Entrapped

So the ice broke and also a music system remote. RIP my friend; at least you had a quick death.

Years ago on a visit to a zoo, a memory was permanently sketched in my mind- the sight of a chicken in a sleeping python’s cage. That same chicken has been visiting me frequently in my dreams over the past one week and a sense of brotherhood seems to be developing between the two of us. Another fellow mate, 'Bijoy' has identified our situation with that of flies that get attracted to the shine of these insect electrocuting machines.

Very Profound indeed.

The classes have started encroaching to timings when a person looks much better with a pint of beer in hand. But no, you have instead to understand whether a damned construction supervisor’s wages should be accounted for, while calculating the fixed asset value as per some god forsaken Accounting Standard. Some numerically challenged person like me named Millie had botched up her balance sheet big time but there was no reason that I should get the same for rectification. My feeble attempts to reach at the correct figures and its atrocious degree of variation from what was the actual solution was not very boosting for the morale. The one skill that engineering had taught me well was the ability to copy-paste and that skill alone had helped me maintain a continued salary inflow over the last seven years in IT. I sincerely hope that I get to use this universally usable skill to tide over this attempt at management education. After all reinventing the wheel serves no purpose to the society, does it?

We also went through our first surprise quiz on Microeconomics. More surprising than the quiz was someone asking for an extra sheet when all I had filled in were my name and roll number! In fact those were the only two items for which I had genuine answers but thanks to some wise decision on my part as regards the seating arrangement that day, I was inspired in a few answers to the problems. The seating arrangement awaits evaluation once the answers come in.

The PGPEX Chairman addressed the class for the first time and it was heartening to finally see a head that oscillated along the Y-axis to our suggestions instead of the by the now familiar No-No-No-No-No that we got as an answer to any request directed to his next door office. Applying the two negatives theory might just work there. For example :

Us - “Sir, we absolutely do not want any printers in the hostels”
Reply : “No-No-No-No-No”

Us - “Sir, we have pledged not to bring vehicles to the campus"
Reply: “No-No-No-No-No”

Us - “Sir, we will positively not use a classroom on weekends for consulting club meetings”
Reply: “No-No-No-No-No”

Communication training continues. But they do not teach theories such as the Some-Alcohol-No-Spouse theory which has a profound influence on communication abilities. Leave a man with some beer and assure him that his wife would not be in the vicinity and check out the amazing communication channels that then open up. The party last week stood testimony to this remarkable piece of study.

Two new faculty faces entered the classroom. The very interesting Prof for Stats could well have an alternate profession as a marriage counsellor considering his unique ability to evaluate any aspect of life through the prism of marriage. As regards bachelors, someone opined that its our wives-to-be that are controlling our actions. Not something that will go down well with Ma.
The other class on learning Advanced Excel is an experience in discontinuos education. What needs to be taught seems to arrive in small packets of data after long intervals and the class goes into a state of slowmotion every now and then. People are utilising this time of packet drops for sanity checks (read, Gtalk and Facebook)

The weekend arrived and with it came the month end but not the SMS from the bank which confirmed credit of the dear friend, Salary. I am so missing you, my friend. I know I had been harsh upon you and time and again criticised you for your abysmal growth rate but now that you are no longer here, I feel your absence very strongly. May we unite soon and have a stronger bond in future.

Baa Baa Black sheep

The alarm went off at 7 in the morning. The early morning brain convinced me that the alarm was playing up and I kept snoozing it for a good half an hour more before the reason for this unkind deviation of routine dawned upon me with a sudden ferocity. Classes were to start in less than an hour !!!

This was it then, the culmination of all those hours and hours spent correcting sentences and solving mango-apple problems for GMAT, those endless sessions of writing essays and then rewriting them all over again, the butterfly picnic in the stomach before the admission interviews, the agony of the name not featuring in the first list and then finally the thrill of that one email from the PGPEX office that left me unemployed and poorer by 1.4 million rupees!!
The alarm had not malfunctioned. It was just time.

The orientation session the day before was fairly insipid with run of the mill speeches by the who's who of the faculty and administration. The only speech that evinced some interest was not surprisingly that of the Placement Coordinator. His tone however went unnaturally down when reading the placement stats for the batch that just passed out. Like everything else, lets blame it on the Americans not paying money for homes they bought.

Meanwhile we were all getting used to the life at IIM Calcutta. Hectic activity could be seen in the Cooperative Store managed by Gopida. From cycles to hangars to bedsheets to buckets, he sold everything and at brisk pace. I also squeezed in a request for my internship at his store just in case !
Nothing however matched the twists and turns that came with the Airtel phone connectivity. Guided by the most experienced shoulder in our batch who managed to get the Airtel chap in campus on a sweltering Calcutta Sunday afternoon (!!!), we played hard and counter negotiated almost every offer that the guy had to make. He came back on Monday with some new ammunition to fight in the form of compulsory ECS. Gopida rushed in on his bike and gave everybody a hassle-free prepaid connection which got activated immediately !
His fan club added some new members.

The grind began with a class on Financial Reporting and Analysis and the enthusiasm and excitement of getting back to the classroom after all these years of educational celibacy was all too evident. The scheduled one-and-a-half hour lecture stretched well beyond. The enthusiasm was thankfully checked by a sumptous lunch from Bapida's super efficient mess, the Kolkata heat and a subject called Microeconomics where most of us reacquainted with an old friend - The classroom sleep.
The lecture that followed was on IT and most of us were on familiar domain or so we thought. IT jargons flew thick and fast but mostly it was a good exercise for the brain to come out of the Nomenclature Disorder as the entire class reintroduced themselves and we got another chance to link faces with names.

Day II brought some interesting subjects and professors along with. There was some serious digging on concepts of mathematics, a subject which has chosen to block me from its friend's list for quite some time now and the few more lectures that has followed has confirmed that I am still not in its good books. From the safe looking set theory, the class has moved on to dangerous domains of permutation-combination and calculus. I could hear thick mention of that Probability word, an area where my probability of getting problems correct has always had a limit at zero.

Two courses on behavioural sciences. If the feeling of being a student had not sunk in as yet, the professor for Organisational Behaviour clarified all such doubts with strict instructions of being barred from attending classes if even a minute, were we to be late. The result is that the class is at full strength five minutes before the scheduled start and of course there are no restrictions on when she can start or end the classes. So now if this class has been standardised to a duration of one hour forty minutes, I understand that its all a matter of 'Perception'.
The class on Managerial communication (Oral) has proved to be quite interesting too as one would expect. The disadvantages of having a name with the first English alphabet came visiting earlier than expected and by the end of the week, I was done with my first 25 mark business presentation. So i have completed 0.375 credits !! Neat.

The ice breaking party is scheduled for today evening. Not that ice has not been broken already. But its always advisable to break more ice as the heat builds up around you.
So Cheers to the first week and the days to come !!
Bring them on, I say !!

The new journey...

IIMC Day 1 -- Nursing a bruised shoulder after carrying the Term 1 books from the Admission office to Hostel room. The room is air-conditioned and the air conditioner works !!!! A magnanimous 5 day break in the next one year !!! Classes start from Tuesday after an orientation on Monday. Orientation much required.

Ominous ......very Ominous....Keeping the faith
More later.....

The Metamorphosis of the guy with the computer but no brains to run it

Why do we store experience Under our Belts ?
Of course I understand that experience in that portion of one's anatomy would be something to boast about, but to store every other experience there can be quite risky. For e.g. 'He has proven experience of sharpening blades under his belt' ..........Not a comfortable thought at all.
Wiktionary gives us the following example of its usage.
"He got off to a shaky start, but with a few months of experience under his belt, he kept up handily with the veteran employee."
If you interpret this sentence any differently from what I did, then I assume that you are reading this blog from some monastery or convent or may be this blog was opened using google.cn
The reason why I at all got bothered with this phrase is that I wanted to start this post saying that I would soon have seven years of IT experience under my belt and the thought just kept deviating from there. Apologies.

Seven years is a generation in the IT industry and considering the fact that I have remained glued to one single company throughout this duration does not speak highly of my employability. In my defence, I blame it completely on my Bengali laziness and my inability to generate any interest at all in what I am paid for.
Time and again on weekends, when there is absolutely nothing to do or watch, I have often wondered about where is it that I belong ? This thought invariably lulls me to sleep and soon it is Monday again and for the next five days, there is no space for such silly questions.
More complicated questions keep me busy and almost all translate to "What the fuck went wrong? By when will it be fixed ?"
IT is very interesting in this sense. There is always fire in your pants with little or no water to douse it. Petrol…yes and provided in ample measures by anyone senior to you.
No matter what CMM level your organisation claims to be or what the excellence of the operations you may have in your processes, something or the other will invariably fail after the delivery. That is the golden rule of all IT deliveries.
In IT contracts of bygone days, there used to be a Service Level Agreement of FTR (First Time Right) delivery. The very mention of the term brings out wild guffawing and hysterical laughter in IT circles. Speaking of Capability Maturity Model Levels, these certifications for a company are often misunderstood as indicative of its quality standards. The truth cannot be farther from it. The various processes within, were created by visionary people with the sole intention of generating work where none is required. It gives the management something to keep themselves busy with or seemingly at least. So the whole bunch of people who actually bring in no revenue to the organisation spend their entire days creating documents and generating reports of different shapes, sizes and textures.
So if you have been asked to document something seemingly very useless, then do not fret my friend. Your manager sees management potential in you.

A software professional moves through different roles/phases as he progresses in his career. Attempting brief description of the few that I been through/seen from close quarters.

The Fresher- Fresh out of college, it is this group of individuals whom you need to contact if you want to access Gmail, bharatmatrimony, Youtube or any other such useful site that may have been restricted by your mean and selfish network administrator. The excitement of a first job and their desire to impress makes these freshers the most sought after resources in a project. These are the people who will document all your sins and go and play Antakshari in the canteen to vent their frustration. They also are a rich source of those forward emails that keep you informed of stuff like benefits of coconut, Miss Infosys/Wipro/Cognizant/... each featuring photographs of the same group of ladies, emails about how the movie Avataar has been ripped off from our very own Rajesh Khanna starrer Avtaar (the similarities are shocking !!) and many more of such information that bring a smile to your face when nothing else seems to be going right. This bunch of people are thus the easiest to work with, as long as they come without any romantic liaisons. The ones entangled in matters of the heart remain perennially busy over phone.

The Module/Group Lead - People with 2-3 years of experience in IT, irrespective of what they actually do in their jobs will invariably be a module lead in their resume. This is actually a ghost role created to placate hurt egos at not being sent onsite. With the lead word attached in his signature, he gets a feeling of authority which is very important to us Indians.
I often wonder, why is there this immense fascination among us Indians to be leaders. Everyone wants to lead something or the other. When I was of this module lead age, I was bypassed even for the Fire Warden role of my floor. So much for my leadership skills !!
You can identify this set of people very easily . It is that guy who whispers ‘Just give me a minute’ every time he receives a call on his mobile and walks out. Hunting for an alternate job is his life’s sole intention. Most succeed in their hunts and move on. Those who don’t, write blogs later in life.

The Float/ Bench warmers : The people who are paid to do absolutely nothing and often referred to as the Bench strength of an IT organization. Not officially allocated to any project or account, their only job is to come and swipe their cards and record their In-Out times. If, in between these times, he has made a visit to the nearby mall and caught the matinee show, shopped brinjals for his wife, or played non-stop Solitaire or Minesweeper, no one gives a horse’s ass. This phase in a software professional’s life is when he recharges his batteries and regains his belief in God, by which I do not mean Google. These float areas are the breeding grounds of attrition in an organization and often the management does not seem to mind it.

The Team Lead /Project Leader – This is the role offered to guys who have aged in IT and are no longer fit to deliver anything of any worth. Having thus fulfilled the primary and probably the sole criteria required for management roles, he is given the responsibility of managing a team of developers and yes the module leads too. He basically has the job of the Project Manager’s parrot and keeps himself busy by organizing useless meetings and sending out hordes of seemingly important mails.When he needs to show off something concrete, he would conduct something fuzzy like a functional training session or explain quality processes for the kids in his project knowing very well that no one would be listening anyway and even if they did, wouldn’t be in a position to call his bluffs. Undeniably though he handles a bulk of the day–to-day project management stuff and manipulates figures so that the project health sheet shows up just as expected --cute and non-alarming.

The Onsite Coordinator: Onsite usually refers to a temporary stint at a high paying client location based on foreign shores when you start planning for your two bedroom flat. Wives prefer such assignments even more for the fact that their mothers-in-law can only rant over the webcam. As an onsite coordinator, your ass is first in the line of fire. So your primary job is to sweet talk with the client and come up with innovative excuses whenever the guys at offshore screw up the system and the possibilities of a man delivering a baby are more than that of the offshore team delivering the product on time. Fire in the server room, developer attacked by Hindu fundamentalists, "Its working fine at their end" etc are some of the successful ones that I employed to buy time. You just need to sound convincing and speak fast. On the other hand , while interacting with the offshore developers, you start politely and end up beating the pulp out of them by the time the call ends.
However, onsite coordinators should never forget to bring expensive chocolates for the team when returning. It is after all a temporary stint and the wife should be periodically reminded of that too.

The Project Manager : Well, what more can I add that has already not been said and written about this group. Project managers in IT are no different from managers in any other industry. They seem busy, smile when asked difficult questions and will always curtail your leave plans. As regards what they actually do to earn their salaries, its anybody's guess.

As the Peter Principle correctly says , "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence."

Chal 90 maar

3 idiots, has caught the fancy of the nation like no other recent film has. Having read Five point someone, the book on which I thought the story was supposedly based before Vidhu Vinod Chopra shut us all up, I wasn't really excited about the movie release and gave it a skip the first weekend, while it kept on garnering excellent reviews from all quarters.

So on New Years Day, I queued up half an hour to book a show for the movie. Queuing for movie tickets brought back fond memories of my hometown where buying tickets was always a more fulfilling experience than the movie itself. At times, we were so thrilled at the mere fact that we had managed to get a ticket, we just went back home. Oh, I so miss those awesome cat-fighting and swearing between ladies trying to sell tickets in black. Those were the days when cinema meant wholesome entertainment, much of which came free of cost.

Two third-row tickets for the 9 pm show cost me Rs.500. I cursed the multiplexes yet again.

I will not review the movie here. I thought it was an alright film that just got mighty mighty lucky.
Instead, I'll share a few memories of those early days of engineering and pass on a few advices of my own on what not to do in engineering and topping that list is Never Ever try to electrocute a senior, particularly when he is peeing.

A couple of days after the Millennium New Year, the first semesters started. Throughout my school life, I never needed any forged Daddy-signatures in my report cards. In fact they were the source of those small joys that parents willingly accept as reward for all their sacrifices. Soon after the first semester results, I realised that this source of their joy had dried up for ever. I did try quite hard though in the beginning to continue with the good run, but peer pressure got the better of me...the peer pressure to live up to the high standards set by friends from a state called Uttar Pradesh. And no those standards had nothing to do with engineering but yes a lot to do with being an engineer.

Uttar Pradesh is a state where a child usually starts cackling right from inside his mother's womb, lest he not be given enough time to complete all that he has to say during the lifetime outside. By the time he reaches engineering, he has already spoken the volume which a non-UPite would probably take four or five lifetimes to reach and fate placed me bang in the middle of some of the greatest proponents that our college was to ever produce in this Art of Talking. They honoured me by converting my humble room (which by the way already had three other occupants) into their august Parliament where they assembled every evening to discuss on the graver aspects of life.
The uninitiated, that I was, I made meek attempts to shift the venue of these daily gatherings by scribbling quotations such as :

'If you have an hour to spare, don't spend it with someone who hasn't '.
Someone expounded on this thought and beneath it wrote in bold:
'INSTEAD SPEND IT WITH ME'

I was defeated and I entered the Great Grand world of Bakar.

Our discussions initially were concentrated on mostly identifying and allocating the seniors to their correct incestuous relationship categories, depending on their attitude with us during the ragging sessions. Gradually, as we realised that Gujarat was a dry state only till we reached Shankarbhai's egg stall, the discussions grew much in content and animation.

From what I hear, ragging has more or less been completely eradicated from our college these days, which is kind of sad. When I say this, I obviously do not refer to anything of the nature in which iron rods are shovelled up narrow human orifices, but of the kind we endured, which was certainly irritating as not many of us liked to get a girl's signature on the inked impression of our posteriors, nor were many eager to graph their erection-time curve on the back of condom packets and carry them as identity cards, but majorly they were exercises of ego massaging which if not taken to heart, were really quite harmless. The embarrassment of running in a crowded train shouting "Bhago Bhago train me aag laga gaya" or being made to sit in the
corner of the room with a bucket on your head to hide your 'shameless' face as reprehension for a bad joke or a wrongly credited fart or the great 90 degree pranaam are some instances that you can recollect and have a hearty laugh even years later.
Not to mention the joy one gets on kicking the arse of those same seniors once the ragging period gets over. It is so out of the world ! Not so much though, when in the subsequent years you are at the receiving end.

But God forbid if you were to fall prey to the 'Intellectuals', or the group that majorly comprised of people who had read or heard of Catcher in the Rye, Fountainhead or Catch 22. They would never have any straight questions for you and naturally there were no straight answers either. It was only through trial and error that one learnt to handle these individuals. On the stairs of a busy shopping complex, I once bumped upon one of these specimens who after the usual boring game of Guess-my-state-in-three-questions-or-you-are-fu**ed, came up with a weird and audacious demand.

"Allright fuc**r, come here and touch my balls", he said.
Caught a little by surprise, I wondered whether the guy was making a pass at me but if so why would he do so in such an inappropriate place and manner. I always thought that homosexuals were a little more discrete with their advances.

So I enquired " Sir, do you really wish that I should place my hands on your testicles?"

"How dare you question back your seniors, C'mon touch my balls" he repeated with morevehemence in his voice this time.

I thought for a moment and said what the heck. Arguing would only land me in trouble. Moreover, I have many a time retrieved cricket balls from shit holes before. These were at least was a couple of inches away from one.
So I slowly nudged my hand forward to have my first homosexual experience. What followed momentarily changed the equation of the ragger and the ragged

"What the f*** , What the f***, What the f*** !!!!" he shrieked as he recoiled a good five metres in a single leap at my advance.

"I meant the eyeballs, you pervert, the eyeballs" , I could hear him shouting as he ran miles away from me.

Batao, How was I supposed to know that ?????

These are of course the goody goody accounts and at times things were not so pleasant, but surely everyone would accept the fact that things were never so bad so as to contemplate running back home.

Re-categorising the seniors in newer and more complicated incestuous relationships usually took care of the frustrations. And if the situation ever seemed to be getting out of hand, one could always fall back upon his 'knowledge' of palmistry. Bloody worked every time !!!

In that great Parliament of ours, we once had a heated debate on this topic of ragging and most of us firmly pledged that we would all refrain from this ridiculous show of ego.
Thankfully the pledges were not on stamp paper.

Learning to curb the ego is not a bad lesson for a man to learn so early in life. Prepares him well for marriage.

Jawani ki woh raat

Realising that just three more days remain to the New year has suddenly put me in retrospective mood. That a whole decade has passed by in this millennium is reason enough to halt for a moment and take cognizance of where one stands in life and what the road ahead looks like. Blame, such thoughts on lack of beer on an extended weekend, you may, but the fact remains that this last decade has been and will remain one of the most defining periods of my life and I quite vividly remember it beginning .

First semester exams were precariously close and with ragging period still on, we had restraining orders on our enthusiasm. The walls of the college gate that acted as the melting pot of all our engineering emotions acted as the party venue.
Now, in all the Hollywood movies where Americans save the world from destruction, there will surely be a scene depicting absolute chaos where thousands of people are shown running helter-skelter away from the impending disaster. In reality, all these scenes are actually canned free of cost in cities of Gujarat where occasions like Sunday evenings, stock market gains, American visa approval of a fellow Gujarati etc are celebrated with such fervour and abandon that one often mistakes the scene as one before the end of the world.
So you can well imagine the scene of a millennium heralding New Year eve.
Roads were absolutely choc-a-bloc with traffic moving in all directions. Well, as long as the roads led to some eatery joint or at least some open space where the bedsheet could be spread for the entire femly to sit and eat khaman dhokla.
Another hot-spot was also a sea beach on the city outskirts. Unknowingly named after the great French novelist Alexander Dumas, the Dumas beach was hospitable to only a particular section of the public who needed some extra privacy while eating. (Lets keep it to khaman dhokla to maintain the UA certificate of this blog)
So we being a vehicle-less, girlfriend-devoid, cash-strapped group of ragged-first-year hostelites joined the party from our college gates equipped with resources such as whistling and hooting abilities and a running tap of creative and predominantly harmless expletives. We cheered on the party revellers till we got bored of watching the never-ending exhibition of two-wheelers with their shockingly dressed owners. That each of these specimens had body-hugging females as pillion riders was not very comforting either. Some fresh expressions took birth for the engineering posterity to cherish as we headed back straight to our rooms......well almost straight.
The detour towards the girls hostel was incidental and futile. There were to be a lot more non-incidental such detours over the years but the futility was to remain constant. In most government engineering colleges, surveys on the sex ratio of the college get results such as Not Applicable, You Heartless Bastards, Teri M* ki and so on and so forth. I prefer to maintain a dignified silence when asked of opinion on such matters.
Anyway coming back to that millennium dawning night, there was no booze either as Gujarat was to remain a dry state for us for some more time to come.
Thus started this decade, dry and not-so-high, only to chapter its antithesis in the years to follow.
Watch this space for more.

Excerpts from next episode :
"Not many of us liked to get a girl's signature on the inked impression of our posteriors, nor were many eager to graph their erection-time curve on the back of condom packets and carry them as identity cards."
"C'mon touch my balls" he repeated with more aggression in his voice this time...

Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year. Have fun and stay safe my friends.
One of my resolutions this new year would be to change the status of this blog from a quarterly periodical which it has unintentionally become, to something that can be frequented more often.

Pavillion lautkar...

There are many joys of coming back to India. Working till 10 at night everyday is not one of them. If you reach home at a time when the first batch of drunkards are just making their way out of bars and you are too tired to join the second, then something is definitely not right here. For six long years I was blessed to have a client based in UK, a country where business transacts at a time when most of India is awake unlike US whose work timings match that of our jackals and owls. All good things cum to an end and so has my honeymooning with decent client work timings. But this is recession period and complaining can just make your manager sentimental while he informs you of how much you will be missed in the organisation.

Even without the changed work schedule, life takes a volte face every time I come back to Mumbai. While in England, if I were to wake up and jump out of my thid floor balcony (and were I to remain alive), I could have taken a couple of more steps and pronto I would be at my office desk ! No Ma, I did not fill in as the evening security.Here it takes me an hour to reach office by bus and by Mumbai standards that is ridiculously early.One might argue that the solution lies in taking a house near to my offfice which brings me to another interesting bit of information.Search for a house in Mumbai is another fascinating experience if you are a bachelor. 95 out of 100 building societies would outrightly reject you and you need not even be named Imraan Hashmi for that. Even if one is named Rama Krishna Gopalacharya (which I am not by the way) you would not be allowed to a take a house for rent and your only fault is your marital status. That’s it. No arguments. This search for a house almost made me call up home and ask Ma to start her long and eagerly awaited search for my bride but thankfully I saw a place which sold beer. I mean what do these bachelors do that they are so shunned by the society. Okay, they do a lot of things for which they should be shunned by if not ejected from civilised society but my point is why do it in a manner which makes life difficult for fellow bachelors. So my hunt continues.

Other than the above mentioned pangs, I am enjoying every remaining bit of being back. I love the FM radio which Dhan Te Tans your mornings like nothing other. Easy access to Vada Paos and Bhel Puris and Paani pooris only cements my faith in the Almighty. Its good to be back for there is no other country in the world where people leave early from work to see a high tide from a bridge.

I wish all of you a very Happy Independence Day and I hope we achieve freedom from the horrible menace of swine flu sometime soon. Till then wear masks. Its pretty cool infact. Gives you a menacing look.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Apologies for the long absence from the blogging scene. There has been a lot happening on the non blogging aspects of life. For one, I should soon be heading back home. No, I have not been laid off as yet but my company seems to have a charming policy for me. It allows me to spend the sweltering summers in India and the freezing winters in UK. My company is renowned for such employee friendly policies.

As I write this post, The T20 World Cup is in the semi-final stage and India, as described in most of the popular media has made an unceremonious exit from the tournament, a train of thought, I firmly disagree with. In my opinion, the Indian team played impeccably well and I will attempt a short review of some of the classiest performers in the team to prove my point.

By the way, if anyone ever comes across a sentence which uses the phrase 'ceremonious exit', then please let me know.

Suresh Raina - I think he performed marvelously and we should not be misled by statistics. He is a performer par excellence and for him the World Cup was a stage, a grand stage to showcase his art. The only issue was that someone should have informed this great artist that this was not the World Cup for Belle dancing, which, had it been, he would have won hands down considering the awe-inspiring dance steps that he regaled the audience with while facing bouncers from the West Indian and English fast bowlers. No prizes on guessing on who would be winning the next Nach Baliye contest. As he gyrated all around the wicket, I think I faintly heard Dhoni shouting from the stands,

"Raina....in kutton ke saamne mat naach"...but it was a tad too late, Basanti..er..Raina had already begun his performance...

Ravindra Jadeja - This guy is a true hero. No longer would terminally ill patients need to petition the government to grant them the right to euthanasia, nor people contemplating suicide take to drastic measures to end their lives. All their misery and suffering can be alleviated by simply watching this master play an innings of cricket. He guarantees you a peaceful death out of sheer boredom. If only the poor chap could have held his wicket for some more time in the match against England, we were assured of a victory as the English players were sure to concede defeat to escape from the grotesque torture that Jadeja was imparting upon one and all in the name of batting. The below is what one of my dear friends Nilabza, had to say about him:
"He should be fed to pigs. Country seller, Olokhi pecha ekta, Dekteo shala ta shutki bepari laage , Gu khawrar dol" (Jinxed Owl that he is, looks like a vendor selling smelly dried fish , Pack of shit eaters)

I leave it to your imagination to visualise this.

Yuvraj Singh - His attitude and facial expressions makes you feel guilty of the fact that you are not paying him special taxes for the huge favour he seems to be doing to mankind by playing cricket. If arrogance and conceit were to ever procreate, my assumptions are that their offspring would have shocking similarity with Yuvraj. Yuvraj was once considered one of the best fielders in world cricket. Even today his fielding is a captain's delight. So what if the captain is now from the opposition teams. The manner in which he let go the ball off the last delivery of Harbhajan's over should be a lesson for any kid but one should remember that there is no easy path to such success. Such finesse can only come from a correct mixture of nonchalance, callousness, irresponsibility and more importantly the ability to withstand pressure of trivial issues such as the fact that you are representing your country. It comes after a lot of practice and IPL matches.

Ishant Sharma - He was once a bowler who bowled with fierce pace and aggression and scared the wits out of classy players like Ricky Pointing. That was becoming too passe and predictable I guess. So the Indian think tank had a new role for him in this tournament. They said, "Ishant tu Zombie banega" and boy did he play his role to perfection !! Of course his stint with the Kolkata Knight Riders team just before the world cup helped a great deal in his preparations.By the time he came into the tournament, he had well perfected the art of bowling like a top notch imbecile and seamlessly slipped into the role expected of him by the team management. BCCI must be complimented for creating this well-oiled machinery that churns out players with such unique repertoire of skills.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni - Last but certainly not the least of the awesome performers was our great Kapitan Kool. But the temperature of his coolness has steadily been decreasing over the past couple of months to have now reached a sub zero level.

Initially I thought that he was suffering from some bowel clearance problems which can understandably make any person irritable, but the lowly mortal that I am, I had got it completely wrong. Under the sheet of ice with which he came up to address press conferences, was a great thinker and strategist at work.

His decision to make practice sessions optional before both the crucial Super 8 matches speaks volumes of his wisdom and far sightedness. Could we have seen the grand Raina-Gambhir Hopping show otherwise ? Continuing with Zombie Sharma in spite of RP having figures of 1/13 of 3 overs and his extraordinary decision to send in Jadeja ahead of Yuvraj and Pathan are what legends are written of. The media is calling him rude but then they fail to see his benign nature which was in full display while he batted. He did everything possible to do away with the tag of being an aggressive batsman which the media again had foolishly added to his reputation over the years. He hit just four boundaries and a single six in the entire tournament which goes miles to show his kind nature and concern for the opposition. After all winning is not everything; there is something known as humanity too which is so much more important than a mere game of cricket.

In light of the above, I think we should stop being unnecessarily emotional about this whole issue and learn to see beyond the obvious. There is inherent greatness in the Indian cricket team way beyond the comprehension of ordinary cricket fans such as me and you. We would never stop watching India play, no matter what we think of their performance. So lets get on with it. There is a series to lose in West Indies. Cheers !!

(Thanks a lot to Anjali for kicking me out of my laziness,,,,....)

Dot Kaun ?

A writer's block is more painful than normal constipation. While there are many churans and molasses to loosen the blockage in the gastro-intestinal tract, a thought blockage has very few laxatives. One of the toughest jobs, I find, is to come back and complete an unfinished blog entry.Many of my blog entries thus have to undergo abortion owing to the callousness of this mental obstinacy.The idea of this post was to pen some quick reviews of the websites of the leading regional parties and never has the word quick been so humiliated. But as they say, better late than never, so here it is...........


Samajwadi Party (http://www.samajwadipartyindia.com) : Its the great visionary party which has correctly identified English as the root cause of underdevelopment in India and has promised us that they will do all in their power to root out this evil.
And Computers ....oh my God....that wretched thing which is gobbling up all Indian jobs......Probably the Indian IT industry generating 60 billion USD is actually a major ISI ploy to destabilise our economy. Thank God for Mulayamji else we were all headed for certain doom. The brilliant manifesto also highlights the plight of bullocks and cows who have lost their ploughing jobs to the mean tractors and are thus ending up in the slaughter house. Now this is what we call tackling the recession by the horns. Meanwhile the General Secretary of the party Mr.Sanjay Dutt has been warned by a District Magistrate for making amorous advances towards the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Mrs.Dutt, his staunchest supporter meanwhile not surprisingly is busy buying clothes in London.
The homepage of their website correctly shows the socialists of today showing the right way to the socialists of yesteryears:

Nothing of much interest within the website unless Jaya Bachchan's phone number interests you. The photo gallery has some nice quips though. For e.g one photograph shows Mr.Yadav flanked by two armed commandoes and has the heading "Words of Wisdom" with the caption "Samajawadi Party will never concile with any other party".
It does not matter that there is no word such as concile in English. He is against the whole language anyway.


Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (http://dmk.in/) - With a sincere urge to know the reason why Mr.Karunanidhi always wears dark glasses, I googled for it. The probabilities expressed ranged from a permanently rotating eye ball to a venereal disease because of which he cannot face the world eye to eye. Utter nonsense, my point is, why would a politician need a venereal disease to not be able to face the world ?
Anyway the homepage of their website seemed pretty boring and unsophisticated till something caught my attention. In much the same way that the Ramsay Brothers would have calligraphed their latest flick 'Chudail ki Dysentry', the wise designers of the DMK website too have added a similar link that reads 'Midnight Arrest' in a font seemingly dripping with blood. But the fun is when you click the link. I would not spoil your fun by describing it in words. Have a GO yourself and experience the maturity of the world's largest democracy and yes do try clicking the Skip option in the page.
The remaining sections within the website were completely outdated or irrelevant with the election manifesto of 2004 being the latest link in the chronological links.
As regards their policies, well that is not important as long as the Sri Lankan government is fighting the LTTE.


Bahujan Samaj Party (http://bspindia.org): This was the first image that greeted me on their website

Can you blame the chap Afzal Guru now ?

I was initially impressed by the honesty displayed by the party in the website when I saw downward arrows against the Leadership and Achievement links. But I soon realised that the arrows only meant the presence of more links rather than being indicative of their performance in those areas.
The party highlights a very important demographic fact below:

As you can see, according to BSP, there are billions of Untouchable poor people in the country. Now since the Iron Lady is not to be questioned unless one wants to be turned to Rust,I did some elementary mathematics. Considering that the entire population of India is around 1.2 billion, it would mean that all of us Indians would need to be Untouchables to fulfil this observation. In a sense that is quite a progressive thought which would lead to huge savings in the defense expenditure of the country because of the simple reason that No One can Touch Us now.
The website per-se is quite okay. There is all the information you want as long as the information concerns Mayawati. Rest are all 'Comming Soon'.


Biju Janata Dal - No websites. After they cunningly dumped the BJP, they are now extremely wary of any web-designers.


All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (http://www.aiadmkallindia.org) - I wonder why a regional party, with a presence in only one out of 28 states, needs to have the 'All India' tag in its name !!But then I guess the party cadres have always been motivated by bigger sized entities.

Another boring and very poorly designed website. There was such a lack of material in the site that I actually opened their manifesto and would you believe what I found in it :

Jaya Ho...Jaya Ho...!!!!


Shiv Sena (http://www.shivsena.org) Bala Saheb needs a nail-cutter immediately. The sharp finger jab at you from the homepage is not very welcoming to say the least but then what place does decorum have in Shiv Sena anyway. Again a very rudimentary website in terms of content with the picture of two Thackerays taking nearly the entire page. Four of the five links do not work and the only so called material in the site is in the form of embedded You Tube videos. What is more surprising is that the website is not in Marathi !! Some MNS workers came to know of this and damaged a few cyber cafes in protest.


Janata Dal(Secular) (http://www.janatadalsecular.org.in)
Led by a man who has the unique capability of falling asleep even in his sleep, this party is really fighting for survival in this election.

A pretty professional website though you may initially confuse it for that of a restaurant but then on second thoughts, I think, all politicians have a great talent for cooking; the common ingredient in whatever they dish out is shamelessness of course.

A visit to the Join JD(S) section would clearly eliminate you and a large chunk of population from their membership because each such aspirant must be a 'habitual wearer of hand-spun and handwoven khadi'. Now that is what we call wearing patriotism on your sleeve.The entire website has a distinct and all pervading green and a little analysis has confirmed that the colour actually started transforming to its present tinge soon after the BJP government came into power in Karnataka.

Thats it guys. Let the dance of democracy continue. I hear that Rakhi Sawant wants to judge the show and marry whoever wins it.

So who takes the credit ?

For months now, I have been hearing of the Economic Depression and Credit Crunch. As financial crunch and me go back many moons, I never paid much attention to it until I heard politicians committing billions of dollars to help resolve the crisis. I wondered whether I could be a beneficiary too if I presented my case well enough and thus I started reading ........

The following is a short summary of a few terms which can help laymen like me understand what the hoopla is all about :

Sub-prime crisis: This is the mother of all reasons. People bought new homes with borrowed money, like most do. Then they did not like repaying like most don't. Banks wrapped up these loans in nice packages and resold them other banks and financial institutions. This concept of packaging actually originated in India as shown here and was silently plagiarized by the Americans.
What goes up must come down.
Yes brothers, this sad truth applies to economy as well.
So the prices of houses which had sky-rocketed fell big time and soon the whole world realised that the United States of America had sold shit to them.......once again.
One of the first to be crumble was the British bank, Northern Rock. Couldn't have chosen a more inappropriate name I say.

Fannie May and Freddie Mac - No, they are not McDonald Burgers. Actually two naughty banks who gave money to anyone and everyone who wanted to own a home. Yes even Barbie doll houses were financed. After all America is known to help build homes worldwide. Take architectural marvels of Iraq such as this for example.


Lehman Brother's Diwalia Bumper : It took 159 years for the collapse of this giant financial institution as they filed for bankruptcy in October 2008. In India, anything started jointly by brothers usually lasts till the brothers get married and thus such situations never arise.
On the day, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, the worth of its shares had dropped 90% from its previous day close. Just ten more percent and I could have bought the company myself. Now before you start heaping praises at me for my business acumen, I must humbly say that I actually spent four of my formative years (read Engineering) in the state of Gujarat and we all know that when a Gujarati says he is going to the market to buy rice and oil, he actually means commodity trading in the stock market.
Okay now you can heap the praises.

Merrily Lynched : Within a day, Merril Lynch, another financial bigwig, was taken over by the Bank of America in what Wikipedia describes as 'distressing circumstances'. Just for your trivia, Merryl Lynch was ranked #1 by Forbes for 'stock picking and estimate accuracy' in 2008 and #3 by the Wall Street Journal in a similar category. It also won the Best Research House of the Year Award. How profound!
If only the Lehman guys had spent some time researching a good buyer for themselves. They finally landed with a company called Nomura which means No-Head in quite a few Indian languages.

Tata Bye Bye AIG - American Insurance Group. Wow ! Thats the only expression I have for this magnificently employee friendly company. Imagine this. You belong to the worst performing department of your company and your misadventures have caused colossal losses to the company to the extent that 80% of the company stake had to be sold to the Government for the company to remain solvent. In any other company, you would have been fired with Oxy-Acetylene up your soft posterior orifice.
But not in AIG. This marvelous company, which got Rs 8500 crore from the government to settle its bad debts actually paid the employees responsible for this downfall a very small sum of Rs 825 crore as bonus !! Now that is what I call a Dream Company.

Millions of people worldwide have been left unemployed as a cascading effect of the gross incompetencies of these so called Financial Gurus. Whole countries such as Iceland, Latvia and Bulgaria are going down under the impact of this crisis which is the worst since the Great Depression of the 30's. The figures in the stimulus packages cause temporomandibular joint dislocations (My sister is a doctor you see!).

But this is one laughter where there is no joke.

Happy Easters to all of you. The Lord would do well to resurrect one more time.

Delhi 6 - A case of twisted ankle at the touch line

Guys, this is my first attempt at movie reviews. Actually had written this for passionforcinema.com. Thus you may find an uncharacteristic civility in the tone. But as the PFC guys did not print it, you all are to become my victims.

Imagine having a whale of a time with your family in a one of those fascinating fairs with lots of rides, bhel puris and 'Maut ka Kuwa'-motorcycle shows.
You are up on the merry-go-round and just as it is about to make that jaw shattering drop, the machine stops. Everything comes to a standstill and Arundhati Roy climbs all the way up a ladder to where you are sitting and gives you a tight slap. Before you comprehend whats happening, she slaps you again and starts an half an hour monologue on the problems faced by farmers due to the Narmada Dam and berates you for your audacity to have fun when people out there are suffering. Well thats pretty much how I felt while watching Delhi 6, so ridiculous was the sudden and completely unnecessary smattering of morality upon the poor unsuspecting viewers who were all having a gala time.

The story had begun awesomely well. The earnestness of the camera while shooting the lanes of Chandi Chowk along with all her nuances gives you a genuine feeling of warmth and belongingness. The characters are full of life and truth and the ensemble cast deliver crackling performances. Rishi Kapoor in yet another superbly measured performance as an old friend of Roshan's father, Deepak Dobriyal as the lovable Jalebi-wala Mamdu, Pavan Malhotra and Om Puri as two warring brothers and the exceedingly beautiful Bua, Aditi Rao Hyadri all turn in superlative performances to significantly raise the bar of the movie. I thought the pick of the wonderful cast was Vijay Raaz as the despicable local policeman who made me cringe with the profanity he brought into his character.

Sonam Kapoor has such a vivacious and infectious smile that you would just wonder at what the devil had possesed Sanjay Leela Bhansali to cast her in a movie as Sawariya. But of course this was probably one of his lesser offences compared to the grave cinematic injuries that the movie had inflicted upon us in the name of entertainment. Rarely had any 'entertainment' before Sawariya left the audience beaten so Black and Blue.
However in Delhi 6 Sonam just yaps and yaps her way into your hearts and surely we want to see more of this Jhakkas girl.
Abhishek Bachchan is certainly not one of my favourite actors but he too turns in quite a pleasant performance. The American accent was quite ridiculous but was compensated for with some genuinely authentic expressions through his journey of self realisation in the midst the bustle of Old Delhi.

The love story is beautifully underplayed and most of the scenes are quite clever. The lovely picturisation of the 'Dil Gira Daftaan' song where Abhishek amalgamates his Indianness with his western upbringing is truly a viewer's delight. Special mention of the remote control scene which was soaked with original humor.

So what in the story doesn't work ?
First and foremost, the repeated usage of the 'Kala Bandar' concept which I think the director used to metaphorise the black devil residing within each of us.I believe an art of filmmaking is to convey the meaning through subtleties. However if the director assumes you to be an idiot and gives individual attention to opening up your skull and hammerring in his ideas, the comprehension is often spoilt with the brazenness of the narration.

What was working in Delhi 6's favour was actually the seeming lack of direction in its story. The moment the makers of the film thought of giving it a direction, and much worse a commercially motivated direction, the whole foundation of the movie came crashing down. The idea was to pass a message somehow to the audience but it seems no one had a clue what that message should be and by the time the movie reached its grotesque climax, it was just plain desperation in display. Someone needed to tell Rakesh Omprakash Mehra that Basanti was just not the Rang required here.
Already enough has been said and written about the climax, so I will avoid going into the details but if an award is ever announced to honour scenes which butchered a complete movie, the heaven sequence will have few competitors.I guess the Jalebi in that scene too was a metaphor signifying our knotted brains being chewed by Abhishek and his Dad.

Indian audience is open to intelligent cinema now. The success of directors such as Vishal Bharadwaj, Rajat Kapoor and Anurag Kashyap is testimony to the fact that the audience is maturing.
Delhi 6, while promising much, ends up disappointing the audience and what is really sad is that only if the director had not had the preaching attack, this one would have been quite enjoyable.

Hum honge Kaam-iyaab ek din

One more Valentine's Day came and went by and my status in all social networking sites still remains unchanged. Not that I am in any hurry to change it either but when you hear of awe-inspiring achievements of 13 year old whizkids such as this, one does tend to get a little retrospective.

While this chocolate-faced kid was excelling in his Fornication practicals, I probably at his age had not even realised the complete responsibilities of the male hand.
In those days, the Hindi film industry contributed no less to this lack of knowledge with their rampant misrepresentation of basic facts making us young minds think that if a man gets too near a woman, both would turn into head banging yellow Dahlias ! Whatever was the intelligent metaphor in this representation of sexual activity, I fail to understand even today.
However the movies have become more informative over the years and if there was an Oscar for best dialogue in a motion picture, this one which I randomly came across would have won hands down (not literally of course). It went like this:

"Jaise ek Ration ka dukan har hafte ek din band rehta hai, Ek aurat ka Pyar ka Dukaan bhi mahine me chaar din band rehta hai"

Whoa !! Now, 'Consortium of Loose Women', Please don't send me Pink Chaddis . I had nothing to do with this. Sparkling Red would more suit my personality.

(A tin of Ferrero Rocher to anyone who names the movie.....Hint: Antonym of a hit Bipasha Basu movie)

Often we hear of debates on whether sex education should be a made a part of the school curriculum but every time such a debate rages, I wonder how these guys actually plan to impart this 'education'? I mean imagine this....

Curious Kid: "Ma'am, where do babies come from"
Teacher(caught unawares) : "Ah babies...yeah right babies...where do they come from now..alright.. You know the storks......
Curious Kid : Oh cmon teacher, don't give me the stork story. My aunt had a baby yesterday and when I asked her this same question she said something about horny evenings in a car backseat with no protection"
Teacher ( oh damn this slut of an aunt). Well well..Thats not exactly how it works...A baby develops inside a female body after the successful fusion of the male sperm with the female egg "
Curious Kid : I see.
Teacher: So you understand right.
Curious Kid : Yes but what is a sperm ? What is fusion and can you females all lay eggs then ?
Teacher: Oh no no no...slow down ...Well sperms are like those tadpoles we saw the other day....only much smaller....
Curious Kid : Ah so now we have frogs too...Quite a zoo we had inside my aunt's stomach! No wonder it got so big ..So how did this sperm thinghy get inside my aunt?
Teacher: Well..right ..yes your uncle put it in there
Curious Kid : Really ? But why would he want to put the tadpoles in my aunt's stomach when they have that big aquarium in their house. He could have put it in there...isn't it.
Teacher: Tch..Tch.. No he had to put it inside your aunt for the baby to grow you see.
Curious Kid : Right. So did aunt have to eat this tadpole ?
Teacher: Oh no No .You don't eat these tadpoles ...Well ..Er..
Curious Kid : No ?? So how did it go in ?
Teacher: What ...what went in ??
Curious Kid : The tadpole ..what else ?
Teacher: Ah the tadpole ..yes .. Are you sure that you didn't see any storks near the hospital?

Or ones like this

Curious Kid : "Dad whats a condom?"
Dad : "Something which could have saved me from answering this question,son"

And we haven't even reached at the more complex questions.
But while it may be a tough task to satisfy the curiosity of the kids of this generation it is quite unacceptable to read of such news which shakes the very foundations of morality.
Ha Ha Ha Ha ....whom am I kidding...!!! Wait ...can I even use the word kidding anymore ???

Kala Ghoda Festival -55 Word Stories

The theme for this year was Cheating.
These entries were an attempt to be unnecessarily intellectual. No wonder the judges kicked me out.
The winning entries can be found here

Below were my entries:


********************************(I)************************************************

He promised her for the umpteenth time that he would catch the earliest possible flight tomorrow. The sudden realization that Ayala was already five brought a smile to Abraham’s face as he collected his coat and wished the gentlemen a pleasant evening. There was some commotion at the reception.

The autopsy would reveal five bullets.

*********************************(II)***********************************************


I promise to bring electricity and drinking water to your village.
I promise to root out corruption.
I promise to generate more means of employment.
I promise to be secular and not fan regionalism.
I promise to provide you education.
I promise to uphold the principles of democracy.
I promise you Justice, Equality and Liberty.

*******************************(III)*************************************************

Her luscious lips chained his wayward thoughts as their bodies dissolved in the frenzied heat. The mad rhythm of his hardened flesh rattling the softness of her womanhood and their wild cries of passion conjoined to create pulsating sonata of raw energy. Heavy breathing interludes.

“And……… Cut.” “Nice expressions Christina. Let’s all break for lunch.”

********************************(IV)************************************************

Sanjay was always a big hit with his nephews. He was more of one among them and his annual visits to India invariably translated to unlimited frolic and tonight was the big movie night. Yippee!
Steamed spicy sweetcorn, Samosas, tons of popcorn, gallons of Pepsi and the opening credits…………

RamGopal Varma presents ‘RGV Ki Aag’

********************************(V)************************************************

The weed fogged the path of sanity. Trees had radiant blue fishes hung by their tails while headless demons danced around the pyre of his emotions. “Bitch”. The Priest was Breaking the Law. Snakes bit hard and ladders led to infinity. He gulped thirty white moons.

Consciousness gifted him a revengeful headache. Damn fake medicines!

********************************************************************************
More information on the contest can be found here.

2009 starts with three Bangs !!!

Yippeee !!! The new year has arrived and I spent a very interesting hour on the very first day trying to contact my parents and sister after the new year celebratory fireworks in my city of Guwahati left a measly number of five people dead and around 50 odd injured. ..Tch..Tchh..Blasts not even worth mentioning actually !!

So heres wishing you all a very Happy Year ahead and alongwith it wishing you all loads of luck.
For it is luck alone that is proving to be the biggest Saviour of common men who are stupid enough to go and buy vegetables in crowded markets, who are crazy to go and have a drink at their favourite hangouts and for still catching the local train to work.... There is no one but us to blame now. We cannot say that we were not forewarned.

So Lord, forget about wealth, health and prosperity. Just give us a larger share of luck . We may just manage to get back home in one piece each day of the year.

Jingle all the way.....

Four days from today is Christmas, a day when we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. As with all festivals, we celebrate the occasion with a lot of fervour, enthusiasm and alcohol in India.The colourful lights, music of the soothing Christmas carols adding on to the mirth and festivity of this joyous occasion. 

Rewinding the tape of life by three years, I'd like to share with all of you my experiences of the first Christmas that I spent in England. It goes somewhat like this:

Christmas Eve: The office ended and the bars opened half a day earlier than usual. With office anyway functioning at quarter strength, only some people who had bid items on ebay could get some useful work done during the morning hours.  The bars witnessed animated discussions as it was full of married men, most of whom had curiously forgotten to inform their wives that it was a half day at office. By 6 pm it was time for them to head back home but not before they came up with a good reason that could be attributable for their drunken shapes.  As uniformity in the version of  stories is supremely important in such matters of connivance, most agreed that they would say that it was the birthday party of a dear friend and inspite of their unwillingness to go were dragged into the same and made to drink.If we left the unwillingness bit, this story was completely true if they actually added one small insignificant detail that this dear friend of theirs was actually born around two thousand and five years back.  

At the Stroke of Christmas: Four of us bachelors, two of whom unfortunately no longer share the same marital status, decided to bring in the Christmas in style and thought of hitting the discotheque at the stroke of midnight where surely blondes would get drunk and behave as drunk blondes are expected to.

Two such heavily built mean looking creatures guarded the entrance of the disco, that we were almost discouraged in our plans but we took the chance anyway. These descendants of Goliath are very aptly called Bouncers for if you were to ever fall in their bad books, they could, easily making pulp of all your bones, turn you into a rubbery substance which when kicked once, would continue bouncing till eternity. 

Usually free on other nights, there was a cover charge of £10 in the disco that night which we willingly paid. More than the enthusiasm to enjoy the disco, the fear of being beaten up by the two men contributing to our quick parting with the money.

As we climbed the stairs, we were all spiked with the anticipation of the thrill awaiting us as the vision of drunk blondes started floating once again and we winked at each other. This is going to be a night to remember.

We rushed and pushed open the gates and sounds of some heavy music greeted us as we entered the huge disco.  Bring it on England we cheered !!!

The music stopped and expressions altered.

We looked around ourselves and realised that apart from three middle-aged male bar-tenders , we were the only ones inside the discotheque !!! Our first reaction was that this was the way they greeted all new entrants and then the whole crowd would now descend upon us from all directions pushing and shoving us into the grind of the dance floor where we would then dance our hearts out.

Such hopes were to remain confined to our imaginations, for even half and hour later, there were just two new joinees and both belonging to a gender that did not interest us. The invisible DJ played out some unbearably loud and crass music and the dance floor remained virgin on that night. At the stroke of midnight, we wished Jesus a very happy birthday and left the disco with heavy hearts and lighter wallets. A night to remember it indeed was.

An old Hindi saying which comes as a four letter acronym  starting with 'K' that describes the treachery to an upright object would have aptly described the situation here.

OK, so it did not turn out the way we wanted it to. So what?  It was Christmas the next day. Hurrah. We would have a blast and compensate for all that we missed at the discotheque. With such optimism in mind and beer in stomach, we slept off.

Christmas : Woke up early the next day for I was really enthusiastic to see how a Christmas day would be like in this country. Strangely I had not seen any of those colourful paper stars hanging outside the houses here and wondered if that was something typical to our Indian way of celebrating Christmas I ventured into the streets and my first reaction left me speechless. 

Ah no it was not the scale of the festivity which induced this reaction. It was the fact that I was the ONLY LIVING SOUL standing there with no sign of any other life in my vicinity. For a brief moment I felt like Tom Cruise in the War of the Worlds. But soon I saw myself on a shop window and the moment vanished. Damn the law of reflection.

Questions were whizzing around in my mind. Had the aliens finally struck and annihilated all life ? Was I the only man alive and if yes then had they spared Heidi Klum too , or Jessica Alba, okay Scarllet Johannson then? I saw my reflection again, bringing sanity back to such chain of thoughts.

But truly I was at my wits end (which is fairly easy to reach anyway)  trying to find an explanation to this extreme oddity of complete lifelessness on Christmas day. Priyanka Chopra maybe ?

The shops were all closed which was kind of okay as people would want to take a break for the occasion. 

But the fact that there was absolutely no vehicular traffic at all was what contributed to the eerie chillness in the whole environment. I roamed around the town centre in search of some semblance of humanity but there was none to be found. Completely baffled I made my way back to the house half hoping actually half wishing to find my roommates sucked away by some alien spaceship. But that joy, I was to be deprived of.

I came to know that all public transportation remains closed on Christmas day and being a day of family get-togethers most preferred to stay indoors which explained the lack of cars in the roads.

But this was crazy !! It was Christmas day and in the absence of a car, here we were stuck inside the house with no laptops, no stock of beer, one DVD of Gadar and a DVD player with a lost remote which meant that one could only watch Disc 1 where the focus defaulted when you turned it on. Awesome !! 

And if you are wondering why didn't we try out TV then you should actually watch the programmes dished out on the 4 free to view channels. Butchering you with boredom is an art they pride themselves with.

Thus I spent my first Christmas in the UK.

Boxing Day : I am kind of quite hungry now so will quickly wrap this up. It snowed on Boxing Day and we clicked pictures like madmen. Tried to make snowmen but the snow wasn't that thick and mostly we ended up with distorted snowfrogs. Tomatoes and carrots which we had brought out to make the eyes and noses of snowmen with, went back into the refrigerator. 

Trains were back on so we thought of making the shopping trip to Blue Waters which we had heard was the largest shopping mall of UK and Boxing Day was supposed to the day of heavy discounts much like Thanksgiving in the US. This surely could not go wrong. Took us four trains and two hours to reach. Our combined shopping at the end of the day was a 30ml bottle of perfume as nothing else was affordable.

Nearly froze to death on our way back as the snow started melting sucking away all the heat from the atmosphere. Cursed the country for no fault of hers. 

Four trains later we were back home, with each of us swearing upon each other that this would be the last Christmas that we would be spending in this country.

Next week, it would incidentally be my fourth consecutive Christmas in this country. 

But thankfully the first year had taught me my lessons well and I have stayed better prepared for the holidays since.

Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year ahead.

C'mon 2009 lets see what you got in store !!