Ruminations of a rambunctious, rusted, reckless, raunchy, rabble-rousing raconteur

The rise and rise of the shower curtain industry

2010-08-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

The rest of the world has suffered from recession, job cuts and all sorts of miseries, but there is one industry that has quietly gone from strength to strength. The shower curtain industry. Whoever talks about their Return on Equity or Asset Turnover? Do we see their ads on TV? Do they feature in the S&P 500 index? No, no and no. Yet, this industry is booming thanks to strategic alliances, partnerships and ignorant buyers like me.

Here's how it happens. You buy a shower curtain because it looks good and because the leasing office made a surprise visit to your apartment a day after you moved in and reprimanded you for not having a shower curtain. Now, you fear another suprise visit, so you end up buying a really expensive shower curtain. Then a friend of yours tells you that you should buy a liner to protect your expensive shower curtain. You go ahead and buy that too. Observe what happens after 2 years.....

Strategic Partnership A:
In a fit of sudden philanthropy, the leasing office offers to upgrade your apartment. You get a brand new bathtub, which shines so much that you can literally see your face. You do not realize that the bathtub has been polished and so now, it is super slippery. Soon, the inevitable happens. You slip and fall while taking a bath, taking the shower curtain along with you. It is ripped apart. You need to buy a new shower curtain. The bathtub industry gets a cut from the shower curtain industry's profits.

Strategic Alliance B:
You have not been analyzing the price changes in the shower curtain industry, so you realize to your dismay that the price of your old shower curtain has now doubled. So, you buy an inexpensive shower curtain to defray your losses. Now, every time you take a bath, you look at an inferior curtain and sulk. Then a second time, you fall deliberately in your bathtub, taking the shower curtain with you. You end up buying the old (read expensive) shower curtain by paying through your nose. The shower curtain company makes 2 sales instead of one.
Then one day, a friend who has been hearing about your habit of crashing into the bathtub regularly, offers a suggestion. Buy a bathtub mat. That would save you from falling. You buy a mat. It has to match with the shower curtain color. The bathtub mat industry gives a cut of its profit to the bath tub industry and to the shower curtain industry.

And so the industry booms. And we try to learn from our mistakes....

2010-08-19T17:31:00.000-07:00

How often has it happened to you that you are in a group of people who are so much more smarter than you are that you feel stupid? That you feel lost and are overcome with hopelessness?

Don't ever be overwhelmed by anyone. If somebody knows a few things that you don't, chances are that you know a few things which they may not know. Like making the perfect spanakopita or singing a raga perfectly or even helping strangers in the middle of the night.

The trick is to absorb the positive energy that smart people emanate. To use that energy to strive for improvement. After all, being with the best makes me better"

So long and thanks for all the fish

2010-08-08T10:01:00.000-07:00

Good-bye sweetheart. It was nice while it lasted but all good things must come to an end. I have now found someone else.

I cannot say exactly when we first met; because I have heard my friends talk about you since time immemorial. We were those young, reckless, carefree souls in college that adored you. I never imagined that of all of my friends, you would choose me. I was very shy in those days and although I knew so much about you, I did not venture to reach out to you myself. Then one day, a friend pushed me into doing it. I simply walked into your life and asked for friendship. You took a while but offered me much more than that.

We’ve been in this love-hate relationship for six years, so it feels difficult to leave. But I have to go – its better that way for both of us. I loved you when you introduced me to new friends, your work and your life. You gave me the recognition that I had been yearning for. I felt secure because I was with you. I felt proud to be associated with you.

Sometimes we fought; over misunderstandings, over how you treated me and how you cheated on me. I felt I deserved more and you did not always think so. I used to feel stifled and you insisted that it was the best thing for me. Sometimes, you were rude to my friends, you walked out on them – it was me that was hurt.

But there were times when you showered me with gifts, took me places and let me a live a life that I had never imagined. At every step, you cared for me, ensured that I was looked after. To me, you were a parent, a friend, a lover. To me, you were my identity.

Good-bye TCS – my first job. Because of you, I have made friends for life. From being a shy insecure young girl, I am a confident professional. I loved being with you and I am sorry to leave. But life does not wait for anyone – I have moved on to greater challenges. In the coming years, I shall try to be a better person, resilient and worthy of you. Perhaps one day, you’ll find me so attractive, that you’ll want to court me back into your life. Until then, I will wait….

Living life by quarters

2010-06-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

Some people, such as my boss, live life by quarterly targets. He knows that he needs to meet his sales targets in order to keep his job. I have no such qualms. Yet, I live my life by quarters too! Twenty five cents at a time. Five of these can give me one load of washed clothes in the laundromat. Another five can help me dry those clothes.

Ever since my room mate and I got rid of our washing machine, life has not been the same. About three months ago, both of us decided that we needed to move into a different place. The first thing we did in the pack-up process was to get rid of the washing machine and dryer. We were consigned to using the local laundromat for washing our clothes. It was temporary we thought. After all, we would move to a new apartment that would have a washing machine and a dryer. Then our plans did not work out and we stayed on, sans the washer/dryer. At first, I found collecting quarters such a tiresome activity that I resorted to washing clothes by hand (like the good old days when there were no washing machines) but I could not keep up with it for very long. Soon I had a pile of clothes and no time to wash.

Now, having exactly ten quarters every week is not easy. It means getting rid of plastic money and using cash for all your transactions. I have not done this for more than a year. It boiled down to going to the bank on Sunday morning just to withdraw money and have it changed into quarters. It meant buying coca-cola from the gas station on late nights only to ask the cashier to return all the change in quarters. It meant putting dollars in the vending machine and asking for coin return (this almost never worked).

Woe betide! One day, I had managed to collect exactly ten quarters by 11pm at night. I loaded my clothes into the machine. I was supposed to leave on a flight the following morning, so the clothes had to be washed. As I put the coins and started the machine, something jammed inside and the machine would not start. I was left with only five quarters and a choice between not washing any clothes or washing the clothes in a different machine and hunting for quarters the next morning so that I could dry them. I chose the latter. Even badly begun is half-done.

These days, I had started maintaining a quarter bucket - a plastic ice-cream bucket. Whenever I get a quarter, I drop it into the bucket. I wake up in the morning and check my bucket. If the coins are any more than 10 at least, I am happy for the rest of the day. I can spot the glitter of a quarter from a distance. I don't like the look of any other coins, I hate it when people give me 2 ten cents and a dime - I grin sheepishly and ask for quarters. In the interest of humanity, all the cashiers of my grocery who know my obnoxious habit of asking for quarters ( I do it so that I may wear clothes that do not stink!) have now started refusing me all the quarters that I ask for. I usually get 2 less than what I need. We call it the law of demand and supply.

I have realized that I am living life by quarters

A bad day in office

2010-05-15T14:35:00.000-07:00

I lost all the games that I played on the computer. My win percentage is now at 26%

I seemed to all but lost interest in this blog that I started nearly six years ago. It may not augur well for my readers (do you exist?) and me, but I am trying to make amends. I have just quit the job that I started six years ago. It was out of boredom in office that I had decided to chronicle my life and everything surrounding it out here. This blog was my outlet, because when I looked out of my office window I saw concrete buildings instead of the great blue sky. Now that I have quit that job, I somehow feel that this blog and everything that tied me to the umbilical cord of that job are being torn away. Three of us started blogging together and two of them gave up eventually. The burden of carrying the practice has fallen on my unworthy shoulders and I find the cross heavy to bear. Hence, this reluctance to blog, to ruminate and to write.

This blog was my lifeline, but recently I found another one, a better one - a husband. And a new beginning. Not a new job, but I am finally doing something that I have wanted for the last seven years - to go back to school. In an ironic way, my posts were a constant reminder to me that life would go on..ob la di..but I was not chasing my dream. Now that it has been fulfilled, should I shut shop?

I am still wondering...

Silent Prayer for the Faith Departed

2010-03-23T06:43:00.000-07:00

In the land of plenty, the young lord Hanuman is hoisted under the rear view mirror of a car ready to make the huge leap of faith over the G mountain. This time, he's not alone. A Toyota Camry is his vehicle of choice. Recalls notwithstanding, he thinks he can beat the sun to Olympic glory.

For want of a nail...

2010-03-09T20:08:00.000-08:00

And so the kingdom was lost - well this sums up my story. I woke up this morning determined to eat healthy and started my day with a glass of warm water for breakfast.

Lunch time arrived, having wrapped itself in a cloudy mist of nothingness and disappeared before I could realise. I had controlled my pangs of hunger until then and eaten a very healthy meal.

By afternoon, I thought that I had been such a good girl that I could surely reward myself with a packet of baked potato chips. And so the down slide began. After an hour, I thought that a donut could do me no harm, so I ordered two - triple chocolate flavour.

Then I had a mocha ice cream shake because I wanted a drink.

Then I had a papdi chat because I wanted to eat something Indian. The papdi chat was ordered from a sweet shop and I ended up buying a few ladoos and gulab jamuns (all for tomorrow)

By the time I got back home, I thought one gulab jamun could do me no harm and ate a ladoo and a gulab jamun.

As I write this, there is still some time for dinner and I am willing myself not to eat anything more tonight.

Moral of the story: Never skip breakfast.

2010-02-17T15:06:00.001-08:00

When you find that the janitor and you wear the same jacket to office everyday you realize that
- you live in the land of equality
- its time to increase your winter clothes budget
- you must learn to avoid the janitor's broad grin every time she looks at you

Telephonic Craper

2009-11-20T16:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at work over a phone call after thirty minutes of fumbling

SR: Anwesha, why have you mentioned XXX in your document? Clearly, it should have been YYYY
Me: Er...because we thought that maybe we wanted to do XXX and not YYYY
SR: It does not make sense to me. Please discuss this with your team before calling us to a meeting. You are wasting our valuable time.
Me: Er...TM actually knows what this is supposed to be, but she is on vacation
SR: Then we'll probably have to wait for her to come back. What you are saying makes no sense

A day later. TM has been recalled from vacation

TM: Before leaving for vacation, I explained very clearly to Anwesha what was required
Me: (unmuting the phone) And I explained to SR whatever I understood
TM: okay, let's go over it again. Now SR, we want XXX and not YYYY because we want to do XXX and not YYYY. Does that make sense?
SR: (long silent pause) Yes.
Me: (having forgotten to mute the phone) WHAAAAAT? that's exactly what I told him yesterday!

Silence

I mute my phone

Silence

I glance over my shoulder. J is giggling. Obviously his phone is muted

Silence

I am oh so embarrased

SR: TM, your team members were NOT able to explain what they wanted. Now that you have explained it, I understand perfectly
TM: Oh SR! We have been working together for so long and somehow you always understand what I need. Giggle giggle smile smile
SR: Yes TM. I am glad that you are back!
Me: (phone muted) &^&%@#$!#@@#!@#@$">%^&^&%@#$!#@@#!@#@$

Spiltsville

2009-11-17T19:28:00.000-08:00

Today, I spilled cough syrup over my dress in the morning. Most of the bottle was empty by the time I realized.

Later, I spilled super glue over my hand. The glue dried over and I had white scalds on my fingers for the better part of the day.

In the afternoon, I accidentally struck my favourite coffee mug against the sink and chipped off a portion of it.

In the evening, the pencil heel of my sandals came off while I was walking.

What's wrong with today?

Lettuce See

2009-11-01T06:07:00.000-08:00

Is there anyway that I can differentiate lettuce from cabbage just by looking at it? May I avoid the ordeal of cooking a lettuce like a cabbage only to discover that the blasted object does not mellow like cabbage and is therefore not a cabbage? Yesterday, I spent 30 minutes trying to make a cabbage curry out of this lettuce. Lettuce stubbornly refused to get cooked. I am pretty sure that I picked this thing up from the section labeled "Cabbage" in the grocery store. Proves that even the folks who stock cabbages and lettuces everyday, cannot differentiate, leave alone lesser human beings like myself.

A Shade Lighter

2009-10-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

My bad habit of leaning over the bath tub to apply nail polish on my toes got the better of me yesterday. The bottle of nail polish slipped from my hands and fell over creating a visual imagery of modern art on the snow white bathtub. I was aghast, but I did not despair, for I was armed with the greatest weapon known to womankind – the nail polish remover. Slowly and steadily I cleaned all traces of nail polish with the reliable bottle of acetone. Anybody who has benefitted thus and in many more ways from the nail polish remover will surely agree with me that its inventor deserves an award. Not just any award. Since, we are in the realm of inventions that have conferred the greatest benefit on womankind; I will stop short of nothing but the Nobel Prizes. According to me, the inventor of the nail polish deserves the following Nobel Prizes:

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Whoever thought that acetone could remove polish, clean dusty tape recorders and what not, must be applauded for this great discovery. This is nothing short of miraculous. A dire warning to those people who are still looking for ways to remove turmeric stains from cotton clothes, chocolate stains from the carpet and petrol stains from jeans. Perform or you shall perish!

Nobel Prize in Physics

What a simple application of Newton’s third law. For every action of scrubbing the nails, the polish wears off. How straightforward and sublime. At the same time, acetone is precious – it vanishes into thin air if not given due respect. Cover the bottle and it remains, discover it only to see it vamoose. Perhaps it is time that we went beyond the laws of gravity and relativity and graduated to exploring the laws of respectability.

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Imagine the uncle who cleaned his ancient tape recorder, the sour girl friend that changed her nail polish to brighten her mood and you have the elixir to happiness. Forget about the brain cell researches that will never finish, the path to happiness is the joy of applying nail polish remover.

Nobel Prize in Literature

Poets with happy mistresses and novelists with clean bathtubs will be inspired to compose their best when tranquility reigns supreme. And if there is anybody who should get the credit for this, it should be the muse, the great one who invented the nail polish remover.

Nobel Prize in Economics

This should be easy. If I hadn’t been able to remove the stains from my bathtub, I would have to resurface it. And resurfacing hurts my pocket and the environment (don’t ask me how). The nail polish remover will eradicate poverty among the teeming masses of people who will apply nail polish when they do not have food to eat and keep themselves distracted. Water scarcity will no longer affect us. A coat of water proof nail polish over a bucket of water will ensure that the water will never evaporate. The world’s welfare will lie in the hands of the humble nail polish remover

Nobel Prize in Peace

Judging by the high standards of the people who have been winning this prize in recent times, this is going to be a difficult decision for the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Consider this, your wife does not like the colour of her nails, she buys a shade of nail polish. She applies it and does not like this color either. If there was no nail polish what would she do? Hell hath no fury as a woman enraged. The war in Ramayana was fought because Ravana enticed Sita with an exotic shade of nail polish but could not supply her with acetone in Ashokvan when she got tired of the shade. In the light of these startling revelations, we should award the Peace Prize not because nail polish remover has actually prevented any wars, but because it has the potential to prevent wars that may occur in the future.

Amen.

Can anybody help me create a map please?

2009-10-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

What I want is a map showing directions from location A to location B. I want the street names close to location A to be clearly visible, but the map should not be zoomed to such an extent that the highways/main roads close to A and B are out of view. I do not want any additional text in the map. The image should be self explanatory.

I am rather poor at drawing maps and pathetic with tools like MS Paint. I do not have Adobe Photo Shop and I cannot use 3D Max. So, is Google Maps the answer?

Apparently not. I tried to draw directions from the bus stop on the main road at location A to location B. I placed a pin icon over location B too. But the map is incomprehensible to a generation that has grown up with clumsy straight line maps drawn by amateurs like me. The main obstacle to understanding the map is the presence of too many unnecessary roads. Nobody wants to know whether these exist. They are a clutter. I only want to see the main roads and the streets leading to B. If this map is printed on paper, it will be visual gibberish to all but myself. Is there any other software that can help me?

More gloom

2009-09-07T18:53:00.000-07:00

Please read the previous post.

Another call, this time at a well-appointed time, when both parties are in their senses.

Video enabled voice chat - marvel of technology. Delight and boon for the parents, bane for me.

Ma: So, I got the zardosi saree. Look (saree draped over the mater's shoulder). Isn't it a beautiful color?
AC: It looks ugly blue.
Ma: No, its Cadbury blue with golden and silver embroidery. Just like you wanted!
AC: Cadbury blue? Chocolate or Dairy Milk paper cover?
Ma: Yes, Dairy Milk paper color.
AC: You very well know, that with that particular shade of blue and embroidered silver thread, I will look like a piece of chocolate wrapped in yards of punctured paper revealing the inner silver foil.
Ma: Do you know how expensive it is?
AC: Can you please return it?
Ma: I cannot. I have got it hemmed at the ends.
AC: !!!!!!!!!! when you called me up at 6 AM the other day, you had already bought the saree and hemmed it? And still you wanted my opinion????
Ma: Do you have an opinion?
AC: Yes, I will wear only a burnt orange colored saree.
Ma: What is that color? Never heard of it. You will wear Cadbury.
AC: I give up!

Impending Gloom

2009-09-03T15:27:00.000-07:00

Phone call from the mother at 6AM in the morning:

AC: Yawn..Heluuuu
Ma: Are you still sleeping???
AC: No, I got up an hour ago, went for a morning jog and did some yoga. Now I am taking a break. So tell me.
Ma: Okay, good. Do you like zardosi work?
AC: Whaat?
Ma: Would you like to wear a saree that has zardosi work?
AC: Yes, whatever that is.
Ma: Do you even know what zardosi is?
AC: Ofcourse, its those things where they use dollops of gold and silver coloured threads to embroider the saree, making it look like a circus tent.
Ma: And still you want to wear it???
AC: Yes, I'm going to be in the center of a circus - might as well get noticed.
Ma: Has your taste changed in the last one month? You always liked drab and dull colours!
AC: You were the one to call me up at 6AM in the morning to ask.
Ma: I only wanted to make sure.
AC: YES YES YES. I WANT ZARDOSI.
Ma: You have changed so much.

Click on the other side. Line goes dead.

2009-07-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

I have been delightfully lazy and deliciously lax about posting on this blog. However, life has not exactly been uneventful.

The mouse incident tormented us for almost a month. Like their human counterparts, American rats are extremely persevering and clever. So much so, that my rat (yes! I have become possessive about it!) evaded rat traps, consumed my biscuits but avoided the rat poison. When it did not find any food in the kitchen, it vented its anger by chewing the insulation in my oven and made my kitchen very very messy. Like a true jungle animal, the rat also marked it territory by leaving its droppings around a section of the living room. Ugh! Why am I discussing this? I finally exploded and spoke to the apartment manager. I do not know what he did, but within a week’s time, there was no trace of the rat and my food was safe once more. Moreover, he even called me up to inform that the rat had been captured. Say, it takes an American mind to catch an American mouse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, I have been trying to lose weight without any success. The parents and I have been visiting all sorts of places and the part of travelling which scares me is taking photographs. My face resembles a carved pumpkin in all the photographs and the losing weight may show a 'Ray' of hope. So, armed with a TV channel guide, I have selected a time when ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ is aired and visit the gym to burn a few calories while gaping at Ray Romano and his extended family. Working out takes a back seat but I enjoy my thirty minutes to mind refreshing comedy.

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“Pardesi pardesi jana nahi. Mujhe chhod ke…” – only these days I sing the same song substituting the word ‘Pardesi’ with ‘Desi’. I have posted ads all over the Internet looking for a “female” flat-mate. I am not racially prejudiced, but I would prefer an Indian female, because of the cultural familiarity. Unfortunately all the responses were from “male” desis and even a few “pardesi” males. None of them had any issues rooming with me and for a while it seemed as if I was being very fussy, considering that I was faced with a plethora of choices. I finally managed to attract an Indian family who wanted the entire apartment, or so I thought. Just when I made all arrangements to move out to a different accommodation, they backed out of their plan. Sigh sob. Is there anyone out there???

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Pesky, irritating office colleagues are getting increasingly curious about my personal life and where I see myself a month from now, three months from now, one year from now and for eternity. I believe this is a clear indication that a) they do not have enough work to occupy their time b) they have exhausted all their curiosity about the rest of the lambs in office and have finally turned to me c) they don’t think I am capable of carrying a conversation about any topic which may be of general interest. That does not augur too well for me, so I have decided to make the best $33 investment of my life. I am joining a speaking club, so that I can learn the art of talking back to the curious gawkers and nosy parkers who want to know what size clothes my teddy bears wear. I shall be quick to answer and my witty sarcasms shall be the byword of the office. Beware!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More on pesky colleagues, but this time he has made life unbearable for me even without speaking to me. A certain gentleman who sits in the cubicle across the aisle speaks English with an accent that is simultaneously horrible and fake. What’s more, he speaks very loudly over the phone and he seems to be on the phone all day. He claims to be a DBA (database administrator) but I have never seen or heard him do anything remotely related to work. To my embarrassment, I discovered that he speaks my mother tongue Bengali and I can follow every word of his conversation. I have let it be known that I speak and understand Bengali, but I don’t think he cares. So, by now I know everything about the ongoing divorce of a friend of his. I know how he and his wife feel about it. I also know that he thinks he is the soul of a party because every Thursday he calls up every Bengali denizen in town and plans a get-together with them. Sometimes I wish I could gag him up and leave him in the janitor’s room where he would be discovered after a day.

Life is not good to a girl…….

The Undiscovered - Part 1

2009-06-02T05:18:00.000-07:00

When Douglas Adams claimed that rats were the most intelligent of all species and that humans were mere subjects of a massively big experiment to find the answer (42) to the ultimate question (no one still knows what it is) he was absolutely right. Rats are a menace. They are cunning, scheming, opportunists and they never forget. I have lived in wooded areas all my life and have had to deal with rats, mice, moles and their cousins gatecrashing into our house everyday. Whenever I am asked to recall the most horrifying scene of my life, I always talk about the huge mole that darted across my study room just as I was about to go for dinner. My father once called a few men to help clean the house. They brought down the TV carton from the loft. I was ten years old then and was watching them as they opened the carton. One mouse after the other kept popping out of the carton. Illegal immigrants, living without visas, they took little time to run away. My uncle-the fearless was once bitten on his foot by a rat in a hotel sometimes in the Garwal district of Uttaranchal, while he was on an office visit. He refuses to go there anymore. My mother vividly recalls that a rat ran across the bed one morning, stopping to check if her toe smelt of food. In short, we have lived most of our lives in mortal fear of recessions, bombs, religious riots, power-cuts, water scarcity and rats.

Some time ago, when I moved to a place half-way across the world. I thought the rats would carry on their nefarious activities at any place in the world but this. After all, immigration laws are really stricts and no one can escape from taxes. I heaved a sigh of relief and slept well at night. Until last night. Shifting noises from the kitchen closet and unusual sounds made me nervous and doubtful. I decided to indulge in guerilla warfare and hid in my bedroom all night, having made sure that I was locked safely in. This morning, as I checked cautiously, I realized that the enemy had left behind his marks. The room was infested with droppings. Things were lying upside down and the sack of rice..oh grief! The kitchen closet is well, a small room with a washing machine and a dryer. The closet however is generously endowed with lofts and storage areas. In one of these lofts, my parents came up with the brilliant idea of establishing a mini-temple. And who should live in the temple but Lord Ganesha! Ma and Baba have energetically argued that when Ganesha is around can a mouse be far behind? I have tried to point out the 20lb sack of rice that has been strategically placed near Ganesha and bears cut marks now, but my words have fallen on deaf ears. A search is on for a brave heart who will bell the cat..er rat. The fear has come back to haunt us.

To be continued....

Working Hard

2009-05-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Quo Vadis

2009-04-30T15:34:00.001-07:00

Tryst with Destiny

2009-04-10T12:28:00.000-07:00

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the lunch hour, when the inattentive cashier at the cheap restaurant takes the wrong order, Anwesha will awake to difference between the taste of beef and chicken. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, fail to differentiate between beef and chicken by merely looking, when an age ends, when we taste beef and wonder why the chicken seems to strange today, and when the soul of a poor God-fearing beef-ignorant Hindu, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the cause of the cow and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

Hum Bill De Chuke Sanam

2009-04-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

For the tiny spoke that I am in the mighty wheel of outsourcing, to bill or not to bill is the question. Through the recession and slack times, the customer wants me to work more and bill less while my employer wants me to work more and bill even more. And to chain in this tug-of-war with time, the customer decided to outsource the time-entry software to a third party. We started by entering time at the end of every week. Extra hours were automatically recorded as over-time (OT) hours much to the delight of my employer and the bane of my customer. Then, the customer decided to introduce a two way matching system and introduced an in-house time entry system where we recorded the same hours every Monday. This software being an in-house effort, required manual intervention to record extra hours in over-time. Most of us forgot to do that. In fact, nearly all of us started receiving mails for invoice mismatches. In order to correct 25 hours from regular to OT, I added 25 extra hours and a week later I started receiving mails of invoice mismatches to the effect of 50 hours. Another colleague who was trapped in this infinite loop of cumulatively increasing mismatched hours now has a total of 345 mismatched hours in his kitty. In the meantime, not to be outdone, the employer insisted on a three way invoice match by introducing the company's time entry system into competition. Again, this software does not recognize extra hours worked, because in the Indian software industry there is no such thing as OT. So, extra hours were treated as regular hours for us employees, while the company billed the customer for those additional hours. Things were getting muddier because of this dual treatment of extra hours and the employer demanded to have hours reported by project. That's when the project leader introduced spreadsheets where we had to enter the same information all over again every weekend. So, these days, I spend every Monday and Friday entering time in four different applications, all of which are slow to respond and record.

We then proposed to record the time we were spending on time-sheet entries and other 'project management' activities. This created confusion, because project management is not strictly a customer function, and so we were not supposed to bill the customer for such activities. However, we could not work during office hours and record the time as non-billable. Yet, nobody wanted to work on these activities outside customer hours because we did not have access to these software applications from home and staying in office beyond office hours would be akin to charging over-time to the customer for using the customer's resources to do work which er..the customer did not commission.

Next arose, the issue of vacations and leaves, all of which were recorded differently in different systems. The customer's outsourced system recorded leaves as 0 hours worked, while the in-house system recorded leaves as 8 hours worked on any particular day of leave but in a different cost center. The employer's time-entry system recorded leaves as billable to the company but not to the customer and the project leader's spreadsheet had no provision for leave whatsoever. When I took an hour off work last week to see a doctor, I was in a dilemma. The customer's system would allow me to bill by the hour. But the employer's time entry system mandated that I could take a minimum of half-a-day's leave or no leave at all. Had I taken a half day's leave and still billed the customer for half day minus an hour, there would have been an invoice mismatch in the multi-way multi-confusing, multi-redundant matching system.

To dig my way out of this complexity, I do not take leaves, and when I have to go for that blow-out sale, I don't inform anybody. I comfort my conscience by coming back and making up for the lost hours. Tips to keep in mind, always call-forward your desk phone to your cell phone and make sure you always appear online on instant messenger. With half the world working remotely, you could be very busy in a meeting that your project leader (who does not have a clue about what work you do in office) will consider and relent. And it always helps to have a trusted ally who will over up for you when the customer, project leader, team mates all decide at the same time that you are the (wo)man of the hour and start barging you with emails, phone calls and IMs.

Touché

Lights out please!!!

2009-03-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

To people such as myself who were born and brought up in India, a load shedding/power cut may not represent so much a vote for Mother Earth as much as a daily occurrence, but for most people living in the first world, where a power cut entails a 911 call or living a night without the ac is an act of supreme sacrifice, Earth Hour beckons.

Please switch off your lights between 8:30 - 9:30 pm on 28th March 2009. This is meant to protest against global warming. First world countries please note that you are the biggest culprits in this cause, hence please make it a point not to microwave/bake/wash in the darkness. Please remember that you burn holes in the ozone layer with your excessive dependence on electronic gadgets. While we prefer to let our clothes dry in the sun, even from the balconies of our tiny apartments, you prefer to dry them in a machine because your balcony looks prettier that way. We prefer fans even the heat, or use coolers, you cannot imagine life without the ac. We switch off all our lights when shops close at night. You have so much electricity that you leave them on for fear of burglary.

Petrol (or gas, if you prefer) costs a fraction in your country. You buy in gallons, while we buy in fractions of litres. We cannot buy shrimps, Basmati rice or Alphonso mangoes - products of our country - at an affordable price because they are exported to your country. You are the largest disposer's of effluent waste, but you want China and India to cut down wastes. You even have the authority to print your currency without denominating it against gold. All because it is the reserve currency of the world.

Against all this tirade about equitable distribution of wealth and natural resources, there is one melting pot where all are equal: concern for our Mother Earth. So, please do switch off the lights tomorrow and show you care!

Earth Hour 2009

Genda Phool

2009-03-25T19:35:00.001-07:00

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Photography Contest

2009-03-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

My friend Ratheesh is participating and hopes to win this one with our encouragement!

Mamata Didi - eta apnaar jonne

2009-03-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

A nano new year gift

2009-03-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

To my famous birthday-sake Osama Bin Laden,

You and I just completed another trip around the universe with the Earth. While I am very sure that my humble life has not been as adventurous as yours, yet I consider myself lucky because I sleep well at night. Us Pisceans are always laden with doubts and queries. And you addressed yours on a grand scale. While you wanted to know whether planes could fly through buildings in the same way as we drive swords and knives into ghosts in the movies, I made samosas using wanton wrappers. No, the plane crashed into the building and people still prefer crab meat to potatoes in their wantons. Point proven.

We are both living away from home. Surviving a harsh terrain. We both yearn to return but are constrained. So, do you change houses as often as I change apartments? Do you have friends who bring chocolate cakes and laugh and make merry on your birthday or send gifts from afar? Do you know how it feels when everyone of your friends remembers your birthday and makes you feel so special? I said I am lucky. I know, perhaps they will never print my photograph on the front page of the NY Times, but I made it to the student supplement of the Statesman and my 15 seconds of fame can pull me through a lifetime. I don't want innocent people to die, I love peace. And being ordinary is a small price to pay for it.

These are tough times. Markets are crashing. I don't really understand all that, but I know that my friends are losing their jobs and it hurts. Can you kill unemployment and poverty? Can you throttle the fear in our hearts and terrorise the insecurities that we are going through? I wish you could. I'd tell everyone proudly that OBL was born on the same day as I was!!!

Many happy returns.

2009-02-27T11:55:00.001-08:00

Like a committed lover, my electricity bill remains unchanged, unflinching and unmoved. Even if I stay 15 days of the month in my apartment, he understands. Whether I keep the ac or heater switched off, it maketh no difference, his love only grows stronger. Ofcourse, this affection is not shared mutually and lately it is growing beyond my means of endurance. I now plan to use, misuse and manipulate him. I shall keep all the lights, fans and heaters on all the time and watch how he fares in the test. If the bill remains the same, hallelujah, I shall continue with the practice. If more, I shall soon threaten the electric company with dire consequences.

Life of a DBA

2009-02-11T12:32:00.001-08:00

It was a dark and stormy night
The winds rampaged asunder;
To the world was born a DBA
It was a miracle, a wonder!

As he grew up, a thoughtful child
He recorded every session,
Of life, of love, of moments true,
Every guilt and confession.

His parents spotted his charming habit
Of cloning instances;
For he had the temper of his father
And the face of his mother
With minor version changes.

Every sysdate of his early life
Was spent in performance tuning,
His superior user environment parameters
Had the women swooning.

For he was handsome, charming and nice
And his pockets were full of money.
His cost based optimizer ensured
That his days were always sunny.

Then once day his calling came
And he leaped to join the forces,
Of the exalted men and women who make
Tables, indexes and sequences.

He copied data from schema to schema
And cleared the buffer cache.
His queries never had full table scans
His joins were always hash.

Thus progressed the perfect life
Till he was sent onsite,
The world proclaimed the mighty DBA
Had finally arrived.

This is where our DBA
Was laptoped and anointed
He was on call for a week each month,
His slumber was to be disappointed.

For every time he dozed off at night
The environment would act on its whim;
His troubleshooting skills were tested
SLA's were second nature to him.

Loading data, procedures and packages
Synonymns triggers and indexes,
He partitioned the diskspace and granted privileges
The watermark levels were never in excess.

Thus our DBA labored on
With only his work in sight,
He never noticed the pretty programmer
Seated to his right.

They never met, they never spoke
Though one cube did they infest
For when she turned to him, he was just a number:
Issue, Remedy or Change Request.

Then one day, our DBA
Set his eyes on her and rested his case,
Love fluttered like a silent beast
And filled up his tablespace.

He queried after her alright
He committed with autosave,
In his heart's rowid
Her name did he engrave.

But she implored him to rollback
For she was besotted to another,
He dealt with pointers, methods and classes
A Sun certified Java Developer.

In grief, he tried to kill v$session
And delete the audit trails,
Meanwhile he prepared to format the hard drive
For they say it never fails.

Our story ends here so far
For when database there was no more,
Our DBA's contract was terminated
They sent him packing back offshore.

PS - As if life was not getting shunted behind the computer, here's further proof that the effect is spilling over to the blog. Yesterday, when posting the above, I made the cardinal sin of using technical TLAs (Three Letter Acronymns). So, a DBA is a database administrator. They are the men and women (usually men, we women are more colourful than that) who make sure that when you go online to check your bank account, the records show that you have the booty alright. They are however, NOT the hidden hand behind the reason why sometimes that phone costs Rs2000 even after a discount of Rs100 on a base price of Rs1500. That happens due to enlightened people called programmers (such as myself) who believe in equality. So most DBA's I know are nice, harmless, soporific people who are busy trying to catch sleep between cloning databases. And when they are not on call, they like a cup of coffee and a good chat. Quite a species I tell ya!

A mid-winter night's dream

2009-01-15T15:03:00.000-08:00

The army of Alexander the Great rushed down the mudded waters of the Yamuna charging into the landscape of Delhi. Nearby, a train passed on the Metro rail over the river and the passengers screamed with fright at the sight of the army. The Yamuna has been silting for years and now the army reached the other side - the Promised Land in no time. Across the land, they were in for a surprise. It was vast, barren, empty, and lonely except for a sole eighteenth century Englishman who stood there nonchalantly with a bar of Cadbury Bournville dark chocolate in his hand. He demanded to speak to none but Alexander the Great. As the great conqueror approached, the Englishman asked, "Have you truly earned this chocolate?" Enraged, Alexander drew his sword and charged at the Englishman with his horse. Just as he swooped down to behead his enemy and grab the chocolate bar, the Englishman disappeared. Dejected and shocked, Alexander looked hither and thither and ordered his army men to look for the enemy. In confusion, his army started fighting with each other.

In the meantime, having nothing better to do, Alexander dismounted from his horse and started to explore the land. A street lay ahead and as he crossed the street a Starbucks coffee shop beckoned. Alexander the Great remembered how thirsty he was and walked in and ordered a cup of Tazo tea. To his great surprise the Englishman was also in Starbucks enjoying a cup of coffee. Tired as he was, Alexander was in no mood to fight and settled on a comfortable sofa by a window. It was a Saturday and as usual a band was playing in Starbucks. Only this time it was the renowned tabla artist Zakhir Hussain. As the barista served tea to Alexander, he took a sip. Zakhir finished his performance and everyone said 'Waah Ustaad Waah!' Alexander closed his eyes and remarked in chaste Urdu, “Arrey Huzoor Waah Tazo Kahiye!"

Tired out and Tried out.

2009-01-13T08:38:00.000-08:00

In hibernating for almost a month and not posting anything at all in this blog, I have nobody to blame but myself. I have traveled across the seven seas and have come back to the land of the insane, wiser and fatter. In the short span of time, that I was at home, I have been subject to a treacherous schedule of boiled vegetables in the morning to build my appetite, followed by sinfully rich chingri maacher malai curry during lunch, samosas fried in ghee in the evening and chicken chowmein for dinner. The cycle has been repeated with small variations during the stay. I have been woken at 6 A.M in the morning to watch the spiritual programs on ETV Bangla and had to practice the daily new Yoga shown at exactly 6:40 AM Monday to Saturday on DD Bangla. I was made to visit all kinds of temples and ashrams, holy men and aged relatives. The last mentioned fed me with beguni, roshogolla and love. It was too much to digest. I was not allowed to hang out with my friends, because time was precious and they were dispensable while relatives are most definitely not.

When along with my stomach I cried for mercy, I had a day's rest and I finally caught some sleep. In the meantime, I visited the bank to make sure that the little money I had was safe, visited tailors because despite the freezing temperatures an Indian girl must always wear her salwar kameez, went shopping but could not buy anything and even made a futile attempt to take out my folks for lunch to a nice restaurant.

Much of my ranting here would have lessened if time had let me relax and heal the exhaustion both mental and physical. My time has been divided between dropping relatives at airports and teaching my parents to use the webcam to communicate with me. My mother now puts it to optimal use. She positions the webcam in front of the 'thakur ghor' - the prayer room and makes me say my daily prayers even though its 10:30 at night when I usually speak to her. My maid servant was astonished to see me disappear in such a short span without any 'bakshish' (as if!!!) and now demands to know whether I have a maid who does dishes for me. When my mother informed her that I use a dish washer, she said she could come over and wash my dishes for real cheap!

My whirlwind tour has come to an end. I am not even sure whether I am glad to be back or whether it would been better never to come back at all. To contemplate on that, I need to catch up on my forty winks!

2008-12-12T16:42:00.001-08:00

Anwesha's law of food making and its subsequent consumption states that the time taken to consume a meal is inversely proportional to the time taken to prepare it and quality of the meal itself, if the quantity of food remains constant.

For instance, I could spend 3 minutes to fry an egg and find it consumed in another 5 minutes, while it would take me 2 hours to make 'mishti-doi' and have it disappear in less than a minute.

So, assuming you want your meal to last as long as possible, cook it badly, put all sorts of unwanted ingredients like 'potol', green beans and cook it really fast. However, note that since quality is an extremely sensitive factor in this equation, do not extend its range so much that your meal finds no takers.

For instance, first time when I cooked one packet Maggi in one litre of water, it took a little more than 3 minutes but nobody wanted to eat it. When I cooked 5 packets of Maggi with the same amount of water, it took almost the same amount of time but was better received.

Lastly, never cook in large quantities. You might find that after a point, people get bored of eating the same meal day-after-day even though it might be well cooked. Results may be obtained by experimenting with a one kilo packet of puffed rice to make bhel-puri on the same evening and expecting your parents to consume all of it.

Cold Play

2008-12-08T08:47:00.000-08:00

I have a bad cold and it has set me thinking.

Catching a cold is like catching a butterfly. If you catch it, you've got it imprisoned and its yours for the time until it dies. However, to know whether it's really yours, you should learn to let it go (with the help of Coldarin). If it comes back to you (as soon as you think that you've had enough of those tablets) it's yours. But if it does not come back, you were only dreaming about it on a light-headed midsummer night.

Black is back

2008-12-05T15:54:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the new look blog courtesy J seen here hiding behind the transparent coffee cups. It is in testimony to his coffee drinking capabilities that I dedicate this blog to him. While I could not finish the iced coffee adulterated with God-alone-knows-what, J was not to be put down. The picture is a result of our efforts after almost 30 minutes. Its not difficult to guess who crossed the finishing line.

They say if we finish 6 of these, we'll get a free one. That's what makes this exercise so challenging!

Back to the blog, this reminds me of my teen aged days when my wardrobe had four black tops, a few black skirts ( I wasn't into jeans yet) and all my shoes were black. Whether it was a futile attempt to create an optical illusion about looking slim or simply a fad of the age, I'll never find out. Suffice to say, I remember embroidering pink flowers on a black colour rubia handkerchief for SUPW (ofcourse! Some Useful Periods Wasted) and I cried when we had to dye our black cloth in other colours to create the bandhni (tie and dye) patterns. My mother refused to buy me any black coloured woolen garments because she felt that winter was about bright colours and I protested against this curtailing of my freedom of expression. My first pair of sneakers were black and I wanted a cool black school bag that year even though school regulations were blue. In short, I was in love with color black. Like its true physical nature, it represented an amalgamation of all the mysteries of growing up, the invisible thoughts that played in my mind in those formative years, to absorb everything and give away nothing. As this blog takes a dark turn, who knows what secrets will be unravelled. Perhaps, a riddle to be solved or an enigma waiting to be discovered. Keep your fingers crossed and keep guessing...........

Mumbai, Thou art fled to brutish beasts

2008-12-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

In the face of what’s happened to my country a week ago, I still feel shocked and helpless.

I know that no place on Earth is safe.
I have learnt that being a law abiding citizen means nothing.
I have seen that there is no such place as a ‘secure locality’.

Is the future generation of my country going to grow up in the fear that they can never take living for granted?

I thank God every night for keeping me away from death for yet another day. And maybe, this is how I am going to live for as long as they will let me.

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

2008-11-19T19:19:00.001-08:00

Set in post-apartheid South Africa, Nobel Prize winning author J.M. Coetzee’s second novel ‘Disgrace’ won the Booker Prize in 1999, the same year in which it was published. Such illustrious credentials and sheer curiosity prompted me to pick the book up from a local book-store a few months ago. What I did not expect was a hard-hitting, no-bones-spared story of a Cape Town University College professor, David Lurie, whose life would take a sudden dip into the murky waters of ethical conflicts, post-apartheid violence, and insecurity, finally sinking into a vast lake of disgrace before emerging stronger and more resilient.

David Lurie, who has long been planning to write a chamber opera on the life of the poet Byron, is fifty-two, divorced, lonely and bored. His classes evoke no response from his students and teaching is a mere means of livelihood. A chance meeting with an attractive student in his class leads to an affair, which upon discovery provokes a suspension from the university on grounds of misconduct. As the news spreads round the university campus and makes it to the newspapers, the disgraced professor leaves town to join his young daughter Lucy in the town of Salem where she has chosen to live alone and raise a farm. Life in the farm is sedentary and un-eventful until an incident of unimaginable terror rips apart their lives. Father and daughter are attacked by a band of natives who rob the house, nearly kill him while raping the daughter and leaving her pregnant.

As they struggle to pick up the remaining bits of their lives, David Lurie is tormented by Lucy’s indifference to the incident. She knows the culprits and yet neither she nor her neighbors try to denounce them. As the father of a daughter who has been subject to such a heinous crime, David Lurie is helpless because he was unable to protect her then and avenge the atrocity now. Instead, he watches impatiently, as life gets back to normal in the farm and Lucy decides to go ahead and give birth to the child she is carrying.

Disgrace portrays the angst ridden world of the white population in post-apartheid South Africa. Once the powerful class, they are now the centre of a backlash which they cannot withstand. David Lurie’s inability to come to terms with the power shift and his daughter’s acceptance of the ways of the new country is the totem pole of the novel. The novel examines the sentiments of the native population that is friendly with the white on personal terms but has no generic empathy for the community. Coetzee’s novels typically push the protagonist with their back to the wall only to watch them fight or come to terms with the humiliation and indignation of their circumstances. In this novel, Lucy’s rapist turns out to be the fifteen year old brother-in-law of her neighbor. After the incident, the neighbor offers to marry Lucy even though he has two other wives. He wishes to own her land in dowry and in exchange, protect her from such miscreants in the future. David Lurie who has sufficient money to send his daughter to Holland where she can go back to a normal civilized life has to reconcile with this unusual situation when his daughter accepts the offer.

The analogy between strange twists and turns of David Lurie's life and that of the poet Byron influences the opera that he is composing. Where he once planned to write about the eternal love between Byron and his mistress Teresa, he now depicts pain and agony as they separate and their desires remain unfulfilled. As Allegra, Byron’s five year daughter lies dying of malaria and cries for her father, David Lurie’s own helplessness and frustration at his daughter’s condition creeps in front.

Disgrace is an excellent novel written in a mere two hundred and twenty pages. Coetzee’s deep understanding of Romantic literature and lucid language ooze the right emotions and provide the perfect setting for the story of a father and daughter who learn to put the past behind, after their lives have been shattered by disgrace.

The good, the bad and the desi.

2008-11-18T18:29:00.001-08:00

Whoever thought that a silly movie like Dostana could be called 'entertaining' should be refunding me Rs490 for watching it. I was certainly not entertained and more so embarrassed by the excesses of the movie. The sensivity with which they handled the issue of homosexuality reminded me of Michael Jackson dangling his newborn infant on one leg from the top of his hotel window.

Came back completely bored, hungry and almost injured. We were there to watch the movie on the opening day and we literally had to jump ropes and push people to make it to the theatre. And when we finally made it to the hall, the smarter desis who got there before we did, had reserved all the seats. Consequently, all of us friends who had gone there had to sit separately, and that made the movie further unwatchable.

Two days later, I made it again to watch Quantum of Solace. Whoa! I loved the near empty hall and the fact that I did not have to jostle for seats. We got to choose which row we wanted to sit and because it was all empty, we could even decide whether we wanted to sit towards the left of the screen or towards the right. Whatarelief! I loved QoS and I think it had much more to do with the ambience of the hall than with the movie alone. Anyway, Daniel Criag was outstanding as the killing machine and our 21st century Bond isn't looking at women unless it is absolutely necessary. Haa haa haa.

No solace in USA

2008-11-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

Now this one's a rib tickler.

The latest Bond movie 'Quantum of Solace' has had a 'world wide' release, but apparently the USA does not count amongst the countries of the world.

The movie's out and here are some verdicts:

Rajeev Masand

The Sun, UK

We decided to go to the theatres this afternoon after reading the reviews, only to find that the movie would be released a week later.

2008-11-07T18:34:00.000-08:00

So a nation comes of age.

Much later than India where a Prime Minister is foremost a learned man and then a Sikh or that a President is more a scientist than a Muslim or that our President finally admitted that she is over 35.

Just watched Pulp Fiction - the movie and loved every moment of it. The profanity included. Maybe, because I am changing or maybe because its such a well-thought of movie.

I once wrote an essay in school and my teacher graded it 'well-thought of'. To this day, I don't understand what that meant. Rumour had it that her highest grade was a 'Wow' which she gave only to one student in her career. ( I don't think my teacher is retired yet.) Since then, I always reserve a 'wow' for things that truly amaze me and even though many of my friends like to joke about the wow, they don't know I spent every moment of my time in the English classes, waiting for the 'wow' which never came.

I went to study in a very conservative convent school. Always the brat, I was often in trouble for "breaking rules" because I didn't know that we were in school and not in Shawshank. Aimlessly roaming on the school grounds after sports practice was against the rules. Waiting for a friend to pack her bag after school, so that we could walk home together was against the rules and fighting with the teacher's favourite girl was equivalent to an afternoon standing on a tool in front of the class. So, when they asked me to do this play, where I was a vagabond who would whistle at the sight of a girl, I practised nothing but the whistle. And on the day of the performance, I whistled a long clear one into the microphone in front of all the staff and children. They called me into the teacher's room that day and the strictest of the teachers congratulated me on the "fine performance". I took a deep breadth and told myself "wow".

And another one

2008-10-31T18:12:00.001-07:00

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2008-10-31T17:50:00.000-07:00

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Before and After

2008-10-31T11:40:00.000-07:00

This picture, courtesy J, happened before I started my lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in the neighbourhood. Chicken noodle soup is always a trusted thing to order, but I was not prepared for a whole of lot of vermicelli floating in water with a few strands of chicken. The menu described it as chicken noodle soup with basil and bean sprouts. Well, they did keep their word, in the plate next to the bowl is what they call bean sprouts. The basil, well I had to put the leaves on my soup myself.

The only thing that I would say for the soup is that it hardly has any oil, so I ate without any guilt, but then it hardly had anything more than hot water smelling of basil.

An hour later, the keen stubborness and soy sauce which had kept me going admitted defeat. The final outcome is below. Thanks again J.

Pumpkins Ugh!

2008-10-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

I have an aversion for pumpkins and I am seeing too many of them around these days. Those orange, tasteless, easily spoilt, strange smelling things are not in my favorites list.

Unless ofcourse if they are made a part of chocchori - that delightful Bengali preparation of potatoes, pumpkin, brinjals (okay, eggplant), drumsticks (not chicken silly - shojne data or saragawa) cooked slowly on fire with green chilies and corainder powder with tumeric, and a dash of mustard paste. Aah what a delight to eat hot chocchori with rice.

But pumkpin other wise is something I stay away from. I once made the mistake of ordering a pumpkin spice flavoured coffee and the taste of it still brings a shudder. I refuse to believe that to the Harry Potters et al, pumpkin juice was something they loved to drink at Hogwarts.

And if people like to carve horrible faces with pumpkins and hang them out in their backdoor to scare little children, they have my heartiest wishes. Pumpkins deserve no better.

Later

2008-10-23T08:35:00.001-07:00

Much as I may cringe my eyes, shake my head in disbelief and deny, for most of my life, I have been the quintessential late-latif. My record does not merely say it, it blares it over a loud speaker. At the age of five, I used to swallow food because we folks who were going to walk together to the bus stand got tired of calling out my name. When I went to hostel, I was always the first one to be up and invariably the last one to be ready because I would loiter about the hostel with sleepy eyes not knowing what to do. When we wrote exams, I always panicked in the last five minutes because even though I had run out of answers almost thirty minutes ago, I had been daydreaming for the last twenty five minutes under the pretext of revising my paper. When I started traveling by train, folks in my father's office often complained to him that they had seen me on the platform, mouth full of food, heavy bag in tow, running faster than the train which had just left. And in the evenings, when I had to catch the bus, I was always one of the last few people, once again running and at the same time requesting people over the phone to stop the bus from leaving without me.

Those were the days when I was supposed to be leave home at 7 in the morning. With a pampering mother who would insist on my eating rice, daal and fish curry at 6:45 in the morning, it wasn't difficult to guess why I was getting late every day. I thought to myself, that if I ever got to leave home an hour later, I'd never be late. These are the day when I am expected to leave home at 8:45 in the morning. Most days I wake up at 9. My alarm dutifully reminds me that I have a job to keep, but my brain which usually does not function in the morning finds such comprehension difficult. It only knows to shut the alarm at 7:30. I have spent hours meticulously calculating my optimal time schedule. The last train I can afford to catch, so that I may not be late. The last bus I can catch, so that I reach my classroom a millionth second before my teacher does. The latest time at which I can afford to leave home (traffic delays not included) so that I can reach office just in time for that meeting. I have even calculated which breakfast will take the least time to swallow. The clear winner is no-breakfast. All in vain, I always miss the deadlines.

In the end, I console myself by saying,

"What is this life, if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare"

2008-10-08T13:25:00.001-07:00

The lights in the restroom are fitted with intelligent sensors which diminish the brightness when no one is using the restroom. And when I walk inside like an explorer discovering a virgin land, the lights brighten one by one as if to celebrate the homecoming of a king after fourteen years of exile.

2008-09-18T09:29:00.001-07:00

The most extreme form of self control known to mankind is to walk into your favourite ice cream shop without your wallet.

The other known method calls for even greater restraint. Walk into your store when there is an end-of-season discount sale going on, check out the clothes and bags, look at the prices, take a deep breath, pull yourself together and then walk out.

Working Hard!!!

2008-09-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

Edit #1
I believe its Vishwakarma Puja today.

Alas Kolkata!

2008-09-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

I don't intend to make any political statements in this blog. If anything, this post expresses my personal feelings but not any politicial ideology whatsoever. Having said that, I think I can go ahead and say without any prejudice that I am truly saddened by the fact that the Tatas had to pull out of the 'Nano' project in Singur. For long West Bengal has held the image of being an industry unfriendly state. The labour union is reputed to be so strong that most industries have had to close down. I have spent a greater part of my life in factory quarters of textile units and have been witness to two serious lockouts where we weren't even allowed to go to school because the gates were closed to everyone. I still remember seeing my parents worried because they had not brought enough groceries to survive those two weeks of lockout. I have lived through innumerable bandhs, which we rejoiced as children because it meant a day off from school and lament now as adults because it means having to go to office on a Saturday to compensate for a lost work day. I have known friends who were stuck in bandhs and could not return home at night. I have known my father's colleagues who were injured during factory strikes. I knew that my mother was not too keen on my studying in Kolkata when I finished school because she feared that with all the bandhs and strikes, there would hardly be enough time to attend classes in college. We seemed destined to despair all our lives.

And when the Tatas planned to open a factory in Singur, I thought we spotted a ray of light. This was going to be a new era for West Bengal. The Tatas with a reputation for harbouring the most satisfied employees, doling the best of benefits and with the path breaking 'Nano' car to be produced here, many would benefit from employment and WB would salvage some of its lost pride. It was everybody's win-win situation.

Except perhaps that we cannot please everybody all the time. Such is the bane of democracy. I certainly empathise with the people of Singur whose lands were unfairly taken from them. But why blame the Tatas for it? If anything, the government which allocated land should have accounted for it. Why couldn't the government which is such a people-friendly government clear the land problems first and then give a green signal to industry. We all know that there were several farmers whose lands were sold out to set up the software industry in Bangalore, when they could be compensated generously, can't our farmers in WB get their land's worth? I also believe that if the government gave the go-ahead for this project, then along with the Tatas, the government was equally responsible for ensuring that the project was a success. Political opposition notwithstanding. Today the political situation in West Bengal is such that every act of the government however good is always misconstrued to show the government in bad light. Some political rivals even went to the extent of creating villains not only of the government but also the Tata's and consequently Tata concerns in Kolkata were vandalised last year.

In the end, the Tatas had to pull out and we are now worse than where we started. Its one thing for an industrial giant to suffer financial losses, and quite another for a state to suffer the loss of image. This management disaster will not erased for a long long time. I wonder who will invest in the state after Singur and Nandigram. I am sure the opposition parties are making merry over their victory. I am certain that dying automobile plants in WB are relieved that they can retain their monopoly over the state (even though nobody buys their cars anymore). I wonder who lost in the big run. Will the farmers now get back their land? I believe that the factory was built already, so are they going to break it down and start farming again? Will the government and the opposition ensure that ? What about the loss of business, the economy that was building up around proposed factory. The township that would have developed around the factory that would pioneer the revolutionary small car?

As Bengalis, we will continue to win the small battles, but we will lose the war. We will cry foul when Sourav Ganguly is ousted from the team, but will never wonder why the state could not produce one more national level cricketer. We will proclaim to the world that Rabindranath Tagore is Bengali, but will not be able to protect his Nobel Prize. Sushmita Sen, Bipasha Basu, Anoushka Shankar, Jhumpa Lahiri and even Norah Jones will be feted for the 'Bong Connection' even when little credit can go to Kolkata for what they have achieved in life. Leander Paes may win Grand Slams because of the traning he received in Orlando, Florida but we are proud of our Kolkata boy. We still believe that Netaji Shubhas Chandra Bose will come back. We live in the past and bask in the dimming light. We want winners in our team but we do not provide the winning turf. We dream but we never wake up, because reality is always too stark for belief!

As long as

2008-09-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

I don't care who you are
Where you're from
What you did
As long as you love me

Rock On!

2008-08-29T23:11:00.000-07:00

Our Farhan Akhtar who art in the seventh heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy 'Rock On' come
Thy hits will be done
On Earth as it is in heaven

Give us this day our daily dose of good movies
And forgive us our trespasses like 'Bachna Ae Haseeno'
As we forgive them that trespass against 'Rock On'

And lead us not into temptation like 'Singh is Kinng'
But deliver us from evil like 'God Tussi Great Ho'
For thine is the box office, the power and the glory
Forever and ever

Amen.

Tagged

2008-08-24T23:35:00.000-07:00

I have been tagged by the great Stiletto.

In compliance...

Are you blissfully content?
Yes, if you find me with a chocolate flavoured ice-cream.

You are happiest when...
It rains at night and you can watch the raindrops drip on your window.

The best compliment you have ever received...
"We trust you"

The one Bollywood film you can relate to?
Dil Chahta Hain - I think there is an Akash/Sameer/Sid in each one of us. For the record, I think I am Sameer.

What do you consider your biggest strength?
I remain cool-headed in practically every situation. Anger is a stranger to me.

The one thing that you fear the most?
Confronting the ghosts of the past.

How do you deal with problems?
Umm...I don't deal with them...I run away from them.

Any regrets?
I have hurt too many people because of my habit of letting others control my life and make decisions of my behalf.

Have you ever attempted suicide?
Not yet...and hopefully will never. There is nothing that cannot be settled with a good Dairy Milk bar of chocolate

The wildest/wackiest/craziest thing you've ever done?
Guess its too crazy to be described here, but I know that I loved it while I was at it.

Your deepest, darkest secret?
Whoever tells secrets in public?

Your most embarrassing moment?
Twice I have walked up to customers in stores assuming them to be store keepers and asked where I could find a particular thing, only to get a bewildered look from them and an explanation.

The one person you can’t imagine your life without?
There isn't just one person.

Have you ever really loved a man/woman?
Yes! Thank God I did!!!

The last time you cried like a baby?
Not so long ago.

Have you ever been slapped by a woman? Did you deserve it?
Not quite, unless I want to count school days.

If you had one ‘Genie wish’ granted to you, what would it be?
Hey! can you give me a figure like Malaika Arora when I am 50?

What would you like your epitaph to read?
I don't want to be remembered. I prefer annonymity.

Do you wish to change anything about yourself?
Wish I could be more strong-willed and determined.

Your biggest achievement to date (personal/professional)
To take the most important decision of my life, all on my own and to be able to stand by it.

The one trait you would specifically look for in your life partner/soul mate?
He should be as crazy as I am, if not more. On a serious note, honesty would be appreciated.

Do successful career women inspire jealously and insecurity in their spouses/boyfriends?
I don't believe it.

Chivalry seems to have taken a nosedive. Agree/ Disagree?
Naah, there are loads of nice guys. I meet them everyday.

Would you rescue a woman in trouble? Or just turn a blind eye and walk away?
I rescue anyone in any kind of situation if I can. - I agree with Stiletto.

How comfortable are you mingling with new people in real life?
I am at best prim, proper and formal with them. Don't open up easily with people.

Do you judge people by the way they dress or converse?
The way they converse? Yes, that is my only parameter for judging people. Clothes don't impress me much.

Should one-night-stands be forgiven?
Yes, if it happened out of an emotional bonding.

How do you define success?
Being too euphoric to sleep at night.

How would you introduce yourself to me if we were to meet in person?
:-) Kyaa hum pehle bhi kahi mil chuke hain?

And now KUSELAN

2008-08-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

If watching the Dark Knight was fun, then going to a theater, first day (night actually - in USA they screen the first show at night) to watch a Rajnikant movie (Tamil was never my forte) only proves that I am beginning to lose it. But I had to! Armed with J and A, two of my friends who were born speaking Tamil the three of us made it to the cinema hall with masala tea, cauliflower pakoras and topped our midnight snack with samosas while Rajni proved why he is the best.

Kuselan has a simple storyline (thank God! that is why I could follow it) and has some great actors. I mean when you don't understand a word of the whole movie except the odd 'Sorry' and 'Thank You' you try and check out people's facial expressions to know the story. And Pashupati was clearly the winner. As Bala the poor barber who was bosom friend of now superstar Ashok Kumar (Rajnikant) Pashupati lives the role of the man who does not know how to react when people cajole him to arrange for a meeting with the super star. But how? Bala is a poor man and his once childhood friend is a celebrity and the twain shall not meet. His dilemma clearly shows on his face and his distress is a feast for the eyes.

J&A informed me that because of the Hogenakkal row, certain sections were not going to the release. But wow! what I saw amazed me enough! A bursting theater. Young men in white shirts and dhotis, people screaming shouting and throwing marble paper confetti every time Rajni made an appearance, I have never been through something like this! And Rajni did not disappoint.

Scenes like this:
Demure Rajni is the Egyptian prisoner who is chained and brought in front of the queen (Nayanthara). With the flash of his eyes, he breaks the shackles and his clothes change to that of a prince and then they start dancing.

Another one:
Rajni is a framed photograph and when Nayanthara comes to look at him, he jumps out of the photo, beheads himself in front of her. His headless body runs back to the frame while his head chases Nayanthara through the room. Does it get better than this?

Yes it does:
Rajni is a guerrilla fighter who has been captured by a Japanese opponent in the middle of a jungle. She throws two sticks in two opposite directions and they get nailed to the barks of two trees. Rajni blindfolds himself and throws two knives in the two opposite directions and the knives cut the sticks in half. Our Japanese lady is all ga-ga over Rajni and presumably, they break into a dance soon after that!

Aside all these stunts, I still maintain that Rajni is a fine actor and even though I have never seen any movie of his before, I have seen enough movies in my lifetime to know a good actor and Rajni surely is one of the creme.

As I came out of the hall and looked at the three story high poster of Rajni hanging from the walls of the theater,I could not help but say wow!

P.S. - People tell me that we are supposed to pour milk over his photograph as a sign of respect. Now that's a stunt that matches Rajni's stature.

P.P.S. - for all you Rajni fans

Dark was the Knight

2008-07-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

For the record I watched 'The Dark Knight' last weekend and so I can join the elite class who says that it is the greatest movie yet to be made from a comic strip. But if truth be told, I did not understand most of it.

I liked Bruce Wayne. Now that's a guy, handsome, rich, owns restaurants (big plus point where A Chatterjee is concerned) and has blondes hanging out with him in choppers. Wow! I thought it was great that he fell asleep in meetings and his company still managed to make profits to sponsor a bat mobile (someday I shall earn enough to own one) and I think he should not have bothered to save the world (or Gotham) because nothing was going to come of it anyway. Batman was yawn..zzzzz...boring.

I am seriously scared of the joker and more scared of people who liked the joker. But I guess, when you act really well and when its the last act of your life, you will give it your best and hope mankind will remember you for it. Heath L - wow!

Coming back t0 the main point, I liked the cars and parties and the good looking people (Harvey Dent - 9.5/10) but I hardly understood the story. However, since every review in town is giving the movie a 4.5 and since I am a very discerning critic, I shall rate this movie...4.3 just to show what a big snob I am.

Mon ami

2008-07-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

I guess you can call me a friend if you can wake me up at 3am in the morning and tell me about your breakup. If I listen to what you have to say and then tell you what I think about it, don’t ever think that I am being patient with you. Just know that I care. You can even demand that I drop my plans of going shopping to listen to you talk. Don’t worry that I am missing out on an important thing to do. You are more important than that. Call me a friend if you had a secret that you wanted to hide from the world but were dying to tell me. You know I will never tell anybody else about it. You know I’d feel proud that you trusted me. Or if you bought the latest best seller at a great bargain price and wanted me to know about it…right NOW. I am listening. Or if you spelt your innermost desires and wished there would be someone who made a flying dive across the field to catch them and fulfill them. I suppose you think I am friend enough that I pushed myself from my famous inertia to cook your favorite dishes just because you were visiting us. Because you had fought with your parents and wanted a place to stay. But I never thought that I was doing you a favour. I cooked for you because I wanted you to know that you are not alone. You can call me a friend.

And when would I call you a friend? When I’d think of you every time I could not open a new bottle of tomato sauce - only you know how to do it. Or when you’d send chocolates across three time zones just because I might be in a new place and nobody would know that its my birthday. When you came shopping with me and walked the whole day across the mall even though you did not have anything in particular to buy. When you could drive across the speed limits just in time that I may watch the sunset. Or when you’d call thrice a day inspite of your busy schedule to know if my health was any better. Couldn’t I call you a friend? If I thought of you every time I saw a soft toy dog, I nearly bought one for you that day, but your pet passed away and I could not bear to give it to you. Because you took me to a movie, treated me to lunch and even gave me a gift after waiting for three hours for me while I had nothing to give you but my company. Because I know, you would come running if ever I told you that my bathroom floor was flooded and I did not know what to do about it. Because you could do anything just to make me smile. Make a fool of yourself, sing and make me sing along, listen to me patiently when I told you about my invisible relationships with men and then hold me tight and let me know that things would be alright.

For all the things that you made right…here’s to friendship.

Delighted!

2008-07-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

Being inside an automatic car wash facility is like experiencing three seasons at once. I was inside one yesterday and was as delighted as a child.

They start by spraying your car with enough foam to create a soap-snow storm. You can't see what's ahead of you and the conveyer belt simply takes you along.

Then, when you think you're hopelessly lost in that foam, scrub pads that are shaped like giant pine trees (in all colours: red, blue, yellow and green) clear away the soap and brush and clean your car. Its like rainfall in spring washing off all the snow and leaving the sky clear.

But no, your car is dripping wet and you then encounter a blower which like the zephyr winds of summer dry away all the water leaving your car dry, fresh and sparkling!

PS - pity! I was too engrossed to take any pictures. But there will be a next time...hopefully soon!

A few $$$ none the richer

2008-06-30T18:15:00.000-07:00

Just discovered a store in this country where they keep DVD’s of Bong movies. Some of them are quite recent, only a year old I’d say. This is certainly encouraging. Better spend $3 on a movie which you can choose not to watch after a point rather than spend $8 not including taxes to watch ‘De Taali’ - where you are one amongst the only six people who made it to the hall. Well, we make mistakes. I was elated to hear about a hall here where they screened only Indian movies and went to watch whatever movie was showing. I came out two hours later with a throbbing pain in my head which happened because I accidentally bumped against the wall in the darkness so that the remaining persons in the hall would not know that I was one of the six who ignored all warnings and watched the movie.

So, this movie has Ayesha Takia, Aftab Shivdasani and the brilliantly under utilized Ritiesh Deshmukh. Aftab (Abhi) plays Ayesha’s (Amu) love interest and I say this because the movie is about Ritiesh (Paglu) and Ayesha trying to get Aftab interested in Ayesha while the bloke clearly likes every other girl in town. Three of them, best friends since school have now grown up and while Aftab gets written about in magazines for his business acumen, he does not even know the address of his office. Ayesha conveniently works in Abhi’s Dad’s (Anupam Kher) office while Paglu is a venture capitalist whose ventures have never made capital. That does not stop Mr. Deshmukh from wiling away his time helping friend Amu win Abhi‘s heart, while his landlord resigns to writing off three months rent in despair.

Enter Kartika (Rimi Sen), the femme fatale who is the thirty second girl to steal Abhi’s heart, the thirty first being the sultry Neha Dhupia who practices necromancy. Former girl friends include drug addicts and kleptomaniacs, so when Rimi is the social worker who courts the disco by the night, Aftab could not have it any better. The two fall in love while escaping the eyes of Amu and Paglu who by the way, are shown to be constantly at Abhi’s side and things come to a state that Abhi decides to marry Kartika much to the dismay of his friends.Paglu tries his best to stop the marriage and when Amu and he learn that Kartika is not really in love with Abhi but only after his money, Amu also joins the struggle. It is literally a struggle because Kartika is always a step ahead of them until they take desperate measures and kidnap her. From here, the movie gets from bad to worse because they try to make a comedy out of the situation while finding out her true identity. Turns out that she is Anjali who comes from a troubled family and has a troubled past and is now bent on marrying an extremely rich person to make amends for all the things that she has been deprived off in life. Too bad, before Paglu can inform Abhi about Kartika’s antics, the hostage has escaped and framed her sad story in such a way that Abhi is more determined than ever to marry her. A last minute change of mind by Kartika saves the day for Amu who has not been much of a hit with Abhi and our lover boy gets a girl (never mind which one).

Well, I have loads and loads of loose strings to tie after watching this movie. The first one is my purse. There come questions like, shouldn’t Paglu be more concerned about finding means of making money rather than spending all his energy uniting his friends? Is it worth kidnapping his best friend’s fiancé just to stop the marriage? Why is Amu in love with Abhi who is clearly interested in every other girl in town and not falling in love with Paglu who is so devoted? Ritiesh Deshmukh clearly has all the screen time. He is a brilliant actor and its time bigger directors took notice. He has been proving his acting prowess for much too long now to be ignored by serious film makers and has definitely grown beyond the slap stick comedies that we are so used to see him do. Personally, I think he would be brilliant in a negative role in some chilling suspense thriller. Ayesha Takia acts well. She is sweet, dances well and manages to hold her own. I only wish she had a better script. Aftab is dead pan as always, thank God he’s not doing a sleazy role in this movie.

There wasn’t much to watch here, but the songs are good. And as one friend put it, we should have spent those two and half hours in the empty theatre playing “kumir danga” - for those who don’t know Bong, I cannot explain this game except that we played it everyday as kids and it needed lots of empty stairs.

The truth about pencil heels and leasing office agents

2008-06-23T15:43:00.000-07:00

Pencil heels are no good when you are walking on soggy grasslands or in a sand volleyball court. For one, they tend to sink into the mud or sand whichever maybe the ground beneath your feet and refuse to rise unless you expend a whole lot of energy in pulling them out. With every step that you take, they sink deeper and deeper and with that their resistance grows more stubborn. While you are doing your best to disassociate them from the surface, they make fast friends with the mud or sand and you suddenly find your precious pair of shoes keeping company with wet sand and muck. Try cleaning them while the mud is fresh and you could leave a permanent mark. If you wait for it to dry and pray that it peels off on its own, chances are that your prayers will never be answered.

Therefore, tread carefully. Never use your pencil heels on well polished floors because your centre of gravity make shift places while you were carelessly admiring the latest iPhone 3G. Never try to step into a car located in an uneven concrete parking lot because they make get chiseled. Never step on a soft carpet wearing them, because they may leave marks. Beware on surfaces covered with muslin like cloth, your heels may drag the yarn along with it. Do not step into a flooded bathroom wearing them because while they might protect you heels from getting wet, there is no knowing what may befall your toes.

However, use your pencil heels to express frustration over the agent in the leasing office who does not understand that when the AC in your new apartment does not work from day #1 it’s a result of his negligence and not your ignorance. Put your heels to good effect by raising your feet to the level of your knees and bringing them down on his toes when he thinks you understand everything about capacitors and resistors in centralized air conditions with digital user interfaces. Being dumb has never been easy, but when people take you seriously, don’t just cool your heels, put your action points in service!

2008-06-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

I am on my own now and yet I am no longer my own now.

And it feels so good!!!

The Ultimate Luxury

2008-05-16T06:40:00.000-07:00

Work in Process

Finished Goods

The ultimate luxury - uttapams fried in desi ghee - Made in USA.

2008-05-12T16:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you plan for things to work out in one way and they never do. Then in one unexpected moment when you were not looking, all your dreams peep behind you and tap on your shoulder. You turn back to get a glimpse and they suddenly disappear. You are once again left with nothing.

2008-04-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !

His flashing eyes, his floating hair !

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

DST

2008-04-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

Daylight Savings Time it has been argued has many benefits in countries in the northern hemisphere where advanced economy and work conditions demand such an adjustment. Suddenly, you wake up one morning at 7am and realize that its after all only 6am and go back to sleep or worse wake up at 7am to realize that it is 8am and you are horribly late. Over the years, people have got used to it and accepted it. But it is not so in India. In a country which spans across three time zones – literally Manipur is to the east of Bangladesh which is half an hour ahead of us and Gujarat is below Pakistan which is half an hour behind IST – we have shown lethargy akin to inertia in implementing this concept. So what would happen if suddenly one day we implemented DST?

The ruling party would lose the next general election. Minorities would move to Supreme Court crying foul over discrimination because many would have never seen a digital watch in their lifetime. The government would pass a law that by March 31st everyone should buy HMT manufactured DST compliant watches which the CPI(M) would oppose as being as being pro-America. Mamata Banerjee would declare a 24 hour bandh in Kolkata which would be supported by all opposition parties. Meanwhile, Titan would protest over the deal to grant HMT the right to manufacture DST compliant watches. Several MPs would resign and go to jail over the DST contract scam.

When DST would actually be implemented, there would be a grand launch party where Shah Rukh Khan would dance to the songs of his latest movie and say “Kuch aur wish karo, DST karo!” and Amitabh Bachchan would hold a platinum wrist watch in his hands and smile “Do DST ke boondh, zindagi ke liye” The annual Filmfare awards would be held twice a year on DST implementation days which Aamir Khan would not attend because he never believed in such awards while Arundhati Roy and Medha Patkar would stand outside the auditorium and protest that DST would harm the environment. Ekta Kapoor would modify the script of Kasauti Zindagi Ki where Prerna would marry Bajaj in one DST phase and Anurag in the other. Rohit Bal, Neeta Lulla and Sabyasachi Mukherjee would design a DST line of clothes for the next fashion week where Shahid Kapur and Saif Ali Khan would walk the ramp while Kareena Kapoor would cheer from the sidelines. Dev Anand would make a new movie called “Love in DST” starring a 16 year old girl who was born when 6am became 7am.

Our day and night cricket matches would be scheduled by DST and senior cricketers would not play test matches citing injury, while junior captains would declare that only young cricketers whose bodies can adjust to DST will be a part of the team. The hockey and football federations would protest that in addition to giving preferential treatment to cricket, DST was another means to make these sports unpopular. Sania Mirza would be sued for wearing a DST compliant watch sporting the Indian tricolor that would fall from her wrist during a match. Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati would once again team up to face the challenge of playing under DST circumstances. The Indian Olympic Association would declare that with DST, India is now truly world standard, and therefore demand that ‘pittu’ be made an Olympic sport.

The common man would be totally confused because Doordarshan would forget to adjust the clock as per DST while the private channels would remember. Aaj Tak would interview people about how they felt about DST. Vodafone and Airtel would face a network outage on DST days and nobody would know the time. Anil Ambani would buy a Rs. 10,000crore DST clock that he would install outside his corporate office and name it after Tina. The Mumbai Stock Exchange would lose an hour on DST days and people would howl in distress because they lost crores in a bullish market. Government employees would demand and be granted overtime in winter. The chief agenda in the opposition party’s election manifesto would be to have two new national holidays on DST implementation days.

Well, thank God! No one’s thought of DST as yet!

Disclaimer:
This piece was inspired during a conversation with the great Oirpus. Not only is this piece dedicated to him, all litigators are requested to contact Oirpus.

2008-04-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

Some of our Bollywood techno music is truly inspired. The opening music of the title song in 'Dus' sounds exactly the same as the graph plotter in office.

2008-04-10T09:54:00.000-07:00

Bean counting and calorie counting will eventually kill the Bong. I used to love eating my slices of bread with butter and jam on both sides, till I discovered that I was gorging on a heavy duty bread which carried 110 calories per slice while my diet obsessed room mate asked me not to have more than 1000 calories a day! Butter does not find a place in my grocery list anymore, but jam has sneakingly made a place after I decided that I needed an alternative to chocolates. Its jam session all the time these days and as long as I don't know the specific calorie count of what I am eating, I exercise no restraint - pun intended.

Now that chocolate is out of bounds for me, I have been counting the omnipresence of it in my life and suddenly I'm realising that so many things are going to change now!

1. No more chocolate cereal for me - have replaced it with a killer bore of vanilla and almond cereal.

2. Chocolate chip cookies - my best friend when I was
a) Bored
b) Reading a storybook
c) hungry
d) Had nothing to do
e) Depressed
f) Feeling full after a heavy lunch
is now about to give way to lime flavoured nachos. I am already dreading the prospect of getting double depressed by missing the chocolate chips when I am depressed.

3. Chocolate flavoured milk - low fat or plain milk with Bournvita/ hot chocolate/chocolate Horlicks is now going to yield to plain, humble and lowly low fat milk. I cannot think of an alternative right now and that's making me triple depressed.

4. Chocolate cake, pastry and brownies - I don't know how I am going to refuse cake on people's birthdays and play the spoil sport. I don't even know how I am going to sit and watch people eat chocolate cake right in front of me.

5. Chocolate ice cream - I am trying strawberries for the moment. Something healthy and tastes so different from ice cream that it will hopefully help me forget me what ice cream is like. I always detested the shocking pink colour of strawberries but shock therapy is what I am in for at the moment.

6. Chocolate covered doughnuts (sniff sniff! tears) - plain bagels/bread?

7. My favourite bar of chocolate - full milk, full sugar, full fat whatever! - Heaven help me! I really don't know the answer.

I guess you can take chocolate away from me, but you cannot take me very far away from chocolate! Literally, no matter what a store stocks, it always has chocolates. It is impossible to go anywhere without stumbling on some product of chocolate. Even as I speak, I see a chocolate coloured coffee mug right next to me and it is making things more painful than before. As I said, bean counting and calorie counting will kill the Bong someday!

Cool wind in my hair

2008-04-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

No Hotel California this one. I have moved into a new room where the heater does not work properly. The previous occupant was a rather "hot" woman who did not need a heater to keep her warm. This coupled with loads of rainfall, temperatures tending to freezing points (aah! I do not understand all the C and F anymore - everything is about how it "feels like") and the fact that I am sleeping on a wooden floor (the people who made this apartment could not afford wall to wall carpets and I cannot afford a bed) has helped me acquire a really hale hearty and healthy cold. I sneeze anytime of the day, my teeth clatter all the time in the cold and I am always shivering and yet I refuse to wear warm clothes because it looks ridiculous when other people around me have started wearing next to nothing clothes. After all, fashion always has a price to pay. This time its in the form of Tylenol.

Table of Content

2008-04-02T06:34:00.000-07:00

Back Home	Out Here
Walk on the left side of wings in office	Walk on the right side of the narrow passage in office
Boss yells "Onnesha!@#$ ekhaane aaye" Me: 'Aaaaaaashchiiii"	JL: Unwayeshea Me: I'll be rite withya in a moment Jim
Theek achche	Aowkay
Files	Daaquments
Nobody asks "how are you" first thing in the morning. Its usually "code ta shesh hoyeche?" Me: Naa:-((( aaro time laagbe	"Good Morning Unwayeshea. Howeru dewing today" Me: Guuuud..:-)))))
Lunch - tiffin..Ma ka haath ka khana. sniff sniff!	Lunch in cafeteria. Er….does brocolli contain beef? No? then please add it to the topping. Pepperoni is just a cute Italian way of referring to the salt and pepper wala pepper right? Add it by all means!!!
Parties: Coke or Fanta?	Parties: White wine or Red wine?
Free cardomom tea from the vending machine. Accompany DJ and SS to the vending machine and yawn while they have coffee.	Free french vanilla decaf from the coffee maker or 60 calories per serving hot chocolate which I always have first thing in the morning.
Proxy server blocked: No Yahoo Mail, Rediff Mail…	Gmail, Orkut, Rediff Movies, Blogger...
9am: empty office. Nobody around to appreciate your punctuality.	8am: everyone deep into work. Gosh! I am late!!!
8pm: sneaking out of office, hoping that nobody will notice.	5pm: Bye J :-)))) Have a nyice evening. :-)))) J: Biiii Unwayeshea. Cya tomorrow!

;-)

2008-04-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

I am now mastering the painful art of killing time while pretending to work. I was always great at staring into nothing for hours and hours together. But now the brain must function overtime to invent work that never existed and act like I am very busy doing it. Greater men and women have done it before me and its now my turn to be baptized in fire. I am sitting right next to the person to whom I report daily and it is my job to convince him that by doing nothing in particular, I am actually doing a great job and adding my bit of kinetics towards pulling his company to the next generation of progress. I have had an easy beginning so far, and I suspect he was beginning to regard me as a genius of some sorts. Then, in a moment of carelessness, I slipped and confessed to him that I did not have much to do. Since then, the chips have been down and my image has taken a beating. But the brain will once again rise to the occasion and find avenues for restoring my reputation as the master of deception.

Ducking under pressure

2008-03-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

So I succumbed to the delight of grilled duck again last evening and also to tiramisu and chocolate soufflé despite my vows to lay off fat, trans fat, high carbs, low carbs, good and bad cholesterol. I tactfully avoided fiber which I should have gorged instead and grabbed for fried calamari which was now going to glue itself to the rest of my adipose-why don't you just leave me- tissues.

If adipose tissue is so light as to float in air, why are fat people so heavy?

Large chunks of ice float in water, fat also floats on water.

Last weekend, I walked in ankle deep snow for almost an hour and still did not catch a cold. But sometimes, I can just walk out of home in perfect weather and come back home with a cold. Murphy's Law exists. Behind me the skies darken, its going to rain very soon. I don't have an umbrella, but its been a while since I got wet in the rain.

Rain

Sleet

Icicles

Snow

Ice cream - I've gotto stopit now!!!!

Ugh!

2008-03-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

I am selfish. Earlier, I would never spend money on myself. Rather, most of it would be spent on buying things for others. Now, it is just the opposite. I am selfishly buying things only for myself, without a thought for others. I am even making excuses for not buying things for them!!! And to think that this is the season for forGIVING

Ugh!

2008-03-14T18:38:00.000-07:00

Thanks to AB's generous pile of gifts on my b'day among other goodies, I am now the proud owner of a box of premium assorted dark chocolates. My will power is a rocking boat in the ocean of temptation and abstinence. I take a longing look at the chocolates and shut the box. I try and count the calories -the nutrition facts clearly state that they're not enough to make me wrestle sumo after the box is finished- on the other hand, I so badly want to fit into that black and white shirt that is making me look like a puffed balloon these days. My obsession with the chocolates has turned me into a depressed maniac. I devoured 4 chocolate chip cookies at breakfast and a huge chocolate brownie at lunch to forget that box of chocolates. When it did not work, I ate a giant slice of chocolate cake to get over it. But visions of the box linger on. I see it in front of my eyes after every mean, whenever I am hungry and during those malicious TV commercials on desserts.

I am now thinking of meditation and yoga. Maybe Tai Chi and shadow boxing. Suggestions are welcome. Meanwhile that box lies next to me as I blog, invitingly......

Old Vistas Revisited

2008-03-13T05:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I ate sushi for the second time. The first time had been in a buffet meal with something of a pretension of a shushi - but yesterday was the real thing. I felt like a cat stealing fish before it is cooked. The Indian palate is such that without a strong sauce (wasabi with soyabean) nothing tastes good. I dipped the sushi in the sauce and gulped it in one go. Aaah heaven!

I had duck for dinner too...a new meat for me. I don't think I liked it much, so I am not very keen on having duck again. I tried Thai pad noodles which was a tad bit sweet. But I have a sweet tooth, so I liked it.

Then I had fried ice cream with cherry sauce. It was like a cresendo of an opera. Could not have asked for more....

Earlier in the afternoon, I managed to drive on the highway, overspeeded and did not get caught.

Must check my stars. Yesterday must have been a good day. The boss left office at 3PM and my home made pasta finally tasted good.

Day after

2008-03-11T06:08:00.000-07:00

Age: one more

Location: center of my universe. Away from everyone I care about, yet close to all.

Mood: meditative. Does love at first sight really exist?

I want to: speak my mind.

I wish I could: rewind time and be here.

2008-03-04T01:20:00.000-08:00

How many times can a woman say 'No', when she really means 'Yes'?

I think not more than twice.

For men who don't try a third time, the game is over.

2008-02-07T19:57:00.000-08:00

Dedicated to the memory of those who died waiting for the codebase to freeze...

Long time ago, once in my life
When I was unallocated,
I used to lament the lack of work
I was sincere and dedicated.

I used to hope for bugs to fix,
Miles of code to write.
I prayed that someone would notice
But alas! I was denied.

Then one day, they heard my prayers
And the jailor called my name.
Put her in iPub, they need bravehearts there
That prison has earned some fame.

I jumped right in without a thought
Coz where angels fear to tread.
Fools rush in to write TDs,
And FDs tracked in red.

We missed deadlines and ate pizza,
By swimming pools and shopping malls,
We watched blue screens with bated breadth
As boolean logic turned from true to false.

I laboured by the front end then
And by the back end did I toil,
I tried to find a route of escape
By burning midnight oil.

Some dug hard and found the tunnel
And escaped to down under,
Some broke fences and crossed the seas
While we watched in wonder.

The warden frowned on parole day,
"You must be back by COB
There are bugs in your code which need to go,
After all, its your baby!"

I tuned the query and swept the code
At corners you would not know
In vain I lowered the defect count,
The bugs! they would not go.

Now, I know the end is near
For I sigh and cough and wheeze
I lay in waste, unallocated still,
Waiting for the codebase to freeze.

2008-01-07T03:27:00.000-08:00

Now-a-days we are playing the uneasy game of Russian Roulette with the coffee karafe at home.

A month ago, upon the demands of my mother, I purchased a wispy thin glass jug with a bakelite top which can be used for making coffee in the microwave. I did not know that it would come to haunt me like this. For this particular instrument is extremely delicate. Too much heat and it can crack. Drop it a wee little bit too heavily and it will shatter. Pour some cold water on it while it is still hot and it will break. Everyday, as we nervously take turns to make coffee with it, we bite our nails not knowing who will be the person unlucky enough to pull the trigger a bit too hard.

2007-12-20T00:34:00.000-08:00

I have an incurable habit of pleasing people.

I like to see everybody happy and satisfied. I dread the idea getting into anybody's bad books. Years ago, when S lamented that nobody treated her to ice cream, I gave up the pocket money that I was saving for two months, to treat her to an ice-cream. Never mind, that I was was a kid too and saving all that money to buy one for myself. I felt like an angel that day. When DC shouted at me the other day for no fault of mine, I kept quiet because I thought if I shouted back she might feel hurt - never mind that I was getting very badly hurt too. I even ended up apologising to her, because I was getting nightmares about the argument. I am addicted to making people happy and making them feel special. AG once told me that he did not like my perfume, I changed it the next day despite the fact that AG does not even count as my friend. I can take the stairs when my legs cry out in agony for the elevator just because the people I am with don't want to take it. I can go hungry and wait for food just because somebody's favourite TV serial is on. I can end up writing clueless compositions in new year resolution competitions just because I don't want people to feel bad that nobody participated.

Er...not quite. Its time things changed. No more pleasing people. This new year, I am going to be myself!

PS - its still December and I still don't want to hurt anyone. If you are reading this, don;t even try to work out the initials, because I changed all of them.

Hastalavista

2007-10-04T06:04:00.000-07:00

My computer has crashed and I am bypassing the proxy server in office to blog (yes ! they 've blocked blogger as well!)

Duniya Waalon! I am not gone yet...should be back soon, with a brand new computer and more of my tales very soon!

A 1955 Good Housekeeping Article

2007-08-07T23:07:00.000-07:00

Arranged Marriages and the Art of Mutual Fund Investments

2007-07-31T09:29:00.000-07:00

Hmm, so where should I begin... Say that when I first heard the following line, I was, to say the least, offended. The similarity between a girl and a mobile phone is that "Kuch din aur intezaar kar liya hota, to aur bhi achcha model mil jata"

It left me astonished. But come to think of it, it was right to an extent. Like mutual fund investments, finding a girl, or getting your parents to do the same for you, can be a test of your patience, if you know the tricks of the trade.
Sounds confusing?
Lets take a look at the graph below. A bell shaped curve is shown with respect to time and expectations. In a typical case of a mutual fund investment, where you cannot predict the market, you are advised to invest in small amounts over a period of time. Whether the market is high or low, you can even out your investments and stand to gain in the long run anyway.
Arranged marriages are like a systematic mutual fund investment plan. If planned the right way, you mutually end up with a handsome profit. Rest not assured that one matrimonial section is going to yield the partner of your dreams. In a highly unpredictable world, diversify your investments. Look at all the matrimonial avenues, in all newspapers, websites. Don't confine yourself to partners of any one community - learn to be cosmopolitan. Spread your net over the span of time.

However, our bell shaped curve has its ups and downs. Say you are at point A. You have just started looking for a partner. Naturally, your expectations are on the rise. You reach point B, where you have almost met your criteria. If you are not the perfectionist, you are advised to quit at this point and give a big high five to the shehnaaiwala. However, if you are picky, you will move on to point C. This is the most dangerous point. If you recognise point C and realise that no matter what your expectations are, you cannot get better than this, you are a genious. Unfortunately, most of us are not. We reach C and then descend to B. With time, your expectations must lower themselves. At point B, most people would be wise enough to call it quits. A wise decision indeed. A majority of people fall into this category. Sadly, some of us still continue hoping that we will reach C and instead come down to A. At A - the game is over.

I am at a stage of my life where I am surrounded by friends most of whom are between B and C. Advice, comments and counsel flow as freely as the water of the municipal corporation. Some say its a gamble, some have learnt to measure it with their own stride and some have rather chosen to ignore it. I watch and learn...........

Yeh Haath Mujhe De De Thakur!

2007-07-13T02:47:00.000-07:00

Rain Maker

2007-07-03T01:49:00.000-07:00

I have a dress that used to be called white at one point of time. So, what's special you might ask. Every one has a white dress that does not remain white for very long. The reason I choose to blog about this particular garb of mine is that it is jinxed. It can make rain. Yes, in the 21st century where people scoff at witchcraft and wizardry, some whites can still be the reason behind 'black magic'.

Whenever I wear this white dress, it rains inevitably. While I don this dress, all cleaned, starched and shining, and pray fervently that it should remain that way till the end of the day, Mother Nature always seems to have other things in store for me. Last time I wore it was on a sunny day, when it seemed nothing could go wrong; it rained all of a sudden. It always has to rain just when I am on the road in that dress negotiating a particularly muddy area. Or when I am trying to cross a street and a moving vehicle splashes rain water.

As a result, my white dress has become mud stained, spotted and in short cannot be worn without proper restoration. I stopped wearing it for nearly a year and last night suddenly thought about it. It’s the middle of summer here and there is little sign of the much awaited monsoon. I smiled to myself because nothing could go wrong and put out the dress that had been restored to its old glory.

I woke up this morning to a flood of rain - it’s rained so much that most streets are flooded, trains are not running and going out anywhere is out of question.

I am next thinking of taking that dress of mine to some famine stricken area.

The 30 minute crisis

2007-06-12T23:30:00.000-07:00

While the whole country is rife with speculation as to who will succeed Kalam as the next president, the Chatterjee household is biting nails trying to guess who will succeed PM as the next maid servant. PM quit yesterday and we are at a loss today.

It all started because of those 30 minutes. For reasons best known to her, PM always turned up at 4 in the afternoon even though my mother had made it very clear to her that she should turn up 30 minutes later. In a world where we always turn up late for appointments, we were taken aback by her overwhelming sense of punctuality. The only way the mother sought to counter this, was by switching off the front door bell till 4:30pm and this, my mother did with limited success. Trouble started during weekends when my father who is at home and completely unaware of such rules, admitted her at 4pm. PM started coming at 4pm on weekends and at 4:30pm on weekdays. Slowly, laws of induction started taking their course and she started coming at 4pm on Mondays, then Tuesdays followed, till my mother realised that 4pm was now the rule rather than the exception. Yesterday, when she came at 4pm, there was a minor argument at the end of which PM walked out for good.

At first, we were lost for words. We had got so used to PM, that it was difficult to imagine what life would be without her. Soon however, Chatterjee Junior ahem! Yours truly stepped in. It’s a weekend today and I volunteered to clean the house. Unfortunately, things are tougher for me than for PM and it has nothing to do with the fact that she is experienced in the matters of housekeeping. There are numerous constraints involved when a member of the household tries her hand at work meant for maids. Even though our neighbours know that we are short of a hand, I must not be observed cleaning the house. So, all windows were shut, the balcony was abandoned and the house was miraculously cleaned, seemingly without any human intervention. While I am technologically challenged, my parents are gadget freaks. There is a special mop reserved for use when the maid servant is not around. While PM can have it easy with a bucket and rag, I have to use this special mop (SM) which only my father knows how to assemble and my mother knows how to dismantle. SM consists of a really long pole and a flat blade. A special kind of cloth is wrapped round the blade which is then attached to the pole. As I was struggling to mop the house with SM, my grand father who was taking a nap, woke up with a start wondering what I was doing in his room, with a medieval martial weapon. My grand mother looked on with curiosity, following me from room to room tsching tsching that things had to come to this, that the daughter of the house had to do such menial tasks and I merrily worked, hoping that this exercise would help me lose some calories.

Things are fine for now, but I wonder what we will do during weekdays, when I shall not be around. 30 minutes - cost PM a job and me some calories and my mother - a whole lot of bother. Time will not be able to heal this one!

What women want

2007-06-02T01:36:00.000-07:00

What my mother needs is a nice, docile "homely" disciplined daughter-in-law who will help with the household work effortlessly, i.e. without appearing to slog herself. She will know exactly where the Kashmiri Mirch Masala is kept in the kitchen, without my mother telling her. She will know exactly when my mother is not feeling well and take the reins of the household and then hand it back dutifully when my mother feels Hitlerish again. She will know exactly what to say at the right moments, and act in every way to make my mother proud of her. She must be able to take decisions which please my mother. She must not irritate my mother with simple and silly questions like "For how many minutes should I set the microwave oven when trying to make shahi paneer with combination cooking?" She must be beautiful, intelligent, working in a great job (sadly, the definition of great is not clear - but from discreet circles, it has been determined that a great job is one where you have a cabin to yourself and a peon who serves you tea) She must must must know how to drive a car, operate a demat account, play atleast two obscure musical instruments, know the phone number of every specialist doctor in the country and appreciate Lebanese food.

Interested girls out there may respond to fedupmotherseekstoexchangeuselessdaughter@digyourowngrave.com

There is a small catch: My mother has no son.

Okay

2007-05-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

During my first year in college, I once overheard my classmates D and S (both females) discussing among themselves the merits and demerits of the other girls in the class. "What about N?" asked S. "Too showy" said D. "And R?" "She thinks she is pretty, and she is quite snooty about it" "How's Anwesha?" asked S. I held my breadth. "She's okay" said D. I must confess, I was disappointed. I thought D would display some more charity. That she would say Anwesha was nice, charming, friendly, polite and all the good words in her vocabulary. Years later, in a world dominated by back stabbing, criticisms and malice, I know how much it takes for a woman to call another woman "okay". Those words mean mean the world to me now. Thank God, I am OKAY!!!

2007-05-06T20:43:00.000-07:00

Frozen watermelons on a hot Sunday afternoon.aah heaven!

Its grand pa's birthday today, though he is not very sure if it is on the 6th of May or 6th of April. He confessed this after we slogged it out on a hot morning, churning out lau chingri, pabda maacher jhol and paayesh. Atleast I thought it was a shade better than gran ma who has no idea which month she was born - she vaguely remembers spring - but it could even be summer. Grand Pa has his post graduation certificates and hences knows his age - grand ma does not even know that - in essence she epitomises Bryan Adam's eternal song : 18 till I die!

Kiss Ko Konnect Karu?

2007-05-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

I hate it when a daily soap or a game show that you watch regularly comes to an end. No matter how detestable it is, you get used to viewing a certain program at a certain time of the day. When it goes off air, you are faced with a sudden void. It’s been two weeks now since KBC is no longer aired, and we are at a dilemma. Pre KBC, we used to fight for the remote over 'Kasam Se' or 'Hare Kaach Ki churiya' and all those nameless soaps - we hated each and every serial, but we loved the certainty of getting to see it at 9pm every day of the week. When KBC started and Dad insisted that refreshing our general knowledge was far more important than acquainting ourselves with the modus operandi of the scheming sister-in-law, we sulked, but we capitulated. Suddenly, 9pm was about Shah Rukh Khan and his silly antics. We loved it at times, sometimes, we yawned and looked at the watch wishing that sixty minutes would take only five to get past us and at times, we bit our nails, hoping that the hooter would ring and the contestant would get a reprieve.

But all that is history now and we are lost in a maze of ninety channels and more, wondering how best to spend our sixty minutes. I suggested watching news channels, but gruesome news about war and violence does not go well with paltry dal and roti. We certainly need something that is unreal enough to help us digest dinner. Its 9:20 pm and unlike the golden days of yore, the TV is switched off. I am busy blogging, Ma is finishing her novel, Baba is reading his newspaper and if we had a pet cat, it would have curled up and gone to sleep by now. We are probably the perfect picture of domestic peace, but I sense a restlessness that will remain until our hunt for the ideal 9pm time pass reaches an amicable conclusion.

2007-04-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

I spotted a white man on the streets of Kolkata yesterday. Presumably a tourist, he was wearing the customary T-shirt with a rucksack on his back. But what took my breadth away was the lungi he wore to bear the brunt of the Kolkata heat. Green vertical stripes and blue horizontal stripes, he wore the lungi like all other men did. But, much as I appreciated his attempts to localise himself, I could not help noticing that he had missed a vital point. While men in India who do not have the privilege of working in air conditioned offices wear chappals or open sandals, our white man completed his gear with a pair of socks and sneakers!!!! I snatched my camera phone out of my bag but my bus had moved on by then. Perhaps, some impressions last best if left to the memory.

2007-04-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

Ugh! Ash and Abhi married each other eventually. News papers and channels have had no other news for the last 3 days – one Jahnavi Kapoor slashed her wrists in public and Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee were not invited. Somebody from Lucknow arrived at AB’s doorsteps with 500 ladoos and gate crashers were dealt severely by the security men.

Why should I care?

I do because I would hate to put myself in Abhi or Ash’s shoes. Marriage is after all a very personal thing and I would hate to have people intrude and comment on my intentions. It’s as bad as the whole of India demanding to know who made it to the national cricket team and why the world cup was a disaster. True, I pay to watch the game, but the hype created by the media is really unwarranted. We are a nation that lives on sensation. Following the Georgia Tech shoot out, a similar incident took place today in Hyderabad. A student shot at his college mates, because they were trying to stop him from ragging!!!!!

Cooped in my little world, shut out from ‘real life’ for the last few weeks thanks to a viral infection – suddenly the guns seem a lot louder, the wedding bells jarring, and the colours very garish. The world is too much for me right now.

Just read – Jhumpa Lahiri’s Namesake

Intend to – watch the movie

Oodles of Noodles

2007-03-27T02:38:00.000-07:00

Has anyone tried the new Maggi Dal Atta Noodles???? It is to borrow an expression from Stilettoes 'craptacular'. I have always been a great follower of Maggi instant noodles and at the age of 4 along with Thums Up, it used to be my dinner on Sunday evenings. Maggi has rolled many stones since then (literally) - people accused Maggi of clogging gall bladders and small intestines and for malfunctioning livers. When I had a stomach upset at the age of 5, the doctor reeled under the shock of discovering my Sunday dinner Maggi habits for the past one year. Maggi was banned instantly.

Life was difficult and not worth living without Maggi - the advertisements on TV made it difficult for 5 year old A. Chatterjee to forget. Grief overcame me and when my parents found that I was but a shadow of my former self, they yielded...a Maggi a month they decided was not going to send me packing to the doctor again.....

So, I indulged...in Maggi Sweet and Sour flavour (that remains till date my favourite) and Chicken flavour and Masala (that's one the that has survived the see-saw of time) Then, there was Maggi Shrimp and Maggi Kheer (don't remember the exact name now - but it was a sweet flavoured horror) that I gave up after one try. As soon as the factories churned out new flavours and television announced it, it found its way into my intestines. Maggi and I were inseparable.

When we went to visit my super rich uncle - we played Genie and Aladin. He said I could ask for anything under the sun - i thought for thirty minutes and asked for Maggi noodles.

Then Nestle came up with Maggi Tomato and Maggi Curry - but they didn't tickle the palate much. I was into my teens at this time, and the only flavour that was easily available was Maggi Masala. It was too spicy for me and for a while I thought, I was going to give up the one food that I had declared as my all time favourite.

In the meantime, the pretenders were baring their fangs - I hated Top Ramen, but I got lured by Cup Noodles. For a while it seemed that I was going to fall prey to the charms to Cup Noodles vegetables flavour. That was before the great trip that turned me into a true Bharatiya.

Flung into a land half way across the world, where people counted their money in dollars and drank Starbucks coffee, I rediscovered Maggi noodles, paying for it at a premium price at Indian stores. It was the only food that I knew how to cook and for me Maggi spelt survival. Luckily, a few angles disguised as super chefs came to my rescue and I was once again eating 'ghar-ka-khana', but I could never repay my debt to Maggi.

Back home, there is a new flavour in vogue -Maggi Atta vegetable noodles - great taste and yummy - and considering that it is not made of flour , I also feel less guilty about having it. I am also looking forward to trying the Maggi Rice Noodles. But Maggi Dal Atta noodles yesterday morning, was a blot on the history of Maggi and sambhar. I love my Dosa and Idli and I think nothing makes the taste better than a bowl of well prepared sambhar. Maggi Daal Atta noodles is an insult to the holy sambhar and should be stopped. But what next? Shall we now have a Maggi Biriyani noodles? Maggi fish flavoured noodles?

I simply think that I am lucky to have been born at a time when they decided to invent something like Maggi for us common folk!!! Thank you God!!! Even though, you did not time our exit from the World Cup 2007 too well, you did a darn good job about timing my existence!!!!

2007-03-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

I share my birthday with Osama Bin Laden.

I hardly know whether I should be amused, ashamed or flattered.........

Our Day

2007-03-08T02:23:00.000-08:00

She could not have got it more correct. Claiming to be on the road to nowhere, I really think she is underestimating her capability for understanding people! Kudos!!!!!!!

Its Women's Day and I am pretty sure 85% of the world does not know that its Women's Day today and 90% of the remaining 15% could not care. That's why I got pushed in the train today and did not get a ladies' seat in the bus - today of all days. I woke up late and got late to office and the sun was beating down my head and nobody tried to be extra nice to me today!

But of the 10% of the 15% who care, there was a beautiful red rose for each of us women in the office. I got mails and smses from my dear friends and yes! there will be a function arranged for us in the evening, where men would be participating!!!!! Isn't that super duper nice?

Who cares anyway......every day is a Women's Day as long as you are proud to be a woman. If you hold your own respect and dignity even when the world refuses and if your conscience gives you a clean chit, every day is yours to celebrate!

Here's a big thank you to all the MEN who make women feel special. There are very few of you who exist, but your numbers are good enough for us to carry on smiling in this world!!!! Thank you, from the heart.

2007-03-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

She says that I am true blue Bong! I could not agree more with her. I do not go to office on days when I feel that the weather is not fine enough for me to take the daily drudgery. I watch 'Saans- Bahu' serials with religious fervour and yet snigger at them in front of the intelligentsia. I miss my 'maacher jhol' when it does not turn up on my lunch plate and denounce swim suit rounds in beauty contests. I think drinking coffee and indulging in 'adda' in office is a mandatory part of my job in office and rush out of the office with my lunchbox and water bottle in tow, when the office bus takes off. I have routine stomach upsets because of street food and yet I am back at gorging them at the earliest opportunity. I do not hesitate to join the ranks of the protesting public whenever the boss declares that we have to come to office on Sundays to get over with extra work and do not miss my roshogolla in wedding parties. I hate Greg Chappell for throwing Dada out of the team and still hope that Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose will return and solve our economic problems by stopping construction of factories in Singur and Nandigram. I wanted to fast when Didi (Mamta Banerjee) fasted, but gave it up when I spotted 'beguni' being fried. I think no decision can be reached without discussing the same matter over and over and killing time till its too late to decide. I love to procrastinate.

And she says I am a true blue Bong! We need to sit down and discuss this someday and come to a conclusion.

2007-03-03T06:18:00.000-08:00

Pritamania

2007-03-01T05:28:00.000-08:00

All I knew about Amrita Pritam was that the movie 'Pinjar' was adapted from one of her novels. Till I read this Wild Flower

Now I am hungry for more........

Anwesha's laws for persons traveling in the ladies' compartments in local trains

2007-02-16T04:34:00.000-08:00

Law#1: Persons who will get off at station: #1, #2 and #3 from the point of departure must not occupy seats. They must exhibit magnanimity by offering their seat to long distance travelers.

Law#2: No one standing is allowed to book a seat by telling the person sitting in the nearest seat that she will occupy the seat when the seated person gets off the train. Believe in your destiny. If you are standing in front of a seat, play the waiting game and wait for the seated person to get up on her own accord.

Law#3: Women in the ladies compartment are not allowed to talk to each other. It has been observed by independent sources, that meaningless banter is the primary reason for fist fights, foul mouthing and hair pulling sessions in trains. It has also been observed that most of the arguments are because of seats and always take place between persons who are not seated.

Law#4: In the event that two persons are found fighting for a seat, the seat will go to the person who makes them quiet. The law licenses such arbitrator to use violence if necessary to make them quiet

Law#5: Any vendor trying to sell clothes or fancy items such as hair clips or broaches will not be allowed to do so. Women tend to get excited over nothing. They spend hours discussing the merits of the item and then resolve not to buy it, thereby wasting time and patience (of the vendor) However, vendors selling food are welcome with open arms and must give special discounts to regular customers

Shah Rukh Rocks!

2007-02-04T07:50:00.001-08:00

The curious thing about being Shah Rukh Khan is that the character he plays always slips into his skin. Raj Malhotra in DDLJ was acting as Shah Rukh Khan, so was Veer in Veer Zaara and Raj again in Kuch Kuch Hota Hain, and the injured footballer in a forgettable movie my memory has bidden Alvida to. When Don was bombing the place, in his mind he knew that he was only pretending to be Shah Rukh Khan and when a ghost in a deserted drinking place in Rajasthan pretended to be a living trader who was pretending to be SRK, he had his comeuppance!So what happens when SRK tries to act as SRK in KBC? While we juggle with acronyms, he gives away his wrist watch to a participant who was winning 3.2 lakhs and gave a wrong answer to slip to twenty thousand. His uncanny ability to dole largesse is not confined to green backs alone, he hugs men and women in the hot seat again and again kyoonki "main logon ko bahut pasand karta hoon" The shrill scream of delight when he phones a friend is real and he revels in it.KBC is fast becoming the show that actors are trying to host to reaffirm their popularity with the masses. Amitabh Bachchan's fading career zoomed into the stratosphere with KBC and Shah Rukh who needs a hit badly has realized that selling laptops and washing machines may not give him the boost he requires. Hence KBC. Under the pretense of exposing IQs the Baadshah upthrones the Shahenshah. Skeptics who had written off King Khan will eat their words. SRK is finally acting himself and what's more he is doing a good copy of Amitabh Bachchan!If the 70's generation is alarmed at the idea of the little guy trying to fit into the shoes of the Big B, they forget that SRK is an acquired taste. He grows on you till you learn that you have no choice but to accept him. He is everywhere. Greeting Ladies and girls and aunties and gentlemen and boys and uncles SRK is an epitome of chutzpah. The panache with which he wears a denim blue suit with tomato red stripes over an equally colourful shirt and beckons you from a billboard is breathtaking. Black satin tie over bare neck and a white shirt unbuttoned for as long you can see and a blazer over it - no one can carry it off like SRK.Watching SRK is fun. Like the way he pretends that his wife is calling him back home when the hooter blows at the end of the show, or his "Freeze It' call. The nicknames he uses for the contestants and the completely unfazed look on his face when he reads a question he clearly has no idea about. SRK is taking over the game in a way AB never did. Even though AB was the chief attraction of the show, he never let himself grow bigger than the game itself! With SRK it seems, things are about to change! It’s less about knowing the answer now and more about being feted by Shah Rukh in the hot seat, rolling with laughter with his gimmicks and getting hugged by him and telling him how much we love him. The quiet dignity of show is suddenly gone and with the infusion of young blood KBC's character suddenly resembles a day in office when the boss is away.The last word will rest with my father. A diehard SRK allergic, I was astonished after one particular episode of KBC. Dad just said "O Paarbe!"

Yahooooooooooooooo

2007-02-04T07:49:00.000-08:00

ONE HUNDRED POSTS!!!!!!

It took me long, but here I got to a hundred posts earlier than Sachin got to his hundred one day centuries!

:-p

Me feels like celebrating!

Meri Mummy Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata Hain

2007-01-26T23:35:00.000-08:00

Crash!
Boom!
Break!
Split!
Woosh!
Upset!
Fall!
Splush!
Throw!
Cling!

Just about some of the usual sounds that reverberate in the Chatterjee household when A Chatterjee Junior ( yours truly) is around have been listed above. I have been spoken of among the legends of goof ups. The other day when I could not get any sleep thinking of that bar of Lindt chocolate that tasted so good at dinner, I stealithily sneaked out of my room and opened the fridge at midnight. The crashing sound of the milk bowl falling woke the entire house. I was caught red handed.

The kitchen is my favorite battleground - burning food, breaking glasses and upseting the pan seems to be a normal day's work for me. So, when I was banned from entering the kitchen for sometime, alongside everyone else, I also heaved a secret sigh of relief. But even if you take me away from goofing up, you can't take goofups away from me. Like leaving the hot water tap on and cold water tap fully off and walking off only to hear a scream of agony as the person who turned on the shower next got scorched. Like dropping the terrace keys in the kitchen garden and remembering it at night when we had to use a torch to hunt for the keys in a virtual jungle. Like forgetting to lock the kitchen garden gate in the excitement of finding the keys and remembering it only after I reached the third floor of a building without a lift.

I have been good with the car so far, but I almost drove into a wall the other day as my father watched enraged because despite his warnings, I took to driving it when he wasn't around.

I also burst a bulb the a days ago. The fuse had blown up and I was looking at it intently, when somebody shouted behind my back. I shuddered and dropped it. I tried to clean up the mess, but when somebody hurt himself while stepping on the glass accidentally, I realised that the cleaning could have been better.

Talking about cleaning, Ma usually has to clean up my act - all the time - from forgetting to take out my lunch box from the bag to leaving home sans wallet - leaving my mobile phone at unknown places - she manages to handle it all. Patient that she is - sometimes (and this happens all the time) I get on her nerves. Yet, she never scolds me much. I have often wondered why, while slipping over sme oil that I had split in my room, she comes to my rescue time after time and why she never gives up on me. The only thing I could come up with was:

"Kyoonki Ma bhi Kabhi Main Thi"

New Year yes, but Happy????

2007-01-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

Another year's here again and I hardly noticed how 2006 came and slipped by. As usual, I am stuck 2 years behind time, and I find it tough to believe that its not 2005 but 2007 that we are in - that's me as usual - jaded, confused and all muddled up.

Saji - a good friend - has resolved this year to eat his words if he cannot keep them. He has written down his resolutions on a piece of paper and has promised to chew it if he breaks any of them. Saji, if you are reading this - I already broke a resolution before writing it down, so I am glad that I did not chose to go your way!

My foremost resolution is not to miss the 7:20 train in the mornings - unfortunately, I missed the train on 2nd January. It would have happened earlier had 1st January not been a holiday. My next resolution is to give work a royal ignorance this year. Work must suffer and cry out in neglect, but I refuse to heed. I had a particularly harrowed time in the last three hundred and sixty five days and it has left me with coal black circles under my eyes and a bloodshot look above. I have been jaded and confused most of the time, have fallen asleep in all ( mind you all!) dinner parties that I have attended, forgotten friend's birthdays and feel like giving up this job by the age of 27.

New Year started with a rather ugly feeling. Some people empowered by USA hanged Saddam Hussein. The whole affair was distasteful. If the people of Iraq were the ones to sentence him to death, I would not have felt so strongly - but this was clearly a case of US orchestration. If the USA can get the President of a country hanged by his own people, then they can get any of us - ordinary citizens - killed any day without a reasonable cause. To begin with, the entire war centered on WMD’s which were never found, but it ended with the hanging of the head of the country. Can any of us be sure of our freedom and right to life after this? I also do not support the idea of capital punishment. Life imprisonment seems little more merciful. Who are we to take away the life that we have not created. When a common man kills, it is murder, but when the law decrees that a man be hanged, it is hailed by all. Isn't the end result one and the same thing?

Umm....terrible things have been happening in Noida too, with all the killings of children. Suddenly, the world does not seem as rosy as it used to be, when I did not know or understand these brutalities. Looking at everything through rose coloured spectacles, is merely a means of escaping from reality, but sometimes its best to ignore those things that we can do nothing about. On the better side, Mamta Banerjee will eat in 2007. The President of India, a former Prime Minister and low blood pressure made sure of that. True, it did not make much difference to the farmers in Singur, but she will live to cause more traffic jams, and train disturbances and make my 7:20 come a few minutes late. Touché!

PS - Tatas sure want to make a car that costs 1 lakh. Do they also want to create more roads for us? When a car starts costing 1 lakh, even an impoverished Indian as me will be able to buy a car with a few years’ savings. What will happen to our streets, when millions take to Geeta Pishi (our cook) who instead walking to our house in the morning suddenly drives her new Tata IndiSmall?

Kolkata on Christmas Eve

2006-12-24T04:58:00.000-08:00

Music World and Flurry's behind

Giggles the original 'Archies' and 'Hallmark'

Kwality Restaurant and Oxford Book Store

Autobiography of a spun cotton jumper

2006-12-10T06:09:00.000-08:00

Aah well, somebody did pluck the cotton from the tree and then they had to spin it into a yarn in a factory and then some machine wove it into linen. But I will not go into all that jazz. Suffice, that I was born as a spun cotton jumper in some obscure factory in India. Dyed white and black and fitted to the 't' for my size. I wish I knew who designed me, because I thought I looked quite attractive. Then one day they decided to ship me across the seven seas. It was cramped journey with my brethen and it lasted quite a while. When it was over, we found ourselves displayed in a showroom somewhere in USA.

Life was good and life was cosy in the shelf. Till, one day a foolish girl from India who had flown to USA for a short while decided to have a closer look at me. She decided that she liked me and paid for me twenty times the price than she would have paid otherwise , had she purchased me in India. She was back in India after sometime and only much later while sending me for drycleaning did she discover a tag that read "Made in India"

Now-a-days , she looks at me with a tinge of regret. She wears me still, but cringes whenever anybody asks where she found me.

And I thought I was quite good looking!

Not fair!!!