Core problem - snore

A friend in Brussels shares a studio apartment with this guy. The roommate is a nice guy. He is fun to talk to and spend time with. But, the fun ends when he starts sleeping.

The studio has a single bedroom. So, they sleep in the same room. The roommate comes back from work at around 4:30 PM. Reaching the apartment, he goes straight to sleep. He wakes up at around 7:30 PM. The friend comes back from work by then. They cook dinner. After dinner the roommate goes back to sleep. Things will be normal and pleasant till the roommate starts snoring. It starts as soft breathing and slowly gains momentum. Friend says that he has never heard or even imagined of such a grand snore in his life. He is sure that the roommate’s snore has supersonic and ultrasonic components when it gains considerable momentum.

Well, everything has got a threshold point. One fine day the friend casually (he had actually planned meticulously to make it sound casual) brought this to the notice of the roommate.
Friend: You know what? You have a quite prominent snore…
Roommate: Really! My dad snores really heavy.
Friend: Oh! Yours too is a bit audible. [Abe… Maine tere ko kharrate ka baap samja… Tera baap tho tere se bhi bada baap nikla]
Roommate: Is it? If I snore too loud, give me a gentle poke. We used to do it to dad.

That trick indeed worked. But, it solved the problem only a wee bit. When the roommate’s snores went unbearable, the friend poked him gently. The snore stopped. But, only for a short time. He started snoring again. As this continued long into the night, the friend’s poking grew stronger. He was afraid that he would one day end up thrashing the roommate black and blue. Also, he had to reach out for the roommate to poke him every time. This irritated the friend more.

As they say, Necessity is the mother of inventions. The friend invented a new trick. He found that he was able to extract the same result by clapping his hands instead of poking the roommate. When the snore got louder, the friend clapped. This broke the rhythm of the roommate’s snore and he went quiet for some time. Sometimes the friend clapped his hands so strongly that the roommate woke up from sleep. The roommate would sit up and start blinking. At those times the friend pretended to be asleep. There were times when the roommate responded to the friend’s claps by himself clapping in sleep. The friend expected the Belgian police would knock at their door one night under the neighbors’ complaints. Luckily that never happened.

The roommate wakes up at around 5 AM and gets ready to go to office. It is after this that the friend gets a few hours of peaceful sleep. The friend is sorry for the girl who would marry the roommate. The friend doesn’t believe in the policy – ‘forgive and forget’. He has cursed that the roommate’s future wife would snore louder than the roommate.

The friend and his roommate are traveling to India tomorrow. Above anything, the friend is happy that he would not have to sleep with scary background music anymore. He is also afraid that he would continue clapping while sleeping at home. He doesn’t want his parent to come to conclusion that their son’s stay at Brussels made him crazy.

He is also worried about one more thing. The roommate would be traveling with him in the same flight. He is afraid of what could happen if the roommate snores in the flight. Could the supersonic sound ruin the flight’s engines? Would the snore make the other passengers violent? Can it drive the pilots crazy? The friend is one scared soul now. He has decided to talk to the roommate all the way through the journey, without allowing him to sleep. If he fails, he has decided to teach the other passengers the clapping lessons.

Cruelly concerned...

Reached Damlaan bridge while walking towards office. A dad was about to cross the bridge with his kids. Cute kids they were (aren’t all kids cute??). The boy was in the cart and the girl was walking along with her dad. The girl rushed towards the bridge. The dad grabbed her. She struggled to free herself. The dad didn’t let her go. Well, dad knows better about his kids’ inquisitive nature. May be, he is aware of the secret that his daughter thinks that she is a duckling. May be, he thought that she is hydrophilic. May be, he knew that she is fascinated by fishes. Or, may be, he didn’t trust her walking prowess. Whatever it is, he didn’t let her go. He made the squealing kid sit in the cart by the side of her brother. Watching his dear sister cry, the boy decided to let his dad know that his sister has got his full support. The boy started crying. Probably the kids were fed up with their bullying dad. The dad was unfazed. He had this hard emotionless expression in his face. He clasped the belts across the kids. He then rolled the cart across the bridge. After moving safe enough away from the bridge, the dad released the kids. The girl sprung to her feet. She stopped howling. The dad let her hold his hand and walk along with him. She started laughing. Looking at his sister laughing, that boy too smiled. A divine smile spread across the dad’s face. The happy dad and his chirpy kids continued their journey.

Going girlish??!!

They say, “Boys don’t cry”. Roger Federer cried buckets after winning the Australian Open this year. I saw a headline screaming, “Federer cried like a schoolgirl”. Even if we what to compare an emotional Federer to a kid, why schoolgirl? Why not schoolboys?

Yesterday the Holland lost to Portugal in the second round of FIFA World Cup. The same team that had played roughish football till then, bullying its opponents, went down to tears. The team had exhibited the so-called ‘manly’ way of playing football and yet wept at its loss.

And yeah... How could one forget Kapil Dev crying his heart out when he went Face to Face with Karan Thapar in national television? Nowadays, even the male characters in movies do not hesitate to shed tears. Are men not afraid of crying in public these days?

And they say, “Pink is girlish”. I see guys wearing pink with vengeance. Bollywood is painted pink now.

I guess the taste of the people has changed. There was a period when people liked watching only the macho characters played by the angry young man Amithab, Punjab-da-puttar Dharam paaji, Sunny paaji (Punjab-da-potha?) and their likes. Then came the chocolate heroes. And then came Shah Rukh Khan. Ever closely noticed his antics? Whatever it is, it is certainly nowhere near what is called ‘masculine’. Ever noticed Shah Rukh playing Babloo Chaudury in Duplicate? Somebody tell me what that was. Still, Shah Rukh is the undisputed King Khan of Bollywood.

World full of weird people – Part I

I think everyone would agree to this statement. This big bad world is also a wide weird world (www??!!). It is inhabited by loony beings. I have come across a lot of them. I try to remember some of them.

A lecturer with a prominent paunch had this problem with the blackboard. When he writes at the top of the board, his paunch would wipe off whatever he had written at the bottom. He would then search for what he had written sometime ago without knowing that his paunch had wiped it off. At the end of the sessions, he used to leave the classroom with his belly covered by chalk dust.

Another lecturer never looked at us. She stared at the corners of the classroom while lecturing. We always had this doubt that she taught the corners and pillars of the classroom about the Principles of Programming Languages and not us.

Another one was called the Rain. He spat while talking. We considered the front row as a cyclonic area and we were scared to sit there. We even thought of bringing our caps and umbrellas to his sessions. One of our classmates even suggested that we should demand financial help from the Principal and should buy either raincoats or Knight’s Armors, based on the amount of finance we receive.

The drawing master at my school took our fancy pencils, erasers, paintbrushes, etc and never returned them. We hid our precious things from him.

A master used to scratch all over himself. Watching him performing the scratching act was more interesting than his lessons. We used to bet among ourselves about which part of the body he would scratch next.

Another master never wore his wig at home. Quite a few of our guys, who went to his home, had asked the master himself where he was. They got the shock of their lives when he informed them that he was the one whom they were looking for.

One of our seniors at college was a hefty giant. He stayed at hostel. The hostel had a common telephone. The first lesson that a fresh hosteller was taught was - When the telephone rings, the guy nearest to the telephone should attend the call, ask the caller whom he/she wants and then shout the name for the whole hostel to hear. Whenever the senior’s name was called, he used to run to the telephone, making the whole hostel to vibrate. Once Pondicherry felt mild tremors of a quake. The whole Pondicherry ran out of the buildings to open spaces. But, the hostellers ignored it thinking that the senior had got a call.

A hosteller used to get calls from his girlfriend. They talked for hours together blocking the calls to the other hostellers. The rest of the hostel cursed him with all the sufferings known to mankind. Now the lovers are happily married – to different spouses.

A hosteller friend never slept in his room when he was drunk. He slept in others’ rooms when he was drunk and he used to puke in his drunken sleep. The others found a solution for this problem. When they found him sleeping in their room, they dragged him to the bathroom in his sleep and left him there. Soon he stopped boozing.

Renaissance of my Sony NW HD5

Selecting or choosing something has always been one of the most difficult jobs in the world to me. Grey jacket or the brown one? Diet or Lime or Normal Coke? All the watches look good… Chicken Tikka or Chilly Chicken? Physics or Computer? CBZ or Pulsar? I have spent half my life wondering what to choose. And, I am still scared of the selection process.

I decided to buy an mp3 player during my last visit to Holland. God! I need to choose one among the available… I wanted to buy one with large memory – 10 to 20 GB. I have tons of e-books that I would like to carry around. There were some cool options from Cowon and Creative. These pieces also had document, image and even video viewers. Who on earth would want to view doc/image/video in his mp3 player? Certainly not me. I am already half blind. I narrowed down to Apple and Sony. iPod Nano is gorgeous. But, they came only with 1 and 2 GB memory (The 30 GB model was not yet introduced then). iPod Mini had 20 GB memory, but its production was stopped. Sony NW HD5 had 20 GB memory. It doesn’t have the other fancy features like doc, image, video viewers, FM tuner, voice recorder, clock, timer, etc. It is a plain mp3 player. It doesn’t even have the fast forward and rewind features. But, it has a killer battery. Sony promises 40 hours of continuous playback time without recharging. None of the other products were even halfway to it. Even if I get an average of 25 hours of playback time, I wouldn’t have to recharge for weeks together. That was pretty impressive. So, after a weeklong furious analysis, I bought a Sony NW HD5 mp3 player from Media Markt.

All was well till last week. One day, the mp3 player suddenly died without any warning. It wouldn’t respond to any of its keys. I couldn’t access its memory and couldn’t even recharge it. I approached the service center of the Media Markt. The guy at the counter tried to operate it. It didn’t respond.
He said, “Sony has now stopped the production of NW HD5 model. We need to send this piece to Sony’s Service Center”
“All right. Can you do it?”
“Sure. Give me the warranty slip”
“It is in my home… in India…”
“Do you have the bill?”
“I gave it to the customs at Frankfurt to claim the VAT back. I have a photocopy of the bill. But, that too is in India”
“Mmm… Do you have a bank statement of the purchase?”
“No. I paid in cash”
“Then, I am afraid, you need to get the warranty slip and copy of bill from India”
“Okay. I’ll do it…”

Oh my God. I don’t know where I kept the bill. What if mom had thrown away the warranty slip? I should ask dad to search for the bill and warranty slip and courier them to me. I thought that my 250 euros are gone along with all my e-books, software utilities and songs. Without mp3 player, my daily trips to and from office seemed longer.

Yesterday night I accidentally saw the mp3 player in the cupboard, while searching for something else. I checked if it was functioning for the zillionth time, though I was pretty sure that it wouldn’t. No luck. I casually took the battery out and put it back again. Bingo!!! The mp3 player came alive.

Now the rhythm and melody is back to my life. The mp3 player accompanies me in my trips :)

Imagine Me & You

Sunday. J and H went to the monkey park in Apeldoorn. Monkey watching is one hell of a fun. It is like looking into the mirror. I was on production support. I cannot travel far away from The Hague. Well, not that I would have gone if I were not on support. I am too lazy to look places, even if it a monkey park :P

Sunday morning. There was no morning for me. Slept through it.

Sunday afternoon. Had ice cream and ice cream alone for lunch. Found out that I like Vanilla and hate strawberry.

Sunday evening. Movie time! Went to Pathe to watch Imagine Me & You.

Why?
1. This movie is screened in Pathe for over a month. One month, to Pathe’s standard, is a light year.
2. Imagine Me & You? Syntactically fishy, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be Imagine You & Me?
3. I have watched all the other movies screened in Pathe except Imagine Me & You and Take the Lead. Looked at the genre. I prefer Comedy to Music Drama.

Again I was almost alone in the cinema hall. Just one more person was in the hall - a weird girl who was laughing aloud all through the movie. Realized that watching a comedy with a laughing stranger is indeed scary.

I think it is a wonderful movie. Movie starts with Rachel’s wedding with her long time best friend Heck. Heck’s best man is Ned, a big time stud. Luce is the florist for the marriage. Minutes before marriage, Rachel and Luce glance each other for the first time. Chemistry, Physics, History, Geography – something sparks. Ned develops interest towards Luce. She flatly avoids him. Heck tries to match Luce up with Ned. Luce says she is gay. That doesn’t discourage Ned. He continues his attempts. Rachel and Luce’s paths keep crossing. Rachel starts doubting that what should not happen may happen. She is confused like hell and torn between the two. On one side is Heck, a sweetheart in all sense. On the other is Luce, whom she could not resist. Rachel declares to Luce that she cannot let Heck suffer though she loves her. Heck senses that something is wrong. He comes to know that his wife is interested in somebody else. He confides it in Ned. Ned understands that it is Luce. He warns Luce. Luce decides that she moving away would solve the problem. Heck decides to play the gentleman. He says the he wants Rachel to be happy and encourages her to follow Luce if she is her happiness. Rachel rushes behind Luce. They unite dramatically.

Ufff… I never thought that I would ever like a gay movie. I didn’t watch Brokeback Mountain just for this reason. I watched Imagine Me & You without knowing that it is a gay movie. Well, gay movie or straight movie, Imagine Me & You is a good movie. A well made movie. I liked it a lot. This doesn’t mean that I would watch Brokeback Mountain. I like watching movies that ends as – ‘and they lived happily ever after’. I avoid tragic movies.

There are lots of characters and scenes in this movie that are beautifully filmed:
* Rachel’s little sister who is never short of questions (like, does penguins have knee?)
* Rachel’s weird dad
* The eccentric customer at Luce’s flower shop. He frantically searches for a single flower, ponders over various options and finally settles for a cactus
* The scene with Heck and Rachel’s sister at rooftop after Heck suggests Rachel to follow her real love. Rachel’s little sister promises Heck the she would marry him after 10 years if he was still unhappy then
* One with Rachel’s mom and dad towards the end of the movie. Rachel’s dad confesses that he was lowly compared to her and she deserved a much better husband. Rachel’s mom replies that he had always been enough for her
* The other with Luce and Rachel at the stadium, where they verbally abuse a player
* One with Luce and Heck at flower shop. Heck asks Luce if Rachel had mentioned about any shortcoming or defect or problem in him. Luce says he should Rachel about it. Heck says, “I can’t. What if there is?”
A wholesome memorable movie.

The movie has the title song – “Imagine Me and You”. I googled and found that it is the song “Happy Together”. The tune is wonderful and familiar. Very familiar... Was it a Hindi or Tamil movie song? Somebody went naughty and picked somebody else’s tune...

If this movie is made in Hindi… let me guess…

Karan Johar would direct it (Obvious, isn’t it?).
Karan Johar would name it "Kuch Hum Sochen, Tum Kuch Aur Soche"

Rachel – Preity Zinta? Starting as the who sacrifices her fiancée, then graduating as mother determined to have her illegitimate child, prostitute willing to be a surrogate mother, girl who falls in love with a stud after her engagement, RJ in a live-in relation… Is married women turning gay the next step of evolution??

Luce – Sushmita Sen. This would be dynamite. She could bring dignity to the role without ending up as a marriage-breaking vamp or womanising woman.

Heck – Shah Rukh Khan. Naturally, this character would be fleshed out for the King Khan. Though Salman is expert in playing guy who loses his girl to perfection, Shah Rukh would have a blast with his teary eyed, I-am-so-cute-and-sweet-to-be-dumped expression in the scenes with Rachel’s sister at rooftop and with Luce in the flower shop.

Ned – Without any doubt, our Salman Khan. Who else could play the role of the stud who can get any girl in the world except the one whom he desires.

Rachel’s dad – Anupam Kher, the standard eccentric dad.

Pathe screens Phir Hera Pheri this Sunday. Yippeeee…

Matchless in Margarethaland

Yeap. You heard it right! WE WERE MATCHLESS IN MARGARETHALAND last weekend.

If you think that I am making an ultra-arrogant statement, I am sorry to say that you are wrong. I am not proclaiming myself peerless. And, I didn’t do anything to consider myself one. I didn’t win an Olympic gold for India in 100m sprint. I didn’t see God. I certainly didn’t drink a litre Coca Cola through my nose. I don’t understand the language of dogs. I didn’t invent the drug to trigger a dozen kilo weight loss in a single day. I didn’t even find the secret of Bappida’s fantastic dressing sense. And yeah, I haven’t yet got enough evidence to prove that I am an alien.

If you think that I am a pathetic bachelor desperately browsing every matrimonial site in the world to find the perfect ‘match’, I am again sorry to say that you are wrong. I don’t think that I am so heartless to a random girl’s life in the name of marriage.

Let me explain. We - J, H and I, who live in Margarethaland, went matchless. We ran out of matches. We ran out of matchsticks. And we couldn’t cook our dinner on Sunday. I was assigned the duty of getting a matchbox on my way back from office on Monday. As it always happen, I couldn’t leave the office on time. Konmar closes sharp at 6:30 PM. I got a lighter from my namesake at office. She carries plenty of spare lighters. Smokin’ Joes too can be useful at times. I bought a matchbox on Tuesday evening. Thus we retired from the ‘matchless’ state.

Almost alone @ Cinema Hall

Vacuumed the house, cooked lunch, dumped the previous week’s dresses into the washing machine and we were free for the rest of Sunday. J and I went to Pathe to watch ‘The Shaggy dog’ in the afternoon, while H preferred to watch the live telecast of French Open final.

Pathe was deserted. There was a small group glued to a television set. Holland’s first World Cup match was being telecasted live. We entered the hall 10 minutes before the show. Nobody else was there. With Holland’s World Cup match, French Open final, bright sun and Scheveningen beach right outside Pathe, a matinee would naturally be pretty down in the preference list of the Dutch. Even if they decide to watch a movie, ‘The Shaggy Dog’ would be the last preference.

J and I counted the number of seats in the hall. There were 200 of them. We realized that we were in a scenario, which is exactly the opposite to that of Musical Chairs. In Musical Chairs, the count of people would be more than that of chairs. But, there were 200 chairs at disposal for the two of us. The movie length was 98 minutes. After intricate calculation, we found out that 4 chairs would be left un-sat even if we change chairs every half a minute. We then concluded that we could solve this problem if we start changing chairs while the ads are screened. We congratulated each other for our brilliance. J elaborated his similar experience of watching Aasai at Madras in an almost empty cinema hall. We came to the conclusion that lots of things happen the same way all over the world. This time we congratulated each other for the philosophers within us.

Seconds before the ads were screened, a Chinese family dropped in (To me, Japanese, Taiwanese, Nepali and the rest of east Asians are all Chinese). Dad, mom and four noisy children of the same height. Quadruplets??? Every kid was carrying popcorn buckets half their size. I wondered how the parents would manage situations like a kid falling in the popcorn bucket while trying to pick popcorn from the bottom of the bucket. I came up with a brilliant idea. They can pick two kids each and assign themselves to be in charge of them. They can sit in between the two kids they select and watch them from falling into the popcorn buckets, while the kids watch the movie. I was about to pass on this wonderful idea to the Chinese parents when I heard loud noises behind me. A mini kindergarten had entered the hall. There were seven hyperactive kids followed by two middle-aged women. I started wondering how the two women could look after seven kids. I couldn’t think of any decent solution. The women made the kids sit in a row and they sat in the row behind the kids. What a brilliant idea. This way, those women can have all the kids in their view. The women were certainly a lot smarter than me.

‘The Shaggy Dog’ was a wonderful movie. The important thing is that you should leave your brain outside the cinema hall while you watch the movie. You should also believe that there is nothing in this world called logic and should forget the usage of words like ‘Why’ and ‘How’. The movie is about a 300 years old dog which lives with Tibetan monks and which can meditate. Those bitten by the dog would develop doggish characteristics and end up becoming dogs for random periods. I loved that movie.

While travelling back home, I say a guy in Orange T-shirt and Orange shorts with an orange lion tail. He had painted the Holland flag (Blue, white and red) on his face. His hair was coloured orange. His dog was dressed in an orange cloth. He was under the influence of Smokin’ Joe and was visibly high-spirited. It was so very clear that Holland had won its opening World Cup match.

World full of freebirds

The Dutch eagerly await opportunities to distribute booze. Visit somebody at their home, attend some party, take part in some celebration – these people carry booze for all these and lot more. May be, celebration to them mean getting drunk. A release was implemented in production and J came back home on Saturday with a bottle of wine in hand and a wide sheepish smile on face – “He.. he.. The release went on fine and booze was distributed to all involved in it”. The strongest drink that we - H, J and I are able to stand is Coca Cola. Now, that bottle of wine would wait forever for guests.

We witnessed the first signs of Dutch summer during last week. You don’t have to watch CNN or BBC’s weather report or check your thermometer or step out in the open to have a measure of the summer. All you have to do is look out of your window. Lesser the people are dressed, the more you are into summer.

We went to the Duindorp beach. We got down on sand. A few steps along the beach and I was looking at a freebird - a topless woman. My heart skipped a couple of beats and I started sweating. Well, technically she cannot be called a freebird. It just happened that she was changing there without bothering much about the people around her and we passed by. Just timing.

From Duindorp, we were able to see Scheveningen. We decided to walk along the beach to Scheveningen. And, what a walk it proved to be! In jeans and T-shirts, we three were the overdressed in the whole beach. With hundreds of skimpily clothed humans as far as I could see, I was slowly recovering from the brutal cultural shock. We started walking towards Scheveningen. There were a few topless women sunbathing and venturing into the sea. We walked further. Some nude women. We kept walking. Nude men were wandering around casually. Oh my God! Men walking around naked - I can't remember a more awkward scene. I felt like I was in some alien land - land of freebirds. J and I talked about totally irrelevant topic – meteoric raise of labor cost in India. H was busy pretending that he was totally occupied with his mp3 player.

I felt like melting. Was it the heat? Or, was it embarrassment? My thoughts started wavering. Are the freebirds glancing at me mockingly? Is this some private beach? Are we trespassing? Is this region open only for freebirds? Will someone appear before us and demand us to undress? We started walking more briskly.

We reached the harbor at Statenkwartier. We hit the roads. The roads were full of cyclists.
H: Let us rent bicycles and go around.
J & I: ??!!
We passed by a few caravans.
H: Let us rent a caravan and got to Brussels next week.
J & I: ??!!
We passed by some motorbikes.
H: Let us rent motorbikes and roam around.
J & I: ??!!

We reached Scheveningen. Went to Pathe. Feasted upon MacChicken, French fries, milkshake and cola. When it comes to ways to regain hard lost calories, I declare myself a champion. We then watched The Omen. I promised myself once again that I would never watch a horror movie. Certainly not in cinema halls. It is better to avoid them instead of watching them with eyes shut for most part of the movie.

Ordeal with the brand new tennis buff

Highlights of French Open women quarterfinal matches were on TV. I had missed the live telecast earlier that day. Roomie was insomniac that night. He had recently caught this tennis fever. He was religiously into his mission of accumulating as much knowledge about tennis as possible. I am allergic to the hyper enthusiastic ones. I consider myself a pro in keeping them at an arm’s length away. But this time, my proficiency and luck let me pathetically down. Nicole Vaidisova Vs Venus Williams match was the third in the list. We watched through the highlights of Clijsters’ and Svetelana’s matches. Then came the highlights of Vaidisova match.

Me: [Boy! Is she cute?]*
Him: Isn’t she the one who beat Mauresmo?
Me: Yes. [Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: She comes back strongly after losing the first set. She has got good composure, hasn’t she?
Me: Yeah. [Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: Composure is the most important thing in tennis. The champions are always the ones with good composure. Isn’t it so?
Me: Right [There is something called talent, buddy. Composure without talent means nothing. I had truckloads of composure. But, kids half my age and quarter my height used to beat me. Talent rules my dear. John Mc Enroe didn’t have a drop of composure… Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: She doesn’t allow loss of closely fought games to affect her. She is like Federer and Nadal.
Me: Yeah. [That is what is meant by composure, dude. Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: Mauresmo can’t play.
Me: Well, She didn’t play as well as she is capable of, when she lost to Vaidisova. [Hey! She is the top player in the world, for god’s sake. Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: Is it? But, she looks old.
Me: A bit. [But, she certainly can play. Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: Even Clijsters is old and fat.
Me: She is not old. And, I think she has just got a larger frame. [Come on, man. If you call her fat, what do you call me? Obese? By the way, Clijster has got wonderful court coverage. Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: So, you say Henin would win the title…
Me: She is the best among the current lot. [Isn’t it obvious?? Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: May be you are right. She has got good composure too.
Me: Correct. [What is it with you and composure? Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: Also she plays effortlessly. Her shots are compact and economical.
Me: Mmmmm… [What the hell! There is nothing more ruthless in women tennis than Henis’s backhand, dude. I think you would call Lara’s back-lift as compact and economical. Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: How do you say that playing on clay is different from playing on grass court?
Me: Blah... Blah... Blah... [Hey! How many time should I have to repeat that for you? Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: So, you say that a lot of guys around can beat Nadal easily on grass.
Me: you got it. [Please don’t get into its details. Not again. Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: So, Federer is the best. Isn’t he?
Me: Of course. He is the Numero Uno. [How can I escape? Shall I act asleep of shall I go to my room? But, Vaidisova’s match is not yet over… Boy! Is she cute?]
Him: Isn’t Vaidisova cute?
Me: Well… I think so.

The newest leggy girl of tennis, Vaidisova beat the proven leggy champion, Venus. I went to my room to sleep, without watching Henin (who, I guess, could go on to retain the title) match.

[]* - Thought bubble.

Yesterday, Svetelana beat Vaidisova in the semi final match.

Zinda hoon main...

Damn. I am still alive. The world around me is still intact. Another apocalypse predicted proved to be bogus. 666 – The sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year – 06/06/’06 wasn’t an apocalypse at all. Double damn.

I am not dumb enough not to be afraid of the biblical dooms day – 06/06/’06. Any sane human would agree, without a second thought, that apocalypse is a certain possibility. There are numerous reasons for the world to come to an end. Some of the prominent ones are:

1. It may very well be true that Osama’s favourite pastime is collecting nuclear bombs. He may already have an assortment of nukes. Considering his lethal attraction towards destruction, it is always on the cards that he decides to celebrate an early Diwali.
2. My namesake at office could somehow manage to get all the TVs and radios in the world to broadcast one of her favourite I-am-the-busiest-person-in-the-whole-galaxy-and-the-world-would-come-to-a-stand-still-if-I-stop-working speeches. If there is something scary enough to inspire the world to mass-suicide without any sort of regret, it is her lectures.
3. The aliens may conclude that they have had enough of the human race.
4. My mom may have prophesied the end of the world. Well, whenever something goes wrong, my mom says that she already knew about it and had said about it. Though, I have never been able to remember when she warned me.
5. May be, God really exists and he suddenly gets this urge to show the world his presence. There cannot be a better way to remind the world, which had made fun of him, than destroying it altogether.
6. A cute little meteor may decide to embarrass the over smart NASA scientists by bumping into the earth.
7. May be, there is a giant volcano sleeping below Antarctica. It may erupt without any announcement. This may cause a big time meltdown and water may succeed in conquering the remaining 25% of the earth’s surface.
8. The plants and trees may get so pissed off by deforestation and stuffs that they decide to go on strike by halting photosynthesis. No photosynthesis – no oxygen. No oxygen – no me and no you. Quite simple, isn’t it?
9. The doubt that the decision makers of the governments of the world are really nuts may prove to be correct. They may suddenly get attracted to the idea of disarmament and decide to implement it by exploding their missiles and nukes in public places.

I didn’t do a few things believing in the apocalypse theory. I didn’t fill in my appraisal form at office (Why bother about appraisal at office when you are about to face The Appraisal by the God?). I didn’t buy those cute FIFA World Cup T-Shirts that I saw at C&A’s window (I hope they are not sold out). Got quite a few things to catch up with.

Weekend watching Tennis and movies

The weather during the weekend ranged between bad and worse. Cold, Murky and wet. Not that I would have went out if the weather had been better. On any day, you can find me content, relaxing in the couch, holding the remote.

Watched the live telecast of the match between Rafel Nadal and Paul-Henri Mathieu on Saturday. And, that was one hell of a match. When you fight as brave as Mathieu did, the result doesn’t actually matter. Most of the games went to deuce (‘Egalite’ as the chair-umpire called it), both breaking each other’s serve at will. It was like a bloody street fight, each matching the other point for point and shot for shot. Nadal managed to pull it off at 5-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.

Went to Pathe that evening (well, 9 O’ clock is evening when you still have some daylight remaining) to watch Silent Hill. I have some very sore experiences in the recent past with horror films (like Hostel and Final Destination III). Still I went to watch the movie just because of my curiosity to know why would one what to make a movie inspired by a video game. My mistake. Came out of the cinema hall with my head spinning all over the place. First of all, the gore that the movie so very proudly dished out is not my cup of coffee. Second of all, I did not understand the plot. Is Silent Hill present in the real world or is it in a parallel world? Are the mother, kid and the cop alive when they enter Silent Hill or are they already dead? Third of all, the dialogues were crappy. Fourth or all, the guy who sat next to me in the cinema hall scared me to death with his noisy breath throughout the movie.

Watched the telecast from Roland Garros on Sunday. Maria Sharapova found herself in another miracle, but this time around, at the wrong end. She lost to Dinara Safina 5-7, 6-2, 5-7 after being up at 5-1 in the final set. Safina may never win beauty contest against her stunning brother. But, when it comes to consistency, she can beat him black and blue.

France had a collective heart attack when Nicole Vaidisova (Boy! Is she cute?) beat Amelie Mauresmo 6-7, 6-1, 6-2. With that great serve, Vaidisova certainly can play.

Watched American Dreamz that evening. This time the guy who sat behind me coughed through the whole movie. When I came out of the hall, I couldn’t recollect anything about the movie. A totally forgettable movie. Hollywood continues to brand the US president as a dumb psychotic. Very sad.

Yippee… Saw hoardings of Krish all over Pathe. Should not miss it like Fanaa. Well, I didn’t have much of a chance with Fanaa, because Pathe showed it just for one day in The Hague. And, I came to know about it very late. This time, I should stay alert.

Questions with no answer

Even the legendary question on chicken and egg seems to be answered at last!!! As that dude says in Michael Madhana Kamarajan, “Technology has improved so much no?”. But, even now I have quite a few questions for which I couldn’t come up with answers. Some of them are:

Why every other bus/tram is on time except the one I am waiting for?
Well, the Murphy’s Law states that this is bound to happen. But, that isn’t an answer?

Why don’t I lose some weight in spite of all my efforts?

Why does this happen to me? Why me, of all the people?
‘This’ includes anything and everything that makes me uncomfortable.

How come the management is always moronic? Or, how come retards become managers?

How come all the politicians are jokers?

No matter how much I earn, why is it never sufficient?

Why do Afridi, Jayasurya, Shoiab Malik and Chanderpaul always play well against India?

Why the heck would any sane producer want Himesh Reshammiya or Anu Malik sing for his movie?

What the hell am I doing in this world?

Why do I have this strong urge to give the dude-who-thinks-he-is-the-smartest-ass-to-grace-the-world lecturing me a nice hot slap?

Why I never do it?

Why is Michael Jackson weird?
Let me frame the question correct. Why is Michael Jackson the weirdest?

How is the namesake at my office able to speak so very much about nothing?

Why do I hate computers?
I really don’t know.

Why didn’t I continue with Laser Physics and do Ph.D. on it?
Again, I really don’t know.

Why am I attacked by dogs all the time?

Are dogs the secret agents of aliens?
I have always had this doubt.

Why am I so dumb?
You have no idea how much I wish I knew the answer for this.

Why do people smoke? And, why do people spit at random places?

Why do some dudes wear jeans that slid down and hang around their knees? Yuck.

Whenever I meet/talk to a friend, why do I invariably end up being questioned “Now tell me, when are you getting married?”.
Come on guys, give me a break.

What on earth made those girls I saw in the bus today colour their hair pink and purple?

Mmm… When did I wash my jeans for the last time?

There are a lot more...

Travelling ‘without’

Ticket checkers do not exist for the bus services in Pondicherry. There, the local bus transportation is privatised (Isn’t that cool!?). The bus conductors walk around the bus all the time and make sure that all the passengers buy their tickets. They are not like their counterparts in Madras, who prefer to stay stuck to their seats.

The map of Pondicherry looks quite bizarre – like a group of islands scattered in TN. Travelling from home to PEC and back was quite an expedition and I did it for almost three years. I used to cycle from home to the bus stand and take a bus to PEC.

The buses used to be heavily crowded in the mornings and evenings. I used to literally stand on others’ feet with some other standing on my feet. The private buses do not believe in bus stops. The drivers would stop the bus if they see anybody raising his/her arm. Their aim was to squeeze more passengers into the bus, which meant more income.

A friend strongly believed that it is an insult to buy tickets in buses. His theory was simple – get into a crowded bus, never try to run away from the conductor or avoid eye contact with him, play it cool, help fellow passengers to pass money and tickets to and from the conductor. I have never seen him buying his own ticket during those three long years. I was not that adventurous and I religiously spent all my monthly travel allowances on tickets.

In Madras, I have witnessed the ticket checkers nabbing the so called ‘without’ passengers. It is one of the most hilarious sights you could ever see on earth. The checker gets into the bus. The ‘without’ dude pretends to be casual, mostly too casual. Checker asks for the ticket. Dude checks his pockets, purse, bag, around the seat, on the seat, below the seat. Checker throws the I-have-seen-this-before look and stops the dude from proceeding to search the whole bus. Checker gets off the bus with the dude. What happens next depends on the Checker’s mood at that point of time and the dude’s ability to make the checker believe how impressive a family tree he belongs to.

This is something that a friend narrated. It was the friend’s first journey in a local train in Madras. He decided to take a local train till Tambaram from where he would take a bus to Pondicherry. He promptly got a ticket. The train arrived and he got into it. He was marvelling at his luck that he got into a less crowded compartment, while people were squeezing into other compartments. Well, there are very few luxuries in the world better than travelling in sparsely crowded trains or buses. There was this cute girl sitting in front of him. He got himself busy with his favourite pastime – babe watching. Suddenly she became visibly nervous. She got up and walked away frantically. The poor guy was embarrassed. He thought that his stare, which he considered inoffensive, offended the girl. In a minute or two, a guy stopped by him and demanded his ticket. The Ticket Checker. The friend showed him his ticket.

TC (looking at the ticket): “Alright, pay Rs. XXX”
Friend (shocked): “But, why? I have the ticket”
TC: “That is the ticket for general compartment. You are now in first class compartment”
Friend: “Are there two different classes in the train? I didn’t know that. You know, this is my first train trip in Madras…”
TC: “Well, that doesn’t mean that you can get away from being fined”
Friend (annoyed): “I don’t see anywhere in this compartment saying that this is first class. How am I supposed to know?”
TC (slightly amused): “It is amazing. Every person I have seen in you situation says the same thing. How is it possible?”

The friend was almost sure that the girl fled away on seeing the Ticket Checker. He wondered if the girl too had ticket for general compartment or if she was ‘without’. The friend paid the fine amount, which left him with not enough money to buy a bus ticket for Tambaram to Pondicherry. By then, he had got pretty acquainted with the Ticket Checker. The TC gave him the directions to the nearest ICICI ATM from Tambaram station. The friend withdrew the money from ATM to pay for his journey to Pondicherry.

This happened last week. I was returning home from office. There were these five 12 – 15 year old girls in the tram. They were all possessed by Smokin’ Joe and they were smoking inside the tram standing right under the ‘No Smoking’ signboard. They were all trying to blow rings of smoke. One of them even succeeded. At a stop a bunch of Ticket Checkers boarded the tram. The kids were stunned for a moment. They were all ‘withouts’!!! The couple of girls farthest from the door sneaked away swiftly. But, the Ticket Checkers operate in a rather efficient way. They come in bunches and board the trams through all the doors. The kids who sneaked away went straight to the Ticket Checker who got in through the other door. The game ended there. The Ticket Checkers and the kids assembled together, with smiles all around. They even started joking. The kids paid the fine – 20 Euros each.

The way the situation is handled here is a lot different from India. No whining, no tantrum, no drama; things happen pretty smooth.