They are nice brats; it’s just that you are sapped of all your confidence after meeting them and they continue giving you sleepless nights. One guy barely 12 is the one who made my life miserable. As I cranked my laptop to check some official mails during my recent vacation, I was pounded by questions like, why is your laptop so slow to boot up. What processor do you have on it? Do you want me to rev it up a little? Why do you have a XP theme when you have Windows 7? All these came in a barrage of less than 60 Secs. I simply tell him that I don’t have answers to any of his questions.
The elder one passes by and the lil fellow proudly briefs him on how ignorant I am, the elder one takes one look at my phone and now it’s his turn to add salt to the wound. He flips through my phone and in a fraction of time to what his younger brother took, starts pounding me with..Uppapa (uncle) do you know what Joikuspot is? I give him one of those sick, Mr Bean looks!!! The only solace is that he is old enough to figure out I have no clue and goes on to explain that it’s an app where your phone can be used as a wi-fi server / router onto which other devices can hook on. I simply nod timidly in agreement. He continues do you ‘atleast’ know what Shazam does? By this time, I’m desperately looking for my brother who happens to be their father to rescue me. He goes on to explain that when you hear a song you don’t know, it helps you identify it and tag it. An app I thought I always wanted but never knew I was carrying it all along.
I call both the guys aside in an effort to salvage some pride, explain to them that I was never electronically inclined and I’m proud to call myself a hard core mechanical engineer and that I’m more a man of real machines and so on and so forth. Little did I know that I was digging my own grave. The younger guy again all of 12, who gave me a crash course on laptops, gives me a vicious smile this time and asks if I knew what the max torque of a Lamborghini Diablo was and goes on to explain the features of a Yamaha R6, thinking that a retard like me might at least know about a 2 wheeler. Torque was the only word that made sense to me, the machine man. I don’t remember the next five questions on cars and bikes that came my way. All I knew was that I needed a stiff drink to continue listening to, not answering the stuff these guys were throwing at me. They made me feel primitive, prehistoric and mentally challenged all at the same time.
Seeing that my face saving efforts have crash landed I pick the younger guy and tell him that he needs to really know outdoor sports and not be a gaming / internet buff. He gave those you-had-it-mate look and asked me what sport I played as a kid. I proudly told him what every other Indian kid would… Cricket. He started his rapid fire once again…do you know how to bowl the carom ball, top spin, doosra, flipper, china man et al and went on to hand me a bat and asked me to face him while he started demonstrating each of those. All I could tell him was, what R. Ashwin recently said, there are only 2 balls a spinner bowls, one that comes into the batsman and the other that leaves him.
After all this, can you believe it, I still had the cheek to tell him that the only sport that Indian kids knew was cricket…All I can remember is a larger ball whizzing past my nose. He gave me one of those looks which I was familiar by now and said he was just practising a ‘slam dunk’....Slam what??? was my expression but I just told myself to move on in life and though I hadn’t heard it right, the message was loud and clear….at that point I was a ‘lame duck’.
Love the challenge (if I can call it that) the boys throw up each time I meet them…This time I’m seriously thinking of doing my homework before meeting them. I’ve just learnt what SV on Lambhorgini SV stands for…Just praying that Lamborghini doesn’t launch a new model before I meet them next!!! Love you guys!!!
Friday, August 3, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
The gate that opens doors!!!
The humble gate is normally associated with hope, memory, and if you wish, more spiritually with the Pearly’s, the final frontier you so badly wish opened up to you ultimately, but never will. The plurality of the same also brings to mind the world’s richest family and their claim to affluence thanks to the lesser cousin the Windows.
Well, the humility of the gate turned villainous in the early 70’s, thanks to a politically motivated burglary that took place in the Watergate Complex / Hotel in Washington DC that eventually led to the resignation of President Nixon. Nixon’s long gone but not before leaving behind the legacy of the gate and turning in his grave ever so often. Each time a scandal pops up in any part of the world it immediately gets suffixed with what I call the Nixon legacy, the GATE. A legacy not even our friends Raju and Raja (sounds more like an audit firm) could earn with all their efforts in siphoning off more zeroes than one could imagine.
In the recent past India has been a diligent contributor to the list of gates. The list of internationally acclaimed gates you will find here. The list is long enough to run 2 rounds of a pub quiz on gates.
India’s recent contributions to the list have been Foddergate, Spectrumgate or Rajagate, Porngate which could have been rechristened the Applegate since they were using their I pads for the same, and more recently the Coalgate. With all the visibility the homonym ‘Colgate’ is getting it will not be long before Uniliver starts lobbying for a Closeupgate. In fact, the first time I came across ‘Coalgate’, I really thought it was scam related to toothpastes until I read further and realised it is more about black than white.
Let’s not forget to mention some of the earliest contributors who helped India in our effort to conquer the gates. Shilpagate, any one found crying in a reality show since were honoured with the title of Shilpagate. The monkeygate of the famed Sydney cricket test down under, any swearing / sledging in cricket these days are benchmarked against the monkeygate. The protagonist of the monkeygate was fortunate to be part of the Slapgate too.
Wish we could soon have a major water scam in India which could finally reunite the gate with its original prefix and return it to its past glory the Watergate. India could proudly wrest the initiative from the US and let Nixon sleep in peace ever after.
Well, the humility of the gate turned villainous in the early 70’s, thanks to a politically motivated burglary that took place in the Watergate Complex / Hotel in Washington DC that eventually led to the resignation of President Nixon. Nixon’s long gone but not before leaving behind the legacy of the gate and turning in his grave ever so often. Each time a scandal pops up in any part of the world it immediately gets suffixed with what I call the Nixon legacy, the GATE. A legacy not even our friends Raju and Raja (sounds more like an audit firm) could earn with all their efforts in siphoning off more zeroes than one could imagine.
In the recent past India has been a diligent contributor to the list of gates. The list of internationally acclaimed gates you will find here. The list is long enough to run 2 rounds of a pub quiz on gates.
India’s recent contributions to the list have been Foddergate, Spectrumgate or Rajagate, Porngate which could have been rechristened the Applegate since they were using their I pads for the same, and more recently the Coalgate. With all the visibility the homonym ‘Colgate’ is getting it will not be long before Uniliver starts lobbying for a Closeupgate. In fact, the first time I came across ‘Coalgate’, I really thought it was scam related to toothpastes until I read further and realised it is more about black than white.
Let’s not forget to mention some of the earliest contributors who helped India in our effort to conquer the gates. Shilpagate, any one found crying in a reality show since were honoured with the title of Shilpagate. The monkeygate of the famed Sydney cricket test down under, any swearing / sledging in cricket these days are benchmarked against the monkeygate. The protagonist of the monkeygate was fortunate to be part of the Slapgate too.
Wish we could soon have a major water scam in India which could finally reunite the gate with its original prefix and return it to its past glory the Watergate. India could proudly wrest the initiative from the US and let Nixon sleep in peace ever after.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
The Great Indian Partition
Not the one you were thinking of…There’s enough been said and written about it over the last 65 years!!!
The partition I’m going to talk about is the hair partitioning every Indian boy is subjected to from the time he reaches a combable age or when his hair reaches a combable length. For me it was not any different, the routine after an oily head bath would be as follows. Either your dad or mom depending on who is free to carry out this ceremonial execution of determining the line of partition which indirectly reflects your line of destiny too. Actually destiny is also referred to as ‘Thala vara’ in Malayalam loosely translated as ‘line on your head’ while in Tamil it is more generally known as ‘Thalailezhithu’ loosely translated as ‘script on your head’. Guess the Tamilian interpretation of your destiny is more detailed & dramatic while the Malayalee interpretation is purely linear.
A vice like grip holds your lower jaw which leaves the mark of a thumb and 2 fingers on either side of your chin. The next step is to comb all your hair down and the max it will reach is the mid point of your forehead any further you are headed to a barber. Now comes the interesting part, a sharp toothed comb is run right through your scalp proportioning the entire scalp to a 1/3: 2/3 partition. The 1/3 portion is on your left while 2 /3 is on your right. But remember somebody else is facing you and making the decision on this partition. Left for them is right for you and vice versa. They wanted you to be more left brained and hence proportioned 2/3rds to their left while you ended up being more right brained since you had only 1/3rd to your left. Every Indian parent’s aspiration of their children cracking an IIT or at least a private engineering college seat stems from this. Little do they realise that there was an orientation flaw that made children write stupid blogs such as this instead of cracking Fourier, Laplace and Advanced calculus!!!
Well, now coming to the reason why I ended up writing this. I was recently watching a music show on television featuring Shankar Mahadevan who was looking far younger than his age, thanks to his hairstylist who had made all his hair or rather whatever was there to be vertically oriented with help of some wonderful gel I believe!!! This formed a nice façade around the bald spot he sported. My daughter mentioned he looked really cool and when I pointed out to her that his surface area of the scalp was more than mine she refused to believe me. Thankfully an overhead camera shot helped me prove it.
I, for one, still religiously follow the partitioning policy when it comes to combing my hair and I can look very boring. However one morning I actually woke up with very unruly hair and my daughter said I looked cool…and when I rushed to the nearest mirror the ‘hair do’ or rather ‘hair undone’ was pretty close to all the gelled hair styles sported by the gen-next.
I need to really redraw my line of destiny and try and ‘gel’ with the gen-next at least in my hair do.
The partition I’m going to talk about is the hair partitioning every Indian boy is subjected to from the time he reaches a combable age or when his hair reaches a combable length. For me it was not any different, the routine after an oily head bath would be as follows. Either your dad or mom depending on who is free to carry out this ceremonial execution of determining the line of partition which indirectly reflects your line of destiny too. Actually destiny is also referred to as ‘Thala vara’ in Malayalam loosely translated as ‘line on your head’ while in Tamil it is more generally known as ‘Thalailezhithu’ loosely translated as ‘script on your head’. Guess the Tamilian interpretation of your destiny is more detailed & dramatic while the Malayalee interpretation is purely linear.
A vice like grip holds your lower jaw which leaves the mark of a thumb and 2 fingers on either side of your chin. The next step is to comb all your hair down and the max it will reach is the mid point of your forehead any further you are headed to a barber. Now comes the interesting part, a sharp toothed comb is run right through your scalp proportioning the entire scalp to a 1/3: 2/3 partition. The 1/3 portion is on your left while 2 /3 is on your right. But remember somebody else is facing you and making the decision on this partition. Left for them is right for you and vice versa. They wanted you to be more left brained and hence proportioned 2/3rds to their left while you ended up being more right brained since you had only 1/3rd to your left. Every Indian parent’s aspiration of their children cracking an IIT or at least a private engineering college seat stems from this. Little do they realise that there was an orientation flaw that made children write stupid blogs such as this instead of cracking Fourier, Laplace and Advanced calculus!!!
Well, now coming to the reason why I ended up writing this. I was recently watching a music show on television featuring Shankar Mahadevan who was looking far younger than his age, thanks to his hairstylist who had made all his hair or rather whatever was there to be vertically oriented with help of some wonderful gel I believe!!! This formed a nice façade around the bald spot he sported. My daughter mentioned he looked really cool and when I pointed out to her that his surface area of the scalp was more than mine she refused to believe me. Thankfully an overhead camera shot helped me prove it.
I, for one, still religiously follow the partitioning policy when it comes to combing my hair and I can look very boring. However one morning I actually woke up with very unruly hair and my daughter said I looked cool…and when I rushed to the nearest mirror the ‘hair do’ or rather ‘hair undone’ was pretty close to all the gelled hair styles sported by the gen-next.
I need to really redraw my line of destiny and try and ‘gel’ with the gen-next at least in my hair do.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Forties here I come!!!
We are a month into 2012, a year of significance in my life cycle…Entering the forties, call it the naughty forties, or the roaring forties…For me it’s just the dreaded forties which I will confront in a couple of weeks time. The irony is that I just realised my younger daughter has learned to count until 40 a few days back!!! The joy on her face on telling me of a new number she learnt called 40 was the moment that inspired me to pen these thoughts on a generation that hears forty for the first time vis-à-vis a generation who dread the number. Incidentally she turns 4 when I turn 40 within a gap of 3 days!!!. The similarity lies in the fact that neither she nor I know what lies beyond 40.
The signs have not been good. The great Indian batting line up who are all my contemporaries as far as the era goes have started to crumble, the company that helped capture my face and made my parents create a book called an album has filed for bankruptcy (Kodak). Today the face and the book are juxtaposed digitally turning on the likes and dislikes of millions across the globe.
To begin with the fall of the great Indian batting line up. Dravid, Sachin & Laxman in the order are going to reach their respective 40’s in a year or less. Being sportsmen their physical wear & tear is far higher than mine. But they were cricketers who looked good & played better in their whites more than in the coloured clothing probably because they were fortunate to see a black & white picture tube before they saw a coloured one. We all belong to the generation that went through the Black & White experience an experience that conditioned us to clearly know the good from the bad, helped us draw our line with a white chalk on a black board to know our limits. The cricketers knew how to patiently play out overs and leave the ones outside the off (limits) alone. They knew what ‘off’ limits where. The philosophical iteration is that they knew to be grounded (or knew how to play along the ground) was far better than going over the top.
The impending last rites being performed on Kodak coinciding with me reaching the forties has left an emotional scar. The marketing gurus across the world might use it as a case study in the years to come to explain it as a corporate failure to adapt to the world around them to explain their death knell. But for me, Kodak has been very close to me. Kodak helped capture me in the nude when I was around a year old and my parents didn’t have the option of photoshoping my face or my bum to look fairer!!! They had only one go at it and Kodak never failed them. The number 36 meant a lot to my generation handling a camera, dirty minds stay off the number. It simply meant the maximum number of negatives being developed into positives. Kodak probably was the only company that taught us early in life that negatives can be converted to positives!!!! Philosophically this has a lot of relevance to many of the discourses dished out by the pseudo gurus around us these days.
Thank you the legendary Indian line up for teaching me to be patient & grounded, and thank you Kodak for giving me the hope that negatives can be converted to positives. Both have entertained us and left footprints in our memory. Thankfully, these are not digital footprints that can be traced back, morphed or photoshoped…Wishing all my contemporaries a 15th anniversary of your 25th B’day…
The signs have not been good. The great Indian batting line up who are all my contemporaries as far as the era goes have started to crumble, the company that helped capture my face and made my parents create a book called an album has filed for bankruptcy (Kodak). Today the face and the book are juxtaposed digitally turning on the likes and dislikes of millions across the globe.
To begin with the fall of the great Indian batting line up. Dravid, Sachin & Laxman in the order are going to reach their respective 40’s in a year or less. Being sportsmen their physical wear & tear is far higher than mine. But they were cricketers who looked good & played better in their whites more than in the coloured clothing probably because they were fortunate to see a black & white picture tube before they saw a coloured one. We all belong to the generation that went through the Black & White experience an experience that conditioned us to clearly know the good from the bad, helped us draw our line with a white chalk on a black board to know our limits. The cricketers knew how to patiently play out overs and leave the ones outside the off (limits) alone. They knew what ‘off’ limits where. The philosophical iteration is that they knew to be grounded (or knew how to play along the ground) was far better than going over the top.
The impending last rites being performed on Kodak coinciding with me reaching the forties has left an emotional scar. The marketing gurus across the world might use it as a case study in the years to come to explain it as a corporate failure to adapt to the world around them to explain their death knell. But for me, Kodak has been very close to me. Kodak helped capture me in the nude when I was around a year old and my parents didn’t have the option of photoshoping my face or my bum to look fairer!!! They had only one go at it and Kodak never failed them. The number 36 meant a lot to my generation handling a camera, dirty minds stay off the number. It simply meant the maximum number of negatives being developed into positives. Kodak probably was the only company that taught us early in life that negatives can be converted to positives!!!! Philosophically this has a lot of relevance to many of the discourses dished out by the pseudo gurus around us these days.
Thank you the legendary Indian line up for teaching me to be patient & grounded, and thank you Kodak for giving me the hope that negatives can be converted to positives. Both have entertained us and left footprints in our memory. Thankfully, these are not digital footprints that can be traced back, morphed or photoshoped…Wishing all my contemporaries a 15th anniversary of your 25th B’day…
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