To pack or not to pack...

A friend who recently landed in the US with one suitcase, recently offered to carry back some luggage for me when she's going to India in December.
I told her that she has no clue what she's offering; that stuff comes flying into your apartment like the whatever germ (assuming that germ flies) the moment you say you're going to India, and even a packet of Hershey's begins to weigh 50 lb, which by the way, is the bloody limit on baggage every airline imposes. I even told her that I had once put my bag on a treadmill overnight, to see if they would lose any weight!!
Nothing. I just found my reply extremely funny, so thought you could benefit from and appreciate my incredible sense of humor too!

Oh, those poor creatures!

Thoughts that ran through my mind after seeing that this tub of yogurt I recent bought had over 26 billion live cultures.

• Doesn't it give you a creepy feel to know you're eating 'live cultures'? (Next minute, I taste it and like it.)
• Ah, 26 billion live creatures. Crawling under this cap. Helpless, poor. At my mercy. Not knowing what fate awaits them. Just waiting to be devoured.
• There are 26 billion of them. And I'm all alone. I don't even have a knife. Just this spoon to face them with. (Next minute, after 'devouring' a spoonful of them...)I'm a brave hero. A knight in shining armor.
• The whole world holds about six billion humans, and this one tub holds twenty six billion of these organisms. Wow!
• (Before eating my first spoonful) Are these cultures, bacteria the same as microorganisms? Did Colgate really have to show microorganisms with the devils pronged forks in their toothpaste ad? What if these are indeed micro-organisms, and they bring out the forks after I devour them and prick my inners?
• I hope eating these live cultures doesn't make me a 'non-vegetarian' in the eyes of the maker.
• How many living organisms are there in this world, if this one tub can hold twenty six billion?
• How did they count the number? Can I become rich by proving them wrong and suing them for misguiding me?
• How do these poor creatures survive in my freaking cold refrigerator?
• Damn, this yogurt is tasty!

Man, so many thoughts over one tub of yogurt! I'm a genius. In addition to being a knight in shining armor!

MR Re-defined, Part II: Results & Reactions!!!

Read Part I first.

The results of the Survey are as stunning as the methodology itself. And if you don't get the point - my MR Prof choked on his pie as he was reading the RD over dinner. No one told him a Digest is for post dinner consumption.

Anyway, coming back to the results, New York city surprised many, including many a New Yorker, by coming on top in courtesy. However, the news reporter of the news channel I was watching (I swear this is true) was quite upset by the fact that only one American city figured in this survey conducted across 35 cities from 35 countries. His newscast was immediately followed by the song 'We are the world'.

New Yorkers however were thrilled by the results. Infact they're so nice and civil that, I hear they've invited the RD dude over to interview him about his broken nose. They've even offered him a free cup of Starbucks' coffee. Delivered.

The citizen of other American cities, while happy for NYC, claim that they could've done even better. Infact, a shopkeeper in Dallas said that he pulled out the door to his shop last summer, so the RD dude could've come in anytime without bodily injury.

This strategy however did not work for shopkeepers in Mumbai, which came last among the 35. The shops in Mumbai that do not have doors claim that their city lost 20 points because well, there was no door for anyone to open. And the citizen claim that they couldn't make 20 points even in shops that had doors, coz the shops employed doormen.

In the 'Doc Drop Test' where the damsel dropped her papers, it apparently poured cats and dogs in Mumbai that day, and consequently, even she didn't want to pick the soggy papers. So that cost the city another twenty points.

The results of the third test in Bombay (the shopping test) is now mired in controversy. The city has been denied its twenty points here too, but the shopkeepers are disputing this. They say the dude took umbrage to the fact that they were chewing paan when they thanked him for shopping here. And they insist that he came in with a white shirt with red dots.

Meanwhile, a senior minister in the cabinet pointed out that the fact that Mumbai does not have Starbucks and Victoria's Secret was the actual reason behind it's losing. But he refused to allow the westernization of the city and the degeneration of it's moral fabric, by allowing these stores. The Minister further pointed out that the reporters had not travelled by Local Trains where Mumbai's courtest can be seen at it's best.

Anyway, the good news for Bombay is that Lahore and Islamabad did not figure in the survey.

MR Re-defined, Part I: The Methodology

Readers' Digest magazine recently conducted a comprehensive, mothodical survey to see if that thing called civility is still alive in this blue planet of ours. The results of this survey, which I happened to catch on last night's news, has thrown quite a few surprises!

But first, the methodology of the survey itself. Sheer brilliance. Gandhiji would've quoted this as an example of simple whatever and great whatever. My Marketing Research Professor who spent three months of my life, and seventy of his trying to cram into heads, the way you go about doing a market research - he'll be eating his words for dinner today. And following it up with humble pie for dessert. This survey just throws, well I'll just say, something dirty, on the face of market research. It shows how great results can be churned out by conducting simple experiments, and combining ah well, a secret ingredient that starts with an 's', ends with a 'y' and also has the following letters, not necessarily in this order 't','p','u','t','d','i' in it.

So here's how it goes.

Readers' Digest first takes a couple of quid from me, and from every other unwitting reader with indigestion, every other week (well, thankfully from my friendly local library in my particular case) and uses the loot to send this dude and this damsel on a freaking 'business trip' to 35 countries.

So what do these lucky travellers do? It's simple. The lady wakes up bright on her first rainy morning in the city, goes and stands five feet away from a Starbucks shop with the missionary zeal of finding out who is going to open the door for her. And when some guy who is too lazy to shut the door behind him goes in, she squeezes in too, and tells him he rocks and doles out twenty points to his city.

Our dude meanwhile is trying to hop in behind her, but oh, these bloody hinges, the door comes and hits him smack on the face. The lazy guy lost twenty points for his city. And this damned city maybe chivalrous but is not civil.

But no, we're not yet done with our jaunt. The damsel, stressed by standing out in the cold and rain for someone to open the door for her, in so distressed, that she drops the bundle of papers she's carrying. Unfortunately for her, the guy behind her, smart ass that he is, suspects she dropped them on purpose - so, well damn him, damn his family, damn his culture, and damn his, now twice damned city (our dude already damned it).

Meanwhile, our dude unfortunately can't quite figured out that a door which slams on your face as you're entering a store (and doesn't hit your ass) has a statistically significant probability of opening inwards (as against the doors of the ass-smacking variety which probably open outwards). So he gives up on the cup of coffee he was planning for, and instead goes up to the shop nextdoor, that's well a.....ahmmm.......Victoria's Secret.

He's a little embarrassed, but hey, duty is duty, and you have to do what it takes. So he spends a few more of those more than a couple of dollars someone gave RD, on buying a gift for his wife. When he goes for billing, the girl at the counter who has never met a red nosed, ruffle haired panty-under-suit wearing executive, forgets her manners in her amusement and doesn't thank him for his purchase.

And slam! The city lost another twenty points. Our damsel meanwhile has got her coffee and given another good twenty to the handsome guy('s city) who was admiring her figure (oh so chivalrous, this city is!), and now it's time to go on to the next city.

And so thirty five cities in thirty five countries later, this guy picks up a Tiger Balm in Changi airport hoping it'll help his broken nose and the couple head back home with their results. Thankfully the damsel is no longer in distress and doesn't drop all her papers with the results, in which case the results of the survey could, well, have been different. Or maybe, not.

So they come home, sit at their computer and realize it's too much work. So they outsource the computations to Bangalore and go to sleep. Next morning, RD has a 'research based story' to publish.

So this folks, is the new way you do Market Research. Three simple straight tests. No complex research forms, no questioning the gimme-a-chance-to-swear-at-you populace. No ANOVA. No Normal Distributions and other complex statistical techniques to arrive at results. It's pure, simple and idiot proof. Any idiot can do it. Never mind, non-idiots probably cannot understand it.

(contd...)

Coming next - Results and Reactions!!!!

Half and half

I woke up this morning and it was snowing.
OK, I'll admit that was a lie.
But only half a lie, coz I did wake up this morning. Only, it wasn't snowing. So there it is, the first half was true and the second half was a lie. And when you add a positive half and a negative half, you end up with zero. Zero. Nothing. And thus I've written about nothing.
And before you realized, this turned out to be a blog! Didn't I give you a hint already?

Brooke Shields

I want to blog. But like you can see from my last few blogs, I can't think of much to blog about, and that's showing in quality.
Then I saw curious gawker's blogspot. He's blogging about anything and everything. And nothing. And man, blogging about these three - anything and everything and nothing respectively, seems to give him enough fodder to keep blogging quite regularly. So I'm going to try that too. Focusing primarily on nothing.
Ofcourse he's incredibly funny, and I'm not, so mine won't be as amusing as his. But he had a blog , where he himself told me to write shit. And I'll oblige.
And if you thought this blog was just to eulogize him, no. Its only to do something else he said in his blog - to link to his. I don't know why, but that's supposed to be a good thing. So I still have to link to Sidin's and I should be fine. Oh, am I already fine?
Meanwhile, about the topic, no I did not plan to write about Brooke Shields. I put her name just to catch attention. I thought I'd put Mamta Kulkarni, but gut feel told me this is cooler.

How I'll soon be rich...

I got a postcard yesterday from the USPS. Apparently I no longer have to go to the post office to send my letters. I can sit at home, click click click and the next day, the postman, who so far comes in to drop mail, will stop by and pick mail too. Maybe I can also ask him to buy me a big burger and french fries on the way, but I'm a vegetarian, so it'll be only french fries.
Now you know what I'm gonna do? The postcard from USPS says my wife will be dumping the laundry on my head and I'd be wishing that laundry would happen click-click-click too. But no.
I'm going to use this wonderful click-click-click scheme to fill in this subscription to Exercise and Diet magazine. The postman will pick it up tomorrow, and in 3 days, I'll get my three free pizzas with double cheese toppings and diet coke (free with 60 month subscription) home delivered! And when the first issue of Exercise and Diet comes, I will cancel my subscription within my trial period, and get to keep my pizzas for free!
And then, I'll send a letter to my attorney so that I can sue the big burger company, Exercise & Diet, the pizza company, Coke, ok not coke, it was diet coke and USPS for conspiring to make me obese. And the best part is, the athletic postman is still around to take the letter and deliver it!
PS-> I actually put the names of all the companies, but blogging can you risky you see, they could sue me for defamation in return! And hey, Coke shouldn't sue me, since I didn't defame them!

Clap Clap Clap!!!

It's a big day for me folks....my counter reaches 100. Thanks to you, loyal readers. Need I say more? :)

Well, as it happens, I do !!! This has been a moment I have been waiting for the last three days. Watching the counter inch up painfully slowly, one at a time. So I'm not going to let it pass so easily! What made me really proud was this:

Yo, I felt I was a celebrity! People literally from around the world - Mexico, Norway, Spain, US, UK, India, Singapore, Taiwan... - were reading my blog, and that did give me a kick! Four continents, innumerable countries! Boy, am I famous??? :-/

(Ofcourse, the keen observer amongst you would see something fishy about the red spot there. I'll admit. Yes, it's mine. And so are probably seventy of the hundred in the visits. But my conscience is clear. I told the counter to ignore my visits, but for some reason, it tracks it every now and then! )

And now that it's touched the centum, I feel on top of the world. There have been others who've been there, seen it, moved on, but for me, it's a first, and I'll savor the moment! Know what? I'll publish my own interview. :)

But then handling an interview is a totally different game from blogging. That's a first for me too, and it gives me the jeebies. I've never done it before...I mean I used to cringe from even going up on stage and reading out my essay on 'The Cow'. So am not sure how I'd handle an interview. I'd been a cricketer, it would've been easy. The interview would've probably gone something like this:

Interviewer: So JK, a hundred, eh?

JK, the cricketer: Yeah, I just went out there to blog. It was a good day, the pen came onto the paper and the words just kept flowing.

Interviewer: So anyone you would particularly want to thank, for this accomplishment?

JK, the cricketer: Well, it was a team effort. The boys read really well. The new comers were strong, and the experienced guys supported them well by coming back. It was a crucial time and they clicked together.

......

No problem if I'd been a celebrity either; it would go like this:

Interviewer: So JK, a hundred, eh?

Bleep. Security, throw out the paparazzi

Interviewer: So anyone you would particularly want to thank, for this accomplishment?

JK the celebrity: (Hands raised, glycerine in the eyes) This one's for you, my great-great granpa.

......

Ofcourse what would've been awesome is if I'd been into politics. Those guys are born with the gift of the gab. Even if it makes others gape. It'd have gone like this:

Interviewer: So JK, a hundred, eh?

JK the politician: I am a poor farmer. I came here through reservations in higher education for the illiterate. I can't count. I'm a servant of the people. Numbers can be dubious. I do whatever parliament tells me. I follow my conscience. We will talk to all political parties and try to reach a consensus. Then we'll see what Soniaji......

Interviewer: errr.....So anyone you would particularly want to thank, for this accomplishment? Soniaji?

JK the politician: What can I say? This is an international conspiracy. Pakistan's ISI is funding. What can I do, I am an illiterate farmer. I will consider all points of view on what is right. Parliament is supreme. Decisions are taken by people who are more knowledgeable, and I will do what I think they are telling me. The West should stop trying to twist our arm. India is......

Interviewer: Errrr....thank you minister-ji.

But then, I'm just a simple blogger. And so here's how it goes:

Oh sorry, no interviewer.

So anyways, thanks folks, and keep coming back, with your friends and their friends too. It's in your hands to take the counter higher. And higher.And while you are there, don't hesitate to drop a comment once in a while! Especially if it's a juicy, good one!

Golazo!!!

It's that time of the year folks. Rather that time that comes once in four years. When the world goes mad. When one ball in black-and-white becomes the point of focus of every color TV in the world. Probably the only time when boardroom discussions and drunken brawls begin the same way, focused on it (never mind they go very different directions after that). When even Brooke Shields' posters are torn down from hostel rooms to make room for posters of men-in-shorts. Yes, it's Football season!!! The FIFA World Cup is here, and with it, all it's jing-bang!!!!!!

Well, if the beginning sounded over-enthusiastic and made you think I was one of those soccer crazy guys who knows every player in every soccer playing nation of the globe, mea culpa. My interest in the game would probably rate, average. I know enough to know Pele from Maradona and even know Ronaldo and Ronaldinho are two different guys, but ask me who the mid-fielder for Costa Rica is, and I'll ask you who the twelfth emir of UAE is. However, here's a game you just cannot ignore, and I have many a fond memory of this game!

My earliest memories are of the 1986 world cup. A World Cup immortalized by Maradona's 'Hand of God' goal, and subsequently, his 'Goal of the Century'. I remember, as a boy of 8, waking up rubbing my eyes, in the middle of the night to my dad shouting Goooaaaalllll and then sitting with him to watch the rest of it. At that age and level of sleepiness, I tended to empathize with the king who ordered a ball apiece so that twenty two guys wouldn't fight over one ball, but the next morning, I knew enough to call myself 'Maradona' in our gully-football team. Maradona got his shin kicked every other minute.

Come World Cup, 1990. Supposedly a dull world cup, but not for us kids! I even remember the lego-block mascot of this worldcup! I was more grown up and had more friends. This time, we were tracking the worldcup before it began, and had even converted our road from a cricket pitch to a soccer stadium. The local Maradona no longer got his shin kicked every other minute. Another more talented kid had kicked my butt and taken the name for himself. Our sports teacher meanwhile spotted my talent and offered me the chance to carry bottles of water for the players.

I vividly remember this world cup. The soccer world cup final and the Wimbledon mens' singles finals were on the same day. I'd made up a very smart comment in my mind and was looking for someone to crack it on. Looked around and saw this gullible 8 y old mallu on the slide. Went and told him "Both Becker and Beckenbauer (German manager for that world cup) are very tense today." He gave me one look and vacated the slide for me, and ran to dear mummy. For some reason, I never met him again till 1999, when unfortunately, he had to run to catch a bus. The next day, I heard he'd gone to Dubai.

For the records however, Beckenbauer's team won. No such luck for Becker though. He lost a five setter to Stefan Edberg in one of the most memorable of their matches.

The next, World Cup 1994 in the US is supposed to have been a great world cup with lots of goals, but it's not one I wouldn't care to remember much. There's not much for me to remember anyways. We did attempt to revive the local Soccer Club, but I was in Class XII and it was made amply clear to me, as much by fellow players as by the grownups around that couldn't hold on to a football even if I were allowed to use my hands. A career in Engineering was offered as an alternative and that cost me the fun of this World Cup.

Making this world cup even tougher was the news of Maradona being expelled for cocaine use, and then Columbian keeper Escobar being shot for scoring a self goal. Soccer could get bloody bloody.

World Cup 1998. I lost this to friends. No we weren't betting. We were growing up. And had formed our close circle of friends in college. The world cup was in France, and the matches were usually telecast at odd hours of the afternoon, when we were either at college classroom or in the canteen, eitherways, too busy in our chattering to bother about the world cup. France silently came up and won the cup. We lost the fun.

World Cup 2002. Hosted jointly by Japan and South Korea! I was almost a grown up now. I even had a job! And the job gave me an email address, My job itself required working more on Text Editors and Unix terminals than on Power Points but MS PPT did come in useful to watch all the powerpoints of the hi-tech stadia. Stadia where the roof would open up, stadia that could turn inside out. Stadia that floated on water. Stadia that could seat a nation. In between admiring all this, I'd lost interest in the game itself. I'll admit, I had to google to see who even won this worldcup!!! What a fall.

And now, World Cup 2006. This promises to be different. I'm in the US consulting at a company that's into sports and has a liberal sprinkling of Employees from the Continent. So that does make it difficult to ignore the game! And you must talk intelligently, even if it means saying "The Brazilians should've done a one-two in the seventy-eighth minute"!

So I wake up every morning to catch the 6am match. It's fun. It looks right, it sounds right...but wait, it sounds almost, but not quite right! And then I realize. My cable dealer, for whatever reason, is beaming the match with commentary in Spanish!!!!! I do a status check with my wife and that reveals that one year of living in the US has increased our Spanish vocab by three words, so that it now totals three words - Adios, Amigos and Gracias.

But one thing it has taught us. It doesn't matter whether the commentator says 'Goal' (pronounced Gooooaaaalllll) or Golazo (pronounced 'Goooolaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaso'). Either word is going to send the crowds into a frenzy and draw us from wherever we are, sleeping, brushing whatever, to watch it.

Some things are beyond the barriers of language. Football IS a Language. A Universal Language. Life for me, for millions of others like me, and many millions, much more passionate than me, is not going to be the same, for the next one month.

I would've said 'I love Football' in Spanish but I haven't caught the commentator say that so far, so I'll just say Gracias! And Adios for now!!!

Me & Money

I know. I know it should be 'Money & Me' Or maybe even 'Money & I' (whoever understood that rule between me and I?). Yes, my mom has taught me too, that only a fool puts his name first. But that's exactly what I am. Atleast in the issue of money. A fool. For there are few bigger fools in the world who'd have let as many opportunities to make money pass, as me!

The earliest opportunity , if it may be called that, I had to make money was when our neighbor's kid invited me to come with him to dig for gold. I let the opportunity pass. He didn't find any treasures, but he started his own business twenty years later and is minting money. I could've probably been a partner, if I'd been sport enough to be his partner in treasure hunting. I blame that on childish ignorance.

The next that I remember was when this Nigerian General's son whos dad had given him an untold fortune invited me to partake of it, by just opening a bank account. My 'education' did not teach me to go for easy money, and I missed this boat too. When I checked recently, he had been quite disheartened after I refused, and had contacted quite a few people, who are probably millionaires.

Then after I finished my MBA and was young and smart, I decided that opening a hotel was my way to riches. Afterall everyone feels hungry, and everyone needs food! However, I soon got married any my wife cooks well. I'm no longer hungry, and so the motivating force is no longer felt.

I once got a chain letter kind of thingy, where I'd get $3,42,719.25 if I sent a dollar to the person at the top of the list. I did. I didn't get back a dollar. When I cribbed about this to my IIT-ian friend, he took one glance at it and told me that the pence in the amount I'd receive should've told me it was a scam.

Each time I open my newspaper website, there is this pop up which tells me that I can make millions and get a free Ferrari, for only filling in a form, that asks for, in addition to other information, my SSN and credit card number. They'll even give me a free credit report. I filled it once, but just as I hit enter, realize my CC number has the unlucky number 13 (if I look at the seventh and twelfth digits) in it. So there goes another chance.

The last time I was driving on the freeway, the PowerBall lottery winning amount had more zeroes than the number of wheels the jumbo-truck that almost ran over me as I was distracted, had! But no. I don't go gambling.

But I'm not always a loser who chickens out. I've made my attempts too. Armed with my MBA, I entered the stock market. Going hi-tech, I went for demat. Bad decision. Today, I don't even have a piece of paper, that can be used, as they say, to wipe the hind side. My losses btw, have as many zeroes as wheels on that jumbo-truck. Even the PowerBall can't save me, coz there are a few other digits thrown in at random in the loss-figure.

The most recent one was interesting. This guy starts off "So do you want to make another 50grand an year?. How about 100? 150? By spending only 10-12hrs a week. Don't have to quit your job." C'mon dude, I've heard that before. He goes on to say something about this wonderful company that'll sell me their shampoos and toothpastes real cheap, coz they like me and also coz they don't have to pay distributors. And if I get more people to use those, I'll get money. Sounds interesting. The only catch, I have to be happy using their guava flavored shampoo for the rest of my life. That's not a big deal, but ordering toilet paper online is! I also realize I don't have the drive to sell soap and shampoo, which btw was one of my dad's biggest fears when I went for an MBA. I therefore get all conscientious and decide money alone should not be a motivating force.

And so here I am. it's no fun writing about how I kicked my chance to make 150k, coz it didn't give me a kick in the first place! But I guess that's how I am. Trying to get a kick out of writing. And depending on my employer to throw me my daily slices of bread.