Foot where?

Transcript of conversation with anonymous public relations professional on newsroom phone a few days ago. Edited for readability.

(Phone rings)

Sidin: Hello… Sidin (It is a miserable habit of mine, that line. So many people respond by saying: “No.”)

Random PR professional: Hello Sidin! This is from !

S: Hi. Tell me.

RPRP: I have been reading your work for a long time now. And I am impressed.

S: (Sensing a catch somewhere…) Oh thank you very much.

RPRP: Especially the wonderful work you’ve been doing in the area of Law firms and legal services…

S: (What the…) Oh I see. Which stories in particular?

RPRP: Oh the one… err.. you know the story… this particular one… I mean the one on…

S: (Aha! The plot thickens…) Oh you mean the one I wrote last weekend?

RPRP: EXACTLY! That one. It was so, so, so good…

S: On legal services no?

RPRP: Yes yes.

S: Ah but I have NEVER EVER written a single world in my entire career on legal services and law firms…

RPRP: Never?

S: Not once.

RPRP:

S:

RPRP: Maybe I have my information wrong.

S: Maybe you do.

CLICK!

Sniff. Cough. Wheeze.

Quite pleased with this longish cover story in last weekend’s Lounge. Too long to cut and paste the whole thing here. But here is a little amuse bouche of the story and a link to download the pdf of the two-page spread.

Have a terrible cold. So don’t expect anything cheery for a day or two. Or week. Sigh.

—

The telegram is dying

After a century and a half of binding the country together, the messenger of the masses is slowly becoming a remnant of the past

Shruti Chakraborty and Sidin Vadukut

On a recent weekday evening in south Mumbai, the Central Telegraph Office (CTO), a stone’s throw from the raucous Flora Fountain traffic circle, is abuzz with noise—not of customers but carpentry work. CTO, one of the district’s many heritage buildings with solid stone facades, humbly stands in the shadow of the considerably taller Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) office behind it. The MTNL office itself is overshadowed by the even taller and more imposing Videsh Sanchar Bhavan tower next door that houses VSNL offices. The three form a pecking order of telecom offices—from the swanky Tata-owned building at one end to the sad, sorry old CTO at the other.

Finding the telegraph counter in CTO means walking through an unmanned metal detector, past a dark, gloomy foyer, which is being converted into what looks like a modern bank with counters and glass partitions between them, and into a narrow corridor on the right.

There is not a single customer in sight. When asked for a telegram form, there is a moment of hesitation before one of the two employees behind the counter gets up and hands a piece of paper through the slot—it is a telegram application form that doesn’t look much younger than the CTO building itself.

“The telegram business has gone down a lot. Before, we used to send 1,000 a day. Nowadays, we get 100, sometimes 200,” explains a portly man behind the counter with a smile on his face. He counts the words on the filled-in form handed to him, checks on a laminated sheet of paper for the charges—Rs26 for overnight delivery of a 22-word telegram to Delhi—and then he hands back a counterfoil.

But when he checks the billing machine at the counter, he looks a little embarrassed. It was a few minutes past 5 in the evening, the end of a working day, and the Mumbai CTO had only sent 37 telegrams the whole day. Visibly upset, he quickly says: “We will send more today. We are open 24 hours for your service you know. Maybe some more people will come.”

In all likelihood, however, they won’t.

—

You could read the story online here. But I’d rather you download the PDF here. And no there aren’t any jokes in it. So for your daily dose of amusement you may want to revert to the dependable people at Newsmax.

One of the nicest features of social networking site Facebook is the ability to check out hot babes who are friends with the women who work in your office intermingle with other professionals in the same industry and swap ideas on, in my case, writing and publishing and so on.

Another wonderful thing about Faceboook is how, with just a few clicks of your mouse, you can leave a private message for the missus but unfortunately, due to the three million potential places to click on the Facebook page, you screw things up and update your status to the following:

“Darling, I have cleaned the kitchen like you wanted me to. But I may have lost that box of mysore pak that was in the fridge and I was allowed to eat a small piece at a time. I have no idea where is it. Also I have a tummy upset.”

But my favourite feature in Facebook is the facility it extends to individuals like you and me to get to know ourselves better. For instance it is only after the advent of Facebook that I learnt that of all the characters in FRIENDS I am most similar to Chandler Bing:

You may have a hard and sarcastic exterior, but deep down you have lots of emotion and sympathy, and know how to make a relationship work. You are a loyal friend, and a fun guy who knows how to have a good time!

And then tragically it added: “You also have some Ross in you.”

Read together in rapid succession this was disturbing at so many single and double entendre levels.

Nonetheless Facebook has told me so many things about myself. And all through the clever use of such multiple choice questionnaires that somehow peer deep into my personality: I have recently come to learn, for instance, the following:

1. If I was one of the seven dwarves I would be Fatty
2. If I was a character in Sholay I would be the water tower
3. If I was a character from the Tolkien books I would be a nameless orc that died a quick death from blunt force trauma early on in a pointless ambience-creating battle
4. If I was a product marketed by Apple Inc. I would be a pair of replacement iPod headphones
5. And finally if I were a popular Indian management guru I would be… (sigh) … Arindam Chaudhuri

This insight has helped me immensely in my day-to-day life. Just yesterday, for instance, when the missus told me that all the guys in her office were fit, wore formal clothes to work and shaved everyday I told her: “But I am the number one in international exposure and I gave you a free laptop for your birthday dear!”

So last night I decided that I must make a questionnaire also so that, like me, readers like you can also gain great, deep understanding into your personalities. For the purpose of this personality-revealing questionnaire I have decided to use the context of the latest industry-farmer controversy in Singur in order to isolate personality types.

Please answer the following questionnaire as honestly as possible. Mark the first options that satisfies you. Do not spend too much time thinking over the answers. It will only corrupt the accuracy of this instrument. (Giggle giggle. Instrument! Giggle.)

A. Which of the following is your favourite colour?

1. Pure, intense red.
2. Anything but red. Red is the colour of corruption and incompetent governance that has strangled the people of this state for far too long. I HATE RED. In short, anything but red. I will kill anyone who picks red.
3. Minimal Moroccan Yellow, Sicilian Sky-blue, Thrifty Tahitian Tangerine and Midnight Black. Limited edition available in Vector Value Violet. (Author’s note: Option C has been asked to tone down the marketing spiel.)
4. 900 acres. Non-negotiable.

B. What immediately comes to your mind when I use the term “Parizaad Limesodawatersweetnosugarbottlewala”?

1. I do not know the answer to this question. My cadre will approach you for clarifications. (Author note: This is the right answer.)
2. This is a stupid question. We have burned your house down. We have saved our farmers.
3. Parizaad is one of the teeming masses of this country that worked for years and years without being able to purchase an affordable means of transportation for herself and her family. Now finally I will be able to…(Author’s note: OK ENOUGH WITH THE PR ALREADY!)
4. My secretary. Or maybe my cousin. It can be so difficult to tell for our people you know.

C. If three people can do a piece of work in fifteen days and seven people can do a piece of work in eleven days, then in how many days can 24 people do the same amount of work in 4 days?

1. Lunch break. Will open at 4:30 pm. Very briefly though.
2. You are going to employ only 24 people? TWENTY FOUR PEOPLE? What will the other starving masses of this country do? Bund has been declared with immediate effect all over the country by which I mean Kerala.
3. Forget how much work there actually is to do. Imagine a world where you can go to your work place in your own, low-cost, high-mileage, laughable-quality vehicle that is… FOR GODS SAKE NOW!…
4. Let me rephrase that question: If three people can do a piece of work in fifteen days and seven people can DO THEY HAVE 900 ACRES TO WORK ON?

D. John walked four kilometres towards the west, then six kilometres to the north, then three kilometres towards the east and then two kilometres again towards the west. How far is John from his starting point?

1. Ideologically John has strayed too far to the west. We see no point in supporting John any more. We have all withdrawn support. Except Somnath Chatterjee… bastard.
2. John is standing on fertile farmland that has been stolen from farmers. We give him a five second head start. 5…4…3…2…
3. With a kerb weight of just 600 kilos and a 623 cc engine, distance is never a problem for my… CHHUP!
4. John has not managed to go anywhere from his starting point. He is right where he was when he started. If I were John I would be giving up hope by now. And god only knows what John’s vendors must be thinking. This is all such a bloody waste of time. Oh no. That Gopal Gandhi is coming.

E. Just one last question before we reveal your hidden personality: The Trichy-Cochin Express starts from Trichy at 6:30 PM. The Aleppey-Bokaro Express starts from Aleppey at 7:25 PM. Both trains are approaching each other with a relative velocity of 200 kilometers per hour. Which train has a pantry car?

1. This is a high level decision that I leave to the supreme body Brinda Karat. Ha! Kidding. I mean Prakash Karat and Politburo.
2. Nonsense! When I was Railway Minister both trains were redirected to start from West Bengal. There is no need for car when there is train.
3. Speaking of parking and maneuvering, did I tell you how because of a steering radius of just three meters I am able to easily… SLAP!
4. Yediyurappa!

Score key:

Mostly 1’s: You are a wizened, old veteran of the communist establishment with many years of experience in administration. You are clean, relatively of corruption except for that one incident involving land allotment which, in the light of vast numbers of CPI(M) cadre available at your beck and call, we don’t think was anything more than a mistake in accounting. Or maybe a typo.

Mostly 2’s: You are an inspiring leader for many thousands of people trying to shirk off the yoke of Communism in West Bengal which stifled industrial development. Instead you promise a new future where the same people, now refreshingly yoke-less, will prosper thanks to umm…err…wait…one minute… Will prosper.

Mostly 3’s: You are the world’s cheapest car. (We mean that you cost the least. Not in the sense that you regift things you get in office diwali hampers.) However it looks like that you will make the Tata Group lose so much money that they will start transferring funds to your project from TCS. This will enrage TCS employees who will one day walk into your factory and lynch you en masse. Oscar Fernandes will then say something completely inappropriate.

Mostly 4’s: You are one of India’s most respected business leaders. You are always impeccably dressed, smart looking and clean-shaven. But you also remain unmarried. Are you thinking what we are thinking? What we are thinking is this: You may have some Ross in you.

Many of you think believe that us blogger/writer/journalists live lives of luxury and excess. What with the traveling, the informal work attire and the fluffy deliverables. “Maybe this week I will write a piece on the potato!” is what most of you think we are thinking about all the time with our feet propped up on our tables and pint bottles of Carlsberg in our hands. No meetings to attend, no spreadsheets to crunch and no reports to file.

But alas the truth must be told. Our lives are not all milk and honey. We do not live merry lives. And this current economic downturn is hitting us very hard indeed. To highlight this I present the photo of a note the maid left on our refrigerator door a few days ago. Merely the act of embedding it here is causing tears to well up in my eyes.

Look what the global melt-down has done to the Domain Maximus household:

Balanced diet. Not!

Merely a diet of pulao and nimbu pani is what fuels this blogger. Have mercy readers! I am accepting donations in the form of cash and Nintendo Wiis.

Okay now I need to go get another Carlsberg.

p.s. The other blog has a little graph you might like to check out. Especially if you have an MBA.

Those are things I have been dying to do myself for the last many, many years. While it is technically possible two make a lot of money while writing very little, I doubt if any of those methods are actually legal.

But a few days ago my dear friend and partner in editorial crime Peter Griffin informed me of the Caferati-Livejournal Flash Fiction contest. Caferati, as we all know, is what they call the coffee machine in a Maserati. Ha! Humour! Thanks.

Koambetteeshen!

No Caferati is, according to the site: “writers helping other writers with tips, suggestions, encouragement, through critique, workshops and exercises.” Nothing like some awesome criticism to make a budding new writer go back to day job no? (Again, kidding.)

So if you are one of those people who want to know how to write, where to write, what to write and so on then Caferati are good people to hang out with.

Also, while you are at it, participate in the Flash Fiction Contest:

Can you tell a quicker, snappier story than anyone else? Would you care to pit your story-telling abilities against those of your peers?

Quick Tales, the LiveJournal - Caferati Flash Fiction contest, asks you to tell us a story in 500 words or less. On offer: delicious cash prizes, global visibility and the chance to be part of a book.

These are the cash prizes most delicious:

• 1st Prize: Rs 19,999
• 2nd Prize: Rs 16,000
• 3rd Prize: Rs 12,000
• 4th Prize: Rs 8,000
• 5th Prize: Rs 4,000

So hurry. Don’t let Abhinav Bindra be the only guy winning things. Games Village closes on September 7th. Click on the Quick Tales link above to flash your… err… fiction.

Tomorrow’s Domain Maximus agenda: Blog once and for all about MBA-entrance related questions.

The Capital Train

I have great pleasure in informing readers of this blog that the venerable Rajdhani Express trains of the Indian Railways continues to maintain the highest standards in passenger service, comfortable travel and catering that has a “must do trans-fat” attitude.

If one ignores my near fatal cranial concussion, there is much to still rejoice about the Rajdhanis.

Our little jaunt to the capital, for the missus did accompany me, suddenly happened a few weeks ago. It was not a pre-planned thing. What with the short holiday to the “gelf” last month and the traumatic Sensex movements, this blog’s solvency has come under severe strain these past few weeks. Not everyone can be a Member of Parliament with feeble party loyalties no?

So when the brother-in-law announced he was flying in from Johanessburg for his annual leave we were at a quandary. On the one hand flight tickets to Delhi were mightily pricey. And on the other there was little point in using up most of the plain vanilla two-day weekend in a train.

But then there was the biltong.

The brother-in-law had graciously agreed to bring back a kilo of this unique South African delicacy. Now I am not one to be seduced by exotic food in most cases. But:

1. Biltong is made of beef


2. He brought a kilo of it


3. The entire wife’s side of the family is vegetarian


4. IT WAS ALL FOR ME.

This was exactly the sort of thing that my grandmother told me happened to good catholic boys if they prayed regularly, confessed at least once a month and did not skip engineering coaching classes to see Mohanlal fillims at Jose (not pronounced hoe-ze) Theatre in Thrissur.

While the missus weighed the pros and cons of the expenditure, I convinced her by saying that we had to stick to our priorities. “Darling,” I told her, “I just cannot take the risk of missing out on fresh bil… brother-in-law dear… fresh from Johanessburg on his leave. It is our duty to meet him before two to three weeks from date of packaging.”

She nodded both sideways and back and forth in that way she does when she wants to reserve the right to blame me for the decision later, and I immediately pounced upon the internet.

Within minutes I was online and worked out a great compromise. We booked train tickets to go and, ironically perhaps, Go Air to come. It was what mathematicians call an “elegant solution”.

I don’t know about you, but the missus and moi always get very excited about travelling by the Rajdhani Express. And the 2653 August Kranti Express was amongst the most prestigious. Don’t believe us? Well it has the ultimate post-modern, globalized, BRIC-era symbol of greatness to itself: a Wikipedia entry. So there.

Now many of you readers may not be aware of what “August Kranti” really means. (Yes I am talking to all you fellows who attended all the events at your college literary festival except the “boring” India quiz where they asked questions about Mahalanobis and Homi Bhabha. Instead you went and saw, shudder, pot painting.)

August Kranti is another name for the Quit India movement which began in 1942 from the August Kranti Maidan in Mumbai. It was during this movement that Gandhiji began a Civil Disobedience Movement which, as you can see on Wadala Bridge every evening after 6 PM, continues to this day.

But coming back to our train of thought (ha!). There is something romantic and mysterious about a Rajdhani no? It is of course the flag-train of the vast and very profitable Indian Railway system. And therefore, commensurately, there is a sense of travelling in the best of the fleet, if you will. The Rajdhanis are always clean and well maintained, efficiently manned by a hive of worker ants and great value for money. It is hard to find anything unimpressive about the train.

So even while I was marching down the platform at Mumbai Central, panting and gasping for air as I walked to coach number A7, I was looking forward to the trip. I reached first–the missus was held up at office–and I quickly marked my territory on the side upper and lower berths with luggage. Next to me, sitting on the full length lower berths were an elderly couple.

The woman gave me the suspicious, judgmental look that middle aged and upwards passengers save exclusively to be thrown with venom at youths and youthful people who sit next to them on long distance trains. They furrow their foreheads, sit as far away as possible and then stare for ten minutes. After that they steal glances every five minutes and whenever the youth opens a bag, stands up, sits down and so on. This was understandable when I boarded the Trichy - Cochin Express during my engineering days. Back then we carried three bottles of “what looked like Coca Cola” per passenger and traveled in groups of 15 or more. And then suddenly, after the fifteen minute stop at Erode Junction, the bottles would miraculously fill themselves with “Coca Cola” again. Antakshari would start at 3 AM or so with a Sukhbir special.

But here I was no coke swigging engineering stud.

The missus arrived shortly but this only raised the suspicions of our co-passengers further. At any sign of intimacy, like talking for instance, the elderly woman would gasp barely audibly. Finally I used a quick phone call with Pastrami to dispel her suspicions:

Pastrami: Whats up Sid?

Sid: Oh nothing much I am waiting in the train with MY LAWFULLY WEDDED WIFE for the the train to start. My WIFE OF A YEAR AND FIVE MONTHS is sitting right next to me. We intend to SPEND THE ENTIRE TRIP READING BOOKS and in QUIET PERSONAL INTROSPECTION.

Pastrami: What the… Stop talking in upper case goddamit!

This pacified aunty somewhat.

We settled down soon and looked out of the window while the efficient staff of the Rajdhani quickly stepped into action. Like clockwork a fellow in a smart white uniform went around distributing pillows, bedsheets and blankets. Another with a splendid pair of handlebar whiskers followed shortly after and asked us what we wanted for dinner and breakfast next morning.

By this time the coach was packed and all the berths around us had been occupied. Unfortunately all our neighbours asked for vegetarians meals. And then they looked at me while I ordered. Non vegetarians will be familiar with this situations when they get crowded in by veggies who all look at them ordering food with a hawkish demeanour.

As if the restaurant/pantry car people just wait for us to order biriyani in order to drop the guillotine on some poor unsuspecting chicken.

I succumbed to pressure and ordered veg dinner and veg breakfast. (Then secretly went behind the fellow a few minutes later to change my breakfast order to omelettes. High five!)

For a government run operation of such scale the Rajdhani has half decent catering of passable quality and excellent quantity. But its real strength is in the frequency. On some Rajdhani trips it’s as if you are constantly being fed, tea-d and coffee-d. And then just when you are leaning back to relax and settle into the romance of a train trip, handlebar moustache is back on his next order taking routine.

It’s all remarkably like the first few times you go to the in-laws’ place after marriage.

(Completely fictional, illustrative conversation follows:)

“Beta, one more gobi paratha no?”

“No no no.”

Paratha placed on plate.

“And some butter of course…”

“No no no.”

Thick knob of butter drops onto sizzling hot paratha. Your heart decides to save time by going ahead and arresting on its own.

(Four seconds elapse.)

“Beta, one more gobi parantha no?”

“NO NO NO NO. I can’t eat any more gobi parathas jee… One more of this and I will die. I swear. Jee.”

“Koi baat nahi.” Says the father in law to groom’s relief… “Now let him have the mooli ke parantha instead.”

One relents eventually.

And then mother-in-law, who is absolutely not based on people I know in real life, whispers audibly to the missus: “He has put on weight since last time. Kuch tho gym vym karvao…”

On the Rajdhani, therefore, you are eternally arriving on a decorated horse.

—

Saapaadu ready

Our dinner arrived just as we’d settled in and opened our books. So we had to quickly rearrange the side lower berth and make space for the trays. Everyone ate quietly-the rice was a little dry and I found the dahi handy (whatay seasonal pun!). And then for a few minutes the entire coach reverberated with satisfied, synchronized burping. Now that dinner was done, the missus decided that she would turn in for the night and climbed upstairs. I helped tuck her in and then she cocked her head to one side in that endearing way and whispered that she wanted one last thing before she nodded off.

“But there are people around darling…” I said, a little bashful at the thought of a good night kiss in a train with all these other people watching. Deyvame…

“So what?”

“You said you wanted…”

“Your iPod…”

I gave it to her with a smile secretly hoping she would fall asleep in a few minutes and not roll around too much. That makes liberating the iPod later almost impossible.

Slowly the lights began to go off, people began to change into pyjamas and other night clothes. I settled down to read by the few remaining lights (Pico Iyer - Sun After Dark).

For the first twenty minutes it was bliss. The AC buzzed in the background in a comforting fashion and I read while occasionally looking out of the window at streaks of rain and dreaming of traveling and writing like Pico Iyer. But with less gravity and more fun and frolic.

And then it started. First it was like thunder in the distance. It rumbled and rolled. Gradually it grew in strength till it proudly established identified itself: our neighbouring uncle’s snore. This was no ordinary snore. No snore that was to be smiled and then ignored. This was, my friends, a powerful snore. A snore that made me sit up and take notice. A snore that spoke of years of experience and uncommon lung capacity.

This was how perhaps Lance Armstrong snored. It was loud, strong and repeated with metronomic regularity. Now normal bloggers would have made some wisecrack here about Deva Gowda or the phrase “sound sleep”.

But I am also a journalist you see. And we journalists need proof. Sometimes. So here I am proud to present a Whatay exclusive! At great risk, under the cover of night, we obtained a recording of uncle snoring next to me in the train on my Sony Ericsson P990i. It is only 30 seconds long so you might want to listen to it a few times. Turn up the volume and ignore the random chatter in the background.

Vivaldi’s Snore Seasons:

If you graduated in engineering… wait. What am I saying? Of course you graduated in engineering! Well you probably did one of those resonance experiments where an object successfully picked up a frequency from another object, like a tuning fork, according to your lab record. In the same way, in the space of a few minutes the entire coach began to snore. There were all types of snores:

• Uncles growling thunder with atomic clock level regularity
• Aunty’s deep intake and whiny outgo
• That fellow across the partition who snored completely randomly in terms of frequency and volume
• And finally some guy further down the aisle who every few minutes exploded in a barrage of grunts and roars and howls, woke up, looked around to see if anyone noticed, and then went back to sleep

The wife suddenly leaned over her berth and looked down at me. There was terror in her eyes. Like most women she is a light sleeper who, at three in the morning, wakes up at the slightest noise of the refrigerator opening. I advised her to turn up the iPod to drown out the snoring.

It took me another three hours to sleep. The snoring was un-!@#$%^&-believable. The noises of our coach is probably dopplering away into space as we speak/read.

I finally nodded off just around dawn. Two hours afters above mentioned dawn, a little after seven or so in the morning,  the dedicated caterers of the August Kranti Rajdhani Express went around waking passengers gently by thumping on berths with palms two centimeters from ears.

I woke up, shook up the missus and  prepared for breakfast. In a flash tea and coffee sachets were distributed and breakfast trays were doled out. It was during one of these hurried bouts of distribution that Handlebar Moustache lost his balance and slammed the pointy end of his elbow into my head. It was a perfect strike. His joint landed precisely at right angles to my cranium. For a few moments I completely blanked out. Zilch. Darkness. It was a near death experience I tell you. For a brief moment I even saw a light at the end of a dark tunnel. But this was because we were actually in a dark tunnel at the time.

When I came to, Handlebar smiled in apology and slammed down a Veg Cutlet breakfast in front of me. But it was a good smile, a sincere smile. A smile that said “Totally unintentional. Okay. Enough. Shut up and eat your Veg Cutlets boy.” I forgave him immediately. And wiped out the Veg Cutlets in seconds.

We spent the remaining couple of hours rearranging all our luggage, freshening up and trying to eavesdrop the conversation our neighbours were having. “Wait for it… wait for it…” the missus whispered. And just as she predicted, minutes before the train eddie-currented into Nizamuddin, Uncle and middle-30’s young man shook hands and exchanged phone numbers.

“They will never ever ever hear or see each other again you know…” the missus declared. “There are few signs of permanent separation like a shared telephone number in a railway compartment.”

She is both fair AND wise.

We stepped out of the train, a few minutes later,  into the arms of the in-laws (mom, pop, bro) and I quickly inquired about their health and well-being. (It was perhaps too much to expect them to actually bring a little biltong to the station itself. I hid my disappointment well.)

Behind us in the compartment Handlebars and his sidekicks counted out the baksheesh they had collected earlier in the day. Used sheets lay folded to one side. Meal trays had already been cleaned and washed.

As we walked out to the car the mom-in-law threw her arm around me reassuringly:

“You look so tired beta! Don’t worry. We will go home and have Gobi Paranthas, Pakode and Gajjar Ka Halwa as mid-morning snack…”

Oh yeah baby!

—

Picture of train courtesy Government of India.


Picture of meal courtesy JuicyRai.

Generic mallu man

People often make fun of malayalis especially by sending that ridiculous email forward about how we do no work because we spend all day tying and untying our lungis. In fact many of us upright, honourable sons of Kerala soil (Malayalam: sow-yell) intend to fight this stereotype by going on a nationwide hartal sometime soon after this tea break.

Therefore I was most happy to read a recent piece of news on the Indo Asian News Service that will finally put to rest the myth of the lazy malayali. This is the headline:

Youth held with 31 fake passports in Kerala

Do you even need to read the rest of the news piece to bask in the karmic glory of this man’s effort and commitment to duty? Yes? Ok:

Kozhikode: A youth was arrested with 31 fake passports at Kozhikode International Airport in Kerala on Sunday.

“Nissar was to leave by an Air Arabia flight to Sharjah. The search was conducted by the Air Customs Intelligence unit following a tip off. The seized items were found concealed in his luggage,” a customs official at the airport said.

Nissar will be handed over to the police for further investigation, the official said.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service

Nissar’s achievement is nothing short of being the Tata Nano of document fraud for it’s sheer invention. To put it in another way: NISSAR HAS ONE PASSPORT FOR EVERY FLAVOUR OF BASKIN ROBBINS ICE CREAM!

(My own sources indicate that the 31 passports included 11 Bijus, 7 Johnnys, 8 Babys, 4 Chackochans and one compulsary Blossom Babykutty. My sources refused to be named.)

And not content to just ship his clients to diverse foreign countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Nissar has also ensured that they get the opportunity to drive home to the labour camp right from the airport only stopping to buy full bottle VAT 69 on the way.

We are proud of Nissar Panalam and have decided to immediately bestow upon him the Kerala NRI Tilakam award brought to you by Atlas Jewellery.

Tomorrow will be holiday.

Pic. courtesy: Wikipedia A few hours after I posted this I got an email from Jogesh S, the photographer of the wonderful image above who said that I had given the wrong credits. So all thanks to Jogesh’s work and do check out this and several other fantastic photos from his collection here: http://flickr.com/photos/75621441@N00/495874906.

Close friends (Pastrami basically, and that fellow who sells dabeli outside Wadala station) know that this author has been harbouring a subtle fondness for the ASUS eee PC for some time now. Ever since the laptop made it’s appearance on tech blogs all over the world and took the 2007 Christmas gifting season by storm I have secretly collected images of it, read reviews, bookmarked blog posts and pretty much devoured anything with three e’s in it in close mutual proximity.

Did I say subtle fondness? Sorry. What I actually meant to say was: I AM TOTALLY FREAKING OBSESSED BY IT. (In school comedy circles some smart ass would now say “Accha! You love it so much? Then go marry it. Ha ha ha!” SLAP.)

Not since Cadbury’s Ulta Perk have I wanted to possess something new so badly. (And that one almost pushed me to therapy. “Wafer outside! Chocolate inside!” it seems. Fools.)

However no amount of compact computing power, flash based hard drives and inherent minimalist cuteness will let me own one. That is because in-between the ASUS eee PC and yours truly stands a force that is immovable, inflexible and utterly asympathetic: (cue: drum roll, theremin music, that 300 Spartan fellow screaming in the distance)

THE MISSUS! or even more accurately: THE NE-MISSUS.

Left to the missus the whole world would have one computer per family, one operating system (Windows Vista), one model mobile phone: Samsung slider, one gaming console with EVERY Mario game ever made and absolutely no chance of a portable gaming thingie like the PSP. All those things would be redundant, uncalled for and “phaltu bakwaas”.

This is because the missus does not believe in “wasting money” on any gadget or gizmo that, in anyway whatsoever, is redundant.

USB Mouse? Not till the touchpad is broken.

FIFA 2008? Have they changed the rules since launching your FIFA 2007? No? Maybe when they introduce an additional ball or something. No, “golden goal rule” is not good enough.

Nothing whatsoever is permitted at home which has a name beginning with a lower case “i”.

So much so that I have been driven down the tawdry path of cheat code entry and god-mode playing in order to finish my PS2 games and facilitate purchase of new ones. After months of tireless effort currently our home languishes with just three laptops (one in working condition), a home theatre, a PS2, two USB pen drives, a portable DVD player, a digicam, a handicam and wireless router in a 2BHK that is routinely hacked by the neighbours.

The only real gadget luxury allowed at home is the missus’ very own Sony Vaio in Pink. This is currently the pride of the household and no similar computing device may be purchased till “Her Pink Vaio”, as it is to be called at all times, is defective beyond repair. This has unfortunately led to the eeePC moratorium.

(”Pink Vaio” is beyond reproach, criticism or censure. A brief debate occured at the time of purchasing the said item from Vijay Sales in Worli, mainly revolving around product colour. This quickly concluded in a comprehensive review of my security as a male and inadequacy thereof.)

For many days and nights I thought this gizmo aversion was a foible unique to the missus. That is till I dropped in at the Croma at Juhu with the Missus, Pastrami and Pastrami’s first cousin (on the father’s side) this weekend. The Croma at Juhu is the most complete gadget store I know in Mumbai. It may not have the esoteric, “sourced from secret Shanghai market” quality of Heera Panna merchandise. But the store is large, roomy, filled to the brim with tech and use thankfully few plastic-sticker-aluminium-foil cellphone mockups.

On the contrary, most things are nice, shiny and in satisfying shades of grey, black and other such techie tints.

We were early for our movie at PVR and had dropped in for a few moments of harmless browsing. I immediately ran to the eeePC on display and began to type and use it with elan to show the missus how easily the both of us (eeePC, me) melded together as if one entity. As if meant for each other.

Sidin: See dear how, despite the keyboard being so “uselessly small” according to you, I am able to type something long and complicated so easily without errors


Sidin: *type type type*


eeePC: Sidih Subby Badulur


Missus: Verbatim is the word.


Sidin: *sheepish grin*

But then as I walked around the store checking out computers, computer speakers, universal remote controls (sigh), and gaming consoles I noticed something that quickly turned out to be a trend:

Guys trying to prove to their wives/girlfriends/significant-others why they need to buy tech stuff, and pathetically failing in the attempt.

All around the store young men, gizmo greed glimmering in their eyes, tried to nonchalantly hustle their partners next to devices they fancied. They then extolled virtues of the device only to have the women beat their reasoning into pulp each time.

Here are some edited excerpts from overheard conversations:

Conversation 1

Hopeful Young Man 1: Wow. A phone with a 6 megapixel camera. Darling look how…


Ne-missus 1: That’s four megapixels less than our digital camera.


HYM1: But we can carry this thing anywhere! Imagine the mobility!


N1: I am carrying the digicam in my handbag right now.

Conversation 2

HYM2: Brilliant! A 500GB hard drive with media output to TV. Imagine darling I can just directly stream a video file right into our TV without writing CDs or anything.


N2: But you don’t have any video files. Besides when would you watch them?


HYM2: Well I watch DVDs when you go to the gym you know!


N2: Which ones?


HYM2: ….er… WORLD MOVIES! I watch world movies!


N2: Yay! I love world movies! Let’s buy one. We can both sit and watch everyday all cuddled up.


HYM2: LOOK A PINK VAIO THERE!


N2: Where where? *scurry*


HYM2: Phew.

Conversation 3

HYM3: Sweety!


N3: *suspiciously* Yes?


HYM3: I was thinking maybe it is a good idea to buy a nice 16GB Kingston pendrive so I can always carry my important data with me at all times. Then I never have to call office people to mail me anything if I am working from home. It is a simple solution really.


N3: But you have an office laptop no? That has all the data?


HYM3: Yes of course. But suppose…er… I am in a bus, need to send a client an important presentation with embedded video, and I am not carrying my laptop?


N3: Well then what is the point in having a pendrive?


HYM3: I will… I can… I… will then… !@#$

All these snippets of conversation have opened my eyes. I now see that my missus is not alone in her aversion to gadgetry. It is a universal phenomenon. I feel a little guilty for having seen her in such bad light for so long. It is not her fault at all. Maybe, just maybe, responsible, sensible wives of geeks are wired that way.

How does your wife stifle your techie urges? Stall your circuit cravings? Tell me.

I, in the meantime, will go home, switch on “Her Pink Vaio”, place it by the window and then keep both open all night. Hopefully at some point in the night the rain will short-circuit it. (A non-warranty incident.)

Wish me luck.

P.S. Image courtesy Wikipedia, missus

HDFC banker on Monday: Good time to buy some Mutual Funds you know…

That lady who handles Citibank account later that Monday: Mr. Vadukut you must do some SIPs now. It is a good time to buy.

Pastrami most days: BUY BUY BUY BUY

CNBC: Due to the fluctuating market tendencies and the global uncertainties especially due to unclear signals from emerging markets it is possible that the markets this week may show some signs of push-back in correlation with the inflationary data coming out of *Switched off TV*

Sidin on Friday: Well maybe I should buy a little of this… and maybe a little of this DSPML Tiger fund and maybe… *gentle rustle of funds being transferred online*

Sensex on Monday, 9th of June: Apocalypse Now!

Sigh. Should have bought that EeePC instead.

Actually it was the open air eating area on the terrace where the journalists here retire to when they need a break from the hectic Youtube video watching pursuing of truth and fact for the upliftment of mankind. We were swapping celebrity gossip over lunch from Pritam when a colleague recalled this most embarrassing incident, as told to her, about a rookie photographer just assigned to photograph India’s biggest star, no less.

The photographer waits, along with journalist who would shortly interview the star for a newsmagazine, while the star himself is quickly combing his hair and, I assume, trimming that salt and pepper french beard.

Amitabh Bachan walks out of the room, rookie photographer begins to palpitate just a little bit, breathing deeply, the colour draining from his face. This is one of his first assignments ever.

AB: Okay I am ready.

Rookie Reporter:

AB: Hello?

RR: Hello sir. Are you comfortable in front of the camera?

AB:

RR:

AB:

RR: *life flashing before his eyes, while simultaneously evaluating other career options*

Rest of the room: Deathly silence

AB: (Frosty) I will try to make myself comfortable in front of the camera.

RR: Thank you.

Image courtesy Wikipedia.