Tinder in India

Time to write a post. Its been a really long time since I came back to this. Honestly, I miss writing but at the same time, I have been delaying it too - thanks to Netflix, YouTube and of course laziness.

Now there's a huge gap from the last post to this one. I'll perhaps come to that later. I did spend a lot of time in India - from mid-June 2017 to early Jan 2018 and during that time I decided to explore the Tinder app. I was quite sure that India has progressed over the last 5 years to appreciate random conversations over an app.

Tinder in Chennai

I think Chennai is one of the worst cities for Tinder. Chennai hardly has any migrant population compared to Bangalore or Hyderabad. So every now and then, you'll find your friend on Tinder. Also, you have to expand the distance meter to the maximum (which will also include parts of Pondicherry, read Auroville.. LOL) if you need any results. After all that, you'll see one you like. Without wasting time, you'd super like her. She'd accept. You ask her out for a coffee (Of course you cannot ask her out for a beer. You are in Chennai. Filter coffee is the best. In fact, her guardian may also be sitting a few tables away from you). She will un-match because she still believes in an arranged marriage. She is only on the app to waste your time.

Once that episode is done, your meter will keep rotating for ages. You'll find nothing. You need to wait for another eclipse.

And then there was another match. Another super like I think. Sent her a text and by the time she replied, I could see that she was a few thousand kms away in the country. She'd accepted a job in the north. Didn't see her back in the city for a really long time. I did meet her but maybe that's reserved for another post.

Tinder in Bangalore

This is perhaps the best! A lot of women, to be honest, and some really worth the super-like. And there have been times when women have super liked me too. This generally never happens anywhere else but I think India has started noticing that my physical appearance is quite stunning after all the Crossfit (Thanks to all those people who inspired me. That list is a few pages long).

Anyways, I am chatting with girl 1 (who is into sales I gather from her profile, quite irrelevant). I ask her out but she doesn't have time and its also closer to my travel date back to Chennai. So we just decide to meet when I am in the city the next time around. In the end, I never met girl 1. We decided to meet somewhere and she cancelled. Maybe she got cold feet or she didn't like me. Who knows.

Second trip to Bangalore and I had 3 matches. Voila! Chennai seriously sucks in this department.

Ok girl 1 says hello, we chat for a bit and then decide to meet! Awesome. We go out for a nice dinner. Wow this is so cool. And I must say, she was really nice. I would definitely go out with her again if I was in Bangalore. But that didn't happen.

Girl 2 said hello. We decided to meet for coffee. The intended place was quite crowded so we ended up at the coffee place for kids - Cafe Coffee Day. We had common friends. So we were chatting a lot. So, this is the problem with Chennai or Bangalore. The network is so bloody small that if you are in a good job or studied in a reputed institution, there's a 100% chance that you and your Tinder match would have common friends. Not one, but like a herd. So girl 2 actually told me some horror stories about Tinder in India which was quite shocking to hear. Girl 2 is also a Bangalore lover. I didn't get a chance to meet her again.

For all the men - If you match with a girl, then learn to take baby steps. This is India god damnit. Do not - wait outside their workplace, send them messages on Facebook or ask them why they don't want to meet you again. If they don't like you, just get the fuck out of there. Don't make them uncomfortable.

Girl 3 matches. Quite late in the night. I ask her out because I was driving back to Chennai the day after. Then she gave me this huge lecture about how we should chat, exchange phone numbers, get to know each other and then meet. I was SO not ready for all that. I just wanted to meet and say hello. That's all. Not even in the mood to take it to the next date. And then I heard all these conditions (owing to previous experience meeting dickheads). So we never met.

So overall, Bangalore scores way better than Chennai for Tinder. There are many many dry days in Chennai (when you have no matches) but Bangalore has a fairly large migrant population and also open minded people who want to date or meet people this way.

Of course, there's more to talk about the people I met. Maybe another time. But for now, I think this will be a good start for 2018.

The Middle Class

She wakes up. Starts cooking and in parallel, dresses up her son for school. Off he goes. She packs a box of lunch for her husband while he gets ready for work. She hears him complain that he is getting late. That's "ALL" she hears from him. Then she goes to work. They get home in the evening. She makes dinner. They all eat and go to bed. He is in the mood. So he has sex. She doesn't seem to enjoy it. She is aware that their son who is sleeping less than two feet from them might wake up and you know what next. But he continues to arrive.

Its their middle class life. She goes to work and he goes to work. That's what they all do. A one bedroom apartment with very minimal privacy has its own boundaries but he is not bothered. He just wants it. He gets it. He gets it every day. He doesn't care about what she wants. That's how he imagined life should be.

One evening, his phone rings. An unknown caller. She questions. He brushes it off. She realizes. He is cheating on her.

She wants to give it back. She decides to cheat.

In between, there is also a reference to the great poet Bharathiyar and his thoughts on women. On how he wanted women to be what they want to be; on how they should carve a path for themselves and not be dependent on a man; on empowering women.

This was a short film. When I finished seeing this, I had many thoughts going on in my mind.

What makes a marriage work? Is it equally distributed commitment from two people? In the case of an imbalance, is it okay for one person to give more?

Deception or infidelity is just wrong. Doesn't matter who. If he does it, does it mean that she has the right to retaliate and do something similar? How does that work?

What if 'she' gets a call from an unknown caller? Let's say we let Bharathiyar's dream version of women to choose what they want to do, and let them find romance outside of their relationship. What if he finds out, but he doesn't think that he needs to take revenge. How does that play out?

We are a high class society who have enough problems at our own class, where women are slightly ahead of the men in these familial circumstances. And we dramatize/empathize about middle class and low class.

Pick Your Wife Wisely: Not just your career but your life depends on it

So I saw this Huffington Post article being shared on Facebook titled - Pick your husband wisely: Your career depends on it

This post is my response to the article.

If you do not choose your wife wisely, then you will not just lose your career but also your life. This is my experience and I stand by my statement 100%

Choose someone who would support your career first. Do not go out of your way and support her career advancement. All this bullshit about women empowerment and "being there for her" will tell you to go f**k yourself when she decides to walk out of that door. And bear in mind, she will. Because you let her. You supported her all her decisions to have a great career. Even if it means that you need to let go of your own career. Your sacrifice means nothing. Because when she goes out, she doesn't see that you are behind waiting to see her succeed. She is comparing you with other powerful and influential men surrounding her in the corporate world and against them, you are a f**king lose because you decided to stay at home.

"Even if women are highly educated, they aren't allowed by in-laws and husbands to do any job outside the home. Women are graduating to get a good groom not a good job." If a woman is able to work, she must still shoulder the bulk of household responsibilities."

The above statement applies to a lower middle class and even lower class population. These people are mostly not on Facebook, Twitter and they definitely don't read Huffington Post.

No woman is graduating to get a good groom these days. She is graduating so that at some point if she wants to be independent from a groom, then she can very well be. The in-laws and the husbands don't have much say in these decisions. They've got to comply.

"A real partner is not just supportive of your career, but is happy to take on his fair share of household responsibilities so that you both can thrive."

Men, if you take a fair share of household responsibilities, then please ensure your partner also has a fair share. You don't want to be in a situation where your partner comes home and works for 2 more hours and then says "Let's order food" or "I cannot clean the house because I worked a lot during the week and I need my sleep or I need to shop instead"

"Before committing to another person you should know if you want a career or if you are more interested in [fitting] meaningful work around your family life."

I think this applies more to men these days.

And if she asks you things like "Would you support my career? If I had to move for my job, would you be willing to relocate the family?" Do not do this at your expense. I've had a personal experience in these exact questions and the results are not favorable at all. Men, please be a little selfish, and look at your life.

And men, please observe your women before you commit to them. If she is the person who gets up quite late and throws her legs up on the couch and reads the newspaper or checks her emails while you make your own cup of coffee, maybe she is not the one that could share responsibilities around the house.

The question "Would you support my career after we have kids?" is absolutely irrelevant these days. In my opinion, the men should be asking "Will we have any kids?"

Fiction: Separation

They were good friends. Absolutely no strings attached. He'd been observing her for sometime now. There was something strange about her. He didn't know what. She was smiling and sounded normal from the outside, but deep within, she had locked herself into the room of dark secrets.

He imagined there was pain. The good person in him didn't give away. There was an urge to help. He wanted to help her break free and smile. He thought about it - really hard. It wasn't easy getting into someone else's life. There were risks. It could affect him as well.

He asked her. Told her that he felt strong about seeing her happy. She didn't respond. He was persistent. He was not the kind who would just walk away from anything. In him, he had already decided that he wanted to do this and he wasn't going to change his mind for the world. She suddenly sounded stronger than him. She wasn't giving him a chance to intrude and for a moment he felt that he was losing the battle. While this happened, he noticed her full eyes. He couldn't say more. He walked away.

 

Months passed and one fine day she had gone, untold. He looked terribly pained and there was no one to hear. As time passed he realized why she had hesitated, in the very beginning. It was the pain of SEPARATION she was afraid of.

PS: Something I had written years back and I don't even know if this makes sense but it was lying in the archives; so decided to give it a little polishing.

What are you doing?

The place I live (hotel, I mean) is quite a fantastic place. Its a Marriott and its a wonderful place for long stay.

There are a lot of firms around this place, the well known ones - Satyam (erstwhile), Alcatel Lucent and then a good number of pharma firms. NJ is the pharma hub. Novartis is just a few miles away and employs a lot of indians.

At the Marriott, english breakfast is served everyday. During breakfast everyday, I definitely make it a point to note what the other people are doing. And with respect to the Desi and ABCD crowd, I wanted to validate whether the Desi junta did go through some cultural adjustment training before they landed here and whether the ABCD junta still have some of their original indian roots. So here is the scoop.

There is one ABCD family - 3 to 4 children. I see them almost everyday. They first have their breakfast and then they start packing. The volume they pack is perhaps double the quantity they have for breakfast. Each one of them would carry a huge tray full of food - apples, banana, yogurt, milk cartons, just about everything you can find on the table. Then today evening I noticed them again. In the evening, Marriott serves snacks. Fortunately, we reached on time for some snacks. This family was again loading some 5-7 plates of snacks. I am surprised that the "if given free, i will drink phenyl" attitude is still around. So this is one side.

The other thing I noticed is about the indian mother with kindergarden kids. I dont know if this can be generalised to all indian mothers who come to the US but this was way too funny.

One guy landed here a few weeks back from India. His wife and kid joined him like a week later. One morning, I saw them at the breakfast table. The guy had his breakfast and left to the office. The mom was having breakfast and the kid was sitting on a baby chair. I think the kid was getting a bit uncomfortable. So, he tried getting out of the chair. The mom was chatting with her husband's colleague. When she noticed the kid, she raised her voice "Aman! What are you doing?". The child looked a bit perplexed. He didnt utter a word. Few minutes passed. Again he started moving. The mom goes "Aman! What are you doing? Why cant you sit in one place?" and all that "cant you keep quiet" type speech.

I was like. What the hell. A week back, you were probably talking to the kid in Hindi, or Gujarati or definitely an indian language. And all of a sudden, you switch to English? Are you out of your mind.

I am sure the kid had a mind to say this - "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Talking to me in a completely unknown language. Are you out of your mind?"

God save these people.

Calling...

Invitation Fiasco

I suppose, the idea of a perfect wedding never works that well with the men.

So I spent like one or two weeks deciding how to send an engagement invitation to my friends - BCC them on an email or send them a prepared invitation from an external site. There was a need to know the numbers, so the best way was to get people to reply on a page that was available from a site. I started searching on the internet. Narrowed down a few sites, created login ids on all those sites and also got a few templates shortlisted.

As this needs suggestions and validations from you know who, I spent considerable amount of time on chat, discussing what needs to be done. My initial research was well appreciated. Then, she rejected two top priority sites of mine and came up with another site that she had seen. Later, she told me that all the templates that were available on the sites I suggested were hopeless. So she spent some time creating a new template. It came out really well. We spent a few days making some final changes. It was good to go.

She had decided how she wanted to send the invitation. She did that. In fact, she sent me a test invitation as well to see whether everything worked fine. Field Engineer's mind works with precision. Like everything you do on the rig is important as the operating cost is extremely high, same principles worked with the invitations. Extra care and attention was given.

I took extra time and finally realized that it was high time to send the email out. Last minute pressures. I created an account in a site that I liked (actually it was the one she had used. you know how easy it is to copy-paste) and started preparing the invite. While adding email ids to the address list, I did an overconfident import from my gmail account and 1500 plus email ids were added to the address list. Until then it was okay.

Something funny happened. I was on some screen on that website and then I saw a button which said "PREVIEW and SEND". I clicked that and then it started showing me an hour glass button on the screen. For about 10 seconds I didnt know what was happening. Suddenly it struck me. I knew something was going wrong and then I pressed the "CANCEL" button on the page.

By that time, the deed was almost done. The system had already started sending emails to my friends. Worst, it sent emails to some yahoo and google groups that I had subscribed to, as well.

Sometimes its typical IT Industry mentality. Do something called development and send it. When it bombs, we will do maintenance and support. And thats exactly what I have been doing. I have no clue as to how many people have got this invitation email. Every reply is like a support call now. I am answering back with thanks and letting them know about the incomplete invitation. I hope I dont spend the whole of tomorrow doing this.

What a fiasco !!!!
Enna Kodumai Saravanan Ithu

Insights

I ran into this piece of information on the web. And I was surprised.



If you think, you can give an explanation to this one, then please add your comments.

Friendship Day

NO greeting card 2 give, NO sweet flowers 2 send, No cute graphics 2 forward, Just a kind heart of an ever loving friend wishing u advance "HAPPY FRDSHIP DAY"

So thats the first SPAM I got today morning for Friendship Day. And then few more started coming in. But they weren't as funny as this one.

Anyway, I always believed that after a point in your life, you kinda feel weird rather funny about these things. I mean, there are so many other things to do than buying an elastic friendship band or some filigree stuff that you can tie to your wrist or pin up to your shirt or bag. God knows who came up these ideas.

You know what - Friendship Day and all those Days dedicated to Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Dog, Cat, Neighbors are all for the West. Ok, we have Rakshabandhan. That's a different story altogether. But why I connect this to the west is mainly because of the magnitude they attach to these relationships. Children are so independent at young age. They are left to decide what they want to do. They marry. Not once, but quite a number of times. Also do several other things that we may not do. So, for them, relationships are just like written on paper. Ok, I am not telling that the people in the west do not have values. Their bold thinking about what they want to do in their life takes more gets more preference. That's all. So, they need such days to periodically remind them. And during such moments, they do everything they can to make that day special for that person in their life.

We Indians are not like that. When our friend calls, we have all the time in the world to spend with him or her. Sometimes, we go over and above the limit to do anything. Same goes with the values that we attach towards our immediate family and relatives. At least its been like that. I don't know how much of this "me and my space" concept has influenced us lately.

So the one thing I remembered distinctly among several others about Friendship and Friendship Day was this video. Wait! don't go and click immediately. So, I managed to find this on You Tube.

Closely watch the dialog at 1:32 about Friendship. Now that's simply amazing I say.



But don't be surprised if I go ahead and write a poem on friendship or maybe an icky sticky mindlessly sentimental post on the essence of friendship. I am capable of doing that. Just for the sake of writing another post; fill space you could say. That's all.

If you knew or

BOY meets GIRL in college. They spend over 5 years together or whatever - don't remember the exact number of years. For convenience lets keep it 5. Start off as friends. Surrounded by a gang of common friends they together hang in cafes, cinema halls and parties.. and lots in that line.

One thing I don't understand is why BOY doesn't feel more than being just friends with the GIRL. This is absolutely unbelievable stuff. I mean, in the last 5 years that BOY had known GIRL, he should have had enough feelings for her. He should have felt more for her than being just a friend and let me tell you straight - at least once in that 5 yrs he would definitely fall in love with her.

BOY and GIRL can't remain JUST friends and keep doing the following - talking to each other everyday for hours, spending time with each other more than required, dinners, dance parties, dates blah blah blah.. all of that will lead just to one thing. LOVE.



Well, that's what Jaane Tu comes to tell you. And according to me, you don't really need another pretty girl and smart boy between BOY and GIRL to help them understand what they feel for each other. But you know what - the director is actually right. Most of the times, BOY or GIRL doesn't realize that they are actually in LOVE and they just keep denying it. And you always need that external catalyst to start off that new reaction. In that context, I would agree with Abbas Tyrewala.

Old wine in new case. Thats the only description about Jaane Tu. BOY is Jai and GIRL is Aditi.

Rahman's youthful music just makes you love the film. "Pappu can't dance" - a dig on Salman Khan totally. Even if Aamir Khan says NO in public, I wouldn't agree because everything about that song is a punch on Salman's face. Especially stuff like muscular, playing the guitar etc etc. "Kabhi Kabhi" - the song thats been around everyone's minds for a few months now, is another highlight. In the middle the background score and some other song reminded me of "Michael learns to rock". Anyway, musicians are influenced by some style or the other.

Coming to the narration part. Rotlu, Jiggy, Bombs and Shaleen (all friends) decide to tell Mala about Jai and Aditi's story. This way of narration is an exact copy of the Tamil movie Azhagiya Theeyae

Another theme in the whole story is about fulfilling the pre-requisites of being a Rathore family member. Naseerudin Shah as the photo dad keeps talking to Jai's mom and troubles her with his witty dialogs every now and then. Arbaaz and Sohail Khan do a cameo in the movie. They are fun to watch.



Genelia is as usual - the same in Tamil and Hindi. No change at all. I don't understand how every director gets her the same kind of role. Always bubbly and immature.

Imran - the new kid on the block. Looks very smart on screen and does his role quite well. I think Aamir has provided a good opening for his nephew.

If you find someone enjoying this movie in the cinema hall, then you can be rest assured that these are the college going kids because this movie is so damn predictable that someone who is a little more matured will never want to sit through this for more than an hour or so.

Overall: Colorful

FILs love for teetotalers

So, one of the parents (perhaps a future father in law), who called my home, told - We went through your son's profile on Orkut and it says Drinking : Occasionally.

My dad who was never internet savvy, a little surprised and with a quizzical expression - obviously, it took him some time to understand that orkut profile was something like a matrimony site profile. He told - Its his profile. So I really don't know

Then the guy on the other side goes You told us that your son was a very disciplined person and we saw this on his profile. What does occasionally mean? Is it every week, month or year. You see, we can't make those assumptions

My dad was like - Okay, I don't interfere in all of this. Finally what do you have to say?

From the other side - We discussed this with our family members and we have decided that we will not take this forward

The conversation ended somewhere there.

Whatever it was. What's this big love that some dad's and their daughter's have, for teetotalers?

And what is the goddamn connection between drinking and being disciplined? Then, what do we call people in the armed forces as? Indisciplined fighters for the nation just because a good majority of them have a few drinks when they get together?

I was like, to whoever that ignorant parent was - Dude, do you know the meaning of being disciplined?

And then you tell me that you discussed this with your entire family!!! Me having one or two pegs every 2-3 months or so, is a subject of discussion for your entire family?

Gracious God, what is this you are getting me into?

Uff, there are a lot of supposedly educated parents in this world who think that if someone drinks, then he will beat up their daughter in the middle of the night or maybe make her life miserable. Thanks to the mega serials, the rickshaw-wallah and the bricklayer.

Dow Bhopal Tragedy

I bumped into an article in Business week and I was surprised to note what's happening.

In 1984, Bhopal gas tragedy happened. Union Carbide was completely responsible for everything that happened and they were liable to make any clean up that's required. They paid some money to the victims and then everything was left as it is. Neither the government nor Union Carbide did anything more to address the environmental impact that the leak had created.

Dow Chemical bought whatever was left of the Union Carbide plant. They bought the company shares.

And now, a bunch of people are holding their hands, shouting at Dow Chemical to spend millions of dollars to clean the water table.

The law ministry is also sending wrong signals and supporting this stupid idea.

I seriously don't understand. Why are these people blaming Dow? Just because an international company decided to buy a rundown plant, can you just blame them for whatever happened before?

On top of this, some students at the IITs are objecting to an institutional tie-up with Dow Chemical. That's stupidity to the highest level. Don't these students ever think at all? This is what happens when respected institutions are influenced by reservation policies, the Ministry and a bunch of uneducated politicians.

There is also an NGO that is fighting against Dow Chemical. The Chemicals Ministry has told - "the polluter should pay". What a statement. Damn it! Everyone knows that the polluter was Union Carbide and they were supposed to do the clean up. All these people kept quiet, got bribes once in a while, and now when a renowned firm entered the country, they have decided to put the blame on it. Maybe, someone gave them an idea that if we blame an international firm, they will immediately do what's required to prevent any damage to their brand value at the world market.

Do any of these parties understand that its the responsibility of the government and Union Carbide officials to solve this problem?

If we told that going forward, Dow has to be responsible for whatever happens, then its okay. Why do we have to pass our own inefficiencies to someone who is quiet?

Comments Stealing

I found this set of comments on another blog that I frequently visit. once you start reading you'll understand the context of this huge debate. after reading through all this, i really wonder if educated people think like this? tradition, culture, religion is all apart. leaving all that, for all practical purposes, you'll still feel that this guy is all crap.

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raj, on May 20th, 2008 at 11:06 am Said:
woman are impure when they have ****. i own a travel agency, and we never allow the woman employees to take care of the ticketing needs. see so many people are going for teerth yaatra, or for imp journeys. if a woman with **** does their ticket, it could be very unlucky for them. even my wife agrees. i have seen myself pickles going bad when impure woman has touched. women are not bad, but they need to be careful to not give others bad luck. some precautions must be taken. you are wrong.

raj, on May 21st, 2008 at 5:19 pm Said:
hi neha - raj again. first of all i want to say that all of you are blindly following the western practice. their women don’t know how to control themselves - and that is why babies are born without mothers being married. that is why they are smoking, drinking and having sex without respect for anyone. following purity rules allows women to exercise self discipline. and to develop a pure mind. god has given woman **** so that she knows that she cannot do everything a man can…….. otherwise women forgets that she has to take care of babies. see, these rules remind even unmarried womens what their duties are…. that they must always sacrifice.

i am not scared of you women.. you can come and run after me.. but let’s see if you can run when you are having ****. i am betting you cannot. if you are a good hindu follower then you follow these rules, otherwise you can become a west person or convert even. why make hinduism impure with ur actions??

my wife agrees with me. not because she thinks i am mad. but because she knows that i am correct. our shastras say that wives must always obey husbands. but you are an impure so called hindu who is not really hindu, so you will never these understand these things.

raj, on May 22nd, 2008 at 11:49 am Said:
why are all you people so arrogant? what makes you think you are smarter than years of vedic knowledge and our forefathers. having a **** is natural, but it is naturally impure. why are you all laughing at me? tomorrow, when an impure women effects your luck and things become really bad for you, then i will laugh at you all.

raj, on May 22nd, 2008 at 11:57 am Said:
ALSO - ankur, i think you are controlled by all womenin your life. that is why you say these things. a real man would stick to wisdom and not try to impress.

raj, on May 23rd, 2008 at 6:28 am Said:
how dare you all say i am only joking. this makes me very ANGRYYYY. your arrogance means you never listen to anyone, and think of people like me, as jokers? i am very much real. i am very much serious. WOMEN AND MEN ARE NOT EQUAL. men cannot have children. women have children and because of that, they must sacrifice a lot. it is a gift from god, and they have to show their appreciation for god by separating herself … like a sanyasi. THIS IS NOT FUNNY AT ALL. IT IS A serious issue. you are all fools.

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Ok the reason behind getting these absolutely stupid comments on to this page is because of the following links that I happened to read.

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4

Summer is back

Madras Summer. Anyone who has been living in madras for a very long time would be able to endlessly talk about the extremely HOT days and nights as well.

I have been observing and feeling the extremities of the weather and its simply unmanageable. Especially in a workplace like mine. You get into the office at 8.45am in the morning. Its quite hot at that time. The doors slide out and while you enter you smell jasmine in the air - that's the room freshener. The air conditioner is blowing air at sub 25 temperatures. You kinda feel the difference as you walk in. Once totally inside, you'll feel a sudden drop in temperature. Its really cool.

Obviously, the whole campus is not under a air conditioned roof. So, at around mid-day - lunch time, you HAVE to walk out. A walk for a minute or two would take you to the cafeteria. While you do this, the temperature suddenly of your body suddenly crests. And then when you come back in, it drops. This is such a bad thing to happen for your health. Sudden changes in body temperature would only result in viral fever and common cold.

On a different note, summer used to be such a beautiful phenomenon back in London. At 10 in the morning, most people would try and find themselves a place in one the large parks inside within the city. The very idea of lying on your chest and reading a book while the sun bakes your back. In between a cool breeze sweeps through and tickles your neck. You shrug and shiver a bit still enjoying the heat from that big star. Bright colors, short skirts, huge towels, cane baskets, broad hats - so lovely!

Anyway, I associate Madras summer always with this master piece. If you are a Madras fan, then you'd completely agree.

Slice of your life

I hope a good number of you would remember this ad, but I am not sure how many have seen the complete one.

The Mango season is right around the corner and it is time to revive and re-live those wonderful moments.

BONGULY

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I found this while surfing on the web. Absolutely FILTHY but quite interesting.

DO NOT USE SPEAKERS

He Says She Says

She: Honey, can you trim my toe nail. I seem to have some difficulty to bend.

He: Do you know the reason Honey! its only because of saturated fat.

She: ##$$ OFF

Office Conversations

So every office has N number of systems passing data here and there. Half the time we dont even know why there are so many systems, why do they follow redundant processes and why can't things be simplified.

But, with an ever expanding office, these questions sometimes just go unheard of. While I was caught amidst the demands of these painful systems to input the information that it required, a funny incident happened.

I had to add a location by the name Luxembourg into a peoplesoft system because one member from my team was travelling. Since that location was not available in the list of places, I had to place a request. I wonder why they have some strange policies for adding a location onto a system. They asked me too many questions - most of which was unwanted.



Anyway, so I dropped an email to the helpdesk guys to add the location. A day later I got a call back from the helpdesk guy(H).

H: Which project? (And I give him the project details)

H: Let me get into the project details screen.

Me: Ok (thinking that this guy knows what he is doing)

H: Ok, so what is the service order?

Me: (i got confused now. why did he need the service order? this was nowhere connected to that? but then i still decided to give him the answer) Let me tell you where it is (and i walked him through a few screens and brought him to the service order screen)

Me: Can you see the number 1215078? That is the service order.

H: Oh yeah I see it now.

(There is some silence now. Still wondering why this number connected to the problem I reported, I thought he was thinking about the solution. Maybe something innovative.)

H:(suddenly) But this service order is attached to a resource called Praveen and not Luxembourg

Me: (totally shocked, I didn't know what this guy meant. After a few seconds, I realized that this guy had actually thought that Luxembourg was the name of a resource within the company. Controlling my laughter burst, I decided to explain the problem to him)
See, thats not the problem. Let me tell you what needs to be done
(and I showed him the right place to fix the problem)

H: Oh, you mean this one! For this, you have to ask the Database Team in Calcutta. This is not controlled by us.

Me: (Oh yeah, when Luxembourg becomes a employee name for you, I am quite sure you wouldn't have any clue) THANKS, please forward my request to them.

(By the way, Luxembourg has still not been added into the system. Those guys have contacted the European Head to get some approvals. God only knows!!!)

Our Boys

This picture has been in circulation for a while now. Its simply hilarious. I hope these cricketers get a chance to see this and give some arbit explanation for the same.

Scarlett

The other day I was watching Barkha Dutt's discussion on NDTV about Scarlett Keeling case. There were people from different walks of life - press, government, writers, and of course the residents of Goa.

After that one hour discussion, what I still can't believe is that idiot power minister or whoever he is talking about Goa still being a safe place and blaming the girl for all what happened. The Secretary of the Goa Ministry - some Singh he is. He was talking bulshit too.

I mean for once can't someone in power tell directly that he will castrate the accused if proven guilty?

They kept telling all long winding stories about how Goa has been a nice place all this while and this was just a one-off incident that they are sorry about and all that nonsense.

India men in this aspect look absolutely sexually deprived. Especially, if you take the ones that are involved in such cases. They just think that they can do anything with tourists and get away with it. And I guess its also got to do with the way the Indian men treat their country women too. Mostly there is a lot of disrespect. I mean its time women's liberation fronts did something here. They keep fighting for stuff like domestic violence. But they also dont realise that its the same men who are tarnishing the face of the country. If you go to any tourist spot in India that is filled with white women, I am quite sure that you can uncover a whole lot of connections - like drugs, mafia, police. Everybody works hand in hand.

Okay, you ruthless pricks can be sex deprived. You wouldn't have seen white breasts for sure. But does that mean that you have to go and kill someone? That too a 15 year old girl? She can be whatever - a drug addict or even a sex machine. Why commit the brutal act of taking someone's life?

The government here blames the mother. What the fuck! Why can't they bloody well nab the people involved and make them incapable of doing anything of that sort again - just cut it off i mean. Sometimes I think we'll do better if we have rules that some Middle Eastern countries have. Pure Force. All this secular and democratic crap is just complicating things.

People say - Better to be safe than be sorry. But are we really looking at the problem here.

For all those tourists who are still out there, am sorry but this country still needs a lot of laws to keep you safe. Until then, if you are a lone traveller don't venture out after mid-night. Its not just Goa but everywhere.