Friday, August 13, 2010

HOME

The Banyan Trees are organizing a short story writing competition with the theme being What does ‘Home’ mean to you? Is it your roots? Is it where you are from? Is it the different places life has taken you? Is it the journey itself? Or is it just a place you stay right now? So, I have written a story for the theme home. Please read the story and comment on the blog as even the comments here and on facebook will be considered in judging the best story. Hope you enjoy reading it. Here is the story.

“Machan, when is the interval da?” asked Pradeep in a hushed tone. Even in the dark one could not mistake his scowl and contempt at the umpteenth song which was playing before the interval. There was the usual hero worship song to start off followed by one were the hero hums a sentimental tune expressing his love for his mother. Pradeep wanted to strangulate the director at this point when a noisy five year old kid sitting on his mother’s lap screamed “Amma, Appa is rubbing his legs against mine!” helped Pradeep overcome the nausea created by the director’s creativity.

Pradeep suddenly felt a sharp pang in his abdomen. It was nature’s call and he had to address it immediately. He tried to place himself in different positions, even tried to close his eyes for a while. Alas, none of it would work, the call wouldn’t budge.

“Machan, when is the interval da?” asked Pradeep in a hushed tone.

“In another ten minutes da. Why what’s the matter?” asked Venkat.

“Urgenttttttttt Daaa!” said Pradeep barely able to hold back the rush to let his dam burst right then.

“Machan, if we get up now some Peter will scold us da, this is PVR, remember?” replied back Venkat.

“What to do now?” asked Pradeep, remembering with horror the days of his childhood when he would wet the bed. He was desperately hoping he wouldn’t wet the seat here.
There was silence from Venkat’s end for five minutes.

“Machan, go now da, it is time for some child sentiment song, were the hero will wash some kid’s arse and impress the heroine. People won’t say anything if you get up now” said Venkat breaking the uncomfortable silence.

This was what Pradeep wanted to hear and as he was about to leave his seat, Venkat murmured saying “I’ll also come da”.

As the song was playing both of them made their way out of the hall and approached the swanky restroom. Pradeep’s urgency was greater even than an athlete nearing his finish post. He walked furiously inside leaving Venkat chasing him. As they entered the restroom, Pradeep felt a vague unfamiliarity with the restroom.

“Machan, there seems to be none of the standing commodes that we usually have da” said Pradeep in a slightly confused tone.

“Hey this is PVR da, hip place, so no standing one’s. See da, they have built so many bathrooms. Just use them” said Venkat as he approached the washed basin and washed his face. Pradeep put away the weird feeling he had about the place and rushed to the nearest bathroom. If ever there was a competition for Fastest Unzipping of Pants, Pradeep would have won it hands down, I mean pants down.

“Aaaaahhhhh” he exclaimed with sheer relief as he drained his seven seas.

“Ahh, Machan, what a feeling da. This feeling is as good as the one we have after we come home for our semester holidays and have mom’s food.” exclaimed Pradeep as he was still flushing out barrels of hidden salty wealth. Continuing to drain his tank, he realized there was no response from Venkat.

“Venkat, are you there?” asked Pradeep. Suddenly, he felt his phone vibrate and with one hand holding his little brother, he carefully took his phone out from his pocket, lest it be rendered to the flotsam category washed away with the seven seas. The phone was a Nokia 1100; a gift from his mother. He was done with his seven seas draining and happily flushed them away while zipping up his pant. He then looked at the phone screen and to his surprise he found that the caller was Venkat. In the background he heard female voices. He thought he was hallucinating due to holding his pee for such a long duration. On one hand he could feel the phone vibrate and on the other he could hear woman’s voices. He let himself out of the bathroom and pressed the answer button.

“What da, you wanted some holy water from inside aa? Planning to become Moraji Desai aa” barked Ashwin on the phone.

“Idiot”, thundered Venkat, “Moraji had his own da not from others. Oh no, what am I blabbering” said Venkat, desperation in his voice.

“Machan, don’t come out da from the bathroom. Please Machan. Please da. Stay there” pleaded Venkat.

“I am already out da” said Pradeep adjusting his pants wondering why Venkat was so tensed.

“Oh no, Machan” cried Venkat, “it’s a Ladies restroom da. Somehow hide yourself inside”. Pradeep slowly turned around to see an army of fat women, fatter than those who feature in the Saas Bahu soaps. He froze in his tracks as he saw them march forward menacingly.

“How dare you enter a ladies restroom” thundered a lady who looked like the kind who would beat her husband daily with the Chapathi rolling stick.

“Attaaaaaaccckkkkkk” he heard a scream and to his horror found all the ladies charge at him in unison. He realized there was no way out .And then, it happened, all of it in slow motion. WHAM, BHAM, SLAM. And when he thought everything was over, one lady declared “Let us cut his d*** off. He should never be able to use a toilet again”. It was a real horror show and he screamed out as loud as he could “Ammaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“Pradeep” screamed his mother, shaking him vigorously.

“Why are you shouting like this in the middle of the night?” Pradeep was up on his toes in a moment. He could see his mother scream. It was a dream.

“What happened da?” asked his concerned mother.

“Amma, I understood what the term Ditching your friend when you see a figure meant” said Pradeep with a smile on his face.

“What?” asked his perplexed mother, adding “There are no figures here Pradeep. Only ME. This is your home. Now sleep”.

He was tucked away safely in the comfort of his home. It was then he realized what home meant to him. A place where he had the freedom to dream. A place which could even resist a black hole. A dream within a dream. Home.

Friday, April 09, 2010

LinkedIn - Wish My Page Looks Like This

Ah!Yes, I am going to present to you something interesting about the mostly corporate blade website LinkedIn.The landscape of LinkedIn has started to change, lots of people are active on it and by that virtue have turned it into a public bathroom. Be it the nauseating Mutually Admiring Recommendations written or the links which people put up to portray themselves intellectual. More people are flocking LinkedIn due to the simple fact that other websites are blocked at office. I have had enough of this nonsense. I just have a secret wish. I wish my LinkedIn page looks like the one below.Please click on the pic to see it in a enlarged version. Please let me how can I put up a version which can be readable on the blog itself. Is there any other means to publish it on blogger? If nothing works then I will have to put up the individual photo frames I guess.Help.



I really wish one day when I open LinkedIn it looks like this :-). Hope you had fun reading it. I tried to cover as much as I could. I know the imaging editing using Javascript wasnt great but this is the best I could come up with. Hope you had fun.

P.S. :- This is inspired by Krish Ashok's Facebook Mahabharatha. I know this pales in comparison to the technical brilliance and the humour but that's why he is the Master. The final photoshop work was done by my brother Arjun. Thank you.

Cheers
Ashwin

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

300ml Down

I feel very giddy right now. What do you expect after you are 300ml down? I can see angels swimming all round me, well they aren't angels exactly, HR people to be more precise. The weird thing about all this is, it happened right at office. Can you beat that? My boss knows I am 300ml down and he is pretty cool about it. While I am finding my way about in the corridor, people are asking me a concerned "Are you OK?".Before you start sending me your 'Achieved strategic turnaround for my project in less than turnaround time' type CV's in the hope that you too can be 300ml down during office hours with the consent of your male boss (I've never had a female boss), let me clear the air.

I am 300ml down in the total blood content in my body. This would be a real shock cum surprise for my mother who believes that the Coovam's tributary flows through my body. The reason for the loss of 300ml of blood in my body is not due to me slashing wrists for some imaginary lover nor did I get whacked by some HR colleague of mine. There was a mail this morning which stated that some children needed blood and if you have blood running in your veins (Coovam in my case), Just Do It. I could sense the blood rising in me just like the Coovam does when it rains in Chennai. I could imagine all those children rallying in the streets chanting my name, the strong saviour, the Coovam Warrior, the Subhash Chandra Bose who gave his blood. Well you get the idea. This stirred me into action and I went straight to the conference hall where the blood donation camp was being organized. I walked in like Madhavan in Anbe Sivam and said "Take My Blood". I was promptly thrown out by the Doctor who asked me to first take my shoes off and come in.

I was given a form where I had to disclose extremely sensitive information like weight, sex life (WTF????). I saw one guy throwing me the "Ha Ha you loser look", at which point I felt like asking him "Do you do it with Men?" but wisely decided not to as I could get booked under "Disrespect for Article 377". With such embarrassment of riches, I filled the form and stepped inside. I was asked to lie down on the bed and fold my sleeves up. It was precisely at this point that I decided to ask the most important question. "How much blood will you like take doctor?". I was already nervous by this point. The doctor said that they would draw 300ml, not a ml more nor less.

Shit! That was equivalent to 5 large's of whisky. I was also hoping that they had the measurer with them, the bar measurer you know 60ml on the top, 30ml by the bottom. That is the only metric in the world that I would trust my life upon not even those one's in the French Museum. But alas there was no measurer here and I had to be content with the plastic bottle where my blood would be collected.There was a gentle prick on my left hand and before I knew it it was flowing drop by drop. I realized that at this rate it would take an hour before I was done. So I decided to strike conversation with the doc.

Me: Say Doc if my blood finds it way to some unfortunate kid, will he/she behave like me by any remote chance?
Doc: No chance, nothing of that sort will happen. Why do you ask?
Me: No I am a little worried if I would find some stranger kid running up to me and calling me Appa.
Doc: (Pauses for a minute) There is no chance of that happening. Your file says your sex life is non-existent and we don't disclose to anyone whose blood they are being transfused with.
Me: ?@#*&^%$.

This was a true Don't-Open-Your-Mouth-Again moment. But alas I did it again but in a different way. Realizing that I would only add to my long list of Most Embarrassing Moments I decided to keep quite and started staring at the bottle containing my blood. It was at this time I started doing a segmentation analysis of my blood content. If the 300ml were broken down into parts, I am sure it would consist of the following :-
1. Absinthe - 60ml (Ha Ha I have been having Absinthe. Take that you losers)
2. Whisky - 60ml
3. Beer - 60ml
4. Coovam - 60ml
5. Sambhar - 60ml
The last one being due to my fondness for Sambhar especially the one prepared by Amma. Once I had done this segmentation, I was thinking at the kind of target audience that they had to find. You don't find Absynth too easily in India, so I rule that out. Whisky and Beer, yes. Any Tom, Dick & Harry would fit the bill. Like minded shameless, getting scolded my mother types would fit the bill for Coovam. The last one is the easiest. Any mama/mami in and around Mylapore would fit the bill.

But this takes us to other important questions like this blood was going to be transfused to poor, unsuspecting, soon to be hero worshipping me children. Before you get all worked up, they check for alcohol content in the blood and mine was stamped as Agmark Pure Quality, the blood I meant. And i forget to mention, through all this I managed to sleep for a while. And to my shock I see some random guy clicking away my pic to glory. I was lying there open mouth, jollu vazhinjufying (Salivating), one arm in needle and an idiot clicked me right on such a pose. I have a feeling that the doctor might have made money by asking all the employees to stand in a line to watch this magificient spectacle. I asked the idiot to pass the camera to me and found the picture of mine that was taken. Unfortunately it was a fundoo camera and it looked like I was trying to fondle a three boobed woman rather than a person trying to locate the delete option.

If there is one thing I have learnt from all of this - A gadget is a source of perennial embarrassment to me. I better stick to my Sony Ericsson camera. Sigh.

P.S. : I did manage to delete the picture after some random pressing of buttons :-). Aall Izz Well.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Vijay Mallya says KF gives more Buzz than Google Buzz

Liquor baron Vijay Mallya has proclaimed that his beer, King Fisher gave a bigger buzz than Google Buzz.

"Having KF during a hot summer afternoon gives a better buzz than anything else including Google's".
"You also need not have any net connection to get this buzz", he added, thus showing off his immaculate knowledge of the IT space.

Moments after this news was announced other premier international brands like Budweiser started proclaiming that their beer gave the best buzz leaving Google's Marketing Team wondering whether their beer, errrr their brand was getting diluted.

Meanwhile Salman Khan has come out in support of Vijay Mallya, stating, "I truly agree with Vijay as I personally know the buzz which KF gave me on that fateful night when I cursed Aishwarya and ran over some pavement dwellers". He also said that RC Bangalore was the best team at the IPL.

Cricketer Muralitharan has responded to Salman's comments saying that Chennai Super Kings were the best team. Teary eyed he said, " I can never forget that journey on that bus". When informed that topic in question was Google Buzz, the latest Gillette Mach 4 Super Blade Anti-Social tool from Google, he was not available for comments.

In his inimitable way Ravi Shahtri has made himself available for comments even when it was not required. Commentating in the Ind Vs SA match he said, "There is only change in the Indian team with Laxman coming in and Shreesanth has missed the bus" and also for the sake of humour added," A hundred is a hundred is a hundred, at the Eden".

Friday, February 12, 2010

Aamir Khan to act in My Name Is Also Khan (MNIAK)

The First Idiot of Bollywood is all set to act in Karan Johar's latest movie My Name Is Also Khan (MNIAK). This is the first time a director has two latest movies as MNIK has just hit the screens with the Shiv Sena bowing to the public demands for release of the movie. The viewership though would be limited only to Ajmal Kasab - The Cute Terrorist. Bala Sahib has defended this move of his by saying, " This is the best punishment we can give to Kasab. He will surely turn Autistic by end of the movie and will hence help spread hope, joy, brotherhood etc."

This news has come as a major shock for Shahrukh Khan as it broke his bubble of being the supreme narcissist on the face of this planet. Well informed sources say that Karan Johar was forced into making this movie due to Aamir's idiotic behaviour during the premiere of MNIK. "Is my name not Khan too? Is my name not Khan too?", he went on screaming and added " Where is justice in this world? Even I want to state the obvious and tell to the world that My Name Is Also Khan".



Facing a potentially embarassing situation, KJ acted on the spot and came up with this 2 minute poster of My Name Is Also Khan.

When informed that the poster had more than a uncanny resemblance to MNIK, KJ brushed off the suggestions saying,"You know my latest trend in movie making. I make the same movie again with different actors like how I did with New York and Kurbaan".

"This time I have gone ahead a step and decided to morph the poster itself as I have other commitments with SRK", he also added for good measure. This led to a huge commotion in the press room as there was a sudden rush of actors like Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Imran Khan etc. thumping their chests and screaming "My Name Is Also Khan". This led to the fastest signing of MoU's with the various actors to make the sequels of My Name Is Also Khan. The sequels, KJ announced would be done in descending order of stupidity thus giving Salman the privilege of being the lead in My Name Is Also Khan - II. Rumours are already afloat with regards to Zaheer Khan being offered the lead in the 16th Edition of MNIAK.

The news of MNIAK and it's sequels have trigerred off a panic wave in Pakistan with reports of violence being reported from various parts of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). According to reports just coming in from Pakistan, players like Ex-Future Captain Younis Khan has accused India of once again neglecting Pakistani players and Pakistanis in general,in no particular order. Lalit Modi in hiss ussual lissping sstyle hass denied any involvement in thiss inssident.

In a completely unrelated incident Evander Holyfield, the former heavy weight boxing world champion is in talks with Rakesh Roshan for his latest venture "He Bit My Kaan".

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Shiv Sena Protests against release of Valentine's Day in New York

Mumbai based political party Shiv Sena has decided to protest against the release of the Hollywood movie Valentine’s Day starring Jessica Alba. This is in complete contrast to their usual stand of attacking only Autistic people like SRK, Big B within the country. When contacted, Balasahib father of Udhav Thackrey and Udhav Thackrey son of Balasahib, said

“We will not allow the western culture to affect western countries too from now. Enough is enough. So far we have been against anything related to Valentine’s Day and someone has the balls to make a movie on that name. We are going to destroy all movie halls in Mumbai protesting the movie’s release in New York”.

“But Baba was that not for MNIK”, said an always confused looking Udhav.

“Shut Up. We are jobless here in Mumabi. No one is giving us a damn these days and hence we have to go global”, beamed an excited Balasahib.

“For how long can we be only in Mumbai and India, I have also never seen US and in this way we can extend our vote bank too”, told Baba in complete ingnorance of the fact that only Indian Citizens err Mumbai Citizens could vote for him. When pointed to this Even-a-10thclass- school- kid-knows-it-fact, Baba in his inimitable style reeked off a completely unrelated “Mumbai Jalega” threat.

Baba also gave a detailed power point presentation to a shell-shocked media in which he outlined the strategy to capture the US market, the excerpts of which are produced below.

“We are going to make all the people who are going to watch Valentine’s Day watch MNIK too.”

On asked whether did he not protest against the release MNIK in India, Baba retorted back saying, “ Who ever will watch that movie will become autistic for sure due to SRK’s extra ordinary overacting which even surpasses the non-maratha actor Shivaji Ganeshan. We want to save India errrr Mumbai from becoming Autistic. We are doing our motherland a service and also want to show that we Marathi’s are second to none at using Office 2007”.

When queried on the small issue of transportation of thousands of Shiv Sainiks to the US, Bala Sahib replied saying, “ If they do not let us in there Mumbai jalega and all the costs will be borne by SRK”, which left journalists wondering if this was the Marketing Plan which the great Prof. Arindham Choudary of IIPM fame had proposed to SRK in favour of him hosting the most Expensive B-School Quiz ever in India.

In a completely unrelated incident, Pakistan’s former Captain Imran Khan voiced his support for the release of My Name Is Khan in Pakistan. Other people like the Other Khans of Bollywood, Akram Kham ( Ex. Chubby Bangladeshi Captain),Wasim Khan (Terrorist in the movie Roja), Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan expressed their solidarity for the movie thus increasing the Narcissism Quotient (NQ) of the world by 10 basis points.