Disclaim-ed Post...

Disclaimer: The following post might be offending to those who are better halves, would be better halves, were better halves and want to better halves of somebody. I do not condone and appreciate the behavior mentioned in the post, and is described here for … well you read the post.


I have this new old friend. He’s new because I met him only 3 years back, and he’s old because of all those friends I have had made in these last 3 years he was probably the first.

So this friend of mine got married recently, as recent as 1 year back. Standing at 5 feet mark he’s not that tall, but he compensates for those missing good inches with his ever growing waistline. “Can’t help! She is good at cooking and makes delicious food”, he retorts. Every body who walks by and knows him kind of punches him in the belly and smiles, and some who are funnier, like me, ask “When is the baby due?” A sheepish smile is the short answer to the long question.

But he still clings on to his days of bachelorhood. And the incidents stated are reminiscent of those days.

We often meet at this place; everybody in the world knows that it is a secret place. And so very often we have this beautiful lady visiting this place; and every time my dear friend sees her, the adrenalin shoots up and his want for staying there for long gets longer. A strange happiness results in a picture perfect ear to ear Colgate smile, and even if you do not know, you can be 100 time infinity percent sure that she is somewhere around. This all seems very filmi, especially if you have recently cried over Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum. And like all filmi heroes, superheroes and always zeros this gentleman has a filmi name ‘Rohit’. Quite filmi !!

So this other day when this filmi Rohit and I were in the secret building waiting for the elevator to come and elevate us to the top floor, this pericardium, the sinoatrial node of his life suddenly appeared on the same floor. A flash of lightening somewhere, and I instantly knew that it was the Colgate smile and that the lady was somewhere near. Waiting for the elevator on the same floor, there were we three and some other don’t cares. The elevator stopped and incidentally it was empty, normally it is never. My friend later told me it was good or else we three would have to split in two and one. No, I didn’t have the guts to ask whether that one was me or somebody else. In the lift this gentleman was in the seventh heaven (maybe even more if somebody can prove that there are more)

With heels of more than what looked like mighty six inches, she stood a little taller than 5 feet 3 inches, give or take. The swelling waistline suddenly reduced and the chest was up and out. Had it been a second more, the ribs would have had opened outward, and the heart would making a 100m sprint for every femto-meter, would have been running around pole-vaulting on the elevator floor.

The door opened and we went to the coffee bar and the lady went the other way. Until this day I probably never knew how much fun it was to walk backwards.

Over the cup of coffee the dam-ned drooling started. Here a confession, actually we both did and it looked like I was still a novice in drooling. I am sure he must have been a US Marine or a secret agent before we met, or in his earlier life. Just one look and so much observed and absorbed! “Did you see …(I cant pen down what he said because I won’t be able to do justice to the words and the intensity of those words, but it was nothing that you may start saying Ahaa... Hmmm…WHAT? Perverts…. ) I’d say he said something about a perfect sine curve and other curves, of the scintillating radiant skin, of the pearly teeth, of the beautiful earring… and I dozed off.

And just then we were interrupted by a third common friend, code named Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, who without being told anything he understood what has happened in the immediate past. He laughed until he could laugh no more; pearls of joy rolled down his cheeks. Then we both started hitting him, though not hard, reminding him he is married and its time to let go of those days of bachelorhood.

One last word he said “Beautiful…”, we saw a flash of a fleeting shadow disappearing in that distant door…

PS: When I told to my psychiatrist friend about my new post, he very coolly, as a matter of fact said “Telling one’s story as a friend’s story, has been an old method of talking about oneself”. And I fell to the ground laughing; rolled on the flooe as the spasms in my stomach became unbearable ...

And do not ask me which better half I was referring to.

Insane than insanity.

A Simple question:

How much more insane than insanity can an insane thing be?

Before you start yelling, some laughing maybe guffawing, some gesticulating and nodding their head in disbelief that I have gone mad, let me explain why I ask this question.


There is this religious rule in one of the Islamic countries which says:

“A woman can be held accused of adultery/ infidelity if she cannot produce at
least four males who can testify in the court of law that the woman was
raped.”

I so much want to entire post, filled with exclamation marks. !!!!!!!!!!!

Isn’t this the easiest way to condone the acts of quenching the thirst of sexual pleasures outside the confines of a sacred marriage? And the onus of proving herself innocent is left to hapless woman, who has undergone such a physical and mental torture, a setback to her self esteem, from which there is no coming back. And the conditions of that proof are so such surreal that actually there is no way of the female is proved innocent.

If there was a rape, how can the lady get 4 males, leave alone 1 to testify that she was raped. Even if there were 4 + males in that room where the horrible act happened wouldn’t they be part of the crime, would they say something and put themselves at the guillotine? If not an abettor in the crime then what were they doing there, watching a live porn and self serving?

And when the government kind of tries to do away with this annoying law the religious heads (empty ones I guess) pop up saying that this is blasphemous!

I wouldn’t ever want even my arch nemesis to have a daughter in that land.

Shake-ira in a corporate fest....

Philips Innovation Campus (PIC) completed its ten years in India; and they had a week long celebration, calling it a festival would be just to its scale and grandiosity. The week long of fun ended in a family get together of PICians (that’s how they call themselves) at Palace Grounds, Bangalore.

Under the huge tent had gathered anywhere close to 2000 plus junta. I like a faithful family member of my friend, who incidentally has almost no family here, accompanied him to this get together. It was an incidental advantage that they had high tea and dinner, on the house! Well now you know what holds my faith.

Anyways, the high tea was good, and very high. Pastries, chicken tikka , patties, lukewarm tea and barely hot coffee were available and I had all of them in multiple rounds until my stomach could take no more. Well I actually respected the amount of effort and time they have had put in bringing up the great mix of delicious food and didn’t want any of it to be thrown away, just because it wasn’t finished, so I kept on going.

Apart from arrangements for filling your belly, they had a mix bag of programs. A fashion show of children, children from 8 months to well I better say not. Yes 8 months, and we say ban child labor. Then there was fashion show, which was more like dancing wearing flashy clothes. They ‘danced’ around on Shakira tunes and tunes of other Bollywood croon-ies.

And then comes Javed Jaffery on stage. And this was the best part of the whole gathering, except for that another best, that one lady in that dance in fashion show or fashion show in dance, whatever it was.

He made the people there laugh and I laughed a lot. One of the few stories he said, though not verbatim:

All the big companies, corporate world have become responsive to the plagues of the society, one of them being AIDS. So they have all started manufacturing condoms with own brand name and even the punch line.

Reliance Condoms: Kar lo duniya mutthi main
NIKE Condoms: Just do it
NOKIA Condoms: Connecting people

The best of all:
Hero Honda Condoms: Fill it, shut it, forget it.

Then he invited some of the head honchos on stage for a short game of dumb-charade, which later on drifted to mimicry; they didn’t know much of stuff. Like this gentleman, must be in high position given his bald and shining head marked by stray strands of grey hairs, who didn’t know how to enact his favorite actor. Poor him, either he didn’t have a favorite actor which is bad or else he didn’t know how his favorite actor acted which is worse. The best of this head honchos heading was still to come.

Javed then asked this another gentleman to dance on one of the Shakira songs, to say in Shakira words, around the world on my bouncing butt! So this guy’s humongous butt swayed from side to side, up and down, from here to there. Shakira had a heart attack somewhere. Don’t come saying heart attack can happen only in the heart and not somewhere. This somewhere is for some geographical location. This one nice chap sitting next to the raised platform, in an effort to buttress his boss, or in this burst of Shakira emotions, jumped on the stage with garland of plastic flowers; put the flowers around this dancing Shake-ira, went down on his knees and started a slow motion tribal kneel-down-dance. The more-Shake-ira understood his cue, arched his back and started hopping from one foot onto another as if trying to simultaneously jump and shove his member into this fan’s mouth. It looked so cheap and ghastly on stage, and amusing knowing that one of the artist in this soft late-night-view-type will be one taking you next monthly review meeting!

Bemused, Javed intervened saying “This is not a dance bar, you kneel-down-dance person please get off the stage.” Literally the only thing that he needed was throw some Rs. 10 currency up in the air!

And I was head over heels. The entire row, column of chairs looked askance wondering “Why couldn’t I laugh as loud as him?”

A helluva time. Full time masti, courtesy they damsel in dance-fashion-show and this little-more-Shake-ira.

And Bangalore dies once again ...

September 3, 2006: Bangalore chocked to death once again. On a usual day she normally chokes and has a near death experience, atleast two times a day, for hours in the morning and hours in the evening. A routine thing, to which, the Bangaloreans have got used to and they miss the chocking when it is not there. The city recuperates from the week of chocking and gasping for breath on the weekends and on public holidays. But September 3, 2006 was different. It was a holiday, a Sunday, a laid back day for most. The city, while trying to muster some strength to get over the atrocities done to it the gone week and get ready for the onslaught of the next week, was sloshed in the dirt of Congress’s doing.

The Hunter vali, the ring master, the Chairwoman, the lifeline of the party, the incumbent for the only name that does wonder in Indian Politics, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, was in the city. And the entire Congress party had like poured into the city to felicitate her home (??) coming, to shout slogans praising her and her efforts to dislodge the so called and so many communal forces, to have done all that has been done, undone, will be done, was/is promised but will not be done and all the other forms of done.

Big, super big, super duper big, cutouts were put, banners were placed everywhere and anywhere. If there’s a place, there’s a banner/cutout. Like it was a crime to leave any space unattended! And so many faces donned those posters. Even some of the congress workers were surprised to find that they had so many buffoons in their party. Why do the toothpaste companies not give them some free tooth-paste? The last thing I want to see is these people wearing a yellow toothed smile! And if the big buffoons are there on the display then how come the ntire entourage of monkeys be left behind? So there were family members, near and distantly distant, first level workers, ward workers, the accountants, the siphon-ers, the sweepers, the filth-doers, the named, the un-named and everybody who has the alphabets C, O, N, G, R, E, S, S in their name.

There were plastic flags dotting the entire length of the medians on all the roads of Bangalore; of course where the armada would zoom past. I so many times feel it is so good that these politicians are not interested in visiting each and every locality of a town; else it would be like “Me in a plastic clad Congress land!”

The newspapers reported that the local politicians had a scuffle over who would share the dais with the Lady. I am now so sure that she smells so good. Which perfume??

Then there were those busses. One after another, bumper to bumper, with people packed in. I don’t know what they were offered, a non-vegetarian meal and Rs.500 or more. I guess not, after all it was not fo(a)rmer PM. Devegowda’s call. But the people seemed to be comfortable in those busses. Maybe they don’t have busses in their village, maybe the busses are rickety shiketty, maybe they don’t have seats, what ever the reason may be. But even these comfortable busses are a pain, and you know where, for the daily traveler. I’d recommend the city transport to increase the number of footboards on these busses and increase their surface area, atleast people will have more space to put their toe on and not try some trapeze-ing on the window/door railings.

So these people on a one day tour to Bangalore had a good time, went sightseeing (yes it was all the gargoyles were operational, all the roads were cleaned and were dressed in a coat of fresh paint), delicious lunch, were even paid for junket. They had great time littering wherever they could, spitting whenever they could, and squatting for the obvious when ever they should. The plastic flags and banners did their part so well, flawless; falling on the roads, being swept away by a light gush of wind, trying on their own to complete the picture by blowing into every nook of the road’s asphalt, tree branches. A complete disaster for the city; a perfect mayhem.

And I witnessed all of this as I stood there watching all this happen, a helpless person, trying to reach his class on time only to be stopped, as the traffic piled up, because somebody important was supposed to take the road sometime in next half hour or the next to next one.

Her emergency supply lines went down. It will take her a long time to come back to normal.

Bangalore died once again, asphyxiated and chocked.

While I tried to kill myself and lit a cigarette …

Orkut Explained

A guy explaining Orkut to his friend:

Dekh mein samjhata hoon Orkut kya hai..jaise bachapan mein dost ki colony mein ja kar wahan ki ladkiyon par line marte the aur woh humari colony ki ladkiyon par

taank jhaank karte the ..bus Orkut ussi ka modern version hai..ek badi si friend list rakho.. teri list mein jo ladkiyan hongi un par mein dorre daloonga aur meri friend list ki ladkiyon par tu dorre dalega :)

Lekin jaise colony mein jane ka bahana chaiye hota tha ki dost rehta hai wahan par..isliye khoob saare dost rakho friend list mein jo use jante hon :)

Hope you did understood..lol Any confustion just shoot your questions :P

Does anybody still have any question??

Multiplexer to De-Multiplexer.

This is a question I always wanted to ask in my Digital Electronics; course at my grad college. I never asked this question though, knowing that it sounded very stupid. Anyways I knew that my lecturer wouldn't have had appreciated a student curious to this insane, blow up devices, level.

So what is a multiplexer?
A simple device, which routes any one of the N inputs to its sole Output line. The selection being done by the signal you feed it on, very aptly called, the Selector Lines.

To make the dump readers understand what it is like, it is like a junction on the road where all except one roads are two-way. Now traffic from which road enters the one-way is determined by the traffic signal, the selector lines.

For the dumber, its like this. You have a house and you need hot water, cold water or no water. So you have three water lines, one carrying hot water, one carrying cold water and one carrying no water. So if you want to get hot or cold or no water (the N =3 inputs lines) in your kitchen tap (the sole output line) you use a switch/level/valve (the selector).

For the dumbest, there's is nothing like Multiplexer, its all my imagination.

What is a demultiplexer?
The reverse, route the sole input to one of the many output lines, using the selector lines to select which output.

Well actually the multiplexer is on a chip, and one chip usually has 3-4 multiplexer depending on how many inputs you have. So you cannot take one multiplexer and tell others "Hey do you see this? This is a multiplexer!"

Coming back to the question, a rather dump one after having given the above examples!!

If we can give signals at input and choose which one to route on the output line, using the selection lines; why can't we give the input on the sole output line, use the selector lines to select which output line and route the signal to the selected line. A decoder!!"

Caution: The term input output lines are relative and to make the statement less convoluted, the input/output lines are used as seen from a multiplexer.

BTW I don't know why the lines are called lines? I guess the trend started because:

• It was easier to print straight lines in the books rather than curves.
• Since, people who taught and people who were taught saw the straight lines, started calling it lines (synonymous with straight lines!!)

A fall lower than the lowest ...

Yesterday there was a news item in the English Daily The Times of India , Bangalore Edition, which made me sad. It read Abu Salem to contest elections from Azamgarh in UP, his home town.

A dreaded gangster abettor in crime, one of those responsible for the Mumbai bomb blasts in early 90s, one who was searched by the Indian Police and Interpol for decades, one for whose extradition the CBI had made elaborate submission in Portugal, one who must be stoned to death publicly, one who should be made to die bit by bit, second by second for the rest many bits of his body and seconds of his life.

And this same person is being invited by a political party to contest elections. One of his relatives, as reported by the daily, said that the clan to which Abu belongs is 20% of the population, a number too high to be ignored by any political party, a number which can turn the fate of the elections.

What has happened to us? What has happened to the democracy for which the freedom fighters gave their life? What happened to the values? What happened to the feeling of doing good for the country?

How low can this democracy bow? Having fallen so low, when will the political parties and the politicians hit hard surface? When the people understand the perils of their actions?

What happened when the infamous Bandit Queen Phoolan Devi was elected as Member of Parliament on a Smajvadi Party Ticket? Was giving her the free ticket to the Parliament a way to assuage what was done to her? Was that a way to legitimate and pardon what she had done, so many killings? I do not condone and say that what was done to her was right, it was a ghastly act, but a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye? Instead of hitting the root cause of the problem, the casteism, the politicians just did add fuel to this wildfire.

All this reminds of what Chanakya once did, to kill the tree whose thorn has pierced his foot. Remove the root cause, kill the tree instead of removing the thorns.

We will all, for certain, burn in the heat of this wildfire.

The uncomfortable heat has already started to take its toll.

The good that was bad.... it did no good

Sequel to a previous post:

One of the various rules of the environment, in which I was brought up was, what my grandfather and father always said

Something is not bad only because it does harm, but it can also be bad because it has the capability to do good but does not do good.

A statement so simple but encompasses so much in it. I always used to wonder how so much can be said in so less words.

To apply the same argument, the worst thing to happen to India in general and Bangalore in particular was the Software/IT and ITES industry. Why?

It is simple to understand.

These industries have given the people, and so many of them, most of them young and still in youth of their life, so much power. Power to do so many things! It has given them the global perspective. Given them the opportunity to have a look and feel how good things work. What patterns of courtesy people follow? Many have been able to take first hand experience of the seamless and almost flawless working of the massive systems in so many countries; from things which touch our daily life, as trivial as the order on the roads, the courtesy of the person at the phone to as complex as the running of a district/county.

We talk a lot on daily basis in the confines of our offices, of ‘Best Practices’, of ‘Six Sigma quality’, of ‘Customer Delight’, of ‘Courtesy’ and of so many other good things. We make every effort to follow them, to make sure these learning have effect on out productivity, on our quality, the way we act as brand ambassadors of our company, of our products.

But then….

Why do these great things, good things vanish in thin air the moment we setup outsize the confines of the office? When we are at home, on roads, in malls, at movies?

Why do we drive like maniacs? Why do we honk when there is no need to do so? Why do we litter public places? Why does the phone ring during a movie? Why do people don’t give way to others?

Do we behave like that in the office driveway or home? Do we litter the cubicles in office or our home? Do we keep the phone on ringer at office?

We talk a lot about leading a stress free life, leaving the office at office and take only ‘us’ back home not our office. We probably follow this dictum too ardently to miss the point. We leave everything at office, even the best practices, even the good things that we learn while we are office. We leave all the courtesy, all the mannerism, all the politeness, all the gentleness we imbibe in ourselves at office and home.