I have been brought up on a healthy (some say more than required) dose of “Amar Chitra Katha”s and “Indrajal Comics”[1] and later Tintin and Asterix, among other comics. Even today, I have a normal book-lovers' obsession with comics (and have been teased by not a few of my so called grown-up collegues). What I am trying to say here is that I am a fan of comics and graphic novels. But, recently every time I have read Indian comics, my reactions oscillate between uncontrollable laughter[2] and skin crawling.


But when I think of it objectively, there are not that many differences between Indian comics and their US counterparts[3], apart from an obvious difference between picture and page quality (I don't know why). After all, under it all, Nagraj is a mutant. Super Commando Dhruv and Batman are both products of superior training, and not acquired superpowers. If we had “dhaad” and “sataik”[4] in Hindi comics, we have “pow”s and “biff”s in English ones (and both are equally annoying after a while). If most things in Hindi comics are explained away by “tantravidya”, there is mutation and technology (if not alien intervention) in english ones. So, what exactly is it in Indian comics of today that get my goat whenever I get my hands on them?

To answer this question, I tried to make a list of things which made me irritated in the comics I read recently, and came up with certain points/questions:

1. Errors: Shaolin monks called “ninjas” (collectively, not as name of one of them)? Chinese martial artist carrying nunchucks? I don't know the post-mortem rituals of shaolin monks or ninjas, else I would have said one of the earthquakes near Japan-China border must be caused by generations of ninjas and shaolin monks turning in their graves.
   And at the cost of sounding pedantic[5], I am pretty sure that the environmental conditions on Jupiter will make it impossible to have volcanoes there, much less android life forms. This might come under artistic license and fun, but after a while, it does get under your skin, and makes it impossible to see beyond these glaring mistakes/errors. Is this ignorance or simple misinformation?


2. Unintentional Jokes: When a person is supposed to come to “eastern corner” of a specific geographic feature, can we expect to find a board hammered in ground there proclaiming a particular spot as “Eastern Corner”?
   Should a private plane of a wealthy satellite channel owner in today's day and age be a propeller-driven piece of antiquity? What happened to all jets in India?
   I am pretty sure Hindi is not a language well-suited to communicate action-words. You can separate “biff” on different lines, but cannot have “dh-aa-d” on different lines, can you?


3. Copy: I am aware that US/UK comics are around for quite a long time, and they too get repetitive or sound like copies of each other after you have read them in sufficient quantities. But then, so many ideas in Indian comics sound like obvious copies of other comics (a league of superheroes in particular country is one such idea) that they get irritating pretty quick.

And don't even get me started on Indian Superheroes on television.

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list by any means, and is a list of my opinions after all. Do you think I have missed any points? Have I misinterpreted/misrepresented anything? What do you think about Indian comics and superheroes?



Footnotes:
[1](remember Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon and Bahadur?
[2]After all, there is a “comic” in comics.
[3]I haven't been exposed to many comics from other countries, that's why.
[4]Can't spell it any other way, can I?
[5]Who said geeky?

Quote of The Day:

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
- Albert Einstein

The Case of Missing Duckling

After this, we decided to raid the studio in order to see the filming of new and improved “Tom and Jerry” episode. But unfortunately, studio was completely sealed to outsiders, and so we could only sneak some hears into the filming. Since there are very few dialogs and almost entire time there is background music playing in cartoon, apparently shouting is allowed on set while filming is on, as long as it is the director who is shouting. In the glorious past [sic] “the shouts of the characters were also allowed and encouraged, as it is very hard to dub the shouts later”, an insider told us later.

We reached the studio to hear the director shouting at the lion, “What are you roaring for? Didn't you get the script? Just smile, you don't want to scare away the children. That's right...” After some time, he was heard directing Tom on his scene, “Why are you looking around the hall? You can't take a nap now, you lazy cat. Do you want our viewers to get lazy? Go ahead, start drinking your milk like a good boy, I mean cat.”

“Ok Jerry, come out of your hole. Why are you peeking like that? No, he won't pounce on you now, you know that. Come out and go to him. No, no kicking, and don't even try to sneak into the fridge. Tom will share his sandwich with you...”

At this point, we spotted a guard, and hid in shadows till he passed by. Next time we got there, we heard the director shouting, “Tom, leave the duckling alone... You are not supposed to eat it now. Jerry catch him, and give him some water. I told you Tom, you are not supposed to run there. Can't you see all of us holding thess big “NO” banners?” At this time, a voice (that was the cameraman, who was exasperated at the idea of shooting the scene again, we found out later) stopped him, “Can't we just keep the scene? I mean, it looked from here like they were both rushing to help the duckling.”

Again the guard, we lost almost 5 minutes again trying to hide. We got back to hear, “Hey, watch where you are landing. You ARE landing, not snatching the duckling, nor the mouse. Just land beside them, and offer your help. Remember your contract. Yes, yes, help them... You know, with power comes responsibility and all that stuff...”

This time, the guard spotted us first. We ran him a merry chase, and just came back in time for, “Tom, no stealing the eggs, remember? And Hen, you are not supposed to peck him. Leave that for your husband. Why are you calling him for? Oh, leave the pecking for later. And you Mr. Rooster, get your sleeves down, no bashing the cat, remember?”

We looked up just in time to see a full company of guards running towards us, and decided that whatever stuff we had till then was enough for the fans. We ran off, and watched from a safe distance Tom chasing Jerry into sunset, both laughing madly. Looks like at least something is going to be the same in new cartoons...

P.S. Apparently, Tom and Tom and Jerry signed their resignation letters (which were forwarded to the new producers along with the entire crews') just after the shooting, and the chasing scene was not a scene. “It was almost like we were filming in good old days” our insider source added later, wiping his tears...



The Great Eagle has spoken...

Quote of The Day:
The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.
- Walt Whitman

FNS or Fanatic about Non-issue Syndrome

After SNTN¹, another victim of FNS was found last week here at cyberland. The victim, MNIYA², displayed all the symptoms of second stage of FNS, confirming the rumors that the disease has started spreading. To avoid further spread of the disease, we at the Aerie have decided to spread the knowledge about the disease.

Causes:
Although the actual causes of the disease are still unknown, the information till date suggests that the disease can spread from any FNS patient to any apparently healthy person. The data suggests that persons with low levels of enzyme l-ortho-bigoto-immuno-cogitamine (popularly known as logicamine) are particularly susceptible to the disease.


Symptoms:
The disease attacks the logicamine controlling centers in the brain, causing reduced levels of logicamine. The enzyme is particularly important in proper functioning of the thinking part of the brain, so this part is the one severly affected as the disease progresses.
e.g. MNIYA was found advocating the use of English over Hindi, because,

“The strength of Hindustan today over other countries like China is that we are able to speak English well, and that should be developed. In Maharashtra, Marathi children should speak only Marathi and English. No other language should be allowed to infringe upon the development of Marathi and English as the two primary languages of every Maharashtrian.”

and

“I think we should start disregarding Hindi and should not respond until the other person talks in Marathi.”

During the second stage of the disease, the logic centers are severely affected, causing statements like,

“We are Indian first? Who says? Your history textbook? Your school teacher? Gele bhokat!(To hell with them)”

and

“You hollow-chested excuses for patriots, Itkich zar deshasathi zalzal hoti tar mag pranarpan karayla ka nahi gelat sainyat?(Why didn’t you join the army to sacrifice your lives for the country if you feel so much about the country?)”

A patient in second stage is extremely resistant to many kinds of therapies.

In third stage, the disease can take one of the two paths:
1. Benign: The path of benign disease, symptoms and the treatment is discussed here, here and here in detail.
2. Malign: In this stage, the patients have been shown to have speech impairments, leading some of the researchers to believe that the logicamine plays at least some part in speech centers of the brain. At this stage, the disease is called CPD (Culture Police Disease). This stage is almost universally untreatable, and the patient can be extremely sensitive to “attacks against culture”. Symptoms at this stage include sayings like "मराठी हो तो मराठी बोलो(sic)".


Treatment:
Though the disease decreases logicomine levels in the blood, the persons with high enzyme levels are shown to be extremely resistant to it. Also, some researchers claim to have cured patients in first stage by logicamine therapy.

In second stage, sometimes a contact with person with high logicomine or cynicomine levels may cure or stop the progress of the disease, though the treatment is extremely difficult.

The third stage is exceptionally hard to cure, though extreme therapies like social shock or liberalis vaccine are being clinically tried. A few cases were historically reported to be cured by a medicine called cupid-arrow. The search for this medicine is currently our primary aim at Aerie.




We at Aerie Institute of Immunology request the people to test your levels of logicomine, and take necessary steps to stop the spread of the disease. Taken enough precautions, we can stop the spread of this fatal disease.

To all close relatives, friends and girlfriend/boyfriends and other halves of the patients, याद रखिये, बोलने से ये बिमारी नही फ़हलती, बोलनेसे तो सिर्फ़ प्यार बढता है!

जनहित में जारी (Issued in public interest by Aerie Institute of Immunology.)


Glossary:
1. SNTN (pronounced sun-tan): Say No to Non-veg!!!
2. MNIYA (prononces mania): Me Not Indian, You A@#$#s!!!
(The names of the patients are changed to save my person.)

Non-Veg And Attack On Community

This is subject for a topic of discussion currently on one of my Orkut communities. (For the record, the community in question is “Deshastha Brahman”)

The actual thread started with a discussion on who eats non-vegetarian food (hereafter called non-veg). One of the persons came up with a series of posts on why we should be eating vegetarian food only, called “Food for thought (of course vegetarian)”.

Some of the reasons he gave were

“It is traditional. It is healthy for Brahman lifestyle. It is what our ancestors ate. If one continues to eat non-veg over a period of time, gradually his creative abilities and the metabolism on whole slowly goes on depleting. This is what we should do so as not to defame the name of our community. If you eat non-veg, you can get ridicule coming your way from other vegetarian brahman. If we start eating non-veg, the only traditional cuisine we will pass on to our children is Pizza Hut coupons. It is not natural choice of food. And you shouldn’t eat non-veg just because girls get impressed by it, as we should impress girls by our intellect.”

(All quotes sic. You got the gist.)

Now, I have nothing against traditions. Some of the traditions are very good, and we must keep them. Like the Swedish cousins I met were very impressed by the fact that her cousin’s brother-in-law came to pick them up at midnight from the airport. The values of caring for people, family etc. (just as an e.g.) are the traditions which anybody should value, and try to follow. But doing something just because our ancestors did it, is stupid for lack of any other word.

Also, why should you get ridiculed just because you have a particular dietary choice? And, I doubt hearing anywhere that Newton, Galileo etc were pure vegetarians. Of course, for a person who is doing intellectual labour most of the time, non-veg is not a good choice because of the fat content, but then, what about others? We don’t always follow the traditional callings of our community.

And who said non-veg diet means only Pizza Hut or McDonalds? Also, try telling a hungry lion that his choice of diet is not natural.

So I put all these things in reply, and added one just one at the end,

“Please introduce me to the girls who are impressed only by non-veg diet. I am sure other carnivores in this community will be very happy with the knowledge too. ;)”

(For those who don’t Orkut, ;) is converted into a nice symbol quite like YM, so that you don’t confuse it with two random punctuation marks.)

In answer, he came with a series of posts with the subject same as the heading of this post. His reply was,

“Fleiger, I making this particular point here on basis of some examples that I have seen myself… Still I can definitely say that there are considerable no of girls from Brahmin community itself, who mock at VARAN BHAAT Brahmin guys. From the above discussion hopefully we can find out that one (repeat “one”) of the reason for rising intercaste marriages by Brahmin girls is fast diminishing faith in Brahmanism and its food habits.”

(Again, all things sic. And I must admit the last line is a gem of reasoning and logic)

And I thought the time when girls were impressed by “वाघिणीचे दूध प्यायलेले” boys was along long. (Sigh, the good old days) Why go to hotel and eat what you want once when you can get married and eat your choice food for your life? Hmmm… I didn’t know Indian girls were so mature and long range planners (Sorry girls, no offense meant).

At this point of time, I am boinked (nice word, Amrut). So please help me with some basic questions:
• What do you call a person who writes “SAY NO TO NON-VEG!” (caps are not mine) at least 20 times? (I mean, even with all ctrl-c-ctrl-v-ing the effort will burn more calories than provided by 2 eggs I had for lunch)
• Should I send him this link (ह्याला मराठीत अनुरोध किंवा शुद्ध शब्दात खवचटपणा असे म्हणतात) or should I accede my defeat claiming that I have found one more type of knockout? (Well, given my level of workload now-a-days, I am leaning towards second option.)
• Why do people use keyboards where the Caps Lock key is stuck?

Well, seems like I have found a new candidate to be Minister's Junior Under-Secretary (seriously, I doubt this person would recognize a joke even if it is not wearing Dobby's tea cozy).



P.S. Looking back on the discussion, it seems I have been guilty of one more offense, of "putting forth the pretext of individual freedom / personal choice conferred by the constitution of Democratic India’" (sic). Guilty as charged, milard...

P.P.S. Do check out Aerie Institute's brochure on FNS, which this person must had contracted somewhere.

Damsel and Distress

My friends can testify (when in one of their rare truthful moods) that I am not a person who (in PuLa's words) pokes my (non-)dirty nose आपलं ज्यात त्यात ('in affairs not concerning myself', for non-marathi people). So I am still trying to find the cause of this severe epistaxis one of my acquaintances gave me today morning.

Well rested, I woke up early morning to start for the college. As I had more time that usual in the morning (by virtue of there being late quiz, not me waking up early), I decided to check if anybody is there online with whom I can chat. And I was lucky, I found my dear sis, and one of my acquaintances whom I haven’t met for a long time.

So I pinged the lady in question, while simultaneously having a pleasent chat my sister. Here’s the conversation that took place.

Me: hi....
X: sorry I will talk to you later
Me: ok.... ping me when you are free
X: ho mi akashi online bolat ahe (I am chatting akashi)

Till this point, we both were pretty polite and all was going fine. I mean, anybody can understand that if a person is busy, he will not chat with you. No problems in that. But her comment was surprising. I mean how can anybody talk आकाशी(that’s ‘sky blue’ in marathi)? Now, I can understand people talking गुलाबी (romantic). Many of my friends do it all the time… but आकाशी???

So I shrewdly guessed that this was a typo on her side, and she wanted to say that she was talking XXXX शी. But then, my puzzled mind tried to fill in the blanks, and came up blank. There was a list of possibilities, akash, akka, asha etc etc… (I did not try after this)

So, I tried to clear my confusion


Me: konashi???
X: any problem to u?

I should have known that here I was on the edge of where no man has gone before. But my enterprising early morning (sleepy) self tried to limit the damage…

Me: problem ani mala??? no
X: mag kashala ase vicharales?tuzi ani mazi titakishi olakh pan nahi (Then why did you ask? You don’t even know me that well)


Talk about being touchy... At this point of time, I was totally lost. I had heard of curiosity being a feline-killer, but this was not even a case which can be filed under that heading. The words which came into my head at that time were not exactly the ones which can be said in front of a lady, so I retired from the conversation, nursing my bloody nose.

Somebody please tell me, where I went wrong? And yes, any cures for epistaxis are welcome.

All I can say is, I should have guessed the way my day was going to be by this.


P.S. Orkut has also joined in to wreck my day. On my home page, it tells me “You have 1 fans.” On clicking on the link, the table shows “none”. I live in air-conditioned apartment, but then I would like to know the name of the person who think I am worthy of this honor. Hilfe!!!!!!
(If anybody reading this is that person, or knows that person, Sorry I could not thank you properly... but thank you very much for that gesture!)

The Adventure of TT Tournament

The adventures of Sherdil continue... (To the universal dismay)

Now I haven't held tt racket in hand for last 10 years before last week. So the last rank player (our hero... Sherdil) beats me comprehensively 3 times in a row.

And then we decided to have a TT (table tennis for uninitiated) tourney just for fun.

First round match is Sherdil vs me. He is bragging that he will beat me even in sleep etc etc etc... Then I have some work on match day, and he questions my courage to face him... the usual stuff...

And I complete my work, turn up for the match (surprise...) and beat him in 2 straight sets....

Now he is telling everyone what a good player I am!!!

I say, boond sey gayi....

(Mis)Adventures of Sherdil - The Start

Medical Science says that the brain rearranges the memories of particularly traumatic and painful moments so that we don't remember them later. It must be true, coz I don't remember when I first met Sherdil* - the angry young man of our office.

But I still remember many of his mis-adventures. Sigh....

Like the day when we had a session on "Assertiveness Skills"... We were discussing who was assertive, who was agressive etc, and somebody made a mistake of calling Sherdil agressive. His reaction was "Hey come on... ek proof dikhao jab mein aggressive tha... kuch bhi bol dete ho" Pretty passive huh???

And then he goes to attend the session himself, and now he is preaching us how it is good to be aggressive...















* Names changed to keep the innocent people (Me in this case) safe from any retaliation...