College Crazies or Office Loonies

"Aaah college life was the best"

I hear this sentence every single day in office. But when we were in college, all I used to hear was, "I can't wait to start working. You see how I'll blow my bloody money". Idiots, we were all!

But whatever it is, idiots like us make college fun.

Like every other class, mine too had a share of geeks, losers, wannabes and psycho people . Many times in the past, I have wondered if god had handpicked all the idiots and put them in one class. Mine.

It may be true. The realisation happened one extremely hot afternoon in the first semester itself. The fan was not working even after decorating the regulator with ten pieces of paper, which usually took only two or three pieces. So one boy, Shaktimaan tried to swing the fan by standing on the desk. You may think that Shaktimaan was trying to help people by doing this great deed, let me tell you that this boy kept doing it in every class for the next two days even though by one trial it was pretty sure that the fan would never work.

Shaktimaan was not alone. My class had lots of such specimens. There was one boy, who always used to wear a blue shirt with huge yellow flames whenever a college function happened. Every single time, blue shirt with flames. He had a very strange vocabulary too. He introduced me to words that I would never ever conceive could be possible in an Indian language. Till date I don't know what language he spoke in, maybe some long lost pygmy language. I'll give you some examples if you don't believe me. His typical sentence went like this,

"Dude what Mach this aayakudhi volavol"

I seriously don't know what aayakudhi and volavol mean, but this guy used it in every damn sentence. One vivid thing I remember about him is, how he unabashedly sang Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" in the same pygmy accent to a bewildered class during our trip. Scary, it was.

Then, there was another girl. My favorite.The only words that'd ever come out of her mouth were, "Its okay". Whatever you say, she says "Its okay", doesn't matter if its a question, answer or statement or an obituary or whatever. She once took my friend walking to another bus stop 1 km away just by saying those two magic words. How?

IO girl: "Devu, come with me to City Market stop"

Devu: "No, I get my bus from here"

IO girl: "Its okay. Come"

Devu: "No, I wont"

IO girl: "No its okay, come!"

And the cycle went on till my friend started believing it was logical to walk one km and then take a bus, she was hypnotised.  It seems that girl has managed to get a guy to fall in love with her. Lets not try and guess the strategy used.

Then there was A. He thought he was the dude of our class. Though coming from his mouth, it sounded more like "Dyude" and he used to do the most atrocious things. He once wrote a love letter to a junior. He asked me to proof read it for him. This is how it started,

"Hi da, I love you da
If you don't love me da, I think I will die da"

For people populating above India's midriff, "Da" is a common South Indian way to greet anyone from your extended family to your prospective family, albeit of the same age group. Don't go and call your future FIL, "Ennada Sollada Koli motte thinnada", You may get kicked in the shins.

By the time I got to the end of the letter which spanned around three pages, I was overdosed da and I didn't know what to tell him da and the girl rejected his proposal da, and he still cries about it da.

I was no better. I thought people who had a habit, any kind of habit, smoking, drinking or whatever were cool. So I thought of a more harmless habit, chewing gum. I used to chew gum all the time, thinking I'm some super cool rowdy girl of my class. My lecturer used to yell at me and make me spit it out every day. I hate gum. I don't know why I used to do it. Mad, I was.

All of us, when we enter the corporate world, we take a rebirth. We turn into formal wearing, shoe-polishing, tie wearing, meeting attending bloody bootlickers!

Aaah college life was the best!

Of Love week, Facebook and Iran

Love, a beautiful emotion.

It fills my heart with feelings feelings so deep, that it reaches my stomach and rebounds, and within the next five seconds, you can guess what I had for dinner.

Lets keep that exercise for later.

Now read this,

What happened to the good old days when love was confined to the boundaries of the neighbourhood Krishna Rao park, when it was only embarrassing to the poor old men who entered such parks for a 10 feet walk, when the only witness to lovey-dovey boy and girl was the pigeon who waited patiently while trying to choose which part would be most effective to shit on, when publicity was taboo, when girls dressed like suicide bombers so that their relatives don't recognise them. It is gone. This is the love that Bobby Deol sang about in he movie Kareeb, I don't remember the song exactly but I'm sure he must've sung about it. Secret love.

But nowadays, people are becoming hopeless. And its all because of this horrible Facebook.

It has unknowingly started a cultural revolution in India. These lovers, they post all their love msgs, PDA pictures etc etc on it. I ask, where are their relatives and what are they doing? Shouldn't they be the ones who should take the enormous responsibility of informing the love sick donkeys' respective parents about the antics of their kids? Isn't this the right time to take advantage of their unwritten constitutional right:

"Right to impose self's opinion on your wife's sister's brother-in-law's daughter's life" (Applicable to the citizen's family upto his fifth circle, can be extended to sixth under extraordinary conditions, for example: when somebody's daughter elopes)

But its hard nowadays, even these relatives, whose opinion is sacrosanct in all Indian homes, so sacred that every house has a long distance phone call to make before taking any major decision in the neighbour's brother's daughter's life. (Yes, they are so important)  nowadays even they are keeping quiet! Tell me, is it fair?

This bloody publicity of lovers, Its affecting even the film industry badly. Bollywood may have moved past it, but Tollywood, Kollywood, Sandalwood and Lollywood still make moolah out of clandestine lovers. Remember the millions of movies in which rich girl and poor boy fall in love, girl and boy decide to get married, girl and boy have to face furious daddy and his flexible villians, boy fights all of them and wins Daddy's heart. Now tell me what will these people make movies on?

What happened to all the caste problems and rich-poor divide, have all of the parents suddenly become uber-cool? How nasty! Don't they know that we live in India, the land of the Khap panchayat and its associates whose names are not as famous as Khap and hence I'm not aware of. Parents, I tell you, when kids are out of their twenties they let them go haywire, sometimes to the extent of being happy for them. Ridiculous, I say!

You are not understanding the gravity of the situation, are you? You think I'm making up illogical, outdated crap, eh? Then you must be one of those lovers who just posted:

"I had a wonderful valentine's week with my sugar honey bunny. He gave me the bestest surprise ever. Thank you my chunnu munnu gunnu"

And hence, I give a chunnu munnu gunnu's ass about your opinion.

But this status that I read, it is the last straw:

"If you are single and feeling sad and lonely on valentine's day, remember that you are unloved the other 364 days as well"

War! I declare War!

Maybe, next year, I'll join the Sri Rama Sene. But, It seems they are into peaceful protests now. Losers!
Hmm..I'll take it up with Ahmedinejad, he seems to be the right guy to tackle this. Now, if you will excuse me, I also have to make a long distance call to Iran.

The Cat and the Bollywood Bedtime story

 So, Kaamu asked me to tell her a bed time story.

I started with this,

"Long long ago, so long ago, that even I can't fathom how long ago, in a land far far away, there lived a girl called Cinderella..."

"Nooooo...I don't want to hear such girlie stuff"

"Okay what about Puss in Boots?"

"No, I know that one!! Tell me something with Action, like that Salman Khan movie Dabangg"

Oh god! The movies are eating up this cat’s brains too

I didn't know what to do. I had to think fast. One thing a foolish cat asks me to do, and that also I can't Shame on me

"Okay Kaamu, Do you want to know how “Wanted” came into existence, your favorite movie!"

"There is a story behind it?? Yes, yes, please tell me"

I started off, thinking of all the nincompoop that only I can come up with and fed the cat this story:

“It was a cold evening in Mumbai, sometime in the last decade.

A congregation of the best Hindi film directors.

Chairing the occasion was Kamaal Rashid Khan, one of the stalwarts of Indian Cinema, director of the cult classic, "Desh Drohi". The film was such a classic that Kamaal Rashid is scared to make another movie, he is not sure if he'll be able to match himself.

What is a congregation? What is a classic? The cat kept asking. I ignored all her questions, I wanted to keep the flow going.

"Let’s start", says Kamaal Rashid, breaking a glass for effect.

They did what they always do. Round up of all the movies of all languages conceivable, swahili cinema was popular among them. None knew why, maybe because half of them slept and the rest were busy gaping at the tribal women.

Yaawn

Suddenly a voice booms, It was Vikram Bhatt, another great man. 

"I heard a rumor. Abbas-Mustan have decided to make Italian Job in Hindi with Abhishek Bachchan, Bobby Deol and Sonal Kapoor. Nobody can beat that amazing combination. I think its time for us to give up. We need to think of a new strategy now that Hollywood is no longer our ballgame"

"What about Swahili movies? Our favorite", piped in Subhash Ghai, who introduced the legend Mahima Choudhary to Indian Cinema.

"No, they won't work. They are too well known, we may not be able to live up to their standards. Lets think of something that touches the hearts of our audience. I know!What about South Indian Cinema, they seem to rake up money with all the dishum dishum and senseless drama", said Laffu, a new entrant.

Their minds started working faster than Chacha Chaudhary's brains which usually works faster than a computer.

"Let’s give it a try. My neighbour Rani aunty watched a Telugu movie "Pokiri", and apparently it’s a super duper hit film down south. I'm calling dibs on it", said Prabhu Deva.

Who's this fellow? Why is here when he should be dancing around with a thunder thighed belle somewhere in the gallies of chennai was the collective silent reaction, but no one dared to say it.

They searched high and dry in their DVD library, proudly maintained by Arbaaz Khan, who is still given a monthly salary of Rs.51 for this gracious task of his. It constitutes his main income, most of which goes to clothe and feed himself. His wife Malaika needs neither.

The found it, they found Pokiri. They excitedly waited to watch it. Put it in their high end DVD player, which played almost anything, scratched, broken, anything in HD.

The movie started...A lanky guy walks in, Mahesh Babu, he is called..

His first dialogue:

"Yavaru kodithe dimma thirigi mind block aithundo athadera Pandu"

Sadly, Arbaaz Khan had forgotten to get the subtitled version. No one ever watched South Indian movies, that he almost ignored them. He had these DVDs only because he was so dedicated to the only service where he could show off his talent.

They scrambled to the nearest laptop. Google translate.

The sentence translated to this:

"He who beats, your head turns, mind blocks, he only Fruit"

Yes, Pandu is the name of the hero in Pokiri and Pandu means fruit. Don't ask me why, Now lets continue with the story

Everyone was dumbstruck at the enormity of the dialogue. It was amazing. A new star was born, not Mahesh Babu, it was

SOUTH INDIAN CINEMA.

It had arrived. Finally

From that day onwards, Arbaaz's section of "South Indian Classics" has been used and abused and over-used.

And that is how Kaamu, All thanks to Laffu's idea, we are getting to watch wonderful movies like "Wanted", "Singham", "Ready", "Bodyguard" etc etc”

“This story doesn’t make any sense. It’s stupid”

“No you are stupid”

“You said it has action! Where is the action??”

“Okay wait, the story is not yet over.”

“I thought the lame story is over!!”

I thought so too

“Anyway, Arbaaz gets a wild idea.

With all the balls that he has got, he gets up from the corner where he is sitting on the floor and declares,

“I want to act in this movie! I deserve this chance after all the work I’ve done.”

So, this is the point when all the directors come and start bashing him up. End of story”

“Get lost!!” said Kaamu exasperatedly.

She frowned, shrieked and ran away.

Good riddance! Bed time story, I’ll give you a bedtime story, eat it.

The Girl in the Blue Polka dotted dress

No, this is not a lesbian post, Sadly, my life is not that exciting.


The first time, I met her, It was in a dilapidated pigeon-shit infested corridor of my school. She was the new girl, I was rotting there since the time I could utter m-aa (It was like my parents were waiting for that fateful day when I could utter one more syllable, and they just threw me out of the house!). We were in the fourth standard, and in walks this girl, wearing light blue polka dotted dividers (A sub-junior fashion rage back in my day, nothing but a short jumpsuit, now don't ask me what a jumpsuit is). It was lunch hour, she was standing there looking bloody clueless, like she'd entered an alien world. I went up to her and said a hello, a normal kiddie one. Thankfully, there was no need to ask if she had a facebook or an google plus or a linkedin profile (The day is not far when a fourth grader has to create a linkedin profile, connections, you know, they are all that matter), Life was much simpler then.

Time went on, we became friends. I don't remember much what we used to do back then, maybe share some chocolates; though I distinctly remember that she was Kanjoos (I know she calls me that, actually both of us are kanjoos). We used to trade in feathers, my class kids, I don't know now for what comprehendible reason we used to do it, but there we were, a bunch of ten year olds trading feathers as if they were some high yield bonds and we were all Wall Street investment bankers. The bushiest feathers had the highest demand. You may wonder how we could get so many feathers, were we little brats going all around the neighbourhood, and defeathering all the innocent birds? No, we were not that perverted. We used to buy "feather hats", in some fairs or exhibitions (I’ll ignore the fact that the hat seller also must’ve defeathered some birds, it’ll become too tragic), carefully remove all the feathers and store it in our books. Anyway, this post is not about "How to successfully start a feather trading business", so let me get back to what I was saying. We were peacefully going about with our business, and guess what this girl does? She ruined feather trading!, One fine day she brings a sticker book. We felt so inferior, like we were some village girls trading some downtrodden stuff, feathers, ugh, so disgusting! We found a new trade, stickers! And this girl, she was the Rauf Lala of the sticker trade. None of us had them anyway. She traded me one 10 mm*10 mm size sticker for 10 of my bushiest feathers. Didn't I mention kanjoos somewhere :P
That was in fourth standard. In the same class, she once hit me for asking if her dog was dead, since she hadn't spoken about it for a while. I can never forget it. I was just trying to clear a doubt. Is it my fault?

Anyway, soon after that, we would face the biggest challenge of our friendship. I gave her the biggest dhokha a eleven year old can ever give. There was a class trip and I told her that I was going. My dad took us on an impromptu pilgrimage on the same day (it is our family fun destination). I was too young to realise the consequences of this fateful act. Our friendship went for a toss. Till date, she explains her situation like she was some Nirupa Roy and I was her son who turned bad, She says,” I was sitting there in the first row. I "caught" a seat next to me for you. I was waiting so eagerly with stars in my eyes, thinking you'll come, you'll definitely come, but Alas! I heard the bus start. You never came!” The trip was for half a day, and definitely not so senti. Anyway, she made a bunch of irritating friends in that stupid trip, I’ll call them “hands”, Why? This irritating group had a friendship code, where ever they went, they had to hold hands and go. So imagine, five little girls, they hold each other's hands and walk along the entire width of the road. Can you imagine it? It was very irritating, and I think she was pissed off with me for that big dhokha and she preferred the sweaty warmth of those five hands to my enriching friendship. At the same time, even I made my own group of forgettable friends. Three years, we didn't speak to each other. It was full blown revenge, very angry little children we were.

Then came highschool, we were forced to talk to each other since they’d split up our class and none of the irritating hands, or the forgettable friends were in our class. Destiny played a guest appearance in our lives and we were back together. This is the time, we realised that we both shared the same unrealistic dreams. We both wanted to run away to Bombay and make a movie. We both wanted it. The astonishing part is not the common dream but the common knowledge that we were talking crap and we'd continue it anyway, what we didn't know was, we'll be doing it a decade later too. Till date, whenever we talk, and that is at least once in three days, we make improbable plans, some of them are idiotic, some of them bordering on lunacy and some realistic, but we both know we'll never do them. It’s a kind of entertainment for us. The only thing that we've ever done till now successfully is our Eurotrip, and even that was scarily screwed up till the very end. Before we left, we were fighting like crazy, we wondered whether we'll make it without killing each other, but apparently it was not so.

Our conversations went like this,

"It’s cold outside. Lets skip taking a bath" (We took bath once in two days)
"This food smells shitty, lets have ice cream" (We ended up eating ice cream everyday for lunch)
"We'll buy this" (We both did the same shopping because we didn't want any major money calculations, we are engineers but that doesn't mean we are good at math, yes, go ahead and roll your eyes :) )

The compatibility was almost comical. And since it worked out so well, we decided to start a business of our own after coming back. It’s been almost a year since we returned and every time we speak, we make a new business plan. Maybe it'll take off, maybe it won’t, but making plans is our addiction.

In these fourteen years, we've done many crazy things together, jumped stands during a cricket match acting like we were being harassed in the gallery stand, watched two movies in one ticket, we've watched XMen 2 thinking that they were playing Bhooth in the theatre, we've gone seeking jobs in a TV station only to run away from there, ended up in Kerala at 1:00 AM in the night with no plan, slept in a german railway station, acted like we didn't know english when a french woman tried to admonish us for some reason which didn't make much sense, danced drunk on a chair singing "Happy birthday to me" and much much more shit, that I cannot think of now, but never have we cried to each other, never have we shared our deepest secrets or fears, yet I know she's my best friend.

Why did I write this?

Just to say this to the girl who entered law college and ended up doing engineering, who won first place in a local skating competition because there were no competitors(Can you believe it?!), who applied to New York film school all the while knowing that she'll join an IT company(That was an ROFL moment :D), who convinced me to ask for a lift in Silk board, who used to ask people in college, "Who's your boyfriend? What’s your story? Why did you break up?" without thinking twice and with a twinkle in her eye, who asked me what people do with a sponge boob in Amsterdam, whose marks I've always compared mine with and said, "Thu, what the hell? How did you get more than me?”, who is my gossip partner, without whom my life would've been boring as hell, To the girl in the blue polka dotted dress,

I can’t afford a gift for your wedding. I hope you understand :D

And ya, Wish you a very very Happy Married Life!

Enjoy :)

PS: She'll read this post and say, "Loose neen esht dhod Kanjoos!"

Next week's my best friend's wedding, and unlike the movie, I'm not trying to sabotage the wedding. I just wanted to write a special post for her, reminiscing all the crap we have done over the last 14 years I have known her.

5 simple steps to make your blog world famous!

Okay, did the title catch your attention?

Then job well done! Now that you are here, continue reading :P

If I knew how to be world famous, wouldn't I be? So it is your fault that you are here, don't blame me!

I have been writing a lot of shit these days. It's still february and there are already 14 unbearable posts in my archives. So, you may think that I'm very jobless, but I'm sorry to tell you that I'm no longer on bench. I'm back to work, very busy, I tell you.

But you may wonder, if she really has work, how the hell is she getting time to write another post telling how she has work now. If she were as busy as she claims to be , she should be clicking away on some molested mouse in some congested cubicle, off Sarjapur road (You may not have thought this much about one sentence, but I'll give you the explanation anyway).

Let me clear your doubts, I'm in a project now (yes I am) But thank heavens that the corporate industry is designed in such a way that it seems like every single ant inside the office has work to do, mails to write and meetings to attend. The key word is "seems". Did you get my point? I'm trying to keep things subtle here, please cooperate.

I'm sitting in the same congested cubicle, by the way, using an amazing proxy that my frenemy gave (God bless her) and typing away to elusive glory. Since, I'm in office today, and I've decided that this place is going to be my most favorite place in the whole world*, I've decided to write about office.

*Conditions apply: When armageddon strikes and the rest of the world is destroyed except for office, it will be my most favorite place since there is nothing else. You may wonder why the office won't be destroyed when everything else is. You see, you dungbeetle, It cannot be destroyed. There is a plan, BCP: Business Continuity Plan. I’ll explain, you see, it is built on one simple concept “Even if it is the end of the world, even if people are dying, even if you are torn into shreds by a tsunami or half-dead in a terrorist attack,even if you are in the middle of your own wedding or in an ICU dying, Business has to continue, doesn't matter if its from your hospital bed, marriage hall, mars or pluto or ursa major or minor or sub-junior, wherever!”

On second thoughts, I'd rather die violently in the armageddon

Anyway, I'm going off track now. Mostly because its 2:30, just had lunch now. and came in for a work break. Work break?? Yes, Let me explain. You see, Office is like day time television, On TV you watch programmes between advertisements and In office, you work between morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, evening tea, afternoon siesta, refreshing walks, loo-time, and frequent visits to the office clinic.

Yes, it is very tiring.

Sometimes, it is mind boggling too. My colleague at lunch was remarking about the remarkable power of the Indian Judiciary for revoking some 122 2G licences. So I asked him, "What's the use? Isn't the money that's gone already gone?" Of course, being an archetypal realist, thats what I call myself, not sure what it means, but it sounds cool, I have the inborn itch to question anything and everything. He told me that I find faults in all the things under the sun, and the best career option for me would be a newspaper proof reader. I asked him to read my blog, I have no patience to read my own posts, why the hell will I go cleaning someone's else's crap?

Speaking of lunch (Yes, this whole discussion happened at lunch, that's why I said speaking of lunch, read the last para again), Today there was a Tandoori festival at one of the counters in our cafe. Is your mouth watering? Wait till you here the menu, you'll come drooling.

This is what they advertised:

Tandoori Roti

Aloo tikki

Hariyali Chicken

Palak Paneer

Veg. Biriyani

Kheer

Food Festivals are fun, not for us, for the caterer. He makes atleast ten times the money he usually does. We are eternally hopeful people,we always go to the counter peep into every vessel, check the color, the odour,and every apparently visible characteristic of each dish. We take a step back, and think "This time it is looking good. Let me try it. " So we pay the 25 bucks, We think 'What a steal!', come back to our tables. One spoon in our mouths and our smiling faces turn into expressions fit for an indigestion ad.

This is what we ate:

Rubber Roti

Squishy Green Goop

Salmonelly Chicken

Some more squishy squashy

Yellow Colored Rice

Sugar Water

I mean, is it our fault that we are paying 25 bucks for a full meal, and expect the Oberoi buffet on our plates. We thrive on hope, that is the only thing keeping us alive and these caterers, they know and exploit our weakness.

I have one more office story, infact many more, but not now, time for a tea break! :D

PS: All those who think that I resorted to cheap tactics by luring you people here with the false promise of the misleading title, I am just emulating our noble netas! Is it my fault if I want to be a great leader one day? These are my baby steps, support me :)