The other adults in the room managed to salvage the situation and thankfully mom’s friend didn’t take offence of Mukta’s words. Later that evening when Mukta returned from the park, my wife tried having a conversation with Mukta about the episode. Mukta was however not interested in discussing the issue. But my wife was adamant. She wanted the kid realize that her behavior was not right. So she started giving the kid pep talk on manners, courtesy, politeness, feelings and so on. Mukta was a little confused. After hearing all that mommy had to say, she said “but I really don’t like aunty”. My wife tried to argue saying “Why don’t you like her? She is nice to you, she always gets you something – chocolates, toys”. “But I still don’t like her” was Mukta’s counter argument. The discussion went on for a while. Mukta had no particular reasons to cite for her dislike, and my wife was soon losing her patience with the kid.

“You should not talk to people like that, that rude. It’s not right” at one point my wife almost scolded the kid. “But I really don’t like her. Really, really (Mala ti kharach avadat nahi, kharach, kharach)” Mukta tried to sound as convincing as possible, but when she realized that her arguments weren’t good enough to convince mom, she ran away to avoid further confrontation. I was just a silent spectator to this conversation. I chose not to interrupt because I didn’t know whom exactly to support. But when Mukta fled the argument scene, my wife looked at me and said “Your daughter is growing up to be very stubborn and rude” and then after a brief pause she added “just like you”. Her last three words took me by surprise. I couldn’t comprehend why and when had I got dragged into this mess. “What? Now what did I do?” was my instant reaction. “Nothing” was the reply.

‘Oh-O, there comes another Nothing’ I thought as I tried to gauge what this nothing was about. I really dread ‘Nothings’. Now not that I am really good at relationships, but over the years if I have learnt something then it’s knowing for sure that ‘Nothing’ is by far the most complicated expression a woman can throw at you. Nothing is never nothing, it’s definitely something, it’s everything; it’s much more that that actually. Never should you ignore a nothing. But at that moment I chose to ignore the ‘Nothing’. My mind was occupied by my child’s words, and some interesting thought that it had generated, and I didn’t want them to be distracted.

I was actually amused at the ease at which my kid had uttered those words. I wondered, could I be that brutally honest at expressing my feelings too? How would people react if I actually told them “Hey, you know what, I don’t like you”. Would they demand explanations on why I don’t like them, or would they pick up a fight, or would they just benignly accept the fact and walk away with a smile? (I know for sure that some would definitely complain to my mom about my unruly behavior). I soon started having imaginary conversations with some selected acquaintances and family members, conversations that went like: “Hey we should meet up sometimes?”… “No we shouldn’t”… “Why not?”… “Because, I don’t like you”. Another conversation went something like this “Why didn’t you attend my son’s wedding?”… “Because I don’t like you.” I started visualizing reactions of people when I said those words. It was fun, in a very weird way. I was starting to like my idea of being honest instead of being diplomatic. It definitely was a twisted thought, but I was enjoying it :) – enjoying it enough to risk ignoring my wife’s ‘Nothing’.

Later that night I asked my wife “Is there somebody you don’t like?”. My wife gave me the ‘Right now, it’s just you’ kind of looks. But before she could express herself further, I went about explaining my thoughts that had resulted from Mukta’s words; thoughts about being honest and actually telling people the way you feel about them. “What do you think? From now on can we start being absolutely honest with everybody?” She looked at me for a while and said “I think you are just crazy. You have gone mad.” “Well no seriously, can we actually start being totally honest with people?” I tried to clarify my point. “I just did.” came the reply. There was an awkward moment of silence that followed and then a “Goodnight”. That marked the end of the conversation, and my ‘honestly’ plans as well.

Well there is fantasy, and then there is reality. The reality is that I am no more a five year old and thus I can’t exactly enjoy the liberty of being that honest. So I shelved my “I don’t like you” gig (at least for now). But that’s okay. I don’t go about telling a lot of people “I like you” either, even when I do like them. So I guess that balances things off. But when I see my five year old expressing her opinions freely, I at times feel jealous. I secretly wish that I could do that too. Well that’s life. I have come a long way from being a five year old, but at times I am left wondering if over the years did I really grow up, or did I just learn to act?

I was disappointed the moment I stepped into the place. That the place never looked like the picturesque police station I had imagined. It bore the looks of just any other rundown government office – unclean floor, a few broken windows, stained walls, stinky toilets, dust covered files piled up on open racks; I even spotted a few rats running around. People were walking in and out of the place as casually as they do in a park. I couldn’t see anybody being handcuffed, beaten, or being taken away with their faces covered in a black cloth. At least I hoped to see a lockup with bars and a big lock, but I couldn’t find it either. Had there not been a signboard at the gate, I would have never believed that this place was a police station.

Anyways, without wandering much, we managed to locate the cabin of the inspector who had summoned us. Surprising the inspector was quite warm at welcoming us and as soon as we entered his cabin he asked if we would like a cup of tea or coffee. I was a bit take aback by this courteous gesture; I should admit I had expected a ruder cop. Our discussion with this cop went pretty well. But while we were discussing our case, there was a small interruption by a junior inspector who came in to discuss a problem. Here’s an extract of the conversation (translated from Marathi) that followed between the junior inspector and his senior:
Junior Inspector (JI): Sir, we don’t have a patrol vehicle for tonight.
Senior Inspector (SI): Why what happened?
JI: Sir, Vehicle 1 is out on duty, and we sent Vehicle 3 for VIP duty.
SI: and Vehicle 2?
JI: Sir it’s not working
SI: Then why did you send Vehicle 3 on VIP duty, you should have sent Vehicle 2.
JI: Vehicle 2 is not working, it doesn’t start. So I sent Vehicle 3
SI: But what’s the use of keeping Vehicle 2 for us, you should have kept the good one for us and sent the bad one on VIP duty.
JI: (repeats) But Vehicle 2 is not working, so I sent Vehicle 3 for VIP duty.
SI: Now what will we do with a non working vehicle.
(JI does not reply).
SI: That why you should have kept vehicle 3 for us, and sent Vehicle 2 instead.
JI: (apparently realizing his mistake) Now what to do sir?
SI: Let me see what to do. But next time always keep the good vehicles for us, and send away bad ones.
JI: Okay Sir (and left the room)

I was very much tempted to ask this senior inspector, “How was he supposed to send away a vehicle that wouldn’t start?” But then I chose to keep quiet and not interfere with police work. Maybe there was something I was missing about the whole vehicle issue. Maybe they had a way of somehow dispatching vehicles that didn’t start. Maybe ‘Vehicle’ was a code word for something else. Well a lot of ‘maybes’ were possible. After all these were detectives at work 

When we finished discussing our case we were asked to meet his assistant and record our statements. Now this assistant was a guy straight out of a comic movie - he was talkative, absent minded, and a wannabe ‘Karamchand’ who apparently had ended up as a police typist. The moment he heard our case, he started off by giving us an elaborate history of similar cases that had happened in the past. He then came up with his own very interesting conspiracy theories on our otherwise straight forward case. When I tried to refute his arguments he tried to convince me by citing many instances of sabotage that he had witnessed in his entire police career. Finally I had to accept his theories so that we could proceed with recording the statement.

When we started recording the statement, our conversation was often interrupted by visitors. Every time there was a visitor he would get involved in a detailed discussion with them. When he would return to me, it would take him a few minutes to recap our prior discussion and refresh his memory. Once it so happened that when the visitor left, he started discussing their case with me, giving me his viewpoints and asking me my opinions on it. By then I had started enjoying this guy’s company. He sure was an entertainer. So when he asked me my opinion on a real police case, I didn’t miss out my opportunity of playing Karamchand either (well I always wanted to be a detective). Finally after a very satisfying investigative brainstorming session with my detective buddy, the only thing I hoped for was a carrot to chew on (Karamchand style). Finally after more than an hour, we finished recording the statement; a simple procedure that should have normally taken not more than 10 minutes – not to mention that there were tea breaks and mava (chewing tobacco) eating and spitting breaks in between too.

My overall experience at the police station was pretty casual. It wasn’t intimidating, but it wasn’t professional either. It just left me wondering – how do they manage to tackle real crime?

Gifting is a complex ordeal. It involves a whole socio-psycho-financial analysis that I am not so good at. It starts with analyzing the reason for gifting followed by assessing your relationship with the person you buying the gift for. In most cases you have no idea what this person likes, at the same time you don’t think it’s a wise idea to just ask what gift they want. You don’t want to spend a whole lot of money either, yet you want to make a decent enough impression. All these factors add to the complexity of the situation. But while buying gifts is complex enough, faking happiness when you receive a totally useless gift is far more difficult. I guess that’s why as a kid my parents never let me to open gifts the moment I received them. They said it was bad manners to do so and insisted that I should open the gifts only after the party was over and all guests left. They probably knew that I was not good at hiding disappointments and wanted to avoid any sort of embarrassing situations that would have resulted from my unexpectedly ‘honest’ comments on seeing the gift.

But times have changed. Recently, I have often found myself in situations where my friends and family insist that I open the gift right in front of them. Thankfully over time I have matured as well. I have learnt to camouflage my disappointments. Experience tells me that the use of the words “Wow”, “Nice” and “Thank you” in a sentence followed by explicitly mentioning that you always wanted that gift item, works perfectly: “Wow, I always wanted a nice Pen, Thank You.”; “Wow. Nice. A photo frame, we always wanted one. Thank you”; “Nice, wow, I was just about to buy myself a coffee mug. Thank you”. Try it, it works. It has always worked for me except once when I hastily went “Oh, Nice, I always wanted a …..ehhh, hmmmm……. a wine cork opener?, …a can opener?, no, a screw driver?…a swiss knife??…well what is this?” It happened to be a multi-utility vegetable slicer. But that’s life. Every trick fails sometimes.

As a child, I remember, gifts were a lot less fancy than what they are today. In fact they were boring too – as boring as a stainless steel utensil with the gifter’s name and date engraved on the side/bottom of it. But amongst those many boring gifts that I have received, the most common and my most hated gift was a ‘cut-piece’. Some of you younger folks might not know what that is, but back then we had this tradition of gifting not shirts or pants, but rather long stretches of cloth called a ‘shirt-piece’ or a ‘pant-piece’ (collective known as a cut-piece). You then had to go to a tailor and get the shirt or pant stitched.

Now if you are wondering why I hated the cut-piece so much, well here’s how the story goes. Every time I got a ‘shirt-piece’ as a gift my mom would religiously take me to this old tailor to get the shirt stitched. The tailor would patiently take my measurements and ask us to come back after a week to collect the shirt. We never discussed designs or styles with the tailor. That was left to the tailor’s discretion. The only thing that my mom would request the tailor was to return the leftover pieces of cloth. That was her only concern. Unfortunately the honest tailor always obliged. Now these leftover pieces would end up as a bag (the typical cloth ‘thaili’) that would be used for grocery/vegetable shopping. Now can you imagine my embarrassment having to wear a shirt with two large pockets, large colorful button (yup, that was the tailors idea of fashion), a long collar, and a perfectly matching shopping bag to go with it. Back in those days we didn’t even have all these ‘say no to plastic bags’ campaigns or those ‘save the planet’ facebook kind of groups. If we did, I would definitely join all such online groups and flaunt an ‘environmental friendly activist’ kind of image and somehow use it as a cover up for this whole matching shirt-bag debacle. But unfortunately, I just had to live through all the embarrassment – all because of that ‘cut-piece’ gift.

Talking of environmental friendliness, one thing that my family invariably recycles are ‘gifts’. Many gifts that come into the family get recycled (they are re-gifted). Now I actually don’t have a problem with that. I feel it’s a smart thing to do. The only problem I have is that my parents even recycle the wrapping papers. They have a whole stack of saved up wrapping papers, unwrapped from gifts, folded and kept aside for future use. Unfortunately my parents are not very skilled at this art, nor do they care much about it. So often the wrapping paper on every gift they re-gift is usually crumpled, sometimes it’s a little shorter than the gift, and at times it has few leftover pieces of tape from the earlier wrapping. I have often brought these things to their notice, but their standard reply is “Who cares about the wrapping? It’s the gift that matters” leaving me with nothing more to say. Well on second thoughts, it’s a good thing that they don’t use fancy paper to wrap recycled gifts. At least it doesn’t raise expectation of the recipient. A real exotic paper with an old re-gifted piece of crockery set wrapped inside doesn’t make a great combo anyway.

PS1: What’s with this whole ‘return gift’ thing that popped up these days. It is my humble request to all you people that please don’t invent such new gifting practices. Don’t complicate ‘gifting’ any further.

PS2: I still like wedding invites that explicitly mention ‘No Presents’ on it. That’s one request I always oblige to.

If you happen to live in India, you first experience this being called ‘Uncle/Aunty’ moment sometime in your late 20’s (My sincere sympathies to those who have experienced this tragedy in their early 20’s). You are really lucky or a liar (and mostly the latter) in case you managed to stay away from being addressed as an Uncle/Aunty till you hit 30. But it really doesn’t matter how old you are when you first experience this tragic moment. The effect is equally devastating. And ironically the person addressing you as Uncle/Aunty is generally not a toddler, but some stupid, dumb, overgrown kid in his/her upper teens who does not have any respect for humanity or mankind – going about addressing youngsters like you and me as uncle/aunty.

I remember the time when my wife and I, on a warm and cosy afternoon during our honeymoon, were treading the paths of some hill station in southern India. My wife wanted to visit the local marketplace and so she stopped a school going girl to ask for directions. This kid (must be in her 9th or 10th class) was nice enough to explain us the way to the marketplace. When she was done with her explanation, just to reconfirm I asked “So we take the first left, and then the second right?” Without the slightest hesitation she replied “YES UNCLE”. She was loud, she was clear, and she had no regrets or remorse for what she had just said. But those two words - “Yes Uncle” - had left me speechless, embarrassed, and clueless on how to react. It was as if my whole world had been brought to a screeching halt, and then turned upside down. I was trying my best to remain ‘cool’, but in reality I was an emotional wreck. I looked at my wife, hoping she had not heard those words. But the smile on her face, that was growing wider and wider, told me that she had found one of the most blissful moments of her married life. And then when you think life can’t get any crueller, it just does. With that wide smile my wife looked at that girl and said “Thank You”. I don’t know if the thanking was for helping us with the directions or calling me Uncle. Anyways I was too disoriented to think anything. But what happened next will remain etched in our memories till we die. That girl looked at my wife and as she walked away said “WELCOME AKKA !!” (‘Akka’ means elder sister).

It is surprising how one of your most embarrassing moments in life can be your spouse’s most cherished moment. But then that’s life and you got to deal with it. But every time you think you have learnt to deal with life, some idiot pops up from nowhere and says “Uncle” – and this new idiot is older than the earlier one who called you Uncle. School kids, college kids, and even the door to door salesman now call you uncle. Even the telemarketer on the phone sometimes used that five lettered word to address you. Soon you lose count of the number of times you have been called Uncle – just like you lose count of the number of your white hair that keep lurking on your head.

Some days ago I was at the local market where I bumped into this kid selling lemons who said “Uncle, limbo le lo na, paanch rupaye ka teen”. This time I thought, let me not let the kid get away with calling me Uncle. After all I was his prospective client. So let me show the kid that I am not (yet) uncle material. So before I let him close the deal on the lemons, I asked “Kya re, tere ko kya mein ‘Uncle’ jaise dikhta hoon?”. I was hoping the kid would say something that would be apologetic in nature. Instead he looked at me rather surprised and said “Aap ko pata nahi? Aaj kal ‘Uncle’ fashion mein hain !!”. Now what more could I say? I was sort of stunned by that answer. I just did an “Hmmm…Oh, Ok!”, smiled at the kid and bought not three but six lemons.

The kid’s answer was sure gratifying enough for me to force myself to believe that all those people who have ever called me Uncle (including that school girl whom we had asked directions) were just following the latest fashion trends, and that those Uncle-ing references had got nothing to do with my age, appearance, or demeanour whatsoever. But still, it’s my humble appeal to all you young and old: Just stay away from this fashion at least when talking to me. I have a name, call me by that name. If you don’t know my name, just ask. I will tell you. But please refrain yourself from using that five letter word, at least for the next decade, however fashionable you might think it is.

After I was done with my dining, I asked the restaurant attendant on the whereabouts of the restroom/bathroom. Surprisingly they didn’t have one in their restaurant, but instead he directed me to the one at the other end of the rest area. Now it was dark outside. It was slightly drizzling, so the entire area was mucky. As I headed out waddling my way down that mucky path, at the far end I could see a dimly lit shanty with some hustle bustle around. I assumed that it must be the loo, and continued in that direction. There were no signboards anywhere but as I moved closer, the stench coming from that shanty confirmed that I was headed down the right path. When I finally reached the place, the scene inside was nothing but yuck. It was disgusting.

To begin with, the place was dimly lit; barely enough for one to figure out the architecture of the place. I guess, someone was taking the idea of energy conservation a little too seriously. As I quickly glanced the around, I noticed that one of the urinals had a branch of a tree stuck right in it, Well that wasn’t decoration or a ‘Go Green’ attempt, but rather an indication that the urinal was ‘out of order’ (like they sometimes stick a tree branch in open manholes – that same way). Some of the other urinals were completely broken; they didn’t need those twigs or branches to indicate their non-operational state. The ones that supposedly worked had no flushes. Instead there was a pipe that hung a few feet above that dripped water into them. I never figured out if it was a just a leaking pipe of someone’s idea of an automatic flushing system. I didn’t dare to venture any closer to figure out that mystery. I quickly relieved myself and exited that stink hole.

As I walked out of that place, I realized that what I missed about the American McDonald was not just the burger, but rather the holistic refreshing experience. For that matter not just McDonalds, but most American fast food joints and rest areas come equipped with a fairly clean public toilet system. Having spent about six years in Uncle Sam’s land, and now settled back home in Mumbai, that’s something I really miss in India. A clean restroom with all the necessary accessories is a non existing concept in the Indian public domain. In India if you ever feel the need to ‘go’ while you are on the go, you could be in big trouble. In most places, even finding a public restroom is a rarity. Having found one, being able to use it is an accomplishment in itself.

Well I need not write more about my yucky experiences, but as an end note I would like to cite this notice that was pasted in the toilets of one of the coffee shops in the city. It read “Please Do Not Use the Toilet Paper to Wipe Your Face”. On reading this I looked around, but apparently there was no toilet paper anywhere in there; leaving my mind unnecessary wondering about its disappearance and usage.

Falling in love is a beautiful thing. It seriously is. Some say it’s a naturally occurring phenomenon, but I don’t completely agree. You need to put in some efforts. You really need to take that plunge. But whether you take the plunge, or you get pulled or pushed into it, the fall offers an amazing feeling. It changes your world. Everything around you suddenly seems to be perfect, in fact beautiful too. It makes you smile more; sometimes you just can’t stop smiling even when there isn’t anything to smile about. Some lose appetite, some lose sleep, and some lose both. Songs suddenly appear more meaningful. You tend to become a more emotional person. You pride yourself in doing crazy things that under normal circumstances would deserve a “Are you out of your mind?” sort of an expression, but when in love you just don’t care. Your goodbyes on the phone last all night, you travel cross country just to spend a few hours with the one you love, you spend on expensive gifts, you eat things that you hated all your life just because sweetheart loves it. Reasoning and logic don’t apply to you anymore. You attain a state of trance; a euphoric feeling that not ever the finest champagne offers.

The ‘falling in love’ part is always nice; it’s the ‘standing up’ part where the problem lies. After you are done with the falling, there comes a time when you get up, and get on with life. You suddenly get busy with work, friends, family, and all other things that kept you busy before you fell in love. It’s your ‘catching up with life’ phase. That’s when your troubles begin – because when you took the plunge, you took it in tandem with your sweetheart, but when you decided to get up, you stood up alone. That’s when fights happen. You get accused of not being in love anymore. But that really isn’t the case. You are still in love; it’s just that you are no longer falling in love. You are standing in love - and a standing person behaves more sensibly than a falling one. A standing person also expresses his ‘lovely’ feelings less frequently (except when under the influence of alcohol.)

When in love, there are fights and there are break ups. That’s your opportunity to speak your heart out. You say things that you later claim were not meant to be taken the way they sounded. So now you make up. During the make up sessions you agree that nothing is more important than both of you expressing your true feelings, even if they cause conflict. But trust me, this doesn’t work. Things you said rarely get forgotten or accepted. They just get stacked back in memory, only to be used against you at a later time. All those ‘feelings’ and ‘pleasantries’ you had expressed during the fight, get evoked during the next fight. At times your partner’s memory amazes you and you once again get accused of not being in love anymore. But again, that isn’t the case. Just because you fight does not mean you aren’t in love. You are still standing in love and when you have nothing to do while you stand, you sometimes fight.

When you are standing in love, you often come across articles and forwarded emails that try to teach you what love is, what real love is, and what true love is. But I tell you, like those Nigerian emails that promise you a hefty sum of millions of dollars, these mails on love are nothing but crap. Don’t fall for them. They try to hypnotize you with a lot of philosophical bullshit that create an illusion of what love should be, what it actually means, and also how messed up your love life is. Don’t believe them. Just remember two important things. First, that it is okay to fight with the one you love. In fact I would say that a right partner for you is the one whom you don’t mind fighting with. Rest all is just ‘read and forgot’. So go fight it out. And second, and the most important thing, if your sweetheart ever asks you the reason why you love her/him, your answer should always be “because of your Inner Beauty” (even if you don’t have a clue of what it actually means).

Picture this
Scenario 1
Venue: Dining room. Time: 8:00 PM.
- Mom at a dining table - sorting out some bills.
- Her four year old at the table too, playing with dinner (eating some, dropping some)
- Mom goes to kitchen, leaving her bills and cheques on the table.
- Kid gets up from the chair, picks up a pen and draws an apple on mom’s cheque book
- Mom comes back, sees the apple and says “Oh, how cute”. Mom kisses the kid and asks “Did you draw this?” Kid lets out a big smile and a affirmative nod. Mom kisses the kid again and says “Now quickly finish your dinner and I will let you eat a chocolate later”
- Kid gets back to dinner, and mom looks at the apple in admiration

Two weeks later (Scenario 2)
Venue: Same dining room. Time: 8:00 PM.
- Mom again at the dining table - sorting out bills.
- The same four year old is at the table, again playing with dinner (eating some, dropping some)
- Mom goes to kitchen, leaving her bills and cheques on the table.
- Kid gets up from the chair, picks up a pen and this time draws a flower on the cheque book
- Mom comes back, sees the flower and yells “Who asked you to do this? You have started becoming naughtier day by day. Go and finish your dinner” Kid all confused; just stands there staring at mom. Mom shouts again. Kid doesn’t react. Mom gets angrier. Spanks kid. Kid cries. Mom forcibly makes kid sit on the chair and yells “Stop crying and do not get up from there until you finish your dinner”

Now this is what I call good parenting; the key to which lies in the ‘unpredictable behavior’ as a parent

In the above scenario, the kid probably never figures out what went wrong the second time. ‘Why did mom hit me? Last time when I drew the apple, she gave me a chocolate. This time I drew a flower and she hit me. Maybe mom doesn’t like flowers. Maybe she only likes apples. But I can draw a good flower. But I should have drawn an apple’ is what the kid thinks. What the kid doesn’t know is that mom had a bad day at work today, plus the amounts on the bills were higher this time, plus the bills were already a week overdue, plus she had an argument with dad a little while ago, plus the cheque on which the flower was drawn was the last leaf in the cheque book; and hence all the outrage and the spanking. But whatever be the reasons, mom’s actions today will result in making her a good parent.

If you want to be a good parent, be unpredictable. Your kids should never be able to predict your behavior. If they do, then trust me, they will manipulate you left, right, and center. Like it or not, you got to understand and accept the fact that your kids are a lot smarter than you. Now whether you lost your smartness with age, or you never had it in the first place; it doesn’t matter. The bottom line is that you cannot outsmart your kids (they are cunning, opportunistic, and manipulative too). Your only defense against them is the fact that you are a generation older. Hence you have the advantage of being titled as a ‘parent’, and when looked at from a height of just 2.5 ft above ground level, you appear slightly demented and scary as well. But soon your kid will outgrow this inherent advantage that you possess. Then the only weapon that you will be left with will be your ‘unpredictability’. Don’t lose it. Let your kid grow up with the thought that ‘Boy my parents are weird. You never know how they would react to anything’. Only then there are high chances that he or she will turn out to be a good kid.

Finally, spanking your kids is absolutely fine. Let not those parenting magazine and the media make you think otherwise. When your child misbehaves, you may try talking to your kid and see if they listen. But be careful, sometimes the kids answer back and you may trip over their arguments. So it’s best not to waste too much breath, and land up in an embarrassing situation where the kid beats you in an argument. Just hit them. 80% of the parents I know spank their kids. The remaining 20% are liars.

The only time you may run into trouble for spanking your kid is when you have your own parents around. You hit your kid and for some strange reason your parents start behaving as if they are the torch bearers of the ‘Anti Kid Spanking’ movement. If you try reminding them of all the spanking you received as a kid (and as a teen), you will realize that they suddenly suffer from selective amnesia. If not, their explanation would be “That’s because you were a spoilt kid”. But that’s okay. Don’t let their behavior bother you too much. They are just being your ‘parents’; ‘unpredictable’ good parents.

Offering ‘chai-pani’, is not as easy as you think. You don’t just walk up to the officer on duty, put a few 100 rupee notes on his table and say “Here. Take it. I need my job done ASAP”. Just because you are willing to pay, doesn’t make life any easier for you. You still need to follow the rules and procedures. You still need to run from pillar to post, fill out the required forms, wait in queues, and be confronted by rude officials. At some point during this whole running around you even begin to develop this futile hope that maybe you might just be lucky enough to get things done without having to offer any chai or pani whatsoever. But soon you realize that it isn’t your lucky day and parting with your money is inevitable.

Now your greatest fear is how do you make the offer? What if you get arrested during the illegal act? What if, like they show in movies, the officer you are dealing with turns out to be an out right ethical guy who just fumes at the very mention of ‘chai-pani’? What if there is an anti-corruption squad watching your every move, waiting to pounce on you the moment you pull out the cash? It’s a scary thought. But public officers I guess are good mind readers. They understand your anxiety and apprehensions at making a direct offer. Hence after they are done with all the required formalities, in a mellowed tone they put forth their request “Jara humare chai-pani ka bhi dekho saheb”. For the first time you get addressed as ‘saheb’. That’s when you let out a smile, a sigh of relief, and a few hundred bucks and ask “Par kaam ho jayega na?” “100 percent. Aap befikar raho”, comes a prompt assurance.

Now there is ‘chai-pani’ and then there is ‘Settlement’ or ‘Adjustment’. Settlement/adjustment is ‘chai-pani’ given to cover up your mistakes. So making a ‘settlement’ offer is a little more difficult than offering ‘chai-pani’. A few days ago I was caught by a cop for a traffic violation. After checking my driving license and pointing out my mistake (which of course I admitted) the cop said he would give me a traffic violation notice (a ticket). I was fine with that. But then the procedure was a bit skewed. On issuing me the ticket, he said he would withhold my license. Then anytime within the next three days I would have to report at the police station, pay the fine, and collect my license. I tried to argue that I was willing to pay the fine right there, but the cop refused to accept it. Apparently he was not ‘officially’ allowed to accept money, and I was not in the mood to make any ‘unofficial’ contributions to his kitty. But the problem with the whole procedure was that, to collect my license I had to visit a police station close to the place where I had committed the offence – which was unfortunately an hour’s drive from where I live. Which meant, the next day, I had to drive an hour each way just to pay the fine and get my license back. So finally I decided to go in for the ‘settlement’ route.

“Kuch settlement nahi ho sakta hain kya?” was my benign request. My request brought about a complete change in his demeanor, transforming him from a tough cop to a friendly gentleman. For the first time I saw a smile on his face, which was a good enough indication that he too preferred a ‘settlement’. So looking around, and ensuring that nobody was watching us, I pulled out my wallet. But the moment I opened my wallet, I realized that I only had a 500 rupee note in there. That was way too much a price to pay for ‘settlement’ and I didn’t know if it was appropriate to ask for change in such situations. But left without a choice, hesitatingly I put forth my concern. “Saheb, chutta nahi hain” I said as I showed him the lone 500 rupee note I had. But that didn’t bother him at all. He patiently pulled out his wallet, drew four hundred rupee notes and handed them over to me as he pocketed the 500 rupee one. The ‘settlement’ was complete and I drove away from the crime scene.

But the settlement actually doesn’t end there. Your guilt, your conscience, your so called ethics do not let you get off that easily. But then you try to console yourself: the poor cop is anyways overworked and underpaid; toils all day in the hot sultry weather bearing all the noise and the pollution; probably my 100 rupee would be spent towards fulfilling a need that he or his family has been waiting for long. You try to justify your actions with thoughts like these, as you constantly look back in the rear view mirror to ensure that you are not being followed by an anti corruption squad :)

We eat crappy meals day in day out, but at 10,000 ft above ground level we expect nothing but gourmet. We don’t care if our friends, family, or co-workers never smile at us (and it doesn’t bother us that they haven’t done so for years), but from the airhostess we still expect a kind of warm welcoming smile as if we were the only love of her life. And we expect her to be pretty as well (now this expectation is not just that of the male travelers, even the female travelers prefer pretty airhostesses). Most of us pride ourselves on having developed the knack of squeezing our way through crowded buses and packed trains, or being a group of 12 crammed up in an 8 seater vehicle (especially on long journeys), but in an aircraft we all need our space and leg room. We may not have read a book or a magazine or even glanced at a newspaper for ages, but not finding the in-flight magazine and a newspaper in the seat compartment ahead of us makes us restless (and it bothers us even more if the person at the end of the aisle gets one). We see crappy movies all the while, but we get really turned off if the airline shows us one. We don’t care to check if a life jacket actually exists under our seat, but we definitely ensure that our puke bag is intact. We keep a close eye on the flight staff and scrutinize their every move; the only time we ignore them is when they demonstrate flight safety procedures. In life, for meeting, for appointments, we are often late and never in a hurry to get anywhere. The only time we hurry up is when its time to get off the plane (as if the last one to leave would be asked to clean the aircraft). We rarely call friends or family to update them about our whereabouts, but the moment the flight lands we just can’t wait for it to come to a complete halt to switch on our phones and let everyone know that we ‘just landed’.

Fortunately, we all get back to normalcy once we get out of the aircraft. The only thing we do is complain about the pathetic in-flight service and that too just amongst friends. We don’t go about the expecting those same levels of service from others in our life. We get back to our day to day life (crappy food, unsmiling faces, rude gestures and so on) without paying heed to much of it – until we get into a flight again. That’s when again our expectation levels shoot up, our priorities change, and we exhibit a totally different demeanor. We once again crave for attention and we once again demand all that pampering. And we also love that tiny little spotlight in a dimly lit plane and the fan that we can control – because for most of us that’s probably the only time we get to be in ‘spotlight’ and have a dedicated ‘fan’ as well :)

Recently, on a not so busy morning, I got this call from a telemarketer from ‘The C____ Club’. He claimed that I had won their lucky draw (which I didn’t know I had even participated in), and the prize was a 7 day 6 nights absolutely free stay for me and my family at their five star resort in Goa. I was really excited when I heard that, but my skeptical mind found it a little hard to believe. So I clarified, not once but twice, “Is it absolutely free? Are you sure?”. “Yes Sir, it is absolutely free for two adults and two kids for 7 days and 6 nights” he reassured me “but we wont for your travel” he clarified. I was okay with that. Then he verified my address and other details so that he could mail me the offer and I thought we were done with the call. Just as I was about to hang up and celebrate my winning, the caller interrupted “Thanks for accepting the gift Sir. I would now like to tell you the terms and conditions of this offer”.

Why should everything come with terms and conditions? I hate terms and conditions. I even hate that tiny asterisk * that comes invariably with all offers which says ‘Terms and Conditions Apply’. Why can’t there be unconditional offers? Before I could say anything he continued “Sir, the offer includes only boarding, and does not include food. You will have to pay for the meal plans”. “Oh, okay” I said, but I was already feeling a little disappointed, “…and..?” I prompted “..and Sir we won’t pay the taxes” he added. “That’s okay, I don’t like to pay taxes either” was my instant response. “No Sir, you will have to pay for the taxes and the meal plans and the total amount would come to Rupees Eleven Thousand Six hundred …bhal blah..” I was now losing my patience with this guy. It was apparent that the so called free offer was not actually free. But somehow my mind was still unwilling to accept it. There is always this hope, you see. I like free stuff and I just couldn’t let it go that easily. So I began to negotiate “Well you see, I don’t think we would like to stay in Goa for 7 days. Why don’t we do this – Why don’t we cut down the free stay to just 3 days and use the money from the balance stay to pay for the taxes and meal plans?” I thought he would say “Wow, what an idea Sirji !”, but instead he chuckled and said “But the stay is anyways free sir, and even if you stay for lesser days, you will still have to pay the entire amount of taxes”. I don’t know if it was his chuckle or his explanation, but I couldn’t stand him any longer “Then why did you earlier say it was all FREE? I had even asked you twice if it was really FREE and you said yes” My voice by now was raised enough, that everyone at home was staring at me. But that didn’t bother me and I continued my yelling “Do you even understand the meaning of FREE? FREE means NO Money - Zero money. You can’t say free and then ask for money. That’s wrong. That’s cheating. I am not interested in your club or your offer and I am never ever going to stay at your club’s resorts. And you know what - Forget free. Even if you actually pay me and beg me to stay at your resorts, I am not going to stay there. And don’t ever call me again”. Without giving him a chance to respond, I just hung up the phone.

I think I sounded like a teenager breaking up with her boyfriend, because she caught him cheating on her. I was angry, emotional, sad, frustrated, and to add to it, by now my entire family was laughing like crazy. “Why do you even talk to those people? I have told you so many times to just say ‘not interested’ and disconnect the phone. They are all cheats” were my dad’s words of wisdom. Maybe dad is right, but I just can’t do that. What if the club guy was genuine? What if he was different? Plus I thought I had really won. I thought maybe this time I was really lucky. And he did say it was all free. How do I know that like everybody else, he too was only after my money? Anyways, I will be careful the next time onwards; especially with those who try to sell me free stuff.

PS: I am still nice to those telemarketers who call to ‘sell’ me stuff and don’t disguise them as freebies.

I don’t have a hobby. Most people don’t have one either. Yet ‘What are your hobbies?’ somehow has emerged as the most frequently asked question, especially by people who don’t know you that well. The hobby haunt starts at an early age, when your teachers in school make you write essays on ‘My favorite hobby’. That’s the first time you realize that you are almost good for nothing. Then during interviews, online chats, dates, business networking events; everybody is interested in knowing about your hobbies. Nobody is bothered how you spend most of your life. But what you do in that little spare time of yours, is matter of great interest to everybody. I was even once asked about my hobbies by a co-passenger on a flight. Now unless the guy ran a hobby store, which he didn’t, I didn’t see the relevance of that question. But he still asked it. I don’t remember what I said then, but after I got off the flight I thought I should have said “As a hobby I get on flights and strangle my co-passengers. Yes it’s an expensive hobby, but I still cherish it”. But like always the moment has passed and I couldn’t say it.

As a kid I used to collect stamps and old coins. (I also had a collection of stickers). So for many years I would say that collecting stamps and coins is my hobby. I don’t say that anymore, because I don’t collect them anymore. (I still have my old collection lying around somewhere). Then for some years I would say that ‘reading’ is my hobby. I was told that saying so would make me sound sophisticated and intelligent. People then started asking me on what do I like to read, and I answered ‘Anything. I read anything’. I soon realized that I don’t read because I like to, but I read because I have to. I read because I am literate and if anything ‘written’ flashes before my eyes, I can’t stop myself from reading it. It’s a habit and I can’t get over it. I read newspapers (even as I am eating bhel-puri off it); I read all signboards and billboards on roads; I read emails and forwards; I read subtitles during movies (in Hindi movies, just because I find the English translations amusing, and in English flicks because I find it difficult to follow Bruce Wills’ kind of mumbled accents); I read ingredients and calorie contents on food packets; I read stuff written on other’s t-shirts (and hate it when they walk away before I finish reading); I even read ‘Directions of Use’ on shampoo bottles which says ‘Apply on wet hair. Rinse thoroughly’ followed by a recommendation stating that for ‘best results’ use their brand of conditioner as well. But how much ever and whatever I read, I don’t think reading qualifies as my hobby.

I have seen people mentioning about their hobbies on their resumes too, and some interesting ones as well. While the most common ones that you get to see on resumes are reading, watching movies/TV, playing some sport, listening to music, cooking, net surfing, and so on. Off late I have seen ‘gymming’ (which apparently means going to the gym regularly), emerging as a hobby. But the most uncommon and one of its kind hobbies that I have ever seen, was the one listed on the resume of an ex-colleague. He had actually listed ‘Observing people and making leg pulling remarks’ as his hobby. Now that’s a Hobby. I had known this guy for three years while we worked together, but had never seen him practicing his hobby. When asked he explained that he avoided doing so at work, and did it only during his spare time. He also added that these days life kept him busy and he wasn’t able to devote much time towards the hobby. I just said OK, and wished him luck with his hobby.

Having a hobby is a nice thing. All those who have it, please pursue it. All those who don’t, “Welcome to Club Hobbyless”.

My biggest surprise on polling day was the list of candidates contesting from our constituency. There were 23 candidates in all, of which 3 belonged to political parties I was aware of, 14 were nominees of political parties I never even knew existed, and 6 were independents. What was even more surprising was that most of these candidates were not even residents of our area. A few of them, including a few independent candidates, were not even from Mumbai. I mean what were they thinking when they filed for nomination? Now I am no political pundit, nor do I understand or follow exit polls and predications, but isn’t it a no-brainier that these non-local, non-popular candidates, had no chance of winning. Then why were they even contesting? Why did they even bother to nominate themselves? I wonder if they even get the minimum number of votes to get their deposits back.

I am not against independent candidates contesting elections, nor am I against the smaller local parties. What I am trying to assess is the thought process behind these small parties and independent candidates filing a nomination from a constituency they didn’t belong to and where they are almost unheard of? In a city like Mumbai where even both candidates of Professionals Party of India (a party of educated professionals only) lost, and the much hyped independent candidate Meera Sanyal (the ex head honcho of ABN Amro), contesting from south Mumbai did not gather enough votes to even get her deposit back; should be enough food for thought for those over optimistic independents and smaller parties to rethink their election strategy. Jaago Re !!

Well with the elections over, so are the ‘Jaago Re’ campaigns. I am sure they will resurface again five years later (and hopefully not earlier). What’s riding the popularity wave in India now, are the Vodafone Zoozoos. While the Zoozoo’s, no doubt, have become very popular; wonder how much have they helped boost sales? Wonder how many viewers switched over to a Vodafone on seeing Zoozoo being swallowed by a crocodile?

Honking (or Horning, as we locals call it), is a ‘tradition’ in India and as Indian, I think we should try to preserve it rather than abolish it. The credo behind ‘Horn OK Please’, whatever it is, needs to be protected from those who accuse the horn of causing noise pollution. I don’t think honking causes any pollution whatsoever, and hence honking as a tradition should be cherished rather than abolished. Honking is a way of expression. It’s a way of communication. How else do you expect us to alert our fellow drivers of our existence (we don’t use side mirrors), or show our frustration and anger (we don’t use the finger gesture – nobody understands that), or demonstrate our accomplishments (of having jumped a signal just as it turned from yellow to red), or express our anxiety and joy (that we experience when we know that the signal is about to turn green in the next few seconds). How else do we intimate the pedestrians (or the cow or the dog) crossing the street that we do not intend to stop for them? How else do we let people in our neighborhoods know that we have returned home? For all this, we need the horn and we need to use it too. We thus need to follow the doctrine governed by ‘Horn OK Please’.

‘Horn OK Please’, is not just a phrase. It symbolized national integrity; for it is the only phrase that is unanimously used across the nation. Invariably seen on the back of trucks and at times on other commercial vehicles like buses, taxis, and autos too, the phrase signifies our unity in diversity. It’s a belief that we have in our fellow countrymen: ‘Whoever you are, wherever you are, I know you will honk for me’. It’s a phrase that, for some reason, nobody has ever attempted to translate in Hindi or any other regional language. Maybe because nobody really knows what ‘Horn OK Please’ exactly means. Nor does anybody have any information on the origins of this phrase. Hence nobody wants to take the risk of tampering with it. On second thoughts, nobody really knows what a ‘horn’ is called in Hindi or any other regional language for that matter (I know some of you think it’s called ‘Haaran’ in Hindi, but no, that’s not correct). Neither does anybody know how exactly ‘OK’ would translate in a regional language.

But whatever the reasons, I feel ‘Horn OK Please’ should be valued as an icon of national heritage. Despite there being no traffic rule that mandates the inscription of ‘Horn OK Please’ on vehicles, vehicle owners all across the country have been doing so for decades (and often in decorative fonts and styling). We ought to respect this tradition; and the philosophy of honking that it preaches ought to be followed.

So ladies and gentlemen, when in India, do as the Indians do. Horn Please. OK.

I lack ‘Indian Line Etiquettes’. I seriously do. When in line, I just cannot get myself to stand close enough to the person ahead of me. Nor do I like the person behind me lurking over my shoulders. I like to keep distance. But in India, it is an unwritten rule that the human bodies that constitute a line should get as close to each other as possible, irrespective of where, when, and why the line is being formed. Wasting even an inch of space is not permitted. I term this as the ‘Line Proximity’ rule and when in line, I invariably end up being the rule defaulter. At times I get frowned at for doing so, while at times I get the ‘Thoda aage badho na’ requests from my trailing line-mates.

I have often wondered why people like to get so close to each other in a line. Is it the fear that if vacant space is left between the line occupants, somebody might creep in between? Or is it that a compact line gives a psychological feeling of being closer to the destination, than what you really are? Or is it just a way of expressing that we as Indians have still not lost the ‘human touch’? But whatever is the reason and whatever be the line for, the close bonding amongst line-mates invariably exists. Be it a line for a movie ticket, a railway ticket, a temple, a line to pay a utility bill, or even a line at the public toilet, the proximity rule is always followed. Even when people line up at the airport security check, or when they get in line to board the plane, they ensure that they don’t default on the rule. For some strange reason, everybody wants to be the first one to hop on to the aircraft. Surprisingly enough, as soon as the flight lands, everyone is back in line, desperately trying to be the first one to get out.

My worst in-line experience so far has been while boarding an Air Deccan flight. It was during those days when Air Decaan would not assign seat numbers to passengers (they do now). I was actually warned by a friend that an Air Deccan boarding at times leads to an almost stampede situation, with everyone rushing ahead to grab the best seats. But I dismissed it as one of those exaggerated jokes about low cost carriers. It however turned out to be true. Even before the boarding announcement was made, a line had started forming at the gate. When the boarding announcement was made, I too went and stood in the line. But the moment the boarding gates were opened, the line turned into a big pile up. It was like a transformation of a human chain to a human ball. Everybody was pushing each other, trying their best to get ahead of each other. The aircraft crew tried to control the crowd by saying “Please get in line, please get in line”, but after a couple of attempts they gave up. I guess it was routine for them. Needless to say, I managed to excuse myself from the pile up and was the last to board the aircraft. Thankfully Air Deccan now assigns seat numbers, and people are back to forming close knit lines.

Lines form an integral part of the Indian culture and hopefully someday I will tune myself to the Indian Line Etiquettes and be an efficient ‘linesman’. I am working on it. Following are extracts from my research notes towards my endeavor of being a good linesman:

Apart from the proximity factor, I have noted that people in a line also exhibit the following traits.
- Being the ‘first in line’ is euphoric to the core. Being second, is a feeling as bad as missing a lottery by a digit.
- When in line, it does not matter how many people are ahead of you; not being able to see the end of the line and thus knowing that you are better off than many others, is gratifying enough.
- When in line you will always crosscheck with your fellow lines mates with the following question “Bhaisaab, yeh line kiske liye hain?”. One of those line mates will invariably answer “pata nahi”, yet continue to stand in line.
- Letting somebody get ahead of you in the line, is intolerable. It hurts your ego.
- When in line, you will always try to form mental sketches of the people ahead of you in line.
- In spite of the ‘proximity rule’, somebody will at some point try to get ahead of you in the line claiming “mein idhar hi tha” or “mein bolke gaya tha”, leading to commotion. (Your mental sketches come handy at resolving such conflict situations.)
- Spotting such line intruders and removing them from the line with full public support, qualifies for an act of heroism.
- Appointing a representative to stand in place of you is allowed. The representative can be a bag, kerchief, or any such lifeless object, but only prior to the opening of the counter (for which you are lining up). Once the counters are open, only human forms of representations are accepted.

Our hosts were very hospitable. The dinner was nice, and the dessert was nicer. While we were enjoying the dessert the lady host suddenly said “Hey, let me show you something” and run off to her room. I was almost certain that she would return with a big fat album of their wedding pictures. I have actually never understood people’s obsession behind showing others their wedding pictures, even after years of marriage. And they won’t just let you flip through the album, but rather ensure that you understand every minute detail about those pictures – understand how everyone in those pictures is related to wedded couple, some behind the scenes info on what happened while the rituals were being performed, sometimes the story goes off on a tangent detailing what some of those people in the photograph are currently doing in life, and so on. Anyways, I thought, since our hosts had been nice to us, I wouldn’t mind sitting through the ordeal of watching their wedding album, and pretend that I am enjoying it. Moreover I wanted a second helping of the dessert as well (the dessert was really nice).

As I was coming out of my thoughts, I saw our host walking into the room with a big book in hand. It wasn’t their wedding album. (That was a relief). It was a sketch book. Apparently our host had taken up sketching and painting as a hobby, and she wanted us to have a look at her art work. Now to be really frank, I am not a connoisseur of art. I don’t really understand the finer nuances of art and artistry. But nevertheless, I still started browsing through those abstract sketches and paintings, pretending to like them. On one occasion I even said “Wow, this is nice”, but when our host asked me “Oh really, what did you like in the painting?” I realized that I better not go overboard with my compliments. So to evade the situation I just said “I like the colors you have used, they look very lively.” I guess the compliment was a good one. There was a beaming smile on our host face and I thought this was the right time for me to ask for a second helping of the dessert.

But like they say ‘There’s many a slip between cup and lip’. Before I could come up with my request for more dessert, our host had flipped the page of her book. On this new page was a sketch of a pair of eyes. And as I was staring at them, our host popped up a question “Guess whose eyes are these?”. ‘Now that’s a tough one’, I thought. How do I know whose eyes are these? I looked around the room to see if there were any pictures of people around. There were none. Then on the corner table I saw a copy of the magazine ‘India Today’ with a picture of Amitabh Bachchan on it. ‘Bingo! That’s where she had copied those eyes from’ was what I thought, and without even the slightest hesitation I announced “These are Amitabh’s eyes”. “Whose?” asked my host. “Amitabh Bachchan” I said, loud and clear.

There was silence in the room for a moment. The lady kept staring at me for a while, and after a few second she managed to speak up. “No, these aren’t Amitabh’s eyes. These are my eyes. I drew it looking at one of my own pictures”, she revealed; the disappointment very obvious on her face. ‘Oh boy, I need to do some serious damage control now’ was what I was thinking when suddenly the lady’s husband, who all this while was just a silent spectator to our art appreciation parade, burst out laughing. My wife tried to console her saying that I am not good at recognizing pictures and all, but that didn’t help. I also tried to cover up saying that I always felt Amitabh had girly eyes, but that didn’t work either. I knew I had messed up. The damage has already been done.

Why did that magazine have a cover picture of Amitabh? Why couldn’t they just have Aishwarya Rai’s picture on it?. I sat there cursing those India Today guys as I stared at my empty bowl of desert. No, I didn’t ask for the second helping.

Frankly, I don’t understand what a ‘Recession’ is. But off late, I have been hearing a lot about it. It’s like the most happening thing around. From my college going cousins to my friends in investment banking, everybody is talking about it. The ‘Recession’, they say is back and everybody seems to be worried about it. And yet I don’t know what it actually means. I had heard about the recession back in 2001 too. Even then it had become extremely popular. Everybody used to talk about it. While some said it was just a ‘slowdown’, most argued that it was definitely a ‘recession’, while some even branded it as a ‘depression’. But I never figured out what they actually meant by those terms. Eventually people got bored talking about it and so the recession went away. And now it has resurfaced.

Different people have different views on the recession. Some say that it’s just a momentary thing that would end in a few months, while some confidently say that it would last for at least for a couple of years. A real estate agent I met last week was more than 100% sure that this was the best time to buy real estate. His reason: The recession would end in two months and property prices would shoot up again. Whereas a distant relative of mine, who has now doubled as an insurance agent, claimed that the recession would last for at least two more years and hence an ‘insurance plan’ was the best thing to invest my money in. (Just on a side note –distant family members and friends suddenly turning into ‘Insurance agents’ and coaxing you to buy insurance policies, can give you some of the most awkward moments in life ! ). But whatever the claim people make about the recession, I am sure, they are all baseless and just biased to promote some personal interest.

But the most interesting view I have heard about the recession is from this friend of mine who believes that it is the Chinese who are causing it. Last week, over coffee, he had the opportunity to enlighten me with his theory. He said and I quote “Once the recession kicks in, people will start losing money. Once people start losing money, they would no longer be able to afford expensive stuff. So they will have to buy the cheap goods. And who makes cheap goods?” With raised eyebrows and the excitement to prove his conspiracy theory on the ‘Recession’, waiting for me to answer his question seemed like a long wait. So before I could say anything, he with all enthusiasm, continued “Of course the Chinese do. The Chinese make cheap goods and they are the ones behind all this. It’s their big master plan to emerge as superpowers.” For a moment I was kind of awestruck by this explanation. I had not heard of anything bizarre like this for a long time, but my friend was pretty serious about his theory. I was about to break into a fit of laughter but I somehow gathered myself and asked “What exactly are the Chinese doing?” “Causing a recession”, was his reply. “But what exactly is a recession?” I asked. My friend took offence to that question. I knew I shouldn’t have smiled while asking him that. He felt I was mocking his intelligence and his theory, and refused to discuss anything about the recession with me. And so I missed by chance of understanding what a ‘recession’ is.

But whatever the ‘recession’ is I don’t see much of it anyways. Last week I was at a mall and it was as crowded as always. There were people standing on the very next step behind me on the escalator. (Wonder why people get so close while standing in queues, elevators and on escalators?) Unfortunately I couldn’t move a step up as then that would make me just a step away from the crowd in front of me, and I don’t enjoy getting into such close proximity of strangers. Anyways, people were shopping, spending, and having a gala time. I didn’t see any recession there. Then just a couple of days ago, a friend of mine, who is supposed to graduate with an MBA from the USA in a few months, was all excited about bagging a job offer. I am sure ‘getting a job in a recession’ is definitely reason to cheer about. I am happy for him, and also happy that fuel prices are down. I can now afford to get stuck in traffic for a little longer than usual.

Well whatever the ‘Recession’ is, I am sure it’s not something to be worried or depressed about. Like last time, even this time it will go away and fuel prices, stock prices, property prices, and salaries will rise again. Then again one day after a few years the recession will be back. Till then at least I hope that I actually understand what really a ‘Recession’ is.

PS: By definition the term ‘Recession’ generally describes the reduction of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) for at least two quarters. – Yup, I Googled it out :)

My first encounter with ‘Awesome’ was during my initial days in the USA. Over a casual discussion over lunch with my American colleagues the topic drifted towards the Indian tradition of ‘Arranged Marriages’, and all of a sudden I was bombarded with questions on how, why, and what about the tradition. While I was trying my best to tackle those questions, trying to explain how parents go about the whole matchmaking process, when suddenly Mr. Bob Levinson in the most expressionless tone and with a heavy Texan accent remarked “Oh that’s Awesome”; and I had no clue what that meant. Frankly, I had never heard ‘Awesome’ before and hence I was not sure how to react to his awesome remark. I had no idea what it meant. I knew ‘Awful’ and I thought ‘Awesome’ must be something similar. But then I thought maybe not. I was very much tempted to ask ‘What is Awesome?’, but I didn’t have the courage to admit my ignorance. So I let the situation pass with an awkward smile on my face and a slight wobble like nod of the head.

Well you could blame my awesome ignorance on my poor vocabulary, but then back in my younger days nothing around was ‘Awesome’. Things were just ‘good’ and ‘nice’ and occasionally they were ‘very good’ or ‘superb’ or just ‘suuuuperrr’ (especially with my friends from the southern part of the subcontinent). Then sometime in the early 90’s everything was ‘sexy’ – from Yamaha’s new bike model, to the pav-bhaji opposite VT station, to those big bulky mobile phones – all just sexy. We lived in a sexy world. Nike’s made sexy shoes, ‘Andaz Apna Apna’ was a sexy movie, Internet and email was sexy, and Govinda even claimed his shirt, pant, hair and rumaal to be sexy. But now nothing is sexy anymore (baring a few exceptions of course!). Things are just awesome these days. Everything is just so awesome. Awesome is sexy.

A few days back I met a friend who had just returned from a vacation from the Andaman Islands, and I asked him how his vacation was. I was expecting an ‘Awesome’ reply but much to my surprise he didn’t say it. ‘Mind-blowing’ is what he said instead. I was taken aback. I knew Awesome had found competition and my countless urbanites fellows would soon be blowing away their minds with a plethora of what they would claim to be ‘Mind-Blowing’ experiences.

Over the weekend I was having coffee with a friend when his cell phone kept on the table started ringing. While I expected my friend to just pick up the phone and answer the call, what followed instead was something different. First for a good three seconds my friend gave the phone a cold stare, turning his neck at a slightly inclined position. Then he held the phone at face level, and muttered “..97385 .. Wonder who could this be?” (97385 were apparently the last five digits of the incoming call). While doing so his gaze shifted from the phone to a level up and into a distance, his eyes narrowed a bit, and his face wore the expression as if his mind was doing a complete directory scan to match the identity of the caller. I knew the Rainman had cast his spell on my friend and my friend was experiencing the ‘Rainman Syndrome’. Five seconds later the Rainman gave up and my friend eventually answered the call.

The Rainman is everywhere. He strikes often, especially when the cell phone rings and the caller’s number is not stored in your cell i.e. when you see just a flashing number on your phone screen and not a name. That’s when many phone users experience the Rainman Syndrome. It is rare that someone would pick up their phone the moment it rings. Before the call is answered, there has to invariably be a desperate (and mostly unsuccessful) attempt at guessing the identity of the caller. For some strange reason, knowing the identity of the caller before saying ‘hello’ is really important to us. That’s why we have the caller id in the first place; and when the caller id fails us, then there is The Rainman.

One of the worst hit by the Rainman syndrome is my dad. Now my dad has only 4 numbers stored in his cell phone, so the Rainman has enough scope to cast his spell on him. And trust me the Rainman doesn’t miss an opportunity to strike; sometime to the point that the ‘call’ eventually ends up as a ‘missed call’, just because the Rainman decided not to call quits. The Rainman in dad follows an elaborate process at the caller guessing game. When the phone rings, he first starts with a search for his reading glasses. What follows next is a mental scan of the flashing number. When the scan fails (and it always does), the Rainman actually cheats. He asks family members around him “Do you know whose number this is?” This sometimes triggers the Rainman in the entire family, everyone trying their hand at the guessing game. I have often asked dad to just pick up the phone when it rings. “Is there anybody whom you would not want to talk to? Then why do you even bother to find out who the caller is” I have often questioned him. But apparently having caller id on the phone, and still being clueless about the identity of the caller, is I guess a feeling too difficult for many (including dad) to deal with. Hence the Rainman!

Having said all this, I should admit, that I have my own Rainman moments too. So the next time you call me, and I take a little longer than expected to pick up, you could safely assume that the Rainman is trying his best to guess your identity.

This email once again raised questions that have been boggling my mind for long time now - questions, not about the authenticity of this email, but in general about forwarded emails. I have always wondered on where do these ‘forwards’ originate? Who writes them? Since the time I started using emails, I have received umpteen forwards, but yet not a single what I would term as a ‘firsthand’ forward. By the time I receive the forwarded email it has usually passed through the mailboxes of so many people that in ALL cases the original writer’s name or identity is lost in the hierarchy. I have NEVER received a ‘firsthand’ forward – an email that someone I knew wrote and sent it to me (and others), that eventually went on to become a ‘forward’. Whatever be the kind of forwards– be it an email about Yahoo and Microsoft paying money to forwards emails; a Banta/Santa joke; pictures of some funny hoardings; some pretty/weird looking artistic decorations; a video on cannibalism; a PowerPoint presentation reminding me on how attitude is only thing that matters; a hopelessly romantic story that they think would make me cry; or just a calculation on how every misfortune in the world till date, right from JFK assassination, to Diana’s accident, to 9/11 is somehow associated with the number 11 – I have never received any of these emails directly from the writer. Now there are some people I know who always sign their name at the bottom of these forwarded emails hoping to take credit for the work, but I know too well that they are not the originators of these emails.

But that’s fine. Most people I know aren’t creative enough to come up with their original stuff. But what really surprises me is how come the stuff I write never ends up becoming a ‘forward’? I write good stuff, don’t I? How come those very people who claim to enjoy reading my blogs, send out forwarded emails written by anonymous people (and sometimes include me in their ‘undisclosed-recipients’ – bcc list), but don’t send out my writings to others? When the essay written by an IAS aspirant on ‘The Cow’ can end up becoming a ‘forward’, why can’t my writings become one too? Hmmm, maybe I should start forwarding my own writings and also put a warning in BOLD RED at the bottom saying that if you don’t forward my writings to at least 20 people and don’t laugh for at least 30 seconds on reading it, you will be engulfed by the dark clouds of misery and misfortune. He ha ha ha ha ha ha (that’s my evil laugh by the way!).

Well someday I plan to publish my writings as a book. Till then, at least let my writings end up as email forwards. So readers, please forward my stuff :) but yes, please don’t let my name and identity get lost in the process.

Now can somebody tell me the difference between the variants of Gillette Shaving Gel: ‘Original’, ‘Sensitive’, ‘Conditioning’, and ‘Ultra Comfort’? How does one decide which one gels with you best, especially when all are priced the same, all come in similar looking cans, and all are greenish blue in color. They have similar variants in shaving foams too. So every time at a retail store, I walk past the shaving accessories isle, I get bogged down by questions - questions that I haven’t found an answer for yet - Does their original shave gel not offer a comfortable shaving experience? Is so, why do they still have it when they have managed to invent the ‘ultra comfort’ one? Why would you want to condition your stubs when all you want is to get rid of them? Would an insensitive man feel less macho if he shaves with a ‘Sensitive’ gel? Why did they have to make a simple thing like shaving so complicated?

And I thought the shaving accessory shopping could not get any further complex, until a few days back I saw a shaving gel (yes again from Gillette) which said ‘for tough beard’. Now what is tough beard, and how am I supposed to know if I have tough beard? Aren’t beards supposed to be tough? Isn’t that the reason why we shave it off? Does anybody have a soft and silky beard (apart from those old Chinese looking guys in some martial arts movies with long white beards). And how tough is ‘tough’?. Is my beard tough enough? Well I don’t know. Definitely mine’s not that tough that I have ever cracked a razor trying to shave it off. Nor have I ever caressed the face of any adult male to experience a ‘Teri daadhi, meri daadhi se ‘tough’ kaise?’ moment. So how am I supposed to know if my beard is tough enough for me to actually use this shaving gel?

Nevertheless, you still start investigating. You carcass your face trying to assess the toughness of your stubs. ‘Yup, it’s tough’ you say to yourself with a hint of machoism. But you are still not convinced. So with the hope of deciphering the toughness of my own stubs, you start scouting for unshaven faces in the store. Checking out people (irrespective of their gender), I should admit, is an art which I have not yet mastered to perfection. Hence my endeavor of checking out the stubbed faces, often returns strange glares and at times odd smiles. Eventually my uncomfortable demeanor, my attempt at checking out the not to pretty faces, and my idling at the same isle for durations longer than necessary, draws suspicion in the minds of the store personnel. They start hovering around me trying to ensure that I don’t succeed in, what they suspect, are my shoplifting plans. Some even go to the extent of asking me ‘May I help you sir?’, and while I am tempted to say ‘Yes, I need help. I need help trying to figure out if I have a tough beard’, I just politely decline the help saying ‘No, thank you’.

The last time this happened, I actually picked up the can of gel for ‘tough beard’. I don’t know why, but when I took it at the checkout counter, the cashier gave me the ‘hmmm, so you think you have tough beard? haaa..’ kind of looks, only adding to my confusion. On a prior occasion when I had checked out the shave gel for sensitive skin, the cashier had the ‘Ohhh, Mr. Sensitive skin…sissy’ kind of looks. Now come on. Don’t give me those looks. I just like trying stuff out or maybe I am just a well groomed metrosexual. What’s the big deal? Don’t give me those looks. I seriously think that cashiers at retail stores should be blindfolded so that they don’t give you those judgmental looks based on the items you check out, especially when you are shopping for personal stuff.

Anyways, I have now tried out all versions of shave gels and foams. All feel the same. All are as comfortable as that tiny soap that came complimentary in that hotel room. Wonder what brand that soap was?

That day, that tiny little soap had quadrupled as handwash, facewash, bodywash, and as shaving cream too. I would have promoted it as shampoo too, but then the hotel had provided me with a tiny bottle of shampoo that I didn’t want to let go unused. But as I was admiring that tini-tiny soap for its accomplishments, my mind raced back in flashback mode to a time around a decade ago. I was young and naïve then, and I had committed the blunder of washing my face with a handwash liquid. This was at an acquaintance’s place (in the USA), in whose bathroom was a nice looking bottle which oozed out a sweet smelling milky white soapy liquid. The bottle even had a picture of some fruit on it (must have been papaya), and I had used the contents of the bottle to cleanse my face. Well nothing happened to my face, if that’s what you are thinking – no rashes, no redness, no blisters of any sort. My face just got cleaner, and smelt nicer too. But when my acquaintance found out that I had used that handwash liquid to clean my face, she freaked out. “How could you use it on your face, that’s handwash !!”. Her expressions were as bizarre as if I had just washed my face with a toilet cleaner. “Isn’t it soap?” was what I said in my defense, but all I got back was a ‘Duh…how dumb’ kind of an expression.

Well you can’t blame me for what happened back then. As I said, I was naïve and my knowledge on toiletries was fairly limited. Soaps, shampoos, and shaving creams were the only three broader categories that I knew existed. I didn’t know of the existence of the finer nuances in the form of handwash, facewash, face scrub, foot cleansers, shampoo, and of course bodywash (to clean up the remaining parts of the human anatomy). But I am well educated now. Now I know that these products exist. But at times I wonder on why can’t the bodywash liquid be doubled as handwash? Would hands be any less clean if washed with the bodywash liquid? Never mind. I still use my red colored lifebuoy soap for most of my cleansing purposes and I have no complaints with it. But still some questions remain unanswered – would it really make a difference if one actually had a complete shower with just handwash soap or with shampoo for that matter? - And no you wouldn’t have hair growing all over your body just because you scrubbed yourself with shampoo :) (if that’s what you are thinking).

Shopping for toiletries is yet another complex thing. There is so much variety out there to clean you up, that at times you are really tempted to get dirty (no double meanings here.. :) plzzzz). But when it comes to brand loyalty, toiletries are the worst products to be loyal to. The moment you start showing a little attachment to a brand, there comes a ‘new and improved’ version of the same and that too at a discounted price, only to make you feel cheated. Seriously, I mean it. When something like this happens I get the feeling that all these days I was being duped into using a product that was not just inferior in quality, but also overpriced. It’s like heartbreak, and I have been through it often.

But the most complex of them all is the shaving cream/gel/foam and I completely blame Gillette for it. They have taken a simple thing like shaving to a whole new level of complexities. I will blog about it soon.

Now as I was staring at the tomatoes in disappointment, my friend’s wife blurted out “They are farm fresh tomatoes. Straight from the farm.”. There was an unusual excitement in her voice with an extra emphasis on the word ‘farm’. ‘Oh, so giving me tomatoes you got for free. That’s even more horrible’ was what I thought. Well no, I didn’t say that. “Oh, I didn’t know you had a tomato farm” was what I said instead. “No we don’t have a farm, we went to one yesterday”. Apparently my friends had spent the weekend at a farm at Lonvala (a two hour drive from Mumbai) doing what they termed as ‘Vegetable Picking’.

Now I have heard of people doing such things. I have known my friends in the US going ‘Strawberry Picking’ and ‘Potato Picking’ and all. I personally have never done that. I have never understood the whole excitement of getting a vegetable or a fruit straight from the farm. Don’t they all come from farms? So what’s the big deal in going all the way to the farm and getting it yourself, when you can get an equally good (and often better ones too) from the vendor just a few blocks away. I frankly cannot tell the difference between a ‘straight from farm’ fruit or vegetable, from the one purchased from the market. Anyways, people do strange things. This is just one of them. Never mind. Now as I was trying to discard those tomatoes from my mind, my friend said “You should go there sometime. They just charge 400 bucks per head and you can spend a whole three to four hours picking vegetables. And then you can buy the ones you pick too. That’s extra though.”. (So the tomatoes were not actually free ones)

I have heard people say that there comes a moment in your life when your whole perception changes. It’s like your ‘defining moment’ the ‘Eureka Moment’ of your life. That is exactly how I felt when I heard my friend talking about paying the 400 bucks for picking tomatoes. ‘Wow’ I though ‘what a brilliant idea was that. Getting people to work for you and then making them pay you too. Why did I not think of it before?’. My mind was racing in all directions and I was seeing things in new light. I could visualize the happy farmer sitting and counting his money while people queued up to work for him, all eager to pay him too. I could also see the smile on the winemaker’s face who made people pay for letting them stomp his grapes. Even the old lady outside the temple who sat there with her cow and some grass, whom people paid just to feed her cow that grass, suddenly seemed to me like a smart entrepreneur.

I had actually found a brilliant idea. I should also do that, is what I decided that very moment. I should also let others do my work and let them to pay me for it. That would be perfect. When I came up with this idea last evening, I had a ready customer sitting there right in front of me. I did offer him to work for me for a day and pay me for it, but he didn’t seem interested. He mocked me off. He thought I was just kidding (These days, people have stopped taking me seriously. Wonder why?). Never mind, I thought. I will find somebody else. There will be many others who would be interested in ‘Working in Jay’s office’.

So here’s an open offer to all. ‘Work as Jay for a day’ only for Rs. 1000 (Remember: You are the one who’s going to pay me the money, just like you do when you go when you go fruit/veg picking). You get to work from my office, from my desk. You can reply to my emails, answer my phone calls and even talk to those who come to meet me. And as a special limited time offer, I would even grant you permission to write my blog, I bet you will find it as exciting as working in the farm or stomping grapes. Hurry, offer ends soon !!! Only limited entries !!! (Damn, I suck at writing sales pitches)

Well, any takers?

I often wonder, how do media and other market research agencies come up with these statistics? Interestingly, they come up with all sorts of claims - that 74% of Mumbaikars are not interested in politics; 80% of Indian adults admit that they have given or accepted bribe at least once in their life; and 65% of Indian internet users feel that it is OK to download and listen to pirated music. My question is how come I never got surveyed when these agencies were putting up these interesting numbers? How did they all miss me out? Or is it like my statistics professor had once remarked “In this world there are lies, damn lies, and these are statistics”. So are these numbers all made up? Nah…. I don’t think so. I would like to believe that these news guys are honest people. They don’t lie. I feel that it’s just that somehow they missed me out. They forgot to ask me my views, not once, but every single time a survey was conducted. Why did they not ask my opinion?

Recently I read a claim by a research group which said that 80% of married Indians feel that it’s OK to occasionally lie to their spouses. Obviously, this time too, my opinion was not counted. I even asked my wife if she was consulted when they conducted this survey and she said she wasn’t (leaving me wondering if this was precisely one of those ‘lying to spouse’ moments that the survey was referring to).

I have a humble request to all those surveyors – The next time you do a survey on the views of Mumbaikars or Indians, please ask my opinion too. I will try to be honest while answering your questions. I am an Indian and very much a Mumbaikar. Just because I don’t blog in Marathi (errrrr…!!), please don’t brand me as a non-Mumbaikar and leave me out. My opinion matters, please count it.

The year was 2000 and the month October. Now I don’t remember the exact date, but it was a Friday. The place was Dallas, Texas (USA) and the time sometime around 7 PM. I had just entered my apartment after a not so exciting day at work, wondering what to eat for dinner and how to spend the rest of the weekend. Suddenly the phone rang. It was my college friend Raghu calling to check if I was available on Saturday evening for a ‘get together’ (Raghu stayed in Austin, about 3 hours drive from Dallas).

It’s been about 8 years now, but I vividly remember the conversation I had with Raghu after our usual exchange of Hi and Hellos:
Raghu: …… I am coming to Dallas tomorrow evening. We are having a small business meeting in Dallas, and I want you to join us.
Jay: Really…Sure, what business meeting is it?
R: This is about an exciting business opportunity. We are looking for partners and I really want you to be part of this.
J: Of course, but what is this opportunity? (Well I was not being skeptical here, I was just being curious)
R: I can’t give you more details now, but all I can say is that, this is really a big opportunity, has huge potential. Meet us tomorrow at 5 and you will get to know. I will email you the address.
J: But still tell me what is it? Come on, please tell me. (By now I was dying to know more)
R: Well I can’t tell you. I want you to hear the complete thing tomorrow from the ‘horse’s mouth’. I don’t want to spoil it for you by giving you part information. You will hear it from Raj tomorrow.
J: Who’s Raj?
R: You will meet him tomorrow. Chal, bye. I got to go now. See you tomorrow.

…and before I could bug him for more, Raghu hung up, leaving me hanging with wild thoughts on what this big opportunity could be. Damn, I hate such situations. Waiting 22 hrs to hear about the opportunity that was going to make me a billionaire (at least a millionaire - in dollars) was like torture. But I had no choice. I had to wait for the ‘horse’ to come, to enlighten me, to take me for a ride -:) So I waited, impatiently and dreaming. And that’s night as I logged on to check my email to get the address that Raghu had sent me, I checked out some of the Porsche models on Edmunds.com. “$85,000 ONLY,.. Hmmm, Well I think I can afford that.” is what would be millionaire Jay thought.

Guided my Mapquest, and lured by ‘million dollar’ dreams, I found myself at the address Raghu had sent me at dot 5:00PM on Saturday. The place was a small community hall with about 100 chairs arranged neatly, and just a handful of them occupied. I enthusiastically went and sat in the first row, hoping to catch the millions faster than the rest. By about 6 the hall was full with about hundred people all eager to grab their millions, but the horse was still missing - and so was Raghu. In the meanwhile, as the waiting was making me restless, I initiated conversations with few of my fellow ‘would be millionaires’. Everybody there had been invited by some acquaintance of their, but none of them had a clue on what the big opportunity was. They were all waiting to hear it from the horse’s mouth too.

Finally at about 6:30, ‘Mr. Raj – the Horse’ arrived with a few horsemen and horsewomen by his side. Raghu was one of them. I waived at Raghu - trying to show off to my fellow chair holders that I knew one of the horsemen and hence I was maybe a little closer to the millions than they were – but Raghu was too busy for him to notice me (or maybe he acted that way) ..aur mera ‘Popat’ ho gaya. Little did I know that this was my first ‘Popat’ for the evening, and the smallest one. The bigger Popats were on their way. (Just FYI: the term ‘mera popat ho gaya’ means ‘made a fool of myself’. It’s a typical Mumbai lingo)

After apologizing for the delay and welcoming us all, the Horse began his speech with a question “Do you know how Ray Kroc became a billionaire?”. When he found that nobody was making an attempt to answer that question, he started picking on people. Oh, how much I hate it when speakers do that, and I hate it even more when I am the one who gets picked to answer the question. Now despite my attempts to avoid eye contact with the horse, he invariably had to pick me to answer that question. This was my second Popat of the evening, because to begin with I didn’t even know who Ray Kroc was. How was I supposed to know how he became a billionaire? But again I was too ashamed to display my ignorance on Ray Kroc, so I politely said “No, I don’t”. Suddenly somebody in the back rows shouted “By selling burgers” (Ray Kroc apparently turned out to be the founder of McDonalds, and my mind was going ..”Oh my God, is this some burger selling business, that I am getting into?”). But fortunately the speaker had asked about Mr. Kroc only to talk about the franchising model of McDonalds. Soon he moved over to Michael Dell (of Dell computers), and from there to someone else and then again someone else and a lot of blah blah blah and blah..

For about an hour the horse bragged about a lot of stuff, except on how do we, the 100 odd people in that room, could make their millions. What was his business proposition – we still didn’t have a clue. And the horse was going on and on dabbling between franchising models, stories of what some of his partners did with their millions, about ‘residual’ incomes and parallel incomes, about the benefits of continual flow of money in your life even when you stop working etc etc….but not a word on how to make that money. After a while the horse’s mouth started appearing like the back side of a bull, because all that was coming out of it was nothing but bullshit..and a lot of it. Finally after about an hour and half, of beating around the bush, the horse hinted that this was some kind of a membership scheme, where each one makes more members and they make more members and at the same time each member buys expensive soaps and shampoos and aftershaves and sugar and coffee from their website and everybody gets a small portion of the money they spent. The company was called something, but overall they were all products of Amway. There I could see my million dollars going down the drain (My Popat No. 3).

We were then told to buy a $10 CD and starter kit, which thankfully I didn’t (thus avoiding Popat no 4.). When the speaker finished, I slyly excused myself from the room and drove home straight. That evening when Raghu called me, I blasted at him for robbing me off my millions and told him not to fall prey to such con games. But he was too convinced of the scheme that my words fell on his deaf ears. It took him a good two years (and a few hundred dollars spent on memberships and some expensive purchases off the Amway website) for him to realize that he wasn’t good enough at convincing people to fall in this trap, and these so called MLM (Multi Level Marketing) schemes were not his cup of tea.

Since that day in 2000, I have been conned into attending such events, twice. Once by a decent looking couple whom we (my wife and I) bumped into at Wal-Mart. They befriended us (that’s what we thought) and invited us over to their house for what they said was a ‘weekend get together with friends’ – which turned out to be another Amway type thing. This time it was under the name Quikstar. Needless to say, we never saw those people again. The third time I attended such a meeting was when I was invited by an alumnus of our college, whom I met at our MBA Alumni meet. This time I was invited under the pretext of discussing a potential business proposition which again turned out to be nothing but a Quikstar con meet. However this time the hosts were nice enough to serve coffee, cookies and cake before the bull shitting session started, and I excused myself out of the session the moment I finished feeding myself generously on the cake and cookies and having gulped down the coffee.

I still get calls from people I know who invite me to their homes for a get together or to discuss business ideas. But now I categorically ask them if this is an Amway/Quikstar/Goldquest or any of those kinds of MLM schemes that they want me to be a member of. If their answer happens to be a ‘Yes’ then I politely (and sometimes not so politely either – it entirely depends on my mood then) excuse myself.

The beholder of this question is often an elderly member of your extended family, whom you bump into at the wedding reception of a distant cousin; and the awkwardness of the situation arises because your answer to their question ‘Do you recognize me’ happens to be a ‘No’. Now for some odd reason answering ‘No, I don’t recognize you’ is a big NO NO. I have been brainwashed, by mom, since childhood that admitting blatantly that you don’t recognize members of the family is outright ‘rude’ and not acceptable behavior. So now you have to say ‘Yes’. With a nervous smile on the face, head shaking in the yes-no swirl, you murmur ‘Yes I do’, hoping that the conversation ends there. But experience tells you, that you ain’t going to get out of this trap that easily.

Your ‘Yes, I do’ only gives rise to the next question “Tell me who am I?”. ‘Dammit!’, you think, ‘what is this - some kind of an identity check? Do you not remember who you are, that you want me to tell you that? I am not going to tell you who you are. Go figure yourself’. You are tempted to blurt all this out, but your ‘good boy’ image does not permit you to do so. So behind the benign smile that covers your face at such moments, is a mind that’s monkeying up and down every branch of your family tree tying frantically to put a name to the face that’s staring at you, waiting for an identity check (and sometimes holding you by the arm too, just to ensure that you don’t run away before you enlighten them with their identity.) And then like a lightening out of the blue it strikes you ‘Yes! I got it, this is Sheela Maushi’ - mom’s cousin aunt’. But such joys are short lived and killed by overriding thought ‘No wait, Sheela Maushi was the one who died two months ago, this must me Radha Maushi’; ‘No, Radha Maushi died, this is Sheela Maushi;… No..I don’t know.. one of them died.. I think… this is Radha Maushi – the dead one. Oh how can she be the dead one? She must be the alive one… but then who died? Forget who died, you are supposed to figure out who is this alive one here.. not the dead one….’ Eventually you give up and opt for what you think is the diplomatic way out. You say “Of course I know you, but I don’t remember your name”.

Well diplomacy works in this case and Radha Maushi caves in and reveals her identity (yes that’s who she is - Radha Maushi – the alive one). Her grip on your arm start loosening and you think that your escape is near, when all of a sudden Radha Maushi gets into the Q&A mode. ‘Where do you work?; Why don’t you take up a job instead, running you own business is risky; Why don’t you go to the USA for work, my son’s daughter and son-in-law are there; Why did you return back?; When are you planning to visit us with your wife and kid; When are you planning your second kid?….’ For a moment you start wondering on whether this old lady runs an employment cum family planning agency of some sort. But you continue to act as if you are enjoying her words of wisdom. And ‘It’s my wish…Meri marzi… I will do whatever I want’ and other variants of this answer, are only thoughts that occur in your head, which are instantly dismissed in the lure to protect your ‘good boy’ image.

Finally after a rapid crossfire of questions and suggestions, you think you have almost come to your escape point, when from nowhere your wife sneaks up oblivious of this whole situation, coolly sipping on a glass of coke. That’s it. Radha Maushi does not miss out on the opportunity to cast her spell of another awkward moment. She says “Why don’t you introduce me to your wife?”. Now this is a tough one. A mere introduction saying ‘This is Radha Maushi’ is not accepted. You got to explain the exact relationship starting with mom as the focal point and navigating through every node and branch of the family tree that connects her and mom. So now you are back on the tree again, dangling, and slipping, trying your best to cling on, when suddenly there is a pat on your shoulder. You turn around and there is another of your extended family member smiling at you asking “Kaay, Olakhlas Ka?”

I hate interviews. That’s because they ask weird questions during them, most of which don’t make any sense to me. I mean how did that guy expect me to know (I was barely 20 then) what I would be at 30? Back then, being 30 was like being ‘old’ and I still addresses people in their 30’s as ‘uncle’ and ‘aunty’ (now I don’t think that way though). How would I know how much my life would be messed up in the next decade? And how did it even matter to the interviewer. He was not my insurance agent. The fact was that I had no 10 year plans with me (for that matter I didn’t have a 5 or even 2 year plan either). I had no idea how my future was going to unfold. And I wasn’t an astrologer to make predictions either. Nor was I a kid to say Fireman, Detective, Cop, Doctor, Astronaut, Driver, or Lawyer and get away with it, like I did as a child when was often asked ‘Who do you want to be when you grow up?’. But as the silence in the interview room started getting a little uneasy on both of us, I decided to break it with saying something to the effect of ‘In the future I see myself rising higher in the industry and some blah blah blah,…’. Thankfully the interviewer didn’t probe deeper into my future and we moved on.

For many years, the question on ‘future plans’ remained on the top of my ‘most hated questions’, until I came across what is known as the ‘Elevator Pitch’. When my career counselor at the American B-School told me to prepare a 30 second Elevator Pitch, I was benign enough to display my ignorance and ask her what an ‘Elevator Pitch’ meant. “If you are riding in an elevator with a potential employer or an investor and you have just 30 secs to put forth your proposition, what would you say? That is an elevator pitch” was her reply. I never had a fancy for elevators (I like escalators better). But that day on, I started hating them; and moreover those companies that made such fast elevators.

I could never come up with an elevator pitch. I mean 30 secs is too little a time for me to frame anything, let alone a value proposition to a potential employer/investor. I need my time, and I need my space. I am an elaborate thinker. The only thing that I can say in 30 second in an elevator is a quick prayer for my safety - nothing more than that. I can’t convince anybody of anything is an elevator. Fortunately I have never been in such a situation either, where my opportunity has ‘gone in 30 secs’. (Or maybe it has, just that I was too slow to even notice it vanishing). But I wonder if things really work that way. I wonder how many people have actually got jobs or struck business deals in 30 secs by virtue of their elevator speeches. Nevertheless my American colleagues and my professors and my career counselor were all obsessed with the whole idea of this elevator pitch. I just never had one. (Now that probably explains why guns are so popular in that country. It sure must be a lot easier to drive your point in 30 seconds in an elevator with a gun in hand, than with just words and no gun.)

Well it’s been a long time since that first interview. Yes I did get that job :-) and I did join it too. Although ten years later, I was nowhere close to what I had told the interviewer on where I thought I would be. But even today I dread that question and I really hope that someday when I bump into you in an elevator, I am able to, in 30 secs, paint a perfect picture of where I see myself as a man in his 40’s (that’s when I am old and ‘uncle’ types) -:)

The words Banerjee and college brought back memories, and it didn’t take me long to realize that the caller was none other than my college friend Anand Banerjee. The last I had spoken to Anand was about a year ago before he had moved to the US of A on an assignment. That probably explained the ‘Andy’ and the accent, but why was he calling me ‘Dude’? I am not ‘Dude’ and I don’t like ‘Dude’. For me the character ‘dude’ resembles an image of a punk looking guy with body piercings, tattoos, and highlighted hair, with jeans hanging low enough to show off the tags on the underwear and cover most of socks and shoes too. And I am nowhere close to that. I don’t have any part of my body pierced or tattooed and I would any day prefer people noticing the tick mark on my shoes rather than them getting a sneak peak into my VIP status.

After a short conversation over phone, Andy and I decided to meet up at a local bar that evening. On my way to the bar I was trying to imagine the transformed Andy but thankfully at a physical level he was still the same. There was nothing Americanized in his appearance, accept for the few extra pounds (he insisted on calling them ‘extra pounds’ and not kilos or fat) that he had put on. But his accent had changed. I had no issues with that actually. I can comfortably follow American Accent and even Indian English (and Hindi too) spoken in a phony American Accent. (And just for the record, I can even follow English spoken with a Chinese accent). So when Andy told the waiter “Khaan I get a battle of Wataah” and the waiter had a confused look on his face trying to figure out what drink is the ‘Wataah’, I was prompt enough in clarifying that all he needs was a ‘bottle of Water’.

My only problem with Andy was his referring me as ‘Dude’, and he was doing it more often than was necessary. Every second sentence had the word ‘Dude’ in it. I was almost tempted to tell him “Stop calling me Dude”, but after a while I kind of started enjoying the attention. I thought ‘Maybe I look ‘Dude’ish’. So what if I wear my jeans at waist levels, so what if I don’t have any punctures or tattoos on my body, so what if I don’t even have little sprouts of beard growing under my lower lips, I still got style of my own. I can be ‘Dude’. I always knew Andy considered me a friend, philosopher, guide and confidante, maybe he now thinks I am upbeat and trendy too. I could see that in his eyes. Maybe Andy thinks I am cool. Yes I am cool. I am DUDE.’

Vodka served with an overdose of ‘Dude’ can have an extremely ego gratifying effect on a person like me, is what I found out that evening. The ‘Dude’ effect was indeed flattering. Although my looks were still the same, I thought I now had a changed outlook. I was Dude. That evening as I passed by the mirror in the bedroom I paused a bit, to have a good second look at Dude Jay.

PS: For those who are wondering what a lazy Wednesday is, well its just a Wednesday on which I have either nothing much to do or too bored to do anything. And if by any chance this article has raised even the slightest doubt in your mind about my sexual orientation and preferences, then just shrug it off. I just want to clarify that I am very much a Straight Cool Dude -:)

It all started a couple of years ago during an online conversation with this young lady over gtalk. The nature of our conversations was professional in nature. One fine day during such a conversation she said ‘BRB’ and then there was a long pause from her end. Earlier too she had used terms like LOL and some characters like :D, :P and other combinations of symbols like :, :, > and characters, that I didn’t understand much, but I always chose to ignore them thinking that those were just some expressions she used. But when BRB happened, I started wondering ‘What could ‘BRB’ mean?’, That was the first time I had hear the term and I thought really hard. I tried various combinations from my vocabulary of words beginning with B and R and the eureka moment fortunately was not far away. I soon figured out what it meant. BRB means ‘Bath Room Break’. Yes, that’s exactly what I thought :-) and I was happy I could figure it out. Sounds funny now, but yes its true. That’s what I thought it meant :-)

But it sure did puzzle me a bit. ‘Why did she have to tell me where she was going?’ I wondered. I mean she could just say she had to go somewhere or just say something else. Why did she have to be so honest? But then I thought maybe it was just her age factor or then maybe her inability to think under ‘pressure’ :-) - that she could not think of something else to say under those circumstances. Well my thought process was interrupted by her message, ‘I am back’ and we continued our discussion from where we had left before the break.

As days passed I noticed that the frequency of her BRBs gradually increased. At times I was really tempted to tell her not to update me on her every single break. If she has to go, just go. Don’t tell me, just go. She need not be so honest either. At times, especially on days when she had many BRBs, I was also tempted to tell her to seek medical advice on her frequent breaks. But as I said before, the nature of our relationship was purely professional and I didn’t know if she would take offence to my recommendations. So I just kept shut, waiting patiently for her to return from her breaks, only hoping that all was fine with her.

It wasn’t until the day she typed ROFLMAO that I actually figured out what a BRB meant. During a conversation she typed ROFLMAO, and it was actually too cryptic an acronym for my brain to figure out. So when the eureka moment didn’t come even after racking my brains for a long time (and I didn’t want to show my ignorance either by asking her what it meant), I sought assistance from Google. ‘Rolling On Floor Laughing My Ass Off’ was what it meant according to a website on Urban Acronyms and Chat Lingo. Now just out of curiosity I started browsing through the website, trying to update my knowledgebase when I stumbled on BRB there. ‘Be Right Back’ was all it said.

The truth shall set you free. That’s exactly how I felt when I read that. I frantically searched other sites for BRB, but there was no reference of the bathroom anywhere. I was happy that this lady didn’t have a medical problem, and was relieved that her breaks were not actually to relieve herself. I was happier that I was saved from what could have been an embarrassing situation had I actually discussed my concerns on her honesty and her health with her. It would definitely have sent her off doing a ‘ROFLMAO’.

Nevertheless, I think I have a graphical imagination. So when somebody says a ROFLMAO my brain invariably tries to imagine them doing that. So please while talking to me stick to the normal ‘ha ha’ or at the most a ‘lol’ (which by the way, I had figured out that same day that it meant ‘Laughs Out Loud’). I don’t want to imagine you rolling anywhere or running away to take your breaks :-)

So after a while the waiter arrives with a plate of hot, steaming, yummy looking momos and what do I notice ‘Oh Oh.. there are 7 momos on the plate’. Now how much I hate being in such an ‘odd’ situation. I mean, how could those restaurant guys do this to us? 2 people and 7 momos?? Do they not understand that 7 is a number that is not divisible by 2? Could they just not make it 8 momos? Or maybe even 6 (but nah.. considering what they were charging for a plate of momos, I think I would rather go with 8 than 6). Anyways without the slightest display of anxiety or panic, we continued our conversation, savoring our way though the momos - one momo at a time. But as anticipated, I soon faced the situation I had dreaded. We were down to that Last Momo on the plate.

It’s a tough situation I tell you. On one hand you really want that momo, but then you don’t want to make it look obvious either. You have an image to protect (I think). In such a situation, carrying on with the conversation and acting as if you are paying attention to what the lady is saying and enjoying it too, is a real challenge. Because the only thought that’s hammering you in the head is ‘Who’s gonna eat that last momo?’. But I think I was still doing a fine job at acting normal and enjoying the conversation, and I doubt if my date had realized that I had lost her to that last momo a while ago. And that’s when she uttered those golden words. She said “Go ahead, finish that momo”.

It was a moment of ecstasy. It was bliss. Without the slightest hesitation whatsoever, I dug the fork (which I was all the while still holding in my hand) into the momo, dipped the momo in the sauce and gulped it down. I thought I had done this as gracefully as I could, without revealing the euphoria I was experiencing as the momo found its way into my stomach, caressing my soul on its way down; but a look at her face, didn’t take me long to realize that I was totally wrong. I don’t know what exactly gave me away. Maybe it was the haste with which I gulped down the momo, or maybe it was the look and love in my eyes (for the momo of course), or maybe it was the broad grin on my face; but whatever it was, it was enough for me to understand that along with the momo I had gulped down on the little ounces of chivalry that I thought I was carrying along all this while. Well no issues. Chivalry and I were never on good terms anyways. So no regrets on losing it :-)

But I am not the type who would give up that easily. I tried to justify my actions by arguing that it was she who had offered me that last momo. I even asked her “Had I offered you that momo, would you have eaten it?“, to which she replied “Of course I wouldn’t”. “So fine, then what’s the complaint about?” was my reaction. But apparently things were not as fine and simple as they should have been. I wanted that momo and she didn’t want it; she wanted me to display a little more chivalry and I guess I didn’t have it.

Needless to say, that when the bill arrived, and she offered to pay, I obliged to her request and let her do the honor. Anyways I had lost grace. Let me not lose my money too - is what I thought :-). Yup, I know I can be smart at times :-)

PS: Just for the record, I am planning to file a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) against all restaurants serving odd number of starters to a party of two. Anybody willing to join me in this noble cause?

When it comes to opinions, the second almost always beats the first one hands down. The second doctor somehow is always right-:) I just at times wonder, if that’s the case, why do people not consult the second one first? Why is he second? And this rule applies to almost every professional advice, not just doctors. In fact at times the ‘second opinion’ is so powerful, that it is valued even if it does not come from a qualified professional. Being ‘second’ is all that matters. I have seen people chuck away a doctor’s prescription just because a stranger they met in the bus suggested an alternate remedy. That’s the power of the ‘second opinion’!

But I should admit, whomever it comes from, it’s rare for opinions to coincide. The second has to invariably differ from the first. And in this world of varying opinions, where everybody is entitled to one, I try to stick to mine, secretly hoping that mine happens to be the ‘second’ one.

PS: I am NOT ‘opinionated’. Its just that I am always right -:)

For a while, the lemon was on a roll. He made his presence felt everywhere from beauty soaps, to shampoos, to shaving creams and even the talcum powder. But then somewhere down the line he lost it. The lemon’s biggest mistake, I think, was he became over ambitious and accepted offers from even the non cosmetic guys. The lemon was everywhere. You could find him in dishwashing soaps, air fresheners, and window cleaners. That’s when the cosmetic guys knew they needed a new fruit and the lemon lost his charm.

The crush of the lemon led to the rise of the orange, banana, papaya, peach, green apple, avocado, and others. The rules of the game were simple. If you needed a place in cosmetics, you need to be photogenic and you needed to sound exotic. Taste didn’t matter. Hence the jackfruit never made it. I feel sorry for the ‘chikoo’ too. But the one who undoubtedly created a sensation in the industry was ‘Aloe Vera’. The guy just rocked the cosmetic world. He was like “Wow!” I mean the guy had the looks and even had a first and last name. That’s so very hep! And most important, many people didn’t know what an Aloe Vera was (many still don’t). That gave him an added exclusivity making him even more desirable.

Hopefully Aloe doesn’t make the same mistake as the lemon did, and keeps a close eye on Jojoba. The Gillette guys already have Jojoba in one of their shave gels, and I don’t think it would take the Jojoba long to catch up in the race. But fortunately, thanks to food lovers like me, I am sure there is enough room for both the Aloe and Jojoba (and a few more are welcome too) in our shampoo bottle and our shave gels.

PS: When is Lifebuoy coming up with an Aloed version? I think the red soap is a little harsh on my delicate and sensitive skin :-)

Strange, but somehow the humble ‘Papaya’ has made it big in the cosmetic business. Although the papaya has been into existence for many years now, until recently I never realized its true potential. I never considered it anything more than a fruit that I didn’t enjoy eating much. The papaya for me was a poor man’s fruit - nature’s gift to those who couldn’t afford the mango. Papaya juice with a lot of saccharine was traditionally used as filler to dilute mango juice (like pumpkin was used in tomato ketchup). I never knew that the papaya had any other potential, until it somehow found a break in the cosmetic industry. I should say I am really happy for the Papaya.

But the Papaya isn’t alone. If you happen to be an ardent viewer of advertisements on TV (like I am), or walk down the soap/shampoo aisle at a retail store, you will be amazed to see the amount of ‘food’ that goes into these beauty products. It’s strange, but the ad for the beauty soap with strawberry and cream looks yummier than a Baskin Robbins. These days there’s plenty of edible stuff in your beauty products right from the papaya, strawberry, peach, orange, banana, wheat, milk cream, chocolate, avocado, tea tree, green apple, almond, apricot, cucumber, watermelon, jojoba (I have no idea what the jojoba is, but whatever it is, it sound pretty exotic), to my all time favorite the ‘Aloe Vera’. And if for some reason your shampoo manufacturers decide not to add food to your shampoo, they would at least make sure it comes ‘with added vitamins A, B, D & E’, so that you don’t miss out on your daily dose of vitamins.

Well I have a lot more to write on these cosmetic foods, but the talk of food invariably makes me hungry. So I will be back after a quick ‘food’ break (and no. I don’t mean a shower and shave here. I mean a real food break). Ciao.

Well I am not trying to point fingers or accuse the current student generation; for I was no different as a student. In retrospect I feel that it was because I never found lectures interesting. So opportunities to get by without attending lectures were always welcome. But never did it cross my mind back then, to go to the college authorities and demand for better service. Never did I stand up and say “I am paying for education and I demand better service”. Let alone that, I never had the intentions (not the courage either) to stand up to a professor and express my dissatisfaction towards his/her way of teaching. I accepted things the way they were, and the lesser I was officered the better I felt. I wonder why did I not demand more, why did anybody not demand more.

Education is the fastest growing business in India, with costs of education on a steep rise. Wonder when will we see an improvement in the quality of education too? Wonder if a day would ever come when students (and parents) would demand better service and more value for their money? Will someday students really enjoy attending lectures in college or would that require a complete overhaul of the education system itself? Hopefully someday -:)

I hate impatient waiters. What I don’t understand is that how can someone who’s called a ‘waiter’ not like to wait. Well anyways, that’s a completely separate issue altogether, let me come back to the mess my dear friend had got us into. To begin with how can you ask a complete stranger, who had no idea about your taste in food, to recommend you something? It’s as bad as asking a chemist a second opinion on your doctor’s prescriptions (I have seen many people doing that too). Well so now the waiter starts recommending you certain dishes and your mind start wondering if he is trying to sell you leftovers from previous day. You start thinking if he recommending them only because the chef really wants to get rid of those dishes? So when the guy says “Why don’t you try the Chicken Mughlai” I hear him saying “Why don’t you help us finish the Chicken Mughlai. It’s been lying in the kitchen for a week now. Nobody’s eating that. Please eat it for us”

So now the waiter has put forth his recommendations, putting you in a real dilemma. I mean how safe is it to reject a waiter’s recommendation? Once the waiter has recommend the Chicken Mughlai, is it OK to say “nah, we don’t want Chicken Moughlai, get us Mutton Roganjosh instead”? Would he take that as an offence and if he does would he actually take revenge? As revenge would he just overcharge you, or would go to the extent of tampering with your food too? You never know what actually happens back in restaurant kitchens. It’s always behind closed doors. But I have seen dreadful things happen back there in movies where they show all sorts of food adulteration tricks, not to mention the ever classic ‘spit in food’ kind of revenge.

Thankfully this time we were a fairly large group, and we ordered a few dishes as per the waiter’s recommendation, and a few others that were our as per our choice - thus arriving at what I believe was a win-win situation. The food was good. I enjoyed the dinner. Nevertheless all through dinner I was still trying to taste ‘staleness’ in the waiter recommended dishes and ‘tampering’ in the dishes we chose -:)

Then there are some who sign “Best Wishes”, “All the best”, “Wish you the very best”, giving me the impression that I really must be in bad shape that these people are wishing and praying for me. But a complicated version of this one are the ones that just sign “Best” followed by their name on the following line. Now what’s that supposed to mean? Are you calling me the ‘best’, you wishing me the ‘Best’ or you claiming to be the ‘best’ ??

To those who instruct me by saying “Have a good day” or for that matter “Have a good weekend”, I just want to say “Oh, dammit..I was planning on having a horrible day/weekend. But now that you have asked me to have a good one, I think I will try and obey your instructions”. The same applies to those who ask me to ‘Take Care’ or ‘Be Good’. But the most complicated of them all (I think) are the ones that sign ‘Love’, giving me a jittery feeling on reading that, moreover if the email is from a guy. Maybe I am being a little old fashioned here, but please, I don’t need your official emails with a dash of love.

I don’t know why, but some people include proverbs and quotes too at end of their emails. But never mind. Its till better than having an animated cat or a dog dancing at the bottom to some tune of music playing in the background. And I thought I had seen it all, until I received the following email a few days ago:

“Jay
I am in receipt of the CD. Thanks a lot for the help.
I would keep in touch with you and update about the progress I will make.
Thanks once again dear.
Yours
Vikram”

‘Thanks once again “DEAR”, Yours Vikram’. Could it get any better? -:) NO I didn’t send this guy a CD containing a collection of my personal pictures/videos – if that’s what you are thinking. The CD contained ONLY official documents. And I am so glad I didn’t hand deliver the CD, but rather chose to courier it. I don’t think I could have handled a 6 ft, 90kg mid aged guy oozing with gratitude and love, trying his best to express it.

With that I rest my case.

How do you judge the value or worth of education? Most students try to gauge the value of a particular program by the starting salaries that they could expect after passing out from the program. While this is fair enough, I personally feel that this is a short sighted approach. The purpose of education is not just to get you a job. The real purpose of education is to ‘educate’ you. Your decision behind pursuing higher education should be driven by your desire to ‘learn’ and not just ‘earn’. Earning eventually will follow. But in an environment with so many institutions advertising their programs by highlighting the salaries that their graduates earn, I don’t completely blame the students for thinking likewise.

It is understandable that you went to school, and eventually to college too, because your parents and social factors forced you to do so. You probably chose a stream/branch that your parents, peers, teachers and others felt was best for you rather than the one that you really wanted to. However your decision to pursue a master’s program should be driven by your desire to learn. Choose a program that you would enjoy attending; where sitting in class would be more fun than bunking lectures. The benefits would follow, and not just in terms of your job after graduation. You will experience the benefits of good education all throughout your career and even more. And you don’t have to consider higher education immediately after you finish your bachelor degree. If you don’t feel like studying further, it’s fine. Take a break, join a job. There are enough options and opportunities for studying further.

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In the articles that would follow, I plan to talk on topics related to higher education. Being a counselor of foreign education, my shift would be towards education abroad and a comparison between the Indian and foreign degrees. Most of my blogs would be addressing college students (and their parents) who are exploring options for higher education.

A casual conversation with a friend over googletalk, and here I am writing a blog, or at least making an attempt to. And as I embark on my blogging endeavor a thousand questions cross my mind (ok, well actually just 4 to 5 of them): How many blogs should I write and how frequently? How big should the blogs be? Will anybody ever read what I write? Or should I just write a book instead, at least they have a ‘booker’ prize for books. I could aim for the booker. I haven’t heard of anything called the blogger prize. Maybe they will introduce one soon. If they don’t then maybe I will print a book of my blogs and compete for the booker :-) Nevertheless I will just start with a blog now and see how things go.

Readers of my blog, here I come !

PS: Apart from writing on some of the humorous incidents in my life and my take on certain issues, I also plan to write on ‘Education’. The blogs on education would cover topics relevant to Indian students, especially those exploring options for higher education (post graduation).