26 December 2007
My Mumbai/Goa Holiday - Part I
Day 01: 8th December
==================
My holiday started today. Had an early morning, 11:40 AM flight to catch to Mumbai.
As luck would have it:
- I woke up only at 9:50 AM (couldn't, for some weird reason, sleep the previous night), and by the time I hauled ass out of apartment, it was 10:10 AM.
- I didn't get an auto for 15 minutes.
- No taxis in sight either.
I finally boarded a Volvo coming my way, stopping it by waving frantically and nearly blocking the road.
By the time I reached the airport, it was 10:45 AM, and by the time the huge queue at the entrance, where you put in your check-in baggage through the X-ray machine, cleared, it was 10:55 AM. 45 minutes to departure. I went to the baggage check-in counter, where, when I very optimistically asked them, with big smile on my face, to check-in my bag, they politely (with bigger smiles than mine) and very indirectly asked me to fuck off, telling me that I was very late and had to lug my huge bag for the duration of the flight as cabin baggage. I finally had to subject them through 5 minutes of irresistible charm and wit before they checked-in my bag.
After checking-in bag, found time at the airport to pick up Jed Rubenfield’s The Interpretation of Murder, a murder mystery featuring Sigmund Freud as protagonist. Had heard good things about the book, so thought I'd gift it to my sister.
The flight took off on time, and reached Mumbai 15 minutes before schedule.
Sis was at airport to receive me. The journey home in her car lasted 45 minutes, and for the entire journey, I was holding onto front seat for dear life while her driver kept shifting lanes at high speeds continuously and taking fast turns. My sister, who I thought was generally more jumpy than I was before she came to Mumbai, did not bat an eyelid (except when she had to blink, of course), and kept talking, unfazed. I gave her the book, telling her that someone had recommended the book as a good read, and that she should check it out. She took one look at it and told me that she had already read the book, and it was she who had recommended it to me in the first place. :|
After lunch at home, sis and I headed out to Jahangir Art Gallery, where, according to a colleague, you get posters of old classic movies in the pavement shops. We got down near Jahangir, and went to this bookstore called Magna. Like it happens to me in other bookstores, I just had to pick up something... anything. I ended up picked up Haruki Murakami’s Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Urge satisfied, we went to Jahangir, where we found not a single movie poster, either on display or on sale anywhere in the vicinity. Gee, thanks a ton, Vivek. :|
Went back home, sacked out for a while, before I headed to Hard Rock Cafe to meet a friend. Sis and B-I-L told me it would take me 15-20 minutes by walk, so decided to walk it. We were to meet at 7:30 PM, and so I left home at around 7:10 PM. On the way, called my friend, telling her I might be 5-10 minutes late, and asked her to go ahead and get a table, but she asked me to go ahead of her and to give her a call 5 minutes before I reach, and when I asked her why, she gave me some logic about it not looking nice if a girl goes early and has to wait for a guy. Girls, I tell you... :|
Reached HRC at around 7:50 PM. They had some benefit concert, so the entrance passes were 500 bucks a head, out of which 300 went to charity. Friend came, and we went in.
This was the first time I was going to any HRC, and I loved the place. The place was high-roofed and spacious. Rock memorabilia everywhere. The music wafted all over the place like mist, flowing smoothly down the wall onto the floor and slowly but gradually enveloping everything. Them playing Pink Floyd's Shine on You Crazy Diamond I-V only heightened the effect.
Most HRC employees had on these black uniforms, and had fixed artificial white wings on their backs. Hanging around the waiters and the DJ was this one annoying girl, dressed in white, who also had wings attached, and who had just about as much make-up as a goddam geisha. She was wearing this tiny skirt which showed a lot of leg, and for some strange reason, raised her left leg bent at the knee, and rubbed it against her right leg forward and backward, like a dog which has oscillating 'yes/no' thoughts about peeing someplace because it doesn't resemble a lamp-post or car tyre.
We were trying to get a table, but because of the concert, most of the tables were booked in advance. Firangs occupied most of the other tables. After a while of waiting, we decided to go someplace for dinner, and left.
We went to Phoenix Mills, a mall near my sis's place, where we had dinner at this nice and quiet joint called Noodle Bar, where my friend gifted me these books: one of the Calvin & Hobbes comic books and Haruki Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (yeah, the same book I bought a few hours back...). I had got her John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams/Mark Carwardine and a few Mani Ratnam movies.
Then came the tough "Writing stuff on a book" part. If there's anything I absolutely suck at, it's gotta be writing stuff on a book I'm about to gift someone. I always think of writing something witty, but whenever I take pen in hand, my mind's a complete blank (like a blackboard just cleanly rubbed, without the slightest trace of chalk, by some over-zealous class first-ranker who comes half an hour early to school especially for this purpose) and finally end up scribbling something dumb, something achievable only by someone as dumb as Big Moose or Moe, the class bully in Calvin & Hobbes. I took a good 10 minutes to think about something to write, and eventually wrote "Happy Reading", and "Hope you enjoy the book" or some crap on those lines. :|
We later went to the Worli Seaface. After a while, she left, since she had to go to Pune early the next day.
It was only 11:15 PM, and since I didn't have to go to Pune the next day, I finally went back to Phoenix Mills, to this place called Brew Bar. The place was more or less empty (only one other table apart from mine was occupied). After I had settled in and was drinking beer and reading the Calvin & Hobbes I'd just got as a gift, the waiter, a tall reed-thin guy, walked over to me, looked at me for a few seconds and then, tilting his head to one side and pointing a finger at me as if he was trying to correctly guess something, asked me,”Sir, you're from the South, aren't you?"
I said "Yeah... u guessed from the moustache?"
He said, grinning widely, "Yes, sir. Where in the South are you from?"
"Kerala", I lied.
He then went on to tell me that he had worked with a lot of South Indians and had liked them, and that they were hard workers, smart and good at heart. After a minute or two of this and related topics about moustaches, etc., the conversation fizzed out and he went back to what he was doing, and I went back to reading Calvin & Hobbes.
When I got the bill, I noticed that it was much lesser than the amount I had mentally calculated after looking at the menu. I looked at the waiter, and he grinned at me. The guy had just given me a 30% discount on the bill, only because I was a South Indian!
I walked home, read awhile and slept.
Day 02: 9th December
==================
I was woken up really early, at 8:30 AM, by sis, with whom I was to go to Dombivli to visit my uncle, aunt and cousins (2 sisters and a brother) I haven't seen in ages. Sis asked me to take a book along, just in case I got bored on the train, so I took Koji Suzuki’s The Ring (yeah, the one that got made into a movie).
We took a taxi to Byculla Station, and after figuring out which platform to go to, we boarded a semi-fast train to Dombivli. We luckily got seats (my sister got the window :-( ). My sister started reading a book she had got, while I generally looked all around me.
The train was getting crowded, and on the far side of the same row, near the window on the opposite side, sat a Muslim family: an old guy wearing a prayer cap, and 3 old women in burkhas with veils lifted.
Ahead of me, by the entrance to the compartment stood 3 college kids who were joking around and laughing, and whenever the train started from a station, they found some girl standing on the platform and loudly shouted out: "I Love You"; one hand holding the railing, the other stretched out towards the girl, their faces full of fake pain and longing. They obviously got some kick out of this, for they did this at every station the train stopped at and started from, and afterwards, would laugh, not lecherously but good-naturedly, for a whole minute or two.
A Hindu couple with two sweet-looking kids got on board a station and stood on our side. The husband, a little plump, wearing a teeka, looked like a slightly heavier version of Govinda. He had a very nice, honest smile. The wife, apart from the trademark Hindu bindi on her forehead, had a very neat assortment of teekas (very unlike the completely random teeka-like things movie heroines have on their forehead after a rape scene), and in her hand, held a basket of flowers/coconuts. The kids, being kids, were restless after a minute or two, and squirmed in their parents' laps. One kid said something to the father, pointing to the window where the Muslim family was sitting. The father then requested the Muslim gentleman to let his kids stand near the window. The Muslim gentlemen and the women nodded in total agreement, as if saying "Of course, if they're kids, they have to stand by the window", and took the kids by hand, patted their heads, pulled their cheeks, kissed them and let them stand by the window. One of the two women by the window had made one kid sit on her lap, and the other woman was pointing somewhere outside and telling the kid something. The parents, in the meanwhile, took no notice of the kids, and were talking to each other and joking/laughing.
My heart warmed at these sights. In a sudden rush of emotion, I sent my friend an SMS, saying "I'm on the Mumbai local train. I've brought a book to read, but I find myself looking at the people around me, who seem very nice, and have such honest smiles :-)".
Only later that evening was I to realise I had spoken too soon…
(Continued...)
17 December 2007
Cookies, by Douglas Adams
This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person is me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, UK. I was a bit early for the train. I'd gotten the time of the train wrong. I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packets of cookies. I went and sat at a table, newspaper, coffee cup, packets of cookies. There's a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase. It didn't look like he would do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.
Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There's nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies. You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know. But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do a clue in the newspaper, couldn't do anything, and thought, What am I going to do?
In the end I thought, Nothing for it, I'll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, that settled him. But it hadn't because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie. Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. "Excuse me, I couldnt help but notice..." I mean, it doesnt really work.
We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back.
A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies. The thing I particularly like about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who's had the same exact story, only he doesn't have the punch line.
Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There's nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies. You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know. But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do a clue in the newspaper, couldn't do anything, and thought, What am I going to do?
In the end I thought, Nothing for it, I'll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, that settled him. But it hadn't because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie. Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. "Excuse me, I couldnt help but notice..." I mean, it doesnt really work.
We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back.
A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies. The thing I particularly like about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who's had the same exact story, only he doesn't have the punch line.
16 December 2007
16 October 2007
Caterer woes
We have this new caterer at our office cafetaria. I write about this caterer, not because the food's good or anything (it, in fact, is no better than the usual crap dished out by the others), but because of this 'feedback' guy they've posted near the cafetaria door, whose job it is to ask everyone if they're okay with the food.
This guy's presence, though annoying, is helpful in a way because these days, I'm in no mood to go through that trial-and-error thing we usually have to do with cafetaria food (taking a bit of whatever looks eatable, hoping that something would turn out to be good), and if this guy's around, I know for a fact that the food will be shitty, except probably for the rice and curd (which no one can possibly screw up, even me), and so I restrict my lunch to just these.
I usually avoid talking to the guy, not because I might end up being rude to him, but because I might feel bad about it later (I too am, after all, a nice guy... ha ha) and the last thing I need, looking at the current state of things, is this feeling (I even put up with my friends these days... ask them and they'll tell you how unusually tolerant and quiet I've become of late).
Anyway, this guy has this particular way of doing this feedback thing. He stands at his 'post' like a bouncer in a discotheque, hands folded, scanning the expressions of people coming out, and anyone with an expression betraying even the tiniest sign of displeasure, he closes in on them and asks them for their feedback. All this, with an extremely humble look on his face.
Last week was no different. He was standing there as usual, doing his routine, when I came out after lunch with my trademark blank expression, and he must have sensed something unusual about this, for he stopped and asked me, with an honest, innocent tone (like the one employed by Kindergarten kids while acting in one of those Annual Day things, where everyone plays a goddam vegetable or animal and steps forward to talk two lines or something in an honest-as-hell tone) and this real earnest look on his face (his last name's probably Hemingway or something... ha ha):
Him: Sir, was the food good? Did you like it?
Me: It was pretty bad.
The sly bastard then changed his expression from 'extremely humble' to 'extremely surprised', as if he was representing the best catering service in the whole goddam world, where they employed world-class, highly-paid food tasters or something, and were always used to setting a benchmark of excellence for their other competitors, and the goddam chefs had this healthy competition amongst themselves and strove to surpass each other everyday, thus improving the quality of food and therefore delighting the customer all the time.
Him (with same expression, but shaking his head slightly, probably from disbelief): What was wrong, sir? We would like to improve.
Me: The rice was not cooked fully, the curd was ok (you probably bought it from somewhere outside), and there was more garam masala than yam in the yam thing.
Him: Oh. What about the others?
Me: I didn't eat anything else, but judging by the expression on other peoples' faces, I'm pretty sure they were bad too.
Him: Tomorrow, you see, sir. You will definitely like the food.
Me (dropping the red coin into the feedback box): Yeah let's see.
Needless to say, the food sucked the next day too...
This guy's presence, though annoying, is helpful in a way because these days, I'm in no mood to go through that trial-and-error thing we usually have to do with cafetaria food (taking a bit of whatever looks eatable, hoping that something would turn out to be good), and if this guy's around, I know for a fact that the food will be shitty, except probably for the rice and curd (which no one can possibly screw up, even me), and so I restrict my lunch to just these.
I usually avoid talking to the guy, not because I might end up being rude to him, but because I might feel bad about it later (I too am, after all, a nice guy... ha ha) and the last thing I need, looking at the current state of things, is this feeling (I even put up with my friends these days... ask them and they'll tell you how unusually tolerant and quiet I've become of late).
Anyway, this guy has this particular way of doing this feedback thing. He stands at his 'post' like a bouncer in a discotheque, hands folded, scanning the expressions of people coming out, and anyone with an expression betraying even the tiniest sign of displeasure, he closes in on them and asks them for their feedback. All this, with an extremely humble look on his face.
Last week was no different. He was standing there as usual, doing his routine, when I came out after lunch with my trademark blank expression, and he must have sensed something unusual about this, for he stopped and asked me, with an honest, innocent tone (like the one employed by Kindergarten kids while acting in one of those Annual Day things, where everyone plays a goddam vegetable or animal and steps forward to talk two lines or something in an honest-as-hell tone) and this real earnest look on his face (his last name's probably Hemingway or something... ha ha):
Him: Sir, was the food good? Did you like it?
Me: It was pretty bad.
The sly bastard then changed his expression from 'extremely humble' to 'extremely surprised', as if he was representing the best catering service in the whole goddam world, where they employed world-class, highly-paid food tasters or something, and were always used to setting a benchmark of excellence for their other competitors, and the goddam chefs had this healthy competition amongst themselves and strove to surpass each other everyday, thus improving the quality of food and therefore delighting the customer all the time.
Him (with same expression, but shaking his head slightly, probably from disbelief): What was wrong, sir? We would like to improve.
Me: The rice was not cooked fully, the curd was ok (you probably bought it from somewhere outside), and there was more garam masala than yam in the yam thing.
Him: Oh. What about the others?
Me: I didn't eat anything else, but judging by the expression on other peoples' faces, I'm pretty sure they were bad too.
To his face already displaying surprise, he then proceeded to add on expressions of injured pride, regret, resignation, anger (on being let down by his world-class chefs and food-tasters... he was probably gonna sack the entire bunch of bastards that very evening, judging by all the contortions he made with his face), and determination.
Him: Tomorrow, you see, sir. You will definitely like the food.
Me (dropping the red coin into the feedback box): Yeah let's see.
Needless to say, the food sucked the next day too...
12 October 2007
Zuiikin' English
Learn English and Aerobics at the same time through....
Zuiikin' English!!!!!!!!!
Things to look out for:
1. The background music in general, especially between sentences.
2. The way the camera focuses on the girls' legs between sentences, and the way they stand on the tip of their toes in perfect timing to the background music.
3. "Let me off at the nekust corner."
4. Their happy faces when saying "Spare me my life!" and "I was robbed by two men".
5. The exercise for "Let's go dutch!"
HOW TO STAND UP FOR YOURSELF IN A RELATIONSHIP
And if you thought these were funny, check this out:
If you have, just like me, become a big fan of Zuiikin' English by now, here are a few useful links:
The official homepage of the Zuiikin' English programme on Fuji TV:
http://www.fujitv.co.jp/cs/program/7395_014.html
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuiikin'_English
A few more episodes of Zuiikin' English:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=609ADC6845FE7163
Parodies of the Zuiikin' English programme:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=52EFD0E93902F5D4
--
Gu-roo Smaaa-run Gu-roo Smaaa-run
Gu-roo Smaaa-run Gu-roo Smaaa-run
*dinchik dinchik dinchik dinchik dinchik dinchik dinchik dinchik*
Gu-roo Smaaa-run Gu-roo Smaaa-run....
Zuiikin' English!!!!!!!!!
Things to look out for:
1. The background music in general, especially between sentences.
2. The way the camera focuses on the girls' legs between sentences, and the way they stand on the tip of their toes in perfect timing to the background music.
3. "Let me off at the nekust corner."
4. Their happy faces when saying "Spare me my life!" and "I was robbed by two men".
5. The exercise for "Let's go dutch!"
HOW TO STAND UP FOR YOURSELF IN A RELATIONSHIP
And if you thought these were funny, check this out:
If you have, just like me, become a big fan of Zuiikin' English by now, here are a few useful links:
The official homepage of the Zuiikin' English programme on Fuji TV:
http://www.fujitv.co.jp/cs/program/7395_014.html
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuiikin'_English
A few more episodes of Zuiikin' English:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=609ADC6845FE7163
Parodies of the Zuiikin' English programme:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=52EFD0E93902F5D4
--
Gu-roo Smaaa-run Gu-roo Smaaa-run
Gu-roo Smaaa-run Gu-roo Smaaa-run
*dinchik dinchik dinchik dinchik dinchik dinchik dinchik dinchik*
Gu-roo Smaaa-run Gu-roo Smaaa-run....
29 September 2007
13 September 2007
Stress-Balls
We have a group of people at office who organize all these 'feel good' activities so that the average employee thinks our office is a great place to work in. Recently, we got an email which mentioned that this team would be giving away a surprise gift to all employees. Later that afternoon, these people came around, giving away yellow smiley-faced stress balls to everyone with a noble smile on their face and all, as if they were feeding a thousand kids at some goddam orphanage.
All this was pretty much okay, and I was feeling pretty neutral about this whole business, when I realised they were cross-checking from a list whether a particular employee had already received a stress ball or not. I mean, here they were, 'donating' stress balls to everyone, smiling widely and all, as if they found no better joy in life than giving away stress balls to everyone, only to turn around, stone-faced (add a few more of those 'cold, steely' things that Roger Waters keeps talking about in his songs), to tick against someone's name in a goddam list.
The goddam icing on the cake was when these guys took photos of employees when they were accepting these stress balls, and when I say that, I mean these guys took photos of employees exactly when they were accepting these stress balls, you know, both of them in contact with the stress ball in the photo. And going by the preciseness of the moment at which the photo was taken and considering the fact that there was no motion blur in any of the photos, it only means that they actually posed for this.
Posing for photos. That's gotta be the phoniest thing you can ever do. You may argue that photos are good if, twenty years later, you wish to look at them and see how happy you were and 're-live those happy moments' or some other happy-shit reason, but then, from a logical standpoint, I think it's pretty pointless. You may become happy after you've transported yourself to the past, but when you transport yourself back to the present, you're left feeling more melancholic than before.
Anyway, coming back, I had no clue that photos were taken until we got an email the next day with a link to the photos. People smilingly giving away smiley-faced stress balls, and people smilingly accepting them. I had to go out for a short stroll to kind of get back to normal after seeing them photos. I was secretly happy they didn't ask me to pose for a photo or something. I might have had this grim expression of impending doom, or might have 'accidentally' shown a finger or something.
People, I tell you. They're always making a big deal out of things like stress-balls. Try telling them this, and they'll give you some lame, shot-to-shit crap about little things like this making life interesting or making a difference or something.
All this was pretty much okay, and I was feeling pretty neutral about this whole business, when I realised they were cross-checking from a list whether a particular employee had already received a stress ball or not. I mean, here they were, 'donating' stress balls to everyone, smiling widely and all, as if they found no better joy in life than giving away stress balls to everyone, only to turn around, stone-faced (add a few more of those 'cold, steely' things that Roger Waters keeps talking about in his songs), to tick against someone's name in a goddam list.
The goddam icing on the cake was when these guys took photos of employees when they were accepting these stress balls, and when I say that, I mean these guys took photos of employees exactly when they were accepting these stress balls, you know, both of them in contact with the stress ball in the photo. And going by the preciseness of the moment at which the photo was taken and considering the fact that there was no motion blur in any of the photos, it only means that they actually posed for this.
Posing for photos. That's gotta be the phoniest thing you can ever do. You may argue that photos are good if, twenty years later, you wish to look at them and see how happy you were and 're-live those happy moments' or some other happy-shit reason, but then, from a logical standpoint, I think it's pretty pointless. You may become happy after you've transported yourself to the past, but when you transport yourself back to the present, you're left feeling more melancholic than before.
Anyway, coming back, I had no clue that photos were taken until we got an email the next day with a link to the photos. People smilingly giving away smiley-faced stress balls, and people smilingly accepting them. I had to go out for a short stroll to kind of get back to normal after seeing them photos. I was secretly happy they didn't ask me to pose for a photo or something. I might have had this grim expression of impending doom, or might have 'accidentally' shown a finger or something.
People, I tell you. They're always making a big deal out of things like stress-balls. Try telling them this, and they'll give you some lame, shot-to-shit crap about little things like this making life interesting or making a difference or something.
PS: Couldn't resist posting this photo of an over-stressed colleague's stress-ball.
Random Question: What do stress-balls do when they are over-stressed?
The poet in me awakens...
You are two parts hydrogen,
And one part oxygen.
Pray tell me, o mighty rain,
If you had a headache, would you take a Novalgin?
--Guru "Wordsworth" Smaran
And one part oxygen.
Pray tell me, o mighty rain,
If you had a headache, would you take a Novalgin?
--Guru "Wordsworth" Smaran
03 September 2007
Uncle & Aunty
The first words I heard last morning were "Hello uncle, is aunty around?"
Some middle-aged woman had not only dialled the wrong number, waking me up at a godforsaken hour (8-something AM on a Sunday morning), an hour when the whole goddam world sleeps, but also thought I sounded old enough to be her goddam uncle.
Uncle, influenced by sleep and the previous day's alcohol, the effects of which hadn't yet worn off, replied, "If uncle had aunty, why would he be like this? Uncle still searching for aunty. Lemme know if you find her", hung up and went back to sleep.
Some middle-aged woman had not only dialled the wrong number, waking me up at a godforsaken hour (8-something AM on a Sunday morning), an hour when the whole goddam world sleeps, but also thought I sounded old enough to be her goddam uncle.
Uncle, influenced by sleep and the previous day's alcohol, the effects of which hadn't yet worn off, replied, "If uncle had aunty, why would he be like this? Uncle still searching for aunty. Lemme know if you find her", hung up and went back to sleep.
20 August 2007
Reader's Digest and the 3 Mystery Gifts
Recently subscribed to Reader's Digest. This is what was written in the Registration page when I subscribed:
To enjoy the Reader's Digest throughout the year or to Gift a Friend the experience, just fill in the form and we will get back to you right away. Remember, 3 Free Mystery Gifts are waiting to be picked up! You can opt to pay through Credit Card or VPP.
The 3 Free Mystery Gifts was something I was really looking forward to. Images of beautiful RD hardbound books flickered in my head, those RD hardbounds found in much abundance in all the second-hand bookshops, and I grinned inwardly, for books, especially hardbounds, excite me like nothing else. There's something about those hardbounds that make them irresistable. Is it because they are beautifully bound and a pleasure to look at, or because they feel lovely when the tips of your fingers come in contact with them, or because they smell so nice? Or is it because all these things come together to become this beautiful experience of sight, smell and touch?
Anyway, a couple of weeks later, I got my first RD copy. There was however no sign of the 3 Mystery Gifts. I waited a while longer, mentally composing an email to send to the folks at RD meanwhile, thinking about all the wise-ass* things I would say, like, for example: "The 3 Mystery Gifts still remain a mystery", or using "The Mystery of the 3 Mystery Gifts" as the mail subject.
While pondering thus, I completely forgot about the letter box in my office, and when I checked today, I found the 3 Mystery Gifts. However, they did not turn out to be the lovely hardbounds I had dreamt of, but three small booklets printed on cheap paper. :-(
They were these three tiny booklets that were put together in a transparent plastic covering and thoughtfully tied together with cheap, coarse string to hold them together, lest they fall out and I get deprived of my 3 Goddam Mystery Gifts. Reader's "Customer Satisfaction" Digest. I now feel I'd have been happier if they had fallen out, but then, if that would have happened, I would've continued thinking that they were gonna send me lovely hardbounds, and I'd have probably emailed them a stinker or something and wait even longer, only to get these 3 Corny Mystery Gifts in the end. The feeling of writing a stinker, the very thought of investing time and effort and even attempting to infuse word-play, all for 3 goddam booklets would have depressed me no end. Hell, it might have even driven me to suicide.
Anyway, these are the 3 Mystery Gifts, and I can't do anything about it. More depressing than the booklets were their topics:
1. How to Lose Weight and Keep Fit:
Printed on cheap paper, this book has a lot of diagrams of this black-bikini clad girl doing these exercises, and the paper is so bad that you can see the black bikini from the previous page(previous exercise) kinda merge and become a part of the bikini-clad woman in the current page. I dunno why, but bad paper and their effects on diagrams always have a very disturbing effect on me.
2. Time Management: Make Every Second Count:
Yeah, you're right. It does have the dial of a clock on the cover. Apart from the clock, it does have four pictures, three of which are of people wearing official attire and staring at laptops, etc., while the fourth picture is of this guy sitting with his son on the banks of a goddam river, you know, just to show that there is life outside office, and that this book will teach you how to plan your time so that you can sit on a goddam river bank with your goddam son, thus, achieving in the end, a proper work-life balance. Work-life balance. That has gotta be the corniest word I've heard in a very long time.
3. The Assertive You:
The cover of this goddam booklet displays the two hands of this guy. One hand, the left one, is open, the palms facing upwards, while the right hand is formed into a fist, and is held above the left hand. Like the fist is gonna come down on the open-palmed hand. You get the picture? An assertive symbol and all. Know who were the authors? Stanley "Body" Phelps and Nancy "Language" Austin.
Anyway, the more I look at these books, the more they depress me, because I always think about how I expected hardbounds and how RD fucked me in the end. I therefore intend to dispose off these books to members in my team who're either overweight, non-assertive or don't give a shit about time. Have already found a taker for the "How to Lose Weight and Keep Fit" book (the taker was this girl who didn't need to lose weight at all. Girls, I tell you. Even if they're thin as a goddam pencil, they still think they're overweight and would want to lose more weight), but not for the other books.
Therefore, people reading this, if you have read and enjoyed this blog immensely, please leave your name and postal address to win 2 Mystery Gifts.
* - At that time, I thought they were clever statements to make, but I now realise that they are like those corny attempts at wordplay that all those retired "Letters to the Editor" type of old people try in order to show off their superior command of the English language.
PS: Doesn't the title sound a little too Harry Potter-ish?
To enjoy the Reader's Digest throughout the year or to Gift a Friend the experience, just fill in the form and we will get back to you right away. Remember, 3 Free Mystery Gifts are waiting to be picked up! You can opt to pay through Credit Card or VPP.
The 3 Free Mystery Gifts was something I was really looking forward to. Images of beautiful RD hardbound books flickered in my head, those RD hardbounds found in much abundance in all the second-hand bookshops, and I grinned inwardly, for books, especially hardbounds, excite me like nothing else. There's something about those hardbounds that make them irresistable. Is it because they are beautifully bound and a pleasure to look at, or because they feel lovely when the tips of your fingers come in contact with them, or because they smell so nice? Or is it because all these things come together to become this beautiful experience of sight, smell and touch?
Anyway, a couple of weeks later, I got my first RD copy. There was however no sign of the 3 Mystery Gifts. I waited a while longer, mentally composing an email to send to the folks at RD meanwhile, thinking about all the wise-ass* things I would say, like, for example: "The 3 Mystery Gifts still remain a mystery", or using "The Mystery of the 3 Mystery Gifts" as the mail subject.
While pondering thus, I completely forgot about the letter box in my office, and when I checked today, I found the 3 Mystery Gifts. However, they did not turn out to be the lovely hardbounds I had dreamt of, but three small booklets printed on cheap paper. :-(
They were these three tiny booklets that were put together in a transparent plastic covering and thoughtfully tied together with cheap, coarse string to hold them together, lest they fall out and I get deprived of my 3 Goddam Mystery Gifts. Reader's "Customer Satisfaction" Digest. I now feel I'd have been happier if they had fallen out, but then, if that would have happened, I would've continued thinking that they were gonna send me lovely hardbounds, and I'd have probably emailed them a stinker or something and wait even longer, only to get these 3 Corny Mystery Gifts in the end. The feeling of writing a stinker, the very thought of investing time and effort and even attempting to infuse word-play, all for 3 goddam booklets would have depressed me no end. Hell, it might have even driven me to suicide.
Anyway, these are the 3 Mystery Gifts, and I can't do anything about it. More depressing than the booklets were their topics:
1. How to Lose Weight and Keep Fit:
Printed on cheap paper, this book has a lot of diagrams of this black-bikini clad girl doing these exercises, and the paper is so bad that you can see the black bikini from the previous page(previous exercise) kinda merge and become a part of the bikini-clad woman in the current page. I dunno why, but bad paper and their effects on diagrams always have a very disturbing effect on me.
2. Time Management: Make Every Second Count:
Yeah, you're right. It does have the dial of a clock on the cover. Apart from the clock, it does have four pictures, three of which are of people wearing official attire and staring at laptops, etc., while the fourth picture is of this guy sitting with his son on the banks of a goddam river, you know, just to show that there is life outside office, and that this book will teach you how to plan your time so that you can sit on a goddam river bank with your goddam son, thus, achieving in the end, a proper work-life balance. Work-life balance. That has gotta be the corniest word I've heard in a very long time.
3. The Assertive You:
The cover of this goddam booklet displays the two hands of this guy. One hand, the left one, is open, the palms facing upwards, while the right hand is formed into a fist, and is held above the left hand. Like the fist is gonna come down on the open-palmed hand. You get the picture? An assertive symbol and all. Know who were the authors? Stanley "Body" Phelps and Nancy "Language" Austin.
Anyway, the more I look at these books, the more they depress me, because I always think about how I expected hardbounds and how RD fucked me in the end. I therefore intend to dispose off these books to members in my team who're either overweight, non-assertive or don't give a shit about time. Have already found a taker for the "How to Lose Weight and Keep Fit" book (the taker was this girl who didn't need to lose weight at all. Girls, I tell you. Even if they're thin as a goddam pencil, they still think they're overweight and would want to lose more weight), but not for the other books.
Therefore, people reading this, if you have read and enjoyed this blog immensely, please leave your name and postal address to win 2 Mystery Gifts.
* - At that time, I thought they were clever statements to make, but I now realise that they are like those corny attempts at wordplay that all those retired "Letters to the Editor" type of old people try in order to show off their superior command of the English language.
PS: Doesn't the title sound a little too Harry Potter-ish?
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