Fighting the Establishment

Today morning I got a frantic call from Pastrami. Last I heard our investment banker friend was in Delhi on some personal work. Frantic is not like Pastrami at all.

He is always composed and calm, is Pastrami.

Sidin: "Hello... cough cough... hello?"

Pastrami: "Hey man... hows the tonsils?"

"Terrible. You tell..."

"Dude help me. Is there a flight from Delhi to Cochin?"

"Sure. There is that evening Air Sahara flight."

"Can't fly that. Anything else? Right now I have bookings for a Delhi-Mumbai-Bangalore-Chennai-Cochin flight..."

"What the... Why dont you just take the Sahara flight man..."

"Can't. Won't"

"Eh???!!"

"Yeah. Well... Um... I am sort of boycotting all brands that support Indian cricket."

"WHAT??!! Just like that? One moment your in Delhi visiting the parents and the next you are a viral anti-endorser type person? Dude..."

"We have silently suffered too much, Our team has really disgraced our nation at an international stage man. It is a national tragedy."

"You are taking this really badly aren't you?"

"Obviously. It is such a HUMONGOUS dissapointment man. Our team has really let us down."

"And that too continously since 1983 eh?"

"What? No man. You don't get cricket. It is a funny game. Not winning anything does not necessarily mean that we are not the best team in the world. We are one of the world's best teams man..."

"How much did we lose to Bangaldesh by? I can't put my finger on it..."

"Shut it. My principles man. So I guess I will have to fly all those hops to Cochin. But better than been taken for a ride by those crass money-grubbing cricket-bastards... I'm hungry man..."

"Buy something from the restuarant in the airport..."

"Nope. They sell Pepsi too. I am not falling for that one..."

"Hmm... But wait... you always carry a packet of biscuits right?"

"Threw them away a moment ago... Sunfeast. That too FitKit..."

"Grab a bite on the flight then..."

"Can't man. All low cost airline types."

"Pastrami stop acting like a child..."

"Dude does anyone in our cricket team endorse Itch Guard??!!..."

"Sachin maybe... hehe... no not that I know of..."

"I haven't changed in three days man. I've been wearing the same suit and shirt since I landed here..."

"Eh? No backup shirts?"

"All Westside..."

"Suits?"

"Mayur"

"Dammit... wear one of your t-shirts then man... wait... Reebok?"

"Hmm... sigh... Couldn't bathe well at home either. Mom has loaded up on Mysore Sandal and won't let me buy another one..."

"Tough being a principled man eh Pastrami..."

"But its all for a good cause man. You won't understand. This will force change in our cricket establishment. Slowly when thousands of us true cricket fans band together the brands will begin to see the point. Down with commercialism and crass profiteering in world cricket!"

"Conserve your energy man. You can't eat for another seventeen hours."

"No no I was asking around. And apparently there is a small tea shop in Chennai airport that is completely endorsement free."

"The sacrfices a cricket fan must make..."

"A TRUE cricket fan Sid..."

(Ominous beeping sounds)

"One second Sid..."

(Noise of pocket being rifled for coins)

"We're back online Sid."

"Pastrami... are you calling from a payphone?"

"Dude. I can't use my Hutch connection anymore. Obviously."

"Obviously."

"I am hungry, itchy, thirsty, dirty and miserable. But I feel great man. I feel like I am already setting the stage for a better World Cup in 2011. I am making a difference Sid. I feel so powerful. This is real public uproar."

"Good for you man... You are a complete idiot but anyways..."

"Hey you won't believe this but I think I see Yuvraj Singh. The blackguard! He must be on his way back home..."

"Does he look upset?"

"Oh terrible. He maybe wearing Gucci, D&G and Abercrombie. But boy does he look dissapointed... Though he is trying to hide it with a huge smile..."

"Relishing this aren't you..."

"Totally. And look Kim Sharma is here to receive him. She looks ravishing the little hottie..."

"She looks equally depressed I am sure."

"Absolutely. She is crestfallen in her tight t-shirt and hip-hugging jeans. It will not be a happy reunion for them. And all this hugging and kissing in the airport is just a ruse. I know they are burning inside."

"One cannot but feel terrible for Yuvraj. Does he have his limo waiting for him?"

"Looks like it. Is that a Lexus? I think so..."

"So I guess your plan is working already. So what if you're hungry and a fetid breeding ground for flesh-borne bacteria? Yuvraj must be feeling terrible in his designer clothes and in his limo cuddled up next to Kim Sharma no?..."

Awkward silence.

"Ok bye Sid."

"Tata Pastrami."

Clandestine Lurve

(This post is very context specific. You might not get it. But Lover Boy most definitely does. Guahahaha.)

Don't tell anyone. Not a soul. Nope not even your girlfriend. Parents are completely out of the question. Social networks are too strong to take lightly you know. (Orkut! Egads!) I dont trust any of you. So shush! Listen up. This is between us.

I am not sure. Well I AM 99.99% sure. But not completely. You know how it is. You are really sure but you must see it with your own eyes and spy camera before you can be sure. But anyways. Back to crux of the issue. The filling in the puff: I really really think a very close friend of mine is seeing someone. We are very close. Almost like roommates. But not quite. He lives in his office at Prabhadevi most of the time. Otherwise you can find him in the gym near his office. Or so he wants us to believe. By us I mean our friends circle.

In fact that is where this story of deception, subterfuge, perfumery, personal health advancement and clandestine lurve begins. The gym. Ah yes. Gyms. Wonderful places that suck out all your money and in return gives you torn cruciate ligaments in the right knee. But I guess I was an exception. In our friend's case (after all my friend is your friend) it all began all too suddenly sometime last November. It was another muggy evening in Mumbai and the author felt like a quick trip down to the local Cafe. Not one for solitary socializing the author reached out to Pastrami and Lover Boy. Pastrami was too busy in the office. There was a new secretary and Pastrami wanted to show her some spread sheets. (He he.) That left only Lover Boy. Ring ring click.

You want to do coffee?
No.
What? But you always do coffee...
Not today...
Why not?
Err... I need to... you know
No
Oh I didnt tell you?
Tell me what?
That I am going to the gym now. Everyday. After work.
What? Why? You are a pipsqueek. (He is. Thin. Scrawny. Completely insubstantial. A shrimp.)
I need to put on some weight man. Get those muscles working.
Hmm. Good for you. Just tell them to keep their protein-shakey fingers off your cruciate ligaments.
Will do Sid.
Tata.

At the time it seemed like a reasonable thing. He really could use a little muscle all over. He was really very very thin. Not that he didnt eat or anything. Oh no, he worked through a stack of rotis and a bucket of Palak Paneer like a lumberjack. (The ones who like Indian food.) But he doesnt gain an inch. I know him from business school and he hasnt put on a bloody nanogram. In sharp contrast I merely need to walk by a the jalebi maker who stands outside my building and my buttons start to pop. Zippers screaming and all. Lover boy must have astronomic metabolism rates, we all assumed.

That night he came back home at midnight. Worked late and then the gym, he said. I nodded. The next day I nodded again. And again. And again. After a week I began to smell something fishy. He was gymming on the weekends too. For several hours. Finally I came to know that he had come back home one Monday at three in the morning. A rough back of the envelope calculation revelaed that he must have gymmed between three and five hours that day. "What crap?!" I told myself. Next day I dropped in after dinner at his place. Lover Boy warranted some careful observation. He came back at four. And not with his shirt ruffled, eyes dropping, hair tousled and pants crumpled as most overnight MBAs return. No siree. He had a twinkle in his eye, a spring in his step and a song on his lips. (Saat Samundar from Vishwaatma. The remix version. Beats and all.) Only his hair was tousled. And was that a rather too conspiratory crumpling of the collars? My spider sense began tingling.

The weeks that followed threw up even more clues. A most casual user of deodorant till then he suddenly began using Tommy Hilfiger and such premium fragrances. And lots of it. Once, in the course of a chance meeting at Phoenix Mills, he hugged me and I passed out after having run into a block of solid Fahrenheit.

He then began to buy new clothes. Till then he was a conservative dresser with a particular penchant for downmarket t-shirts made in assorted South East Asian nations. The types that had lines like: 'Fashion Star 2003. Total Impact Garment" or "Looking Good. Emergency Style Attack." emblazoned on the back. Overnight he became a high-priority customer at Charagh Din. Everyday he was in a new shirt. In a mist of premium scent.

All the while his dedication to the gym hit Limca Book of Records levels. By my back of the enevlope calculations he should have by now at least begun to look much fitter like, say, Brock Lesnar or The Rock. But he still looked the same. Shrimp. My spider sense tingled like a dab of Itchguard after an all-day football game in the Mumbai summers.

At this point you might ask why I was so curious. Why should I be bothered? Why should I poke my mallu nose into his personal affairs? What was my problem? Did I not respect his privacy? Would I have enjoyed this scrutiny myself had I been in the same position? But then considering you have read this post till this point you have no right to ask me such questions. At all. Nosey you.

But due to the same joys that one gets when someone leaves their email open in a netcafe and saunters off, or gives you there cellphone wrongly assuming you will not read their SMSes, I kept persisting in my quest to uncover the "Mystery of the Gym" as the affair was being called by a select group of friends by then.

Then one day Lover Boy made a slip up. He asked me to join him with "some of my office friends" for an evening out in town. We left in his car and picked her up from near his office. Did his eyes just shoot her a quiet message through the rear view mirror? I may have been mistaken but I swear I saw him say: "Hey Baby! I am really sorry about the water buffalo who is with us today. I had no idea he would agree to come. I was just being polite. You look so beautiful." Hmm. Tingle. Tingle.

However the rest of the trip was uneventful. They shared no private jokes, did not stroll away into private corners and he did not seem to mind me talking to her with my natural charm and animal mallu magnetism. After a movie and dinner we were on our way back and we were back outside her house to drop her. In a moment of weakness, perhaps one of subtle indication, my friend spoke up: "Let me drop her at her place. Be right back." They walked away. TINGLE TINGLE.

So that brings us to last week. By this time several close friends have heard about the Gym Affair. The circles are rife with rumours and conspiracy. And our friend is pumping iron like never before. And then last week several things happened together. Lover Boy bought a new cellphone and I was inspecting it when I came across several well-taken portrait shots of the fair maiden. Later while out driving around he refused to play the usual CD, a combination of the best Govinda and Manna Dey hits. "Too crass this music. Lets play this Kenny G CD." I looked at him in shock, my eyes smouldering. His eyes, on the other hand, seemed to be focussing away into the distance. Dreamy. Romantic. TINGLE. Ah... Songbird...

And now, the final straw, I come to know that he has gone to a certain city in India to attend a certain friend's certain wedding. And who has accompanied him? Yup fair maiden herself. And how long is he there? Six days. But what is clincher? Drum Roll... Fair maiden is from the same city herself!!!

What are the odds? What are the chances that something romantic is afoot? Do you think Lover Boy is actually in love? Yeh sach hai ya sapna? Is it all just a misunderstanding? Are they just friends? Platonic ones? When he said "I am going to the Gym" did he actually mean "I am going to meet Jim"? Does that make the whole thing more disturbing? Who is this fair maiden? What does she see in him? Can anyone else hit on her? Will he get angry? (Remember he has now accumulated seven thousand manhours in the gym).

I am puzzled. But please dont tell him I told you. That was just between the both of us. Completely secret. Shush.

Come rhyme our nation to progress...

The rhyme now has a reason!!!

I was thoroughly overjoyed to read recently that we have liberated our little little (nanhe munhe) children from the tyranny of western influence. Or at least the Madhya Pradesh government has. I hope this is just the beginning of a long series of reforms in our education system. The time is undoubtedly right; for too long we have stuck to the age old norms of reading writing and arithmetic. Today we know that this alone is insufficient to guarantee success in our society. In fact this is not even important in the larger scheme of things.

I encourage each and every reader of this blog to applaud this move. But this alone is not enough. We Indians tend to give our MORAL support to each and every cause but actually do little to further the cause or even help the champions of the cause to make any money. This is abominable.

I have decided to openly support this noble (Nobel?) initiative of the MP government by kick-starting the process of scripting nice, ek dum desi, and patriotic nursery rhymes. I encourage all readers of this blog to add to this short list with their own educative yet home-grown examples of nursery-ready lyric.

Rhyme Number 1: (Baa baa black sheep)
Aaa Aaa Arjun
Have you any a seat?
First you tell me
Your community!

22.5% for SC/ST
27% for OBC
And the rest for the forwards
Who will soon live on the street.

Rhyme Number 2: (Johnny Johnny)
Mika Mika
Yes papa
Hosting party?
No papa
Kissing item girl?
No papa!
I saw it on TOI cover
Ha ha ha

Rhyme Number 3: (Rain rain)
Rain, rain go away
Come again another day
Johnny Josesph wants to play

Rhyme Number 4: (Mary had a little lamb)
Rahul had a little coke
A little speed, a little hash
Rahul had a little coke, the stuff was white as snow
And everywhere that Rahul went
Rahul went, Rahul went
And everywhere that Rahul went, Sahil was sure to blow

Rhyme Number 5: (Row row row)
Sing, sing, sing through your nose
And wear a stupid cap
All the autos play your stuff
But you mostly sound like crap

Rhyme Number 6: (Jack and Jill)
My Chennai aunty always stood in line
To fetch a pail of water
She hoped things would change post-election
Instead of water she got free television

As you can see there is infinite potential to make nice bharateeya poetry for our young ones to learn in school. I encourage all of you readers to generously contribute to this just cause and help in the betterment of our education system. Please leave your nation-changing poetry in the comments... this is your chance to make a difference...

The best contributions will be published in Hafta to much… er… fanfare…

Sidin's guide to the greatest Indian cricketers of all time especially that period between 4 and 6 pm last week

After yesterday's fantastic win against Pakistan there is a new-found optimism in the Indian camp especially with our younger players coming of age and beginning to complement the senior players nicely. When asked of his feelings about the current Indian team Rahul Dravid stated that there was a new-found optimism in the Indian camp especially with our... you get the drift yeah?

So it is but natural that several young Indians of today, drunk with current glory, lose touch with the glittering past of Indian cricket. India has had a history of outstanding cricketers many of whom have been instrumental in the achievement of a large number of cricketing records by countries like Australia, Pakistan, England, Scotland, Vidharbha etc.

This negligence has to stop and the movement to relive our cricketing past starts with this blog right now. So today we celebrate some of the luminaries who have taken Indian cricket to where it is today in the cricketing record books (i.e. in the "vs." column). This list is by no means exhaustive, authoritative or even authentic, and the author strongly expresses the opinion that you do not try this at home.

List of luminaries with brief biographies, often true. (Part 1)

Ranjit Singhji: One of the first great Indian cricketing heroes. Singhji was "The cricketer formally known as "Prince"". His most famous exploits include obtaining a UK visa and work permit and inventing the Leg Glance, a move whereby when friends' sisters walks by in a short skirts you make a sweeping cricket shot action imitation thereby looking at their legs but not getting caught. Famously, Ranjit Singhji once fell ill after a mixing some bad milk in his cup of Darjeeling and could only bowl a single over. In spite of this he got 3 wickets through judicious use of line and length. This is immortalized today in the famous "Corridor of Uncertain Tea". He names lives on to this day in the form of the tournament named after him, the "Coca-Cola Cup".

Gundappa Viswanath: Widely considered the greatest left-handed batsmen from Andhra with a moustache to play in the 60s, in Indian History. Played several crucial test innings for India, many times pulling India back from the brink of complete disaster, taking them to mere comprehensive defeats. He was a daring, brave batsman who stood fearless in the face of the quickest bowlers, primarily because he was blinded by his moustache. Renowned for his deft footwork, he once, after being bowled for duck, moonwalked all the way back to the pavilion. His first name means "Fat Papa" in Tamil and this ensured constant victory for India against the Sri Lankans who could not bowl at him with a straight face.

Sunil Gavaskar: The first big international Indian cricket star. Scored thousands upon thousands of runs in a career that spanned several millions of balls left outside off-stump. He was affectionately known as Sunny, the Little Master and that little Prick though the first two were rarely used. He was a tireless team player and inspiring captain who often shouldered a lot of the batting burden and most of the match fees single-handedly. Gavaskar was a cricketer who patiently waited for the loose ball and once did so for three whole days in a limited overs match before stadium security politely asked him to leave. Gavaskar became the captain of India in 1982 taking on the mantle from Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan, an accomplished cricketer himself, who retired from cricket in protest after it became mandatory to wear kits with one’s full name on the back.

Ravi Shashtri: Holds the record for maximum sixes hit in one over with 6 against Tilak Raj in Bombay. Shastri would have hit more but little Tilak had maths homework and a Social Studies test the next day and we all know how bad 7th standard CBSE is. Shastri was one of our first great all-rounders and once, in a remarkable game in the 1987 tour of Ooty and Coimbatore, Shastri bowled himself around the legs. Ravi Shastri was the heartthrob of millions of women in the late 80s and early 90s and was considered a great looker. This has now been found to be an error due to primitive TV broadcasting technology. He is now a well-known and respected cricket commentator. Fiercely patriotic, he recently pegged India to win all the one-days in the South African tour of Sri Lanka.

Kapil Dev: Explosive with the ball, dynamic with the bat and ridiculous with the English language, Kapil Dev was the life of many humorous post-match press conferences. Dev often stood alone in the face of adversity and dragged India out of tight spots. His 175 run innings in Tunbridge Wells is a classic and some of his shots continue to orbit the Earth to this day bouncing off space stations and interfering with TV broadcasts (see Ravi Shastri above.) Kapil Dev was also one of the first few cricketers to make it big in the world of advertising and synonymous with the caption: "Boost is the secret of my enema. Our enema. (Smile)" Nowadays he is a successful entrepreneur and often appears on TV when he roots for India from his heart saying: "India needs to play the games with the heart and the tactics is nice if then the whole together comes... err... boost is the secret of my enema..."

Krishnamachari Srikkanth: A dynamic one-day player who pioneered the technique of repeated letters in one's name for good luck. Srikkanth was an explosive opening batsman who often stepped out of his crease and swung his bat with great gusto only to be stumped down leg side. He holds the record for maximum consecutives world cups without a haircut (4). Kris Srikkanth was the quintessential South Indian in the team who rapidly learned Hindi while playing for India, leading to an average of well over 4 run outs per match in the process. Today Kris is a passionate cricket commentator who can say “Oh shit, sorry” in over 14 north Indian languages.

Venkatesh Prasad: If Akthar is the "Rawalpindi Express" then for many years Venkatesh Prasad, a key part of the bowling attack, was affectionately called "The Slow Bangalore Passenger That Is Currently Broken Down At Palakkad Station. Passengers approach ticket counter for refund please." Despite several key wickets, Prasad was not a pacey bowler but instead used a bewildering array of slow, slower and slowest balls to vex batsmen. In the 1992 World Cup he bowled a slow one to Wasim Akram that has not reached the batsman to this day. He was a pioneer of the "Intimidation" school of fielding whereby you do not run for the ball but merely try to stop it by looking at it gravely.

Anil Kumble: Named after the Anil Kumble Circle in Bangalore, where he grew up learning to bowl, Kumble continues to be one of the spinning maestros in the country. However he is not a big mover of the ball but instead unleashes a repertoire of balls so complicated even he does not know what he is doing. He holds the record for having captured 10 wickets in a single test innings but honestly cannot explain how. The author has a particular grouse with Mr. Kumble for having released a shitty cricket video game that the author's brother forced him to buy. The game has graphics reminiscent of a Rohrschach Test and game play marginally more engaging than digging one's nose. Kumble is frequently a useful all-rounder and was the first Indian to achieve the “supreme” double of 400 wickets taken and 4000 misfields.

Sachin Tendulkar: No one makes fun of Sachin. Not even me.

Sanjay Manrekar: Manjrekar is an exciting top order batsman with an amazing repertoire of shots. If you play him in that stupid Anil Kumble game that is. In real life he was often called a text-book cricketer, in the sense that watching him bat was like reading a macro-economics text book. Sanjay Manjrekar was full of technique and single-handedly developed 2567 ways of padding upto an off-spinner. His moment of glory was during the Ashes Test of 1994 when Imran Khan approached him and accepted defeat as several of the Pakistani players were collapsing from brain inactivity. Manjrekar valiantly declined and went on to score an astounding century in just under a fortnight.

Venkatpathy Raju: With tremendous movement off the pitch especially in windy gusty weather, Venkatpathy Raju is one of the lightest players to have ever played the game. His bowling, on the other hand, was tricky especially because of a complete lack of speed. Raju bowled with such little pace and his ball took so long to come that batsmen often practiced facing him by getting friends and relatives to courier cricket balls overnight to them through local courier companies.

That was the first edition of this special blog series on Indian cricket greats. Hope you enjoyed these brief character profiles and you often burst out, like Azhar, with the words: “Wow!! This I will do for free…” More exciting profiles of Indian cricketing heroes coming soon. Stay tuned.

(p.s. Before anyone gets worked up I know they were all brilliant cricketers and all this is just a joke. Except of course in case of Venkatesh Prasad. So please relax. And dont send hate mail please...)

Beep.. whirr... to you too...

Pardon me for the delay. I swear I have been trying to write all day. If only my computer would not shut down every fifteen minutes. But I am sure it has a very good reason. Just a few minutes ago, for instance, it shut down a few nanoseconds after a sad, sober announcement. A pop-up window mentioned solemnly that "Machi there is a romba serious error in location E12333:34. Very sorry da." (After a brief sojourn in a Chennai netcafe my laptop has never been the same again.) My CD drive made a little whirring sound. And then there was complete silence. This is, of course, is not a common occurrence. Most days when I power up it makes 7 beeps on working days, 9 beeps on weekends (except second saturday which, everyone knows, is holiday) and 11 beeps on bank holidays and shuts down instantly. But this silent demise was not a good sign.

So the other day my laptop, in a fit of entrepreneurial alacrity, decided to start up and shut down all by itself. While initially I found this rather proactive of it, it got tedious after 45 minutes. I was infuriated and gingerly hurled the machine against a particularly roguish part of the wall, from whence it bounced off, landed on my beanbag, slalomed down rapidly, elegantly bounced on the marble floor and landed squarely on the little toe of my right foot. The CD drive gave one last whirr of triumph before falling silent.

I have a history with computers. The first time I saw one in my father's office I was fascinated. I was particularly impressed by the CAPS LOCK function and the floppy drive. My father sat next to me and taught me to how to use the mouse, type small letters and even how to use a wonderful little program to draw pictures. After a few minutes of incessant clicking and draggin I unveiled a rough, but imaginative profile of a double-humped camel to everyone in Mr. Vadukut's office. They all nodded their heads in approval and there was wide consensus that, for my age, I had drawn an excellent picture of a sunflower.

Boom! one-nothing to the computer.

My first own computing device was an Atari TV game. I must have spend weeks in front of the TV with my trusty Atari console by my side. Then after two months I finally got the video to work and played a lusty game of basketball against the computer losing by a respectable margin of 240 - 12. I never recovered from that entirely. This relentless inferiority to computing devices often went public with disastrous consequences. Video game arcades were the absolute worst self-esteeming usurping exercise. My friends were all whiz-kids who completed Super Mario and Space Invaders several times between lunch and tea. I was however pathetic at all of them. So much so once, amidst a particularly hideous game of "World Cup Footbal 1990" my team walked off the pitch and refused to come back till I let someone else take over.

Thankfully I was exposed to little by way of computing in school except for the stray class in BASIC or MSDOS. I was not too bad at that honestly and except once, when I overclocked the computer so much it burst into flames and took down the computer lab and an adjoining indoor stadium, nothing of note hppened. But this meant I was not even remotely prepared for what awaited me in engineering college. Engineering college was the absolute nadir of my stormy relations with computers, scientific calculators, and zippers, though here I wil talk only of the first one.

Now I was one who had deliberately decided to stay away from any degree courses that might remotely be related to computing, electronics or mathematics. Which left only courses like Metallurgy, Civil or Chemical engineering. Now besides UDCT, which I lost by a single mark, there were few chemical engineering seats of high quality. And, as anyone who has been around a large construction site may have noticed, civil engineering isn't. So metallurgy it was. I loved chemistry and was told by a learned uncle that metallurgy had a lot of chemistry. That turned out to be completely false and taught me to never ask my uncle, a bakery owner and part-time landscaping designer, for educational advice. The only chemistry in four years of engineering was the little bit I had with a buxom little assistant in Basic Chemistry Lab. Boy, she was quite an item and was absolutely wicked when engorossed in titration. (For the non-scientific titration is a chemical process and not, as you might think, wife telling husband "No darling, one today and the other tomorrow...")

But I digress. The point was in third year, to my considerable chagrin, I notice that we had something tucked away in our syllabus waiting to pounce out unawares. Computer Programming in Fortran and C. The effect this had on my morale was devestating. Metallurgy is otherwise a remarkably simple course to pass. You only had to turn up for class and the degree was yours. But Fortran and C changed everything. This meant we had to learn, remember and even be able to program. And suddenly all the Computer Science guys were looking at us and smirking.

I hated the Computer Science guys. They called themselves the CompScis (pronounced Komskees) and were often seen using computers and engaged in incomprehensible conversation. And within this group was an even more bewildering group called the Coimbscis. They were not just Compscis, but also were all from Coimbatore. I was frendly with many of them, but often they fell into long tirades I could never comprehend. For example a joke would go like this:

"So there is this guy... blah blah blah... Silicon Graphics... Device drivers... blah blah... and... (pause for punchline)

"...he finds that his RAM had actually overflowed 4.3 million schnitzelblimps!!!"

Everyone would burst out laughing with cries of "sooper" "ayyo" and "too much da machi..." I would laugh along whole heartedly as well but mostly at my own ignorance. So when JKR walked into class for our first Fortran lecture I was fairly tense.

But JKR was even more tense. JKR is the sort of prof who really knows his stuff well but cant speak to an audience if his life depended on it. Which meant JKR would completely go to bits in front of a classroom. First his palms would shiver, then his whole arm and before long his torso and limbs would have decided that it was better for everyone if they went their separate ways and saw other people. Once JKR walked into class and began a session on nested fruity loops when suddenly he stopped mid-sentence and started to slowly, yet with steady determination, topple to one side. Thankfully for him LKT was seated at the front bench that eventful day.
LKT was a monument of a man. He was huge and built like a tank. And he was scary. For example:

LKT: Hey guys lets go for lunch da
Me: Yup. I am damn hungry. I could eat a horse.
LKT: Ah then you must have it cooked in a cashew gravy with a roomali rotis. You don't get good horse nowadays though.
Me: Gulp. Correct.

LKT jumped from his seat, walked through his table and swept the wilting JKR in his arms and off his feet. JKR was out of service for a week or so. LKT was teased a bit for a few days till he picked up a classmate and flung him over the compound wall to Dindigul, a place near Pondicherry.

I still cannot fathom why we were asked to do some of he things we did. For example we were asked to write a program that made prime numbers appear in the form of a symmetrical triangle. (Man even now I can never find out why we did that...) In another instant I sat in the computer facility for 47 hours straight, 3 of which awake, trying to write a program that took 2 numbers as input and gave the lowest prime number between them as a result. When JKT walked over to my terminal I was absolutely sure my code was excellent. He entered 4, 28. The code replied with surprising confidence: “glix@”. There was a minute of silence after which JKT confirmed that glix@ was not a prime number and I had to redo the exercise.

Business school was much better though. The extent of computational complexity was limited to making Excel spreadsheets do insane things. Now let me tell you something about spreadsheets. Spreadsheets, with some practice, can do some pretty amazing things. Besides a host of mathematical and statistical functions, spreadsheets can also graph, approximate, manage data, and in one memorable incident, finished a game of solitaire in a mere 34 seconds.

I used spreadsheets for a variety of uses and, in Marketing 2, with a lot of graphs in upto 3 colours, proved that the national demand for motorcars in India in 2008 would be 4.82 cars. (This does not include imports and, you must admit, is much more accurate than glix@)

After two years of using a little excel and a lot of “Web History Sweeper” I came out with a diploma and destiny full of powerpoint. But honestly Powerpoint is an amazing piece of work and makes even the most stupid statements like “Diversification often leads to dilution of equity and shareholder benefit-evaluation mental paradigms” seem like profound observations. Apparently you can also make graphs in Powerpoint, but I think that is a baseless rumour.

(A complete chapter will be dedicated to powerpoint soon...)

So there. Computing and the author have never got along quite well. We keep making jibes at each other every few days. If you are a technology-challenged person like me there is one gospel truth you need to know. This is the bloody crux of this post. Even if you dont take anything else away from this post, remember this: All computers...

WAIT... NO!!... Dammit... Beep Beep Beep. Whirr.


(p.s. Expect a startling revelation about career moves soon...)

Phyrds Uykl 33

This friday I made a startling discovery in the office. It was four pm and as usual I was busy battling with the printer to get a couple of important print-outs. After twenty minutes of pressing all the buttons on the printer and some on the adjoint shredder for good measure I was forced to call in the local IT expert. We gathered around the printer trying to make sense of the teeny two line LCD display and the absurd messages it flashed at two minute intervals. It was a rather newish HP printer that was loaded with the latest in cutting-edge customer friendly software which ensures "thousands of trouble-free printer outs". The IT expert soon smiled to himself and set to work. 'It takes a deft hand you know" he said, as he switched the printer off and then on again. After warming up for sometime it flashed "Paper Jam" quickly three times in quick succession, made a gleeful choking sound and then triumphantly went quite. The LCD display said, with a resounding look of self-satisfaction, "Phyrds Uykl 33". My IT expert confirmed that this was not one of the listed responses in the customer-friendly infomation booklet and may take some more time and effort to repair. I was frustrated, it was already 4:30 and I had to get that print-out or it would be the end of my weekend. In a fit of rage I asked him: "Kya fax machine kaam kar raha hai?..."

Silence settled on the office suddenly yet quietly, briefly reminding me of several occasions when the Non-veg Kebab platter was brought to the table at Tomatoes in Ahmedabad. But soon that memory faded when the IT expert turned to me and said. "Kar rahi hai..., Fax machine kaam kar rahi hai..." I was curtly reminded of the fact that in the Hindi language the Fax Machine, that block of pastic, electronics, and heavily miniaturised cd-changer full of assorted beeping noises, was indeed a female. I apologised and just to show that I had caught on, I sashayed over to her, the fax machine, and picked up one of the many pieces of paper in her inbox. I stood ramrod straight, looked out over the office full of expectant eyes and said "Yeh fax bahut acchi hai..." The ensuing rush of Tangdi Kebab memories meant I had goofed up again. Damn it!! I can never get Hindi...

It all begins many years ago. Back when i was just a kid with all the good looks, snappy wit and dreamy eyes I have today but a little less facial hair. Overhearing what my dad told the cabbie everyday I quickly picked up my first words of Hindi. "Doosre Parking sign se right lena". When I turned old enough to travel in a Cab on my own I confidently mouthed those words just after the cab went past the roundabout. Of course I never knew what they meant exactly. But having seen many Hindi movies I worked it out to mean, roughly of course, "please take me to that red building with the grocery shop on the front near the parking.". One friday evening coming back from a friend's birthday party the cabbie went the other way around the colony and I was put in a spot. I tried saying 'doosre parking se right lena' a couple of times in succession, but I was soon very lost and was subject to interesting Hindi from the cabby some of which I continue to decipher to this day. (An interesting usage involving "stupid kid", "large piece of wood', and "back side" haunts me in sleep sometimes...)

Ironically this did not mean I was bad in Hindi at school. Oh no no. On the other hand I did pretty good in the subject. My mother, quickly noted that I was languishing in the low "F"s in Hindi while even in Physical Education I was scoring commendable "middle-D"s. I was quickly put on a regime of daily one hour sessions of Hindi which involved committing to memory large tracts of Hindi poetry and prose, not even leaving out the merest of punctuation marks. It would go:yadda yadda yadda full stop, yadda, comma, yadda yadda exclamation mark. I was soon regurgitating my way into the statospheric high-Bs in Hindi. All this without understanding a word of what I was committing to memory. (Students out there should not try this yourself. Especially if your learning neurosurgery, nuclear detonation and stuff like that.) There were rude shocks to this strategy of course. Once, in a fit of uncalled for spontaneity, my Hindi teacher slipped in a short essay question into the half-yearly exam. To be written in, shudder, your own words.

For half an hour I watched, with loathing in my eyes, my hindi-speaking classmates hunched over whipping up paeans on the "Weather of your home state", or "The importance of science" depending on which one they chose. Finally I picked up my pencil and went for it. For the next two weeks, every Hindi class, I held my breath as the Hindi teacher walked in, hoping that she was not carrying a pile of thin pink test notebooks. One of those notebooks had a brief description of the rains of kerala in a language that was a melange of bad hindi, english and malayalam. All in devanagri script of course. Then one day she walked in with those books and there was much laughing, roaring of rips and loss of self esteem after that.

But there was no respite. I tried picking up bits and pieces from the weekly Hindi movie on TV but then how many 7th standard essays can you write with an assorted vocabulary of haraam zaades, khoon pee jaoonga and rishte me mein tere baap something something. (Though I did manage to once start an essay on domestic animals with the words "Duniya mein do tarah ke pashu hote hain, domestic and wild...")

And as the years went by things were getting difficult. In class 9th I begged my dad to let me shift to french. Everyone else in the school did, bar 10 or so people. And I was one of them. While the french guys gallivanted with their foreign textbooks and 95+ percent class averages we struggled with Subhadrakumari Chauhan and Harivanshrai Bacchan. Mind you I am sure the poetry was immaculate and the prose was stirring. The native hindi-speakers often rose in raptures when our teacher explained some of the finer points of some of the poems. I did understand some of the couplets by Kabeer and Tulsidas. Alas the inevitable happened, I flunked in Hindi. Out of a maximum possible 100 marks I had scored 16 in total. 8 marks came from some fill in the blank type question set and some true-or-false type questions.

This of course meant I needed to get private tuition. In hindsight Mr. Tripathi looked exactly like Amitabh Bhachchan in Bunty and Babli. He always wore Ray-bans, had that rustic charm around him and spoke English like a true Hindi teacher. "Next month fool reeveezun okay?" The first day he came he spoke to me non-stop about how he was trying to get a driving license and had been at it for years. In chaste Hindi. It was not a gentle baptism. By the end of the year I had learnt well. My hindi was ok, but my real skill was at listening to people and nodding my head at the just the right spots without understanding a single word. Tripathi sir got his license on the seventh attempt or so.

Of course its not all my fault you know. Hindi is a terrible language if your not tuned in well enough. There's that gender problem of course. Every bloody thing has to be male or female. Hindi-speakers do not enjoy the comfort of an ambiguous "it". Ask them how they know whats a "he" and whats not and they will just smile. Yes we mallus might speak like the babbling of a brook, but we know better than to make a coconut palm a he. Or a she. Dammit. (No but it has nuts jokes please.)

Then there is the merciless use of emphasis to add a little twist into an already infuriating language. How many mallus have been laughed at for downing a few drinks, raising there arms and singing out loud "Khajra Re" instead of "Kajra Re". Oh yes and we can never get enough of the "Hahahah he said KANA instead of KHANA..." little witticism. That pronounciation will be the end of me. I have often made my maid at home think she is a close male relation. She burns the dal when I do that.

But I think its all a huge conspiracy. A conspiracy to poke fun at non-natives. Otherwise why would have a perfect ek, do, teen, char, sade char, sade paanch system. And then screw it all up with dhed, dhai, savva and other hideous fractions. Only so that around lunch time in the office they can ask you the time and then grin and titter when you say saade ek. Those fractions can have no other purpose. Once I went all around Wadala market trying to flaunt my knowledge of dhed, savva, dhai and so forth. I was out buying vegetables but very soon it all fell apart. By the time I was done shopping I had enough provisions to cook a small bowl or two of rice, several tons of karela sabji with a kilo or two of salt thrown in. It was a disaster. But whenever I go back there is a sparkle in the eyes of them vendors. Especially the karela guy.

But according to me the greatest conspiracy of all is expressly meant to prevent mallus, tams, gults and the like from marrying into Hindi-speaking families. It is a move of ethnic-purity maintenance par excellence. In a flash of brilliance they have ensured that no sanity-loving young boy will ever woo a hindi-speaking maiden if he did not know the language himself. To ensure you never fit in, the Hindi language has created a puzzling array of terms for every possible relationship in the family. So by the time you are done meeting the Chacha, chachi, bhabhi, jija, nana, nani, kaka, dada, dadi, lala, mama, mami, potha, pothi, tau and of course the didi of devar fame, you no longer know who is married to whom and who fathered whom. Soon you are frothing at the mouth, your head is spinning and in a fit of confusion request your girlfriend for her second cousin's hand in marriage... master stroke I tell you... I once even called someone at a very hindi dominated wedding a "bhajji" by mistake. Thankfully they were not from Chennai and did not realize I was calling them deep fried vegetable in gram flour dough.

Aha. But try we must. The other day a Taxi driver incessantly harangued me for an hour from Bandra to Wadala in the purest, most passionate marathi. I nodded, sombrely hmmed and once, just past the Don Bosco church, laughed with him heartily at a particularly lewd joke. I never understood a single word of what he said. Tripathi had taught me well indeed. Anyways it is a working day and I must go now. As I once heartily proclaimed while leaving a friend's house in delhi, "Chalo mein ja rahi hoon..." Yes you can laugh now, haraam zaade... zaadi... zaada...Crap.

p.s. I have just been told my a close confidante that lala is not actually a bonafide Hindi relation. In place of that please read phoopha. No I am serious.