One line to rule them all

I present a list of my favourite status messages over the last one year. These status messages either deal with something I'm currently doing or with a topical activity, written in a funny way. To me, both conditions are both necessary and sufficient, to make a good one-liner. A pun on an event in the distant past, or something that never happened, is pretty easy to make. After all, the whole world over the course of time provides infinite opportunities for making good puns. And without a pun, I would be a mere news-reader (Obama gets the Nobel Prize!), or a status-updater( I am looking forward to watching Sun TV's Kolangal tonight ), both of which roles  I find extremely uninteresting.

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Sticking to this framework was not as difficult as I had imagined - current affairs does provide a fertile field to plough. (Note - I have presented the topical situation in italics  - its probably clear in most cases, but I'm explaining anyway) These messages are roughly in chronological order, starting from the current time.

1. Did a person with a split personality coin the word 'Fire Work'? (After a Diwali spent watching awesome fireworks by the beach)
2. People go to Kashi to die. They should just go to Rashee and die. (After spending three boring hours watching What’s Your Rashee)
3. Has learnt one thing after a bad experience at titan eye+ " Girls seldom make glasses, for men who have passes". (Had multiple vouchers to be used at titan eye+, which couldn’t be used for a wierd reason and it was extremely frustrating)
4. Will you brave a Worst Queue to enjoy a Coast View?(I hate the proposed beach expressway)
5. Jaswant's book is gonna be - wait for it - absolutely - Le Jinnah diary. (After the furore on Jaswant's Singh's book on Jinnah)
6. Indian cricketers are not following the old song - ' Jo WADA kiya, woh nibhana padega' (After  Indian cricketers refused to sign up with the WADA code)
7. To sum it up, Obama's Beer Summit teaches us one thing - When faced by troubles, grin and beer it.
8. Is unclear on nuclear physics. Does an atomic sub use sub atomic particles?(After the launch of Arihant - India's nuclear sub)
9. An idle mind likes a well-stocked bookshop. (Senti thought which was in tune with my state of mind at that time)
10. Coimbatore's booming cloth industry should enter F1 racing as KovaiLinen (After a trip to Coimbatore)
11. From all these conspiracy theories floating around, one thing is clear - you can kill all the mockingbirds you want, but remember it's a sin to kill MJ.
12. Pondy is dandy, with liquor being cheaper.(After a trip to Pondicherry)
13. How to describe today's interesting faceoff - Jab Dill mile, will Gul Khile?(The Dilshan-Umar Gul match up had promised to exciting. A rare one where I use Hindi words)
14. How Brawn GP describes its highly-automated F1 car - "Button pushes the button, we do the rest." ( A take on Kodak’s slogan, given Button’s great start to the season)
15. So many indian americans in the spelling bee; they sure know they're ABCD.(After seeing a million Indian-Americans in the Spelling Bee)
16. The plot for devD is shaD - if ditched by BanD, go to RunD ( After DevD release – another Hindi one)
17. Attending my last class at IIMA and wishes there would be a ReSession. ( Senti message)
18. If the Independent Project system had continued, then would it have solved the credit crisis?(Major academic war on campus, over subjects)
19. Why didn't the auditors notice the oddities? (After Satyam – most of the good lines had been taken)
20. The plot for billu will killu (Billu was oh-so-boring)
21. has decided to become a revolutionary and fight for lower classes, after having a time-table with a mind-boggling 28 sessions this week.
22. Moores the pity if England cracks under strauss (Strauss made captain, and Moore the coach)
23. Resolves to make a Thousand Splendid Puns in 2009 (New Year Resolution)
24. Its better to bailout than to (let) fade away.(After the wave of bailouts that happened)
25. The Day That Reeves Showed Skill would definitely be The Day the Earth Stood Still.( Keanu Reaves sooooo Bad)   
26. Kandy may be dandy, but WACA is quick-ah(After a featherbed of a Kandy pitch)
27. Found hiking in the Black Forest a piece of cake.(An awesome hiking trip to The Black Forest)
28. Found Beer Steins in Munich, but sadly no Lehmanade. (Had gone to the Oktoberfest)
29. Are the waters of the Rhine are full of Eau di Cologne? 
30. Is back to a full stop in Sweden after a semi-cologne tour.(Had to return urgently to Sweden because of an academic requirement) 
31. Danes may use Trains, but a Viking prefers Hiking. 
32. Wants to write a story called 'Stock Holmes and the Study in Sweden.'(Hadn’t written it, plan to start sometime) 
33. Candy may be dandy, but rasam is awsam! (Senti message on one of my trips home)
34. Unpacking is truly out-of the box thinking  (After going back to IIMA, and confronted by loads of neatly packed cartons waiting to be unwrapped)
35. Ledger closes his account in style ( After Ledger’s Death )
36. Batman was a stormy and dark knight ( After The Dark Knight Release)
37. Left goes ballistic as UPA goes nuclear ( After the UPA and Left broke ties over  the nuclear deal)
38. Quickdraw Bindraw wins gold ( After Bindra won the gold)
39. God phelps those who phelp themselves ( After Phelps won many golds)
40. I'm.In.Madras.Again(After I came home)
41. 'Jai Home!'
42. The best tribute to curd rice is the old jungle saying 'What can't be curd must be endurd'  (After coming home, and realizing how much I missed curd rice)

Why Quick Gun Moorugun Should Take Over The BJP, Or Cow Banega Thalapathy

As we know, the BJP faces many problems. They were bull-dozed in the last election. Raking up the Ram temple issue proved to be a big foaly. Expelling Jaswant for honestly writing the Jinnah Dairy showed the BJP’s herd mentality. What the BJP needs is a new issue that will resonate with the electorate.
For this, we propose they turn to the noble cow for numerous reasons:
a) Voters always consider animals as a big issue. After all, the Ram won BJP many elections.
b) Cows are very punny animals. Can you imagine the above paragraph with the double-wattled Cassowary or the Paradise Flycatcher?
c) If you still don’t believe me, let me assure you “Where’s there is a veal, there’s a way”
d) How can voters not like cows, the most gentle of creatures(‘To err is human, to forgive bovine’.)
e) The world is beset with multiple problems like Recession, Swine-Flu and Shortage-Of-Good- Cinema-Halls-In-Chennai. Cows always display a thoughtful appearance that you know is trying to detect the ‘Cows-And-Effect’ and solve these issues.

Now that we have proved that cows represent the future, it is but a simple leap of imagination to select a cowboy as Symbol of Glorious Cows. QGM as quintessential cowboy who is unafraid to take the bull by its horns will appeal to any cow-lover. He will be The Antidote to those cow-killing Cowngressmen who’s buzzword is ‘Dined it, I say’.
Ok enough bulls*** for one day. Will stop before you start nagging.

Review: Madras Day Quiz

The day dawned bright and and I woke early, as the morning jasmine peeped out amidst the green garden, dewy-eyed and pristine white, like a Test cricketer emerging out on the first day of a match. It was the day of the Madras Quiz, one of the biggest quizzes on the calendar. Looking forward to it, I knew it would be a quiz that would definitely be equal to India's biggest Open Quiz, the Landmark Quiz.

The Madras quiz is being conducted by Team IQL, and was located behind a place familiar to most of us, the PS Senior School . I was slightly late for the quiz and I rushed to the prelims location, but was aghast to find that it wasn't even close to starting. After a bit, it got underway in typical fashion.

The prelims were like a cup of steaming hot early morning coffee. Some questions were brewed to perfection, while a lot others were reused decoctions and left a bitter taste. The answer on AR Rahman was a great fact and I guess it played the level field. Some others, like the first question, left us with a "Eh? Why is it there?" Overall, quite a decent prelims and we hoped we would qualify.

However, there was many a slip between the filter kaapi and the lip. We narrowly missed out on qualifying. It was nice of the quizmasters to follow the Great Derek's style of announcing the teams that missed out on qualifying. It gave us an incredible opportunity to enjoy the limelight and attention that is bestowed on teams-that-nearly-qualify. Wouldn't have missed it for anything. If only, they had announced the scores of all the teams that had made it, it would've ensured complete fairness and transparency to all. After all, what is an hour more or less, when we go to quizzes?

Speaking of filter kaapi, it was a pity that they had not arranged for a provision to serve it to the participants. After all, what is Chennai without a cup of steaming hot filter kaapi in the afternoon? And one more point in the favour of the Great Derek. I notice in the Great Derek's quizzes, something to eat and drink is ALWAYS served. I wish more quizzes start following this noble tradition.

The usual faces were among the finalists - The Legendary VV Ramanan, the Legendary Jayakanthan and the Legendary Gaurav Sundaraman. DP had ( surprisingly?) made it to the finals, and I made a mental note to work harder next time. If DP can qualify, it should be possible for me to qualify too, especially in a quiz on Madras, which is so obviously not his core competence.

The finals were like a whiff of morning jasmine, smelling sweet and pure. The quiz started on higly scented note, with a very interesting picture of the Central Institute of Classical Tamizh Studies. Quite a few other nuggets of information, like a question on Pennathur Subramaniam were present. However, as with any strand of jasmine we get nowadays, there were quite a few genetically modified flowers which had no right to be present.

One-third of the quiz, for good or for bad, was on movies. While I would agree to the odd question on Gemini Ganesan, I draw the line at a question on K Balaji as a child. One more question read - Which scriptwriter blah blah blah? When the first two teams had guessed Anna and the second MK, I had exhausted my stock of guesses. The answer turned out to be Kripananda Warrier ( the only Warrier I know in Tamil Cinema is Sultan the Warrier) And when there is question after question along similar lines, it does get a trifle wearying.

There were two long visual connects, which are like one-minute instant coffee served to quizzers brewed on the traditional thing. It might be easier to make, but unless it is interesting to all, it should not be there. The first theme had 5 unidentifiable people, and Maharajapuram Santhaman. The answer turned out to be Roads in Chennai renamed after people. Some more clues perhaps, to make it more guessable to aam audience?

The second theme, on places in Chennai named after flowers, was a poser to some teams, with the Legendary Gaurav going for the refreshingly different answer of Restaurants in Chennai. From the audience, I established my credentials as a blooming idiot on Madras, by not coming close to answering this theme.

The Madras quiz was won by L.Jayakanthan alongwith Alagarsamy from Hyderabad, with Rajaram and Joshi from Muscat coming second, and Ashwin Prabhu and Ramkey from Coimbatore coming third. The favorites, L.Ramanan and Ramkumar Shankar, and the young team of L.Gaurav and Anirudh surprisingly didn't finish in the top three.

A Madras Quiz is very hard to conduct, given the knowledge of quizzers and paucity of fresh content available. Given that there have been quite a few editions before this, it is increasingly becoming hard to find good questions. Moreover, today's quizzer is an incredibly savvy googler, and finding questions to please him is definitely a hard, if not as difficult, task. Given these constraints, the IQL team did a great job conducting this quiz. Most of the questions were very good, and most of us came away with the feeling ' I learnt something new about Madras today'

And finally - I'm thoroughly sick of a filter kaapi and jasmine analogy parallel used whenever Madras is mentioned. Thoroughly boring. How's this? "AAh Madras. Whenever I think of the old city, I think of Jalapeno-Tomato Chilli-Cheese-Cajun Pepper-Popcorn with a hint of Butter, served by good ol' Sathyam Cinema"? It has so much more of a zing to it!

The Cold and the Beautiful

One more article from my Euro Trip.

I had pretty much seen all of Jonkoping's attractions in the 2 months I had been there - being a sleepy, small town, this primarily consisted of beautiful women, beautiful lakes and beautiful scenery. Having a small break in my academic schedule, I decided to Boldly Go Where Man Has Seen Snow Before. It was October, and being in southern Sweden, the temperature was irritatingly low, but with no hint of snow. Friends in Germany had ridiculed my lack of snow, while displaying numerous photos of them making snowmen. I was even gloomily told that snowfall was predicted in January, by which time I would be back in India. A brief background - Sweden is like the Arunachal Pradesh of Europe - it just tapers on and on. The snowy, extremely cold bits we read so often in the papers are all in the sparsely-populated north.

I opened the Swedish map, and randomly looked at descriptions of places really, really North. The train time table was opened simultaneously; I had to select a place which would enable me to spend a night on the train, reach there in the morning, and leave that night again by train. (I must add that I possessed inarguably the most essential piece of paper any backpacker worth his hiking boots needed - a Eurail pass. Travel by train was mostly free, and most decisions to go places were dependent on the trains to that place.) I narrowed down my choice to a few places, and finally chose Kiruna.

I left that evening, making a note of train timings, and the places to see. It got dark pretty early, and the train journey was livened up by a group of middle-aged women getting up and singing Happy Birthday to You in loud Swedish (Grattis till er! Grattis till er! Grattis till er, dear Whatzisname! Grattis till er)

What I saw the next morning was truly magical. The landscape was pristine white, the forest of leafless pine trees, which had appeared bleak, forlorn and forbidding, now appeared to be shimmering with light, when draped in white blankets of snow. The air was exceedingly clear and this vista stretched on for miles together. Having lived in hot-hotter-hottest Chennai all my life, it was the first time I was seeing snow. Now, with a cup of coffee in my hand, and snug in the train compartment with the outside landscape to gaze at, I could joyously skim through Raskolnikov's debate to
kill himself. ( Long train journeys with nothing else to do are ideal for wanting to read books one has always wanted to read. Depressing books like Crime and Punishment so aptly fell into this category.)

I reached Kiruna at 1000 AM, and ventured straight out of the station. I rushed to the fresh mound of snow outside, made my first snowball, and 'shot the snowball into the air, it fell to the earth, I knew not where.' I was preparing another snowball to follow its predecessor, when I did know where it had fallen. I was caught white-handed in the act, and profusely apologised to an old gentleman for having pelted his dog with snow.

I shfted operations to another area; after hitting a tree, a stationary car, and a baby in a pram, I decided to ease up on the snowball throwing and decided to tramp about in the snow. The sun was shining above, and it felt mildly pleasant at around 2 degrees( I was wearing six layers of winter clothing - basically every sweater and jacket I possessed) After working out the exuberance of twenty four years of Never Having Seen Snow, and feelingly slightly cold in hands ( normal gloves - after all, a shoestring does not extend to your hands) I headed out to the friendly, neighbourhood tourist office to plan my itinerary. The lady at the counter gave me a map and marked out a walking trail that would take a few hours. She regretfully informed me that it was only the beginning of the winter, so everything was closed, so there would be no Reindeer and no Northern Lights. Drat! I had so wanted to see Rudolf prancing about, with a Red Light on his nose, a green light in the skies above and an amber drink in my hand ( the last mentioned just so's traffic conventions are maintained)

I started walking along the path she had marked, when I saw this middle-aged lady, walking in front, with the professional air of a Nordic Walker. I smiled at her, and that broke the ice between us. She agreed to let me join her in her walk, and agreed to show me the sights. As she quite trustingly unbent, she told me she had lived all her life in the town of Kiruna, her husband worked in the mines nearby and found the 2 degree temperature rather warm. ( These Swedes! Tap Tap Tap) The thought of my seeing snow for the first time was immensely humourous to her, and when she learnt I had worked in the software industry, she was quite respectful.( You do our job so much better, she said)

After a brief tramp through a forest, we came to a hillock where we could view the entire town, where she pointed out Kiruna's sights - a large school where her children studied, a church and ugly black hills in the background which provided the mines that served as the backbone of the town's economy. The entire experience seemed extremely surreal - joining an unknown person on a brisk walk through a snow-clad forest in the Arctic Circle, with the sun shining down.

After a while though, it sadly came to an end she regretfully told me that I was not properly dressed for the walk. Was it my unshaven, three-days stubble, the slightly wolfish look that came from eating only fries for breakfast or was it the ugly red backpack filled with clothes, I asked, feeling the brunt of the backpacker's curse on me. Neither, she said, and pointed to my shoes.
Lesson Learnt: Reebok Tennis shoes bought in Chennai are NOT meant to be used for walking through Deep Snow.

I trudged back to the town centre, and after buying a pizza costing as much money as needed to start a pizza joint in Chennai( Goach's Paradox: Why are Scandinavians the most polite people on Earth, when they pay the steepest prices for everything?) I decided to go into the church. Immensely peaceful, with dark wooden panelling, big candles and bright lights that looked quite picturesque. It was around 1400 hours by now, and the town centre was the only place I hadn't been to, so I dutifully went there and learnt quite a bit on the history of Kiruna ( Amazing fact: Due to mining, the entire town is sinking, and they have to transplant it lock, stock, home and school, to another area. Where exactly is still being debated)

Feeling quite confident in my ability to handle a How Well Do You Know Kiruna Quiz on Facebook, I was told to see an icehotel in Jukkasjarvi, a short bus ride away. I took a bus which deposited me near it( It is the same one in Die Another Day). They were still building it, and I could see huge chunks of light blue ice being cut into different pieces and laid on the ground. The water was taken only from certain pure, pristine streams, so any guests who so desired could have the best Ganga snanam possible. Being quite cold now, I made a cursory trip round it and then went inside a brick hotel. The return bus would be back in an hour, and I was advised to go to a church nearby.

I went there, was not surprised to find myself alone and remained inside for quite a while. You might wonder if I had been entranced by the beauty and magnificence of the 18th century church, or captivated by its bright lights and golden candles? Rest assured - I stuck to my tambram roots. It was just that by this time become quite sick of the extremely dark ( at 1630) and the cold ( minus five degrees) and wanted to be somewhere else( Chennai in peak summer looked so inviting) Visions of frost-bite and snowstorms floated in front of me, especially since no one knew where I was. The stupid bus was taking forever, I needed to go to the toilet and desperately wanted a warm drink, and the church was the only shelter around.

The bus finally came, the walk to the station seemed infernally long, especially against the cold wind, and I reached around an hour before the train came. I waited for the train, felt like killing Dostoevsky for rambling on, and resolved never to go to infernally cold places ever again.

When I reached Jonkoping the next day, I banished the thought of cold to the distant recesses of my mind, aided in this process by an expensive Chai Latte. I brought out my Lonely Planet, all eager to plot the next trip...

QFI Quiz Fest

(Slightly IIMA specific post disclaimer)

Have you done any of the following?

Taken a Which-Dorm-Will-You-Be-In Quiz?
Taken a How-Many-Countries-Will-You-Visit-In-Europe Quiz?
Taken a How-Many-Movies-Can-You-Watch-In-A-Day Quiz? (Basically, are you on the threshold of being a jobless tuccha in IIMA?)

Taken a How-Many-Facebook-Quizzes-In-A-Day-Can-You-Take Quiz?
Taken a Which-Facebook-Quiz-Are-You Quiz? ( Hello, PGP3 from IIMA waiting to start working!)

Blocked All quizzes on facebook, and refuse to log on for fear of seeing arbit people take arbit quizzes and filling your page with nonsense? ( working professionals)

In other words, does the sight of the word ‘Quiz’ fill you up with strong emotions?
If so, this notice is for you.
If not, its time for you to take the Why-Does-The-Word-Quiz-Not-Fill-You-Up-With-Strong-Emotion Quiz on facebook, and then come back to reading this.

The Quiz Foundation of India Chennai is organizing a quiz fest on June 7. There will be a SpEnt Quiz, on the topics of Sports and Entertainment, and inspired by the ‘Amount-Of-Time-SpEnt-on-Facebook-Quizzing’ Quiz. This will be followed by the QFI Open Quiz, a general quiz, inspired by the answer of ‘Which-Army-Rank-Will-Your-Quiz-Be’ Quiz?
The details are as follows:
Date: 7th of June, 2009 (Sunday)
Venue: Museum Theatre, Egmore, Chennai
Sports and Entertainment Quiz
Quizmaster: Rajen Prabhu
Research Team: Sreeram, Vijay Sarathy, Vinod Ganesh, Krishnamurti Ganesh, Vikram Rajan, Sivakumar V.V.
Timings: Prelims – 10:30 a.m. and Finals – 11:30 a.m.
Team size: Maximum of 2 members
General Quiz
Quizmaster: Vinod Ganesh
Research Team: Krishnamurti Ganesh, Vikram Rajan
Timings: Prelims – 03:30 p.m. and Finals – 05:00 p.m.
Team size: Maximum of 3 members
If, for reasons of IPL team affiliation, you happen to not live in Chennai, I hope you realize now that by living in Chennai, you get to support the Super Kings AND participate in the annual QFI Quiz Fest.

If you are not from IIMA, you are allowed to participate as long as you get an amnesty signed from your board stating that they you will never again take part in any facebook quiz. (Yes, I will start working soon)

Obligatory Questions:

1) American colleges have an annual students directory which have the photo and details of the students. It is officially titled ‘The Photo Address Book’. Being too long a name, what nickname did they give to it?

2) This annual event was started in 1925 by the Louisville Courier-Journal and there have been 78 editions held so far. The event can only be sponsored by daily and weekly newspapers serving English speaking populations all around the world. Which event are we talking about?

Answers:
1) They call it a ‘Facebook’ and this reportedly inspired Zuckerberg to name his website.
2) The Scripps Spelling Bee


So be there!

Variety is the Rice of Life

Effect of having just finished reading Crime and Punishment, and having nothing else to do all day. Written on a lonely, boring day in Sweden ( where I had to cook for myself, since eating out was insanely expensive; no net or tv in the room either)

He spent ages agonizing in bed, whether he would gain anything by waking up promptly at eight. Was the hot water bath, which was available only early in the morning, worth the long hours spent in the mid-morning with nothing to do? After a quick weighing of the pros and cons, he decided against waking up, and got up at a more respectable ten in the morning.
It was a bright, sunny day, but he knew from instinct that it would be really cold outside. After a depressing breakfast of corn-flakes, which taken on a daily basis, seemed to taste more of wood shavings than anything else, he turned to VS Naipaul's 'A House for Mr. Biswas.', the only book available at that time. His mood turned even more somber as he realized the protagonist was leading an incredibly sad life, and things would keep going downhill for him. The book was put down with a thud, but taken up after five minutes thinking had reasoned out that there was nothing else to do.

When the book was dropped a second time, he decided to turn his energies towards cooking, where he hoped fate would be kinder to him. A mental check-list of the items present followed, and he decided to make up with determination and will-power what items he missed, rather than risk a trip to the super-market in the sub-zero temperatures outside. The ingredients available were beans, broccoli and rice, and he decided to combine the lot with pulao masala. He had no idea how it would taste, but he was sure it would be edible. Secure in the knowledge that there was nothing else to do, he set about cutting the beans and broccoli with a patience he never knew he possessed. The rice was ready in next to no time, and given the ample time present to him, he decided to both boil and fry the vegetables, a practice he had not followed in cooking until then.

Spices were added with gay abandon, as he had still not learnt the proper quantities. Considering he didn't know what to expect at the end of it, he reckoned on adding spices and salt whenever he got bored with things. Which was around every five minutes or so.After about an hour's cooking, the vegetables were finally ready and he mixed everything in the rice cooker, and added pulao masala. On first tasting this dish, he realized he had tasted something similar many, many times before.

After 7 years of school, 4 years of college and 2 years of a software job, where he used to take a lunch box of similar ( but much better) vegetable rice on a daily basis, he realized with a pleasant smile that he had finally discovered how it was prepared.

ps - Mashed pringles chips was used as an appalam substitute.

The blog is dead, Long live the Blog!

Considering this blog is just about dead, I have decided to resuscitate it with a few articles. Given that I've become just so incredibly busy doing absolutely nothing, and given the corresponding sloth associated with it, let me put up a few random articles, that I had started over the last one year, but not posted.
The following article was started during internship in Dubai

This is the story of an epic battle between Iron Mike and me, the scars of which will be present for a very, very long time, especially on the battlefield, which was a formal shirt. At the end of it, both of us were really steamed up over it.

Round 1 - Selection of the battlefield

There was an ironing board in my hotel room, but somehow it seemed really tiny, especially when compared to my shirt.If I spread the shirt fully, it tended to extend beyond the surface. Also, the side stand to hold the Iron didn't seem to be stable enough to hold the iron. After trying various angles and getting board, I chucked the board back into the clothes-stand and decided to use a dining slab made of marble which had more area.
Winner - Krishnamurti

Round 2 - Placing the shirt suitably
I thought I knew the correct way to place a shirt, so that one could iron without further creases. Apparently, I was wrong. I simulated all combinations in order to get a second crease from collar to bottom, passing near the pocket. The shirt was way bulkier and heavier than it should have been. 'Oh shirt!', I thought, as I realized it could not be done. After around 20 minutes, I moderated my ambition. I decided to pleat leave it alone and just iron out all the creases.
Moral of the story : IIMA students do NOT consider placement as the be-all and end-all of life.
Winner - Shirt


Round 3 - The iron is out cold
By the time it took me to place the shirt suitably so that one could iron out the creases, the stoopid iron had gotten cold. So, I had to put the plug on it ( which obviously wasn't nearby). Once I brought it near the shirt, it became cold and lifeless in no time. So, I took it to the plug point, and then back to the dining board. After the third or fourth time this happened, I was really hot and bothered, while the iron remained cool and calm.
Winner - Iron Mike

Round 4 - Actually ironing
After all the preamble, I finally used the iron by brute force. I put the shirt out of the crease, effectively stumping the iron for an answer. Moving the iron up and down, I put my shirt in some semblance of order. Hooray!
Winner - Krishnamurti

At the end of it, A One Hour War resulted in exactly one shirt pressed. I was thoroughly exhausted, and my nerves were frayed. Ah well, looks like I'm making a bad imPression on you with my rusted ironing skills. Who had thought pumping iron was so hard?

2 Bad Jokes

Called MHU's in IIMA jargon.

Joke-in-Law

There is a severe shortage of an essential commodity, say rice, in India.
Hence, the government allocates rice randomly to people. Needless to say,
people are incensed at being allowed to being alloted random quantities of
rice, quite often much below their requirements.The people rice up in protest.
Some decide to take the matter to court. A person decides to go to private
courts to speed up the process.
How would you term the decision that the private court made?

Ans. Arbitration on Arbit Ration

Cricket Joke


It was noticed that Jayawardene won all the matches day-night he captained,
especially in locations where there was substantial moisture in the
evening.
He had a knack of predicting when to bat first, and when to bring on the
spinners when bowling second. Invariably, these predictions would turn the
dewuel in Sri Lanka' favour.
It was dewring one of these tournaments that an ibank recruiter spotted him.
They noticed him making trips to the ground for several evenings before every
match. Realising that he wasn't as dewy-eyed and
innocent as he appeared, they cornered him and said 'Dewde, waddya upto?'. Dew
to this reply, and his past proven success, the headhunter give him an instant
offer. Can dyou tell me what he said?

Ans. "Dew diligence is the secret of my success"

Does the flap of a butterfly’s wing in LKP set off a blizzard of rock in RJM?

Yesterday, while idly walking the lawns of LKP, an MBA student was struck by a brilliant thought. He decided to describe the behavior of people who descended upon Ahmedabad every year and like all MBA students are wont to do, he decided to create a model of his own. The parameters he used were enthu, enthu, enthu, skill, creativity, energy and the ability to crack short MANAC quizzes (the last mentioned just to ensure the MBA S. himself would fit in the model). Inspired by the names of other models, he wanted to come up with a super pseud name and thus chose the refreshingly-original-and-blindingly-radical name of Chaos Theory.

To check whether Chaos Theory actually fit into real life Chaos Practicals, he decided to observe the proceedings from afar. First up were the dances. These were vibrant, full of color and brilliant to watch; the dancers energetic; literally scorching the stage with their dance moves. In fact, the only feature missing was that the dances didn’t depict whether the dancers could crack short MANAC quizzes or not. Deciding to give his model a second shot, he decided to fit the fashion parade into his framework. However, the fashion parade provided so many models to keep track of that our MBA S. was totally lost in a 2-by-2 matrix of his own dreams. Among the many he did notice, Madame Butterfly occupied his attention the most, her head still as she paced the stage and her wings flapping ever so silently. This model seemed to predict a major impact on future events, and he realized he would just have to wait and watch.

Later that night, his worst fears came true, and the butterfly effect was proved beyond all doubt.The flapping had resulted in a tornado which developed into cataclysmic proportions. The blizzard of rock had everybody in the auditorium head-banging to their head’s content. There was enthu, enthu, enthu, skill, etc etc. The MBA S. noticed with delight that his model seemed to work on almost all parameters.(On a lighter note, he noticed that one of the bands had taken the name Blizzard very seriously and played the song, Hail, Hail, Hail and Kill).
He headed back to his room, deciding to give his model two more days of real life practice before proclaiming it to all and sundry. Would our brave MBA S.
be proved right? Or would the forces of Nashure drive his theory into the ground? Stay tuned tomorrow, same butterfly-time same butterfly-channel!


PS - part of an article I had written for the newsletter of Chaos
Chaos - our cultural fest
RJM - An ultra-pseud auditorium
LKP - best open-air theatre in the world!
MANAC - see post below

MANiACal

“Let there be liabilities!” With this cryptic statement, our MANAC professor asked us to continue with the case. This was the third class, and until this my understanding of the rudimentary concepts had been proper. (Yes! Hard to believe but I can still can proclaim loudly from the rooftops - there was a time – exactly 2 sessions - when I understood MANAC!) . After this, well, … Let’s just say I went deeply into the red in the grade sheet.

MANAC stands for Man Can’t, though some benighted souls seem to be believe that it stands for Managerial Accounting. Like wisdom teeth and Australian victories, some things in life just can't be avoided.

Since there are must be people out there who voluntarily flirt with danger, the following Dummies Guide to MANAC is for them.

1) T-Account :IOU's kept with canteen primarily to pay for the copious amounts of beverage students drink is called a t-account.

2) Balance-Sheets: The remaining paper left in the printer after taking all the printouts you need.

3) Current Liability: Unpaid electricity bills of yours.

4) Current Assets: Do I need to elaborate more on this?

5) Income statement: The salary slip one used to get at the end of the month while working, leaving one with a pleasurable sense of having achieved something.

6) Liabilities: Your capacity to tell untruths so that the 2 sides balance.

7) Bad debt: Some people struggle to solve acccounting problems. They spend ages and ages and just when they think they’ve nailed it, they notice a negative balance of $1,00,00,000 in the liabilities( refer above) column. They suffer major heart attacks and sometimes even expire. This is known as a ‘bad debt’.

8) Profit and Loss Statement: When you are cold called by the professor, and are at a loss to state what the profit is.

9) Operating Lease, Finance Lease, Please Lease Me: I have no idea what these are so the lease said the better.

10) Capital: This is the most obvious figure that comes in the balance sheet. Or does it come in cash flow statement? Wherever it comes, as every second standard school kid knows, this is New Delhi.

Now that the ground rules are laid, let’s get down to the serious business. In any T-account, you have to put various values in the left and various values in the right. People who can’t differentiate between left and right, don’t fret. Even the people who can differentiate between R and L are not sure if they are right, so don't feel left behind.

My suggestion is to do what I normally do. Close your eyes and arbitrarily put the value whichever side you want. Look at it this way, you have only a 50% chance of getting it wrong.

One normally has never ever balanced a balance sheet. and doesn't think one can. Is fairly sure nobody can either. People get pure lucky.'Tis a fact of life that one cant balance a sheet without becoming mentally imbalanced.

Then there are the oh-too-often 'surprise' MANAC quizzes. These have a very nice feature- being incredibly short, one's misery ends quickly. Calculators are considered very essential. This is mainly to time the quiz. By the time you open the calculator, the quiz is over so the only thing to do is to close it again. Till the next quiz.

Now, that you have understood the intricacies of balance-sheets, cash-flows and p & l statements, feel free to go ahead and do some accounting. Please do inform me if you can balance balance-sheets, cash cash flows and profit and loss profit and loss statements. If you can fill a minute with sixty seconds worth of accounts done, then you will be a man, my son!

PS - This post is both to vent my existenstial angst and an opportunity to make the worst pj's ever.

The Case of the Billion Bolts

I walked in through the door. I noticed the dame sitting tall and upright against the chair. She stiffly shook my hand and asked me to sit. She asked me to tell her about myself. Ah, these dames. Never trust anybody!

“My name is Wim Wian. What people call me is something else. I’m an IIMA student. It says so on PGP1 List of Students.”

The last thing I wanted to solve this morning was a case, but the dame immediately started on it. Dames always bring trouble and my sixth sense told me this one was going to full of it. The wind from the air conditioner suddenly seemed to blow cooler and I pulled my coat tighter round me as she started the reading out the case.

“Estimate the number of bolts in the United States”

What? Was she for real? Did she expect me to solve this case? It was another baffling case and I thought she expected too much out of me. Why did this dame want to know anyway?

I reviewed the facts.

a) This was a bolt from the blue.

b) Bolts are used for various purposes.

c) There is a country named United States.

d) She was bolting mad.

e) She was a mental case.

I started thinking about what bolts were used for. What were they used for anyway? I reached inside my coat and felt for my weapon. My heart went cold as I realized the inner pocket was empty. I felt I had lost my right hand. Alas, I had forgotten to bring my trusty Casio FX-260 calculator.

I needed a clue and a drink. Wordlessly she handed me a glass of water and motioned me to begin. This dame needed answers, and fast.

I started explaining what I thought about the case. Bolts are used for a number of purposes. I started listing them out. I then went on estimate the number of bolts present in an average house. My voice droned on and on, with the case facts being stated in as many different ways as possible. The dame let me speak, interrupting me with a question now and then.

As I continued speaking, I realized that she wasn’t interested in answers. She just wanted to watch me think! She was a real close one, this dame. Deciding to play on, I kept on speaking as long as possible.

Then suddenly the answer hit me. The pieces all fit together. This was obviously a ‘numbers’ racket.I blurted out the answer ‘One Billion’. She gave a grim nod and seemed satisfied with that. She handed me back my file and I went out closing the door.

Case closed.

PS - Having recently participated in the summers placement process, the above is a fictional 1930's Private Eye spoof on the case interview conducted by consulting firms.

Third Time Lucky!

It’s been a long long time since I’ve updated my blog, mainly due to a rare combination of circumstances, prominent among them being climate change (I have realized climate change can be blamed for anything). However, I thought I could do no better than chronicle what has been recently happening. Before we begin, a few things that has to be kept in mind

1) These are recent happenings in my life only. So, there wont be any mention of the Ash-Abhi wedding.

2) If you find an overdose of sentimentalism, blame it on my watching spidey battling his inner self and crying his heart out. And also on climate change.

₃₎ Climate change may be a burning issue in today’s world but it won’t find a mention, except for it being blamed for everything.

4) One has recently been reading Ponniyin Selvan (in English) and one found it a decent read. The part names have been utilized for various paragraph titles.

5) This story revolves around how one person(me) battled the odds, triumphed when all others had lost hope and fought one’s inner inner demons. (One didn’t actually battle any inner demons but battling one’s inner demons sounds ubercool)

6) It actually deals with The Great Exam aka CAT, which for those not in the know, happens every year in November with interviews being scheduled in Feb/March.

THE CYCLONE

November 2004:

First time I wrote The Great Exam. After studying and studying and studying for it, we will just erase this year from memory with a brief ‘This year was not to be.’ Why is it sub titled The Cyclone? Left me devastated.

THE PINNACLE OF SACRIFICE

November 2005:

Second time I wrote The Big Tamasha. It didn’t come out go too well. Finally, I got a call from Kozhikode that I converted. ‘To k or not to k, that was the question’. I was advised, by almost all and sundry, against going. But, could I write The Big One again? Writing it was a spine tingling, blood curdling, nerve wracking adventure with far too many baddies and didn’t always end with an ‘All’s well that ends well’.

Finally, I decided to listen to my inner voice. ( If Sonia can have one, then I can jolly well have one too).

Decision: Go for The Holy Grail again.

THE KILLER SWORD

November 2006:

For the third time, I wrote The Grand Endurance Test. It had been a difficult year. Loads of work at office. At the same time, rushing to classes. Writing tests at home. Hunting up old dog eared, flea bitten school books. Wondering what would happen if two trains traveling sixty miles an hour, and separated by a distance of 300m, came upon a number the square of which is three times the fifth prime number, and the probability that could happen, especially after drawing a black queen from an incomplete pack of cards. The mind boggled at the possibilities. A year of Blood. Of Toil. Of Sweat. And Tears. A year that, most alarmingly, brought up the possibilities of Climate Change.

The paper turned out to be an utter nightmare. English was so awful, it was more luck of the draw than knowledge of English. I didn’t have too many hopes at the end of the day. By this time, I was really really sick of going through The Whole Cycle again, that I wrote a number of other tests to a number of other management institutes.

THE FIRST FLOODS

Dec 2006/Jan 2007

When the results came, I was overjoyed. I had got calls to all the IIMs. English had been a real lottery and I had got more wrong than right but that was enough to get me a decent score. Also I was pleasantly surprised to find that the floodgates had opened wide, to make up for the previous two years drought. I had got calls from a number of other management institutes. February/March was a very busy time. Three Chennai-Bangalore trips. One Chennai-Bombay-Bangalore-Chennai trip. All in a space of a month or so. Learnt a lot in the interviews. Met lots of new people. Travelled a bit( Dalal street in Bombay was a big let down-so run down. More on that on a future post) And, the finally the long wait.

The quota issue was raked up and results were indefinitely postponed. There was a keen tussle between the Supreme Court judges, the HRD Ministry and the IIMs with us hapless students caught in between. Each person made contradictory statements. Would results ever come? This indefinite wait was very irritating and concentrating on office work amidst all the confusion was extremely hard, nigh impossible. Then, the political parties raked up the OBC issue and with a very dog in the mangerish attitude, assumed all results could be postponed till May 8. One expended one’s frustration making cheap puns, a sample of which is given below to pain you with.

This city in Rajasthan sends a large number of people to the IITs every year, so much so that a certain number of seats have been considered reserved for it. What is this called?

The Kota Quota

This child actress gets to act in every film that stars a small girl. It was thought that this was due to her acting talent. However, it has been realized that this is due to an appeasement policy followed by the cinema industry, which is said to follow an active reservation policy. Her name reflects this fact. Who is this?

TheQuota Fanning

Ok, think I’ve used up my bad jokes quota for the day and will put an end to this sordid chapter.

THE CROWN

Apr 27

Results were expected today. The air was heavy with anticipation. Then, at 1330 or so, I got a call from a friend who had got C. Checked the website and saw my first reject. I was out of luck then for lucknow, and was now waiting with dread for A/B. Would it be another two rejects?

Finally, at 1850 or so, I check the Ahmedabad website. AND FIND I”VE GOT A!

PS- Kinda abrupt ending, but can’t end on a happier note so will stop here. And for all those still wondering, I didn’t get B. It was obviously due to climate change.

Food for thought

When I heard there was a ugadi food fest organized by our caterer’s, my first reaction was one of trepidation – I expected an overdose of gongura and spicy pickles in addition to the usual rices alongwith a few balloons added to give a dose of colour. Whenever our caterer's organize a food fest, it’s usually the same daily meals with a few extra symbolic dishes thrown in to justify whatever the cuisine served (Chinese/ pongal/ North Indian etc), but balloons being hung all over the cafeteria remains a constant, perhaps to divert our attention from the authenticity of the food.

Imaginary conversation between colleague 1 and colleague 2 in cafeteria during Chinese food fest

C1: This noodles is only so-so
C2: Yes but the gobi Manchurian is good stuff. Kimchi is awful though
C1: Don’t think that’s what the kimchi is supposed to be though, going by the actual culinary dictionary.
C2: Heck what are you saying? They hung balloons. That speaks volumes for the dedication they’ve put in. It must be an authentic Chinese food fest.
C1: (nodding sagely) : Oh yes, you are right.

Coming back to the ugadi fest, it was the menu which set my taste buds tingling. It just sounded so exotic. Merapakkaya gujju. Rubudu charu. And so on. What epicurean delights would these dishes hold? If the dishes were half as good as the names sounded, I would be getting my money’s worth. After all, who has not licked his lips in anticipation after reading about Anatole’s Timbale de ris de veau Toulousaine or escargot a la crème, but reading it as snails with cream sounds so unbearably unedible. For those who have lost the plot here, and haven’t heard of Anatole, or his cooking, well, wake up! Instead of wasting time reading this, go read Wodehouse.

After starting off with a sweet ( whose name I sadly don’t know) , I started off with the pesaratu and the pulihara. Then loaded my plate with the pappus – pappu namidikiya, pappu mandikaya and pappu passhogaya. Think we were cautioned against taking too much as it would be very spicy but one of them, unexpectedly, turned out to be very sweet. Next item on the buffet list was bangaluthupa koora. Who would’ve thought that the humble aloo curry had a super human alter ego and would metamorphose into an amazing dish when taken as bangalathupa koora.

It turned out our mundane rasam was rubudu charu, and that just made it so enticing but deciding to free annam( or rice) I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to taste it. The last course was perugu annam which amply justified the theory that thayir sadam by any name would still be as divine. The gongura was good, as spicy as it should be, and the avakkaya urukkaya with its deep red and black shades drew my friend and I to question its etymology to Tolkien’s Uruk-Hai, who look much less frightening though compared to this fiery dish, looking hot enough to cause submerge all coastal cities and cause massive floods by causing all polar ice caps to melt.

With a contented burpu, I ended the meal, determined to try out more Andhra places ( mandatory caveat --- list of dishes has to be present and described fully )

It Happened One Night

As she lay in my arms, did I detect a faint glimmer in her eyes as she noticed the sea--- for the first time? I looked up and noticed that the waves were only a few feet away, providing a soothing symphony as they crashed onto the land every once in a while, their precision in repetition unmatched by any machine made by man.

Though there was no moon, the sky was brilliantly lit by stars, light bulbs suspended from the sky, merrily twinkling, not too bright but just enough to provide the necessary comfort and a friend had just earlier that evening kindly pointed out the Big Dipper to me. Thankfully, the light was enough for me to observe her properly and I could clearly see the contours of her back. Just between you and me, she seemed too have been through many a fight as it was rather scarred. The wind blew past us, the pleasant breeze that ruffles the hair and luckily not the cold inducing sea breeze that carried plenty of spray. Still, it was past one in the night and it was quite cold. I pulled my jacket closer to my body and though she wasn’t wearing anything, she seemed to be unaffected by the cold. She moved restlessly in my hands. Shouldn’t I be taking to her to the water, which I had been told she liked? Was she getting impatient with my inattention? Was it time to lay her down and get down to matters more pressing?



Deciding to do so, I kept her down and got down to the process of getting her to the water, an ingenious process which involved using a Nokia 1100 torchlight as a guide.

Thus began my tryst with the fast disappearing species known as the Olive Ridley turtle.


PS --- This was a baby turtle, about the size of a matchbox, and was being helped towards the sea. Just to clarify.

Sunrise Boulevard

It was a bright and moonlight night. I was sitting by the sea, watching the moon’s rays create a silver luminescent patch on the dark water, when I realized with a guilty start that I had hardly ever seen sunrise, despite going to the beach ever so often. (Nowadays, leading the life of a typical software professional, by the time I wake up, the sun is well above the horizon) Determined to rectify this error, I decided that I would try to get up early next morning and go to the beach. My friend was openly critical of my rising early and said unless I used Krishna like tactics to hide the sun or perhaps delay its start by a good ‘n’ hours, there was no way I would make it to the beach by sunrise. Ah! For every noble thinker, there are always a million detractors out there waiting for you to fall.

Determined to prove him wrong, I was woken up promptly at six and the combination of the unearthly hour and deep sleep was enough to make me contemplate to silently ditching the expedition for another day. However, somehow or the other, my willpower triumphed over sloth after a few minutes battle, and I awoke, realizing I have to rush if I have to make it before sunrise. Which my father informed me should happen at 6:33. Actually let me reframe the previous lines since I seem to be portrayed in a negative light. Let us pause a moment and hither to a parallel dimension, an idyllic world where men are men; dreams come true; Dubya doesn’t win elections; and pizza tastes as good as it looks in the ads.

There

Woken up by the shrill cackle of the rooster, I burst out of bed bustling with energy. With a brisk good morning to my parents, and a quick glance at the headlines (for those nit pickers out there, the paper delivery boys give the papers just before the crack of dawn), I step into my neatly pressed and matching track suit, strap on my well worn Nikes, and rush out.

Back on Earth

Having just got up, and still feeling extremely groggy, somehow I strap on my running shoes (which haven’t been used at all), and rush out. After a few minutes breathless run, I convince myself to slow down to a trot before I realize that the sunrise was scheduled in another ten minutes and unless it followed Indian Standard time like trains did, I would miss it. Another minute of determined run before I find I’m panting far too much. A traffic signal gives me much time to get back into shape before a few more minutes of haphazard jogging, after which my pace slows down to a fast walk. Nearing the beach again, I hurry into a sprint that peters out into a slow walk after a hundred meters or so. The slow walk continues till I reach the beach

There
My legs moving in perfect unison, breath perfectly controlled, I chomp away at the distance covering my house to the beach. Making a quick calculation that at my current speed, I would reach the beach 12 minutes before sunrise, I slow down by the requisite amount so that I would reach the beach exactly 7 and a half minutes before sunrise. Hardly sweating at all, I take offence at the protracted traffic signal and glance with a supercilious smirk at the tired and sweat drenched runner beside me who seems to be glad of this break. Continuing again, I reach the beach much before time and do a quick few minutes of power yoga while I waited for the sun to rise.

And Back Again

Enough of parallel dimensions. As I reach the coast, I find to my immense relief that though the sky has attained a pinkish hue; the sun hasn’t crept over the horizon yet. After a few minutes of waiting, all my effort is finally rewarded as the sun first peeps timidly out and then bathing the sky and the sea in mild pink rises out, an orange ball suspended from the sky and drawn by an invisible string, perhaps by the Hand of God. The rays glance off the sea, causing the waves to shimmer, a dull blue with the region under the sun suffusing with orange, as the sun steadily makes its progress up. After some time, I decide its time I leave, and this time walk back, making no effort to run, or even break into the slightest jog, but resolute that I would attempt this epic journey some time in the near future.

For those who wanna know more about how to get there, here are the details

Location: Besant Nagar Beach

How to get there: Take the second right and keep jogging ( If one can reach NeverNever Land that way, no reason why one cant reach the beach too)

Means of transport: Since the idea is to go jogging, no reason for me to mention that the place is well connected by rail and air. Note : I haven’t mentioned it so the previous statement could be right.

Time to visit: Look up sunrise timings at the Hindu

Book Fair and Lovely

Saturday morning. Me fast asleep. Phone rings. Its my friend Nandan. He calls me to the book fair in Quaid e Milleth college. Though still groggy, my mind registers that he has mentioned the word ‘book’ and instantly I agree to come.

Pleasantly surprised at the large crowd, we went in, hoping that perhaps we could unearth some rare gems. Initially it was a big letdown. The first few stalls had mostly Tamil books (If a dim witted snail started crawling on a Tamil sentence and I started reading it too, it would be a close call as to who would finish it first. My money would probably on the snail) The other stalls were none too inviting with entrances piled with Oxford dictionaries/ Manorama yearbooks/ Word power Made Easy and other such stuff designed to ennoble the mind.

In fact, this was maddeningly repetitive giving the fair a maze like appearance (If one sees a Watziznames stall piled high with Tamil books and English dictionaries, followed with a Watchamacallit stall piled high with Tamil books and English dictionaries, followed with a You-get-the-picture-stall piled high with Tamil books and English dictionaries for like 20-30 stalls it gives the feeling of moving around in circles. After all the market for Tamil books and English dictionaries cant be that immense can it?)

The first stall which in I though would cater to my reading interests was the British Council stall ( and this had nothing for sale!) The next interesting stall was the Rupa stall (actually only interesting because they had a collection of Wodehouse school stories for less than hundred which I hadn’t noticed before at Landmark/Odyssey. An immediate buy.) Satisfying to note that among popular fiction, Enid Blyton was selling well too. However times change, midnight school feasts and Ol Clear Orf doesn’t change. There was an American books stall too but since there was no major discount, the throngs of people there made no sense to even consider perusing. An interesting hardbound stall caught my attention but with prices way beyond my budget, it was sadly written off.

Only on coming out did we notice the second hand bookshops outside. This looked Promising. Very Promising. Starting from the Mount Road entrance, we decided to work our way to the college entrance. The first shop was the 10 buck stall. Most of the authors I hadn’t heard of or ever wanted to read. A few books in German. I mean proper German. And Spanish. Loads of other stuff I couldn’t imagine anybody (and I mean anybody!) would be in their proper minds to buy, even less read. I mean which shopper here would be interested in Easy Ways to Backpacking in Maine? Or a Russian travel guide( in Russian)?

Digging through the dirt though, one unearths a few diamonds. Very hard to imagine a decent copy of Danny the Champion of the world (Roald Dahl) selling for 10 bucks. The owner who gave that book away needs to be executed without any trial. Convinced my friend to buy it. I found a Peter Wimsey novel and a Mary Poppins. Nothing I particularly wanted to buy but just had to when its selling for so little. Got a pleasant surprise when I found a text on Ramayana by, hold your breath, G Krishnamurti. (Right down to the current spelling of m-u-r-t-i) I just HAD to buy it.

Got a cheap Carl Hiassen and a Ram Guha from the next few stalls. And a Graham Greene. 10 bucks is decent for a slightly torn dog eared copy. On a whim purchased a book on travels in 19^th century Egypt by some arbit guy. Sounded interesting though. Steered clear of the pirated books stall redolent with Dan Brown and Harry Potter but even a cursory glance there seemed to be a market for Pony Tailed Guru’s books.

Getting dark, we decided to leave. Not before noticing a scary sight of the book sellers using kerosene lamps and placing them carelessly over the books. A single spark would have been enough to have set fire to the entire set ( which in my view was much much better to the actual fair inside

Good fun!

Meme and myself

Vinod passed this meme(sounds a very egoistic word) to me a long long time ago. Finally got down to filling it out only now.

1. You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451! Which book do you want to be?
   
   Wodehouse’s Blandings castle series. I know this isn’t a book but the Blandings castle collection with hare brained Lord Emsworth, irrepressible Galahad, forbidding aunts, Efficient Baxter, servile Beach and of course The Empress , provides an amazing milieu for Wodehouse to weave his magic in a typical English county castle.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Hmmm…..

3. The last book you bought is:

’No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency ‘ by Alexander McCall Smith… good buy it turned out to be.

4. The last book you read:

Fahrenheit 451. Very nice book.

5. What are you currently reading?

Following the Equator by Mark Twain , a travelogue. Pretty funny. He’s left Australia and nearing India right now

6. Five books you would take to a deserted island:
Wodehouse’s Best ---- Cause Wodehouse is Wodehouse.

The Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling ----- Captains Courageous is a superbly written story (of Boy V/s the elements and triumphing against the odds), Stalky and Co. is a brilliant book written in boarding school ‘ The Sun never sets in the British Empire’ England (without the saccharine sweetness of Enid Blyton), The tales of the Raj transports one to a different timezone altogether, Kim and Mowgli, well enough have been written without me having to eulogise further.

Captain Blood --- Rafael Sabatini’s swash buckling tale set in the buccaneering age with the wronged Peter Blood outwitting the Spanish, among others, brilliantly described with a panache and well tied plot that seem to be his hallmarks.

Hindu Sunday Magazine Crosswords --- Dunno who sets these crosswords but Sundays don’t seem like Sundays without spending an hour or two on trying to solve atleast half the crossword

And the final one --- throw of the dice between Tintin and Asterix). Probably will be Tintin cause already have the collection.

7 Who are you going to pass this stick to and why?

Nobody because its been ages and anyone who reads anything more than the paper in which sundal is sold in has probably been tagged ages ago.

My Experiments with cooking

Deep-fried, cooked golden brown and crackling and crunchy when popped into the mouth, the taste of the cauliflower perfectly blending into the outer shell of the flour that enveloped it… I could wax eloquent all day about well-cooked Gobi Manchurian. As an avid reader of food reviews, I have learnt that food in most places is really amazingly cooked and the photograph alongside the article convinces the reader on the long hours that must have gone into the presentation (These reviewers must be the luckiest people on earth ---having their cake and not paying for it too) Read on if you want to know how food is not to be cooked and how all people aren’t born with a thumb itching to check the salt and temperature of each dish.

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon when my mother had finally procured the requisite ingredients to make Gobi Manchurian, namely - a big gobi( for all those still in the dark- gobi means cauliflower). Problems started when I started cutting it. Not being the most skilful of people with the knife, I was getting along all fine in my own way cutting in various crisscross lines when I saw my first worm. Light green, it stood out starkly against the brown cutting board and watching it move inside the food that was soon to be consumed was a slightly disorienting experience. Its whole body convulsed while moving millimeter by millimeter with the tail moving first then the middle then the head (or atleast what I imagined was the tail, middle and head). After sending it to the extreme corner of the table, I finished my already eccentric cutting in a even more haphazard fashion, rather afraid to find any more creepy crawlies. Then I heated the diced pieces to evilly do to death other light green worms that may be lurking in my gobi.

Then the fun began. One thing that I’ve learnt after many amateurish attempts at cooking dosas and idlis is that flour and I don’t go together. Ours is a soured love affair and somehow the flour tends to win the battle hands down. It starts off by dripping all over my dress, then the coats the stove in a thick layer of white, and finishes off by leaving a pattern all over the kitchen, even prompting allusions that I was celebrating an early janmashtami. Today was no different other than the fact that the red flour paste led to the wall resembling a typical railway station festooned with betel juice. My father’s laconic comments at the end of today’s episode “Looks like a battle zone!”

After heating the oil, I started dipping the cauliflower in the flour and then into the oil. Putting it into the oil is a another great source of trepidation for both me and my mother (who checks up every ten minutes or so to ensure that I’ve done nothing worse than spreading the aforementioned flour in the aforementioned mysterious ways on the aforementioned wall) The oil hisses and crackles every time an intruder in the form of flour coated gobi enters its territory and habitually spits its venom on me. Dodging these high temperature oil drops is a big adventure (and invariably the oil manages to hit me a few times).

The first batch took a long time and afforded me plenty of time to keep checking on the match. With an occasional stirring and watching it closely, like a mother indulgently watching its offspring, I ensured that all the gobi did was lie contented in the oil and turn the golden brown needed for me to remove it out. Mistiming things a little, I found that some had turned a light black when they were taken out but sampling the first batch, I detected to my delight, other than a dash of salt and perhaps a slight spiciness missing, it was quite good. The second batch turned out faster and while it was cooking, I was with one hand turning the pieces over with a ladle and with the other helping myself to the first batch. It was with a slight gasp of horror that I realized that I had cleaned out the first batch while waiting for the second to cook. Determined not to have any more in the midst of cooking, I took out the second and then put in the third (The third was tiny pieces of cauliflower that had disintegrated during my crisscross cutting). Having slightly lost patience and feeling tired of standing in front of the stove for so long, this batch was taken out rather quickly. Still quite decent it was.

My mother pronounced the dish fit for eating and that it was not bad taken with sauce. HOORAY!
Tips that I have learnt during my past forays in cooking ----
i) If one likes broccoli, then fried broccoli is also quite good( though not in the same scale as cauliflower).
ii) Keeping cold water/ice is very handy for treatment from splattered oil drops.
iii) Cleaning up the mess is a really tedious process.
iv) Waiting for the gobi to cook allows one ample time to ponder on various mysteries of life like how the gobi got its name. When God was naming all vegetables, he told the humble cauliflower to just leave and exist and thus the name stuck.(He said ‘Go !Be !’)

So go ahead. Happy cooking!

15 seconds of fame

It was a dark and stormy day. Somewhere a dog barked. A maid screamed. (Ok nothing of that sort actually happened. Just felt like continuing the famous starting line sequence) It was a grayish day and I was in Besant Nagar beach leisurely ambling along as usual with a few friends. The waves were grayish colour, much much darker than the cloudy sky, and broke to form milky white pools, with the sea slightly choppier than normal. As we were walking down the promenade, a guy with a mike, who asked me if I wanted to comment on Sachin’s 35th century, suddenly accosted me. Not having been home all day my first reaction was “Hooray! He scored it today?” To which he replied with a curt “Yes! Please give us your comments on that. I’m from channel ----------.”

Not unwilling to have my say on Sachin, I instantly agreed and within no time a crowd had formed around the camera, all eager to pour out their views on the Great Man. Turning to the camera, he started speaking in Hindi and told the viewers there that he was getting the reactions from Chennai about this momentous effort. He then smiled at me and asking me to introduce myself and give my views on this. Putting gas I said “amazing effort, wish he had done it here blah blah “ Then he asked my friends these questions too (including a guy who didn’t watch cricket at all)

Interviews with a kid followed.
I ( Interviewer) : So what do you think about Sachin’s 35th century?
K(Kid) : (After long pause) Amazing
I:And?
K: (Even longer pause, K clearly uncomfortable and fumbling for words doesn’t answer but stares in a sheepish manner at the tv)
(Father prompts from behind to no avail)
I: (Trying to get K to say something changes tack) So what do you feel about Sachin’s batting)
K: (Smiles a little because it’s just remembered another adjective) Fantastic
I discontinues and goes to father
Scenario repeated for another kid among the group

At the end, he concluded “While viewers from Chennai are clearly happy that Sachin achieved this effort, they are disappointed they missed out on it last week when the match was rained out”
Then thanking us, he left and the curious crowd immediately dispersed.

Is this really news? Is there really a market for all this? Do people actually watch this and think “oh Chennai fellows are so unlucky.” Just because they have to fill in a day with 24 hours of distance run, do they have to telecast all these obviously contrived statements. While I’m happy (overjoyed rather) at his scoring ton number 35, how does it make a difference what I think? Whether I’m happy or not, I’m not gonna ruin a perfect sound byte and say “No, I don’t watch cricket, I think it’s a game of 22 flannelled fools. I prefer buzkashi and pelota vasca. And pray tell who is this Sachin?”

Since unfortunately I couldn’t tune that channel, I didn’t watch the fifteen second interview where 6 arbit people (+ 2 kids) helped form the channel’s opinion of Chennai’s reaction to the event.

What would news be like without 24 hour news channels?

Learning how to code

This post has been a long time in the pipeline and I’ve forced myself to writing about it only now. I got head hunted (placed is the right word but head hunted conjures up visions of exotic tribals and big corporate boardroom battles and sounds soooo much better). Training was scheduled for a month or so and was held at a 3 * hotel. Here are 10 things I learnt during training; ten valuable pointers which will greatly aid me in my quest for the software holy grail (according to top techie sites) – how to write a three line program without causing the computer to crash / self destruct / do other stupid things computers are prone to do when executing programs .

1.Linux games rock! – This fact I had learnt in college during programming labs but I realised the full potential, however, only during training. Playing for many hours a day generally helps. Another tip – put tux racer (penguin racing game) in demo mode and watch it the penguin skim across the ice!!!!! ( good fun especially when you are supposed to be listening to the intricacies of database designs or other core techie stuff )

2.Point 1 is reinforced when the trainer walks past all the computers, notes the diverse games being played on each computer and continues teaching the intricacies of database design.Super fun!

3.Continuing on point 1 and 2, realising the utter pointlessness of expecting the students to understand the intricacies of database design while playing games, the intricacies of database design instructor would infrequently cut short the classes and let us off.

4. I’m sure even if I’m not, you should be heartily sick of the intricacies of database design by now. Anybody eager to know more about this revolutionary new subject please don’t hesitate to call. As its such a hot topic, I admit only a few students based on stringent criteria (gender and looks only) Since I hadn’t been listening too much to the I O D D trainer, not too much I could teach you but its worth giving a shot anyway.

5. There Is Some Such Thing As A Free Lunch – food was arranged at the hotel every day. Another valuable tip -- stuff like ‘Maxican Coilslaw’,’Suop’,’Vice cream’,’Bread Butter Putting’ is quite good to eat. In fact, every day, I looked forward more to the name displayed in front of the dish than the dish itself. Still don’t understand how anybody can misspell soup though.

6.One more amazingly useful fact I learnt is that if one squeezes lemon onto tea with milk , it’s not possible to drink it before the milk curdled. Wasted two cups of tea in trying. Keep this in mind when your stranded in a desert island without food or water.

7. Back to techie stuff. It was during training that I realised how beautiful a language java was. Any friends of mine from college who, after that reading that statement are scratching their heads and going to the top of the page to make sure they are reading my blog, fear not an read on. I think Java is the computer’s answer to Captain Haddock. Imagine you’re the computer and a programmer has tried valiantly all night to write, say, a program to print ‘hello world’ on the screen and expectedly has failed miserably. How do you tell him enough is enough and give him not so subtle indications that he should try alternate professions such as maybe intricacies of database design instructor? Don’t show normal errors. Fill up the screen with errors like ‘FormatFlagsConversionMismatchException’ and ‘UnSupportedLookAndFeelException’. If the insulting exceptions don’t work, the impressive capitalisations sure should psyche him out.

8. Daily to training I took the MRTS train. Very fast, sparsely occupied , and providing a super aerial view of chennai. What more could one ask for?

9.How to do 3 crosswords in a day - This was amazing. The hotel had a lobby full of papers and as unobtrusively as possible we would flick the Hindu and Indian Express for the express purpose of solving the crossword. One guy would bring the Economic Times from his home and thus I had plenty to do all day (especially when not playing games)

10 Most useful part of training is that now I can now happily term drop left right and centre. If somebody insults my code I know enough to blame the software, go into its ancestry and version number saying the appropriate patch wasn’t available and then divert the topic into every programmers pet topic – how windows sucks! which should ideally make him forget my inadequacies