Hitch in the plans...

Was watching "Hitch" yesterday evening. A great movie, as promised by the reviews sent by my friends. Especially the scenes with The Client are howlarious. Being alone in the house, ROTFL was a very good (and only) way to complement the movie. The kissing scene between The Consultant and The Client almost made me injure myself while laughing uncontrollably. (Note to Self: Movies like this wreck havoc with your pneumatic systems, when you have a bad cough).

The "Pizza dance" reminded me of many of my friends.(Note to Self: ask the friends to watch this scene to avoid the torture to watch their Pizza, Dosa and other dances).

All in all a great movie... Was anticipating a great last half hour, when...

Mother Nature Invades. Lights flicker and finally die down. Rain and Storm visit the lonely bylanes of Mysore. Thus starts a very eventful night.

So I am left with no other option but to wait in the dark, with the distant hope that the Gods of Electricity Board will smile on me...

Now, I live with three other people... Mr. Charlie (name derived from the movie Charlie's Angels, for obvious reasons), Mr. Philosopher (again for obvious reasons), and a workaholic called Mr. Juice (reason not so obvious, will narrate the story behind this nomenclature later). Charlie comes in just before the storms and immediately sticks to his mobile. Philosopher is out with his future bride... and comes in late... bringing with him half the water in KRS dam. Seems he has ridden the bike through the rain when we are afraid (or more truthfully, too lazy) to go to terrace to pick up the clothes.

We are looking for another candle in the wind... sorry, in our house when some weird laugh fills our house. Philosopher's mobile is calling his attention to a message. (Note to Self: Check why people use such ringtones... and that too for messages). Let me tell you, the sound which in broad daylight sounds outright crazy will spook you out when it comes from some hidden corner of the room in a stormy night.

After some chatting, we decide to sleep early (by our standards). I try to get some good photographs of the storm (an attack of photographeris amateurasis), and waste 15 minutes. Then I get bored and decide to have some fun with my friend. We start creating a ghost story to match the Nature's mood.

The story goes like:

Me: "It was a dark, stormy night. The only sound was raindrops on the window panes. Lightning was flashing on a lonely building."
My Friend: "Mr. X was alone in his apartment on the topmost floor of the building, supposedly haunted! And suddenly, the lights went off."
Me: "He started searching in the night for the candle."

At this point, I think all this is too good to keep on SMS, and decide to write it down. But I cannot write in the light of my mobile, and so decide to get a candle and paper to write the story down. So I go in a vain search of candle in across our house.

My friend: "Suddenly he heard something moving in the apartment. (Some daravana music in background)".

At this point of time, I hear some sounds in the house. Turns out Philosopher is not sound asleep as yet, and wants a glass of water. The phrase "Life imitating Art" sounds alarm bells in my head, and we wisely decide to postpone completing the story to some other time. (Will post the complete story in a proper form when the happy time comes. Wait for next storm, which will be today or tomorrow, if I am not mistaken about the weather). So finally, I go to sleep.

The perfect ending to the eventful night is provided by Juice. He comes home today morning, and tells us, "I came home yesterday night. Lights were off. Door was bolted from inside. So I went back to office and slept there." As if we live in Stone Age, with all mobiles switched off during night.

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...

KKKKKKKyoon????

Just back from a great weekend watching 4 movies in 3 days!!! (Hey, that's above avarage by .3333333 for my normal weekend)...

But then, when I looked at the names (Kya kool hai hum, Kaal and Kingdom of Heaven)... hell am I being bitten by Ekta Kapoor bug or is it a simple case of coincidence?? (But if I remember my Sherlock correctly, there is nothing called coincidence)...

Or is it simply that Hollywood has joined Bollywood in imitating The Great Indian Soap Operas?????

Sound Bytes....

Being as techie is stressful job, they say! (To quote a great author, I need to find who this legendary "They" is and why that person insists on saying so many things.) And so, the modern day techie does not lose any chance to add an "Easter Egg" in his life once in a while...

While some people find fun @ meetings, some of us play with the words...

Here is a compilation of some of the greatest (un)quotable quotes by some great entertainers:

• "I was in the project even before The Creation started"
  (Ladies and gentlemen, presenting The Answer [and probably The Cause ;)]to your "Oh God!"s...)


• "I am The Company."
  (The corporate version of "Aham Bramhasmi")


• “I want a freshly laid schema.”
  (Please contact your nearest hatcheries)


• “I spend what I earn and I earn what I spend”
  (The Economics Guru… Next Indian Noble Prize winner coming through.)


• “Male alive or female dead?”
  (Asked during 20 Q’s… what knowledge is it supposed to convey?)


• “I know I can, but I can’t.”
  (Come again, what exactly do you know then?)


• “Can you please drop in here for a second, I want to catch you up on something.” (Now you know why we are called cricket crazy nation.)

And finally, my personal favourite…

• “Integer must be a proper string.”
  (A little data typo here… I hear Java Gurus turning in their cubicles)

Any additions welcome...

Banni, Bisi, Beda!!!!!

I came, burnt my mouth, and said "No Way"!!!!! That about sums up my experience with Kannada.

My "Experiments with Kannada" started almost 1.5 years ago when I came to live in the erstwhile capital of Mysore state, Mysore. As all people keep reminding me, it is really a very good city... for tourists that is. And not to forget, pensioners!!!! As I am neither one nor have become the other yet, it gets kinda boring. (For those who know Pune, my hometown, as Pensioners' City, please update your calendars... It's 2005, not 1950's). As the sum of all the places outside office where a young person will be happy hanging around comes up to 2, you can understand how we painted the town red.

And then started the difficulties of communication. With all due respects to "Unity in Diversity" principle, I am strongly of the opinion that we should have one common language across India. I am sure it will reduce a lot of fights.

But on the other side, it will greatly reduce the fun of learning a new language with the comfortable knowledge that you can find a translator just round the corner. And so, I started trying to learn a new language.

No wonder Banglore became the "Silicon valley" of India. I am sure, you won't find any other language in India with such an obsession with H. So I am sure it is pretty natural that they took to H1 visas like a duckling takes to water. To give some examples, here a simple name like Aarti becomes "Aarthi", Chetan (remember the 3D Chhota Chetan?) gets rechristened as Chethan and BSNL is renamed as "Bharath Sanchar Nigam Ltd".

It's OK if you put H after anything, but when you start exchanging the places of alphabets in the word, it becomes quite confusing. I mean, I could have understood what bhath would mean, but what is bath???? I mean, I am going to hotel to eat, not to get a nice shower. Worldwide, "Turkish Bath" means a place where people go to inhale steam and reduce some fat by means of famous massage. But here, "Turkish Bath" will come in line with "Vaangi Bath", "Bisibele Bath" on a hotel's menu card.

And while we are having "bath", what is "Rice Bath"???? In "vaangi bath" you have vaangi + rice. In "curd bath", you have curd + rice. So logically, "rice bath" contains rice + rice (huh???). I mean, doesn't it sound a little redundant to say that your rice contains rice?

And to cap it all, in my mother tongue, "Houda" means the place in the saddle on elephant where the person sits. Going by this definition, the number of "Houdaaa"s by a single person in a single phone calls will cover all the elephants in Bandipur, Kerala and we will end up importing some elephants from Africa to carry them.
So, even as my friend reminds me that Kannada is around 2000 years old, and has won 7 Gyanapith awards, I say "Mera Bharat (not Bharath) Mahan"!!!!











Disclaimer: All names, incidences in this article are true, and bear no resemblance to fiction. Still, this article is to be read as light reading and not as an attack on any language, person or places living or dead, ancient or new, intended or otherwise.

Shrug.......

Reading "Atlas Shrugged". One of the best novels I ever read (and considering the number of novels I have read, it should be one of the best :D)... at least till now..

Will keep updating this with my thoughts... Yet to complete even half... (My reading speed has gone down from Micheal Schumacher to Narain Karthikeyan ;))

Till then.... "Who is John Galt?"

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