Joie De Vivre

The stillness

2010-09-17T16:54:00.002+05:30

I stare in disbelief at the mechanical rotating fan.

(As if there are digital non rotating fans!!)

Where have I started? Where have I ended?

The unpleasantness of it all, the sadness of it all,

hurts me.

Why me? Why then? Why now?

I am half blessed and half cursed.

I realized that long back.

The confusion is about which part is blessed.

The drive back, is purposeless, energy less,

joyless.

Unacknowledged. Unappreciated.

The drive to, is thoughtful, hopeful and

incremental.

Or, thats what I thought.

Dear Gaylord Focker,

I pitied you,

until I met myself.

:-)

What would I blog about?

2010-09-17T16:46:00.002+05:30

Sir, you are wearing your underwear in reverse

Yelims (I am anything but Smiley)

Finding the same truth

Who the fuck still blogs?

Story told and appreciated

2009-06-09T12:37:00.000+05:30

Well, this storyteller story now has an unexpected ending.

I told that story because I was in a mood to tell a story and this time for a change hired an assistant to write whatever I blah blahed.

So this assistant jotted down whatever I told him to.

In about a week or so, we actually ended up with a story.

(I should also appreciate my wife for showing me that French movie which inspired me to tell the story).

I got this crazy idea and actually registered myself as an official storyteller. (There actually is an association for people like me). I got my story registered later.

In a freak development I came across another freak who showed interest in developing movie song tracks for my story. So we sat together and developed couple of songs. (All this during my office time).

I got another idea. If I were to make a movie out of this story where would I shoot? I asked couple of my friends and employees to go to those locations and take some pictures. They came back with 700 pictures.

Then I assembled this stuff using Flash and with a V.O narration of the story.

Somehow word got leaked and a big (I MEAN BIG) production called me. I went there and told my story. (I was just thrilled to meet them. I was not even thinking about them liking the story).

They liked it.

They called me again. I told the story. They liked it.

They called me again. (Give a span of three weeks). I told the story. They liked it.

So, here I am directing that movie. Shoot may start in about a month or so. If it does I will keep posting here, well, if it doesnt, I will delete this post. :-) Ha, ha, thats a joke.

But the movie thing is not.

So much for telling a story.

Untold Story of a StoryTeller - II

2009-02-03T10:56:00.004+05:30

The first story teller in me was called deeveepee.

Small books of the size of less than 1/4 th of an A4 sheet, rated anywhere between Rs 1.50 to Rs. 2.75, used to prevail the book markets in early eighties.

Those books came with interesting titles (One such title : 'A ghost in the house, a devil in the forest')

Since buying books was a luxury, we used rent them from a local library usually at 10 paise per day.

I used to read them like there was no tomorrow.

In just about an year, I developed a large audience in my school who would drop their nickers to listen to my stories. It was also not uncommon for the school teachers to ask me to tell a story to keep the class quiet.

As I progressed, it almost became a practice for the teachers to ask me to tell a story.

In less than a month after I started this storytelling, I started using my imagination and created my own monsters and my own thrill rides.

Looking back, I dont think I cared for characterization or a proper beginning or an ending. I gave them a thrill ride of monster after monster.

I grew up in a small town called Tadepalligudem. We had about eight movie theatres. Nobody in my school had a TV at home. (Now, think about it for sometime. A childhood with no TV :-))

So, telling the story of the movie you saw was a big deal. The kid who saw that Chiranjeevi's movie the next the day in the school was as good as Chiranjeevi himself. He had to tell everything to his friends. The comedy, fights, villains, chases.

Out of these kids, I was lucky because one theatre (called Relangi, owned by the legendary comedian Relangi Narasimha Rao) signed up a contract with a distributor in Vijayawada to show 100 English movies. One per week. I was lucky because my dad decided that we should watch these movies.

It was at Relangi that I saw every known genre (Bond, Western, Horror, Action, Chinese etc).

Very few others watched those English movies. This gave me a blanket bragging rights and a blanket creative rights.

Just imagine this. You are the only kid who saw 'A man with a golden gun' on the weekend and the rest dont even have a TV at home. Thats like sending Sehwag to a play against a local town team.

As it can happen, I started introduced flying cars, jumping ships, galloping horses and an occasional 'English Kiss'.

With the luxury of hindsight, now I can say that, I soon lost my girl audience and developed a hard core 'insiders' who would listen to any extent of outrage.

Enter the dragon, a new dude called Sasi. He was a brahmin kid with a surrogate mother and a pampered brother. Studied well. Dressed well. Looked good. Was kind to girls and had a brilliant sense of story telling.

He narrated them with sound effects, emotions, ghosts, daily life incidents and proper logical endings. He created stories at the drop of a hat. (Or a tie). He was just too much of a dude.

In less than a month he had the class with him. The girlDom especially. Girls pretty much dedicated lunch hours for him. I never really bothered with this development, because we were too busy playing cricket and Kabaddi in lunch hours.

In about an year Sasi totally dominated the storytelling scene. Except for few close friends, the class soon forgot me as story teller. (But I still remained a celebrity with my drawings and paintings. Thats a different story :-))

Later many a times I wondered the whereabouts of that great storyteller, Sasi.

Later many a times I wondered about the choice of my subjects during those storytelling house as we grew together in that school. I wondered if I could have captured those girls imagination the way Sasi did.

After my 7th class, I left that town (that School and Radha and a bunch of childhood friends) to a small city called Vijayawada. Vijayawada was extremely rude, lewd, caste based and polarized (Balakrishna and Chiranjeevi). I never ever bothered to tell any one that I can tell stories. I always loved my middle name, so I never ever bothered to reveal my past name deeveepee.

Thus, deeveepee, the storyteller was buried.

..to be continued

Untold Story of a Storyteller - I

2009-01-30T11:38:00.003+05:30

Or, this is a story of an untold story of a storyteller.

Well, there is no end to it. We can play with words and be amused for a while.

A long time ago, I read a strange book titled 'Songlines' (According to the author (Bruce Chatwin), this world is a song). The book was about Aborigines remembering the landscape as a 'song'. Songs were their assets. Songs were their currency. Songs were their inheritance.

It sounded strange to me. Took sometime to digest for me.

But in the end, it made sense to me. "You walk ten miles to the north, cross the stream and turn east, at the big rock turn west, two miles down you will find bushes and lazy Kangaroos. While coming back dont stay at the big rock for the night, it is watched by Orories, they will kill you by the morning". Now, thats precious information. Losing it or misunderstanding it can be the difference between life and death. Better remember it well. Whats a better way to remember than in a song? For them, this world is a song.

I kind of agree with those aboriginal dudes. With a dent.

I think this world is a story.

I think, Philosophy, Art, Religion and Science are all stories that we have told to ourselves.

I think we humans are hardwired to comprehend. We comprehend ourselves, our surroundings, our behaviours, our emotions, our habits, our environments, our fellow beings, our universe in the form of stories.

Sometimes we call these stories 'laws'. Sometimes we call these stories 'Truth'.

E = MC ^2 is a story that Einstein told us.

Nirvana is a story that Buddha told us.

Monalisa is a story that Leonardo told us.

"Everything is a story", itself is a story, that I am telling myself and I will tell many others.

There is something very primordial about this storytelling.

Looks like we never get tired of it.

There is little guy/girl called a storyteller in all of us.

..to be continued

Smart Dog

2009-01-21T11:01:00.002+05:30

Marriage has too many definitions.

But I think a successful one is "a sum average of everything about two people".

The first thing you do when you get up in the bed is, scratch your balls.

The first thing she does is, scratch her head.

In about a month you will forget about your balls and up end scratching your beard in the morning.

(Probably in a super successful marriage she ends up scratching your balls.

But we are not Obamas. We are smileys.)

I eat cereals in the morning. She eats butter on a toasted bread. We ended up with dosas.

The list is endless.

I use soft pillows. She uses her childhood soft doll as a pillow. We ended up with a small hard pillow.

But when it comes to using our toilets, we ended up using different ones. I like reading newspaper on my pot, use lot of water and in general make a mess out of the thing. She is very particular about lot of stuff when it comes to toilets.

At our home we use different ones.

At her house (her parents home) we ended up using different ones.

For two reasons. Her toilet ceiling is 5 feet 8 inches high.

Actually we discovered this in a surprising way.

One the third night of stay at her parents house (a big one with lot of rooms, toilets, a roof garden and a penthouse), she complained about my new deo.

I told her I am not using any deo. She said, if thats the case, I am smelling a little different, to put it politely.

Then she asked, "Are you taking your bath properly ?".

To answer her honestly, I rewinded my brain to the scene of my bath.

I realized that, I was taking my baths with my head slightly bent and in general was not raising my hands.

After this realization, she shifted me to the bathroom thats attached to the penhouse, upstairs.

This particular journey is an interesting one because it invloves unlocking three diffents doors with three different ancient keys. Penthouse also is their book store. I mean serious book store. Her dad has hundreds of books collecting dust there.

Needless to say, I started liking my private time with so many books and a toilet thats got a ceiling thats 6 feet 6 inches high.

But I ended up having an unexpected company to my penthouse toilet visits.

Her dog.

I am not new to dogs. I know them well enough. But I understand them only in a Master-Slave relation. I dont understand them as my peers.

This particular one grew up as a peer.

First time, I encouraged this curious guide to show me around the penthouse. But the minute he claimed his ownership on my underwear and my towel, I started thinking otherwise.

For another strange reason, which probably only a dog (or another dog) can understand, he thought those ancient keys belonged to him.

As you can see, soon we developed a conflict of interest (or ownership).

Yesterday, he somehow sneaked into the penthouse and barked at me. Which I took very seriously as it is a direct challenge to my authority. I looked directly into his eyes and told him to get out. He didnt budge. Instead he 'grrrrr'ed again.

So, I slowly took my towel, like Rajani would wind his hanky before a big fight, tighthened it and released it straight in front of his face with a snap. It made big 'Phat' sound.

It startled him. Then I beat the chair with the towel to make a huge 'thud'.

I think he weighed his options. Then he simply ran out of the room.

Smart dog. I said out loud.

This morning when he heard me open the first door, he came running to join me. Surprisingly after I opened the third door, he calmly left.

So a marriage is not the sum average of simply the two, but also of the near and dear.

Wedding Bells

2008-11-08T15:15:00.003+05:30

I am getting married. Bringing this eternal pursuit to an end. (I can hear someone chuckling at the back).

This blog has witnessed a lot. So it deserves being informed about its protagonist settling down and ending his deliriums.

This blog has a lot to do with the marriage too.

This blog is what made me think that I can write. I wrote. Some people (nuts, jobless, curious, socially challenged and lots of hot chicks) actually read my posts and left some silly comments. To which I replied in a much sillier tone.

One such cool girl who I called Yummy in my blog (who I met in one of those losers meets (HBMs)) once in a while used to come to my place to play with my dog. We never really bothered to fall in love or do anything like that. We just played with the dog once in a while and then we drifted.

I think chance favored us (and the dog. Shredder is not with me anymore. He is living with my maternal uncle).

Serendipity, Randomness and popcorn at Imax brought us together. This time the popcorn tasted better and the movie looked brighter. So we decided to it (watching movies and a lot of other stuff) together till the end.

In her words, its our destiny.

If you are a blogger and left a comment in my blog before, you are cordially invited to my wedding (and blog about it).

If you are a nobody and are here by serendipity and randomness, you are cordially invited to go through our presents section at our wedding site www.mahatiprakash.com

For an electronic copy of the wedding invite, drop me a line.

Needless to say, there is a post wedding cocktail party at Foo. Drop me another line if you are in Hyderabad, I will send you an invite.

Thank you all. I (we) love you.

(For the sake of this blog, I am renaming Yummy, 'Simily'.

More tales from Smiley and Simily soon :-))

Antharmukham

2008-06-29T20:28:00.002+05:30

Love

How do I isolate love, observe love and quantify love?

How much do you love her? Do you love her? Oh, you have been in love? Are you in love?

There were times I wished love was just a verb. Like in making love.
There were times I wished she just stayed under the blanket and had never left the penthouse.
There were lot many times when I just wished she was with me (for whatever).

I sometimes wonder and dissect to see where this love thing was or is.

Is it in the countless number of hours we spent together discussing my dogs farts to her belief in destiny. Is it under the recliner under which we have rolled too many wine bottles. Is it in the bathtub we made unlimited love warmly wrapped in cinnamon flavored bubbles. Is it in the vacuum that's created in her absence.

Is it in the dreams that we saw together. Or is it in the path we took to walk towards the dreams? Is the acting of walking together love? Is it in the misunderstanding or is it in the understanding of the misunderstandings? Is it in her bubbly bosom or is it in my (occasionally) pumped up chest?

She ignores. She cares. She loves. She loves to submit. She loves to win. She hates. She hates her hating. She cries. She laughs. She cares a fuck. She has her own life. She has her own values. She listens. She doesn't. She loves privacy. She intrudes. She looks beautiful. She looks normal. She looks hot. She looks irresistible. She cooks. She doesn't.

I wish I could blanket all the experiences, walks, emotions, my reactions, differences, dreams and acts under one blanket word called 'love'.

I wish I could be as simple as 'I love her'.

I wish I could encapsulate everything with a set of words like 'lovers','friends', 'companions', 'life partners'.

And/or, everything and all of the above.

Unfortunately, I am not a slave to words or definitions of those words or descriptions to how we should accept/reject those words. I am sometimes immune to wisdom. I am sometimes immune to convention. I am immune to 'above,below,right,wrong,should,must,is' and most abused word 'real'.

Real love. My 'love' for her is 'real'. (My urge to mate with her or my urge to go to movies with her or my urge to share my life with her or my urge to raise kids along with her somehow look not so real and somehow not so right).

I am.
She is.
We are.

We intend to be.

We promised each other that. We understood that.

I am not going to confuse this with word play.

But if you ask me, yeah, I love her. I have no doubt about that. But somehow, I love 'we are', than I love 'love'.

And there was a beautiful view But nobody could see. Cause everybody on the island Was saying: Look at me! Look at me!
Laurie Anderson, Language Is A Virus

Happy Life

2007-12-21T12:17:00.000+05:30

I wish Patrix and Ash a wonderful, joyous and beautiful life.
May peace, love, joy, children and Wi Fi be with you.

Hey, its first of its kind. This marriage. How come the media is not tipped yet?

I miss her - Haikus

2007-12-05T08:01:00.000+05:30

Her voluptuous bosom is
just
unjustly left to imagination only.

I wake up in my soft comforter.
Perfect.
Or is it? I ask myself immediately.

The long road we have planned together
started with a bypass.
Ironic!

I check the phone intuitively.
There are no SMSs to reply.
The phone is feeling neglected.
So is Airtel.

The physical separation.
A chirpy bird stopped chirping
in a winter land.

The comforting breath of hers.
I inhale
is a morning fog now.

A polka dotted orange night gown
in my
wardrobe.
What a waste!

She is looking for the rope trick
I am busy setting the stage.
She is afraid the stage gets bigger always.
I am afraid the rope needs the stage.
It’s a Sudoku. You know!

A lonely guy. A lonely recliner.
A lonely bean bag.
Silently sip their coffee looking for her.
Probably she is hiding under the bed.
I am an optimist.

Booze, Lies and your friends wives

2007-08-14T17:11:00.000+05:30

As a bachelor, I have my set of problems. My best friends wives. Its the plural of My best friend's wife. Its not an easy job. Trust me. You need to win your friend, his wife's trust in you, her trust in him. As you can see, its a delicate job.

As a bachelor it is your responsibility to make sure the old friendships continue. Not your married friend's. I am like 'been there and done that' in this segment. Here are my rules for the young bachelors out there.

1) Always praise her beauty (No matter how fat she is after the delivery)

I know this is too obvious. But it works. Like magic. Always. Your bachelor girlfriend might not have the resources and time to wear a matching pantie, but housewives (or even working wives) have plenty of these. So look for simple stuff like matching ear rings(obviously you cant comment on the matching bra). Acknowledge it specifically. She will become your best friend that night.

You:"I like your ear rings. Hmmm.. did you do your eyebrows lately?"
She:"Blah Blah Blah"
You:"Look at that. Your watch strap matches your first bangle. Thats cool."
She:"Blah Blah Blah"
You:"Sigh. You are almost hot tonight"
She:"Smiley, I saved this Gummadikaya Iguru for you. My husband doesnt like it anyway."
You: Ignore your friend and have that Gummadikaya Iguru.

2) Always praise the food (No matter how greasy it is) and always return her tiffin boxes

As a bachelor, you get to eat at every home you know. Wives come in different sizes and skills. So do their chicken curries. But it shouldnt effect you. Never go with "the food is good". Go with "Hmmm.. I like this brinjal curry. Its quiet different from the way my mom's. Simily, if you dont mind, can I take home some"? She will be glad to give you some. Unfortunately, it is followed up with a really difficult act. You need to remember to eat it the next day, and most important, you need to return her box.

"So did you enjoy the brinjal curry the next day too?"
"What brinjal curry?"
"That day I gave you na! Also I need that box back. I told your friend to remind you"
"What box?" (You have already converted it into an ash tray for your game watching friends.)

Now, thats trouble.

3) Never call her home

"Hi Simily, how are you?"
"Fine Smiley. Thanks for calling. How are you?"
"So did you guys have fun yesterday?"
"Stop joking. You are actually irritating me"
"What ...?"
"Yeah, yesterday my mom wanted to take us out and your friend stayed back at your penthouse and now you are teasing me. Ha"

Your best friend uses you as alibi for several different reasons and you are not the only friend he is got. So never ever call her home unless you have a full update from your friend.

4) Never pick her call (and never respond to her emails and never respond to her SMSs)

This usually is trouble and is totally unnecessary.

5) Always praise the kids

Duh.

6) Listen to her (and never offer advice)

It never stops. It is complaint after complaint. About your friend. Listen. Listen. Listen.
And thats all there is to it.
"He is so lazy. I dont know how do you spend time with him. He doesnt even talk to me. He is always watching TV"
Trouble:"Hey, thats not the case. When he is with me, he talks a lot"
No Trouble: Listen.

7) Never take your friend's side (in front of her)

See above.

8) Always take your friend's side (rest of the time)

Come on, he is your friend. No matter how right his wife is, you should always take his side. Thats all there is to it. Thats all there ever is to it.

9) Never listen to your friend

Women have amazing ability to complain and still be okay with it. So when your friend's wife says
"I hate him. He snores. I cant sleep. He never takes me out. He is always having fun weekends with you. He never takes care of the kids. I hate his parents too. How can anybody live with him", surprise, surprise, she may not mean it. So dont jump to conclusions. Listen. Listen.

But when your buddy, after couple drinks offers to tell you how bad his sex life is, just cut him off. Because he can never live with that fact for the rest of his life, that you know how bad his show is. Dont listen.

10) Dont win her and never ever make a move.

Remember, you are winning your position as a friend. You are not competing with your friend. Always forget her birthday. And, no matter where it is, how it is, how many drinks after it is, how intimate it is, never make a move and never ever accept a move. (Unless your best friend is a girl. In that case, brush off her husband from your mind and make your best move).

Sex and the pill

2007-05-31T17:53:00.000+05:30

Last month just flew by.

I had too many mangoes, too much sex (by my standards) and did too little work. I couldnt have asked for a better pill.

To avoid the pill, I mean.

Last time I visited my family doctor he said, "Hmmm.. you dont look composed ... you are stressed out".

"Thanks doc. I know that. But I am here for something else. This fucking fever and this Sri Lanka lookalike spot on my stomach"

"Arrey, thats what I am talking about. Both your fever and Lanka are side effects of being stressed out". "Are you married?"

"I am single"

"You should get married. Well, that can be another source of stress for many people. Ha ha ha"

Doc gave me stress pills and another pill I am not sure about what is for.

Those stress pills are making me very sleepy.

Both the doc and I know that prevention is better than curing. So I delegated some of my work to my deputies at the expense of the launch of Foo getting delayed. But I thought I will give in, in a week. Surprisingly I didnt. (And I am back blogging during my work hours)

I concentrated 'more' on having those dinners, spending time with the girl, movies, quickies, mangoes, afternoon naps and much 'more' on not having those deadlines, financial constraints and responsibilities in my mind. Heck I have even started partying.

I dont think I have done it by design. I think it just happened by chance or it just happened because of the pills made me forget about my work load. Or may be spending time with the girl was worth more than anything else.

I am so stress free now that it is beginning to bother me.

I am visiting the doc tomorrow. I wonder if there is any stress inducing pill.

Conversations

2006-12-24T22:14:00.000+05:30

Parodoxii

Is Paradoxii a word?
I dont think I care. As long as I communicate the right feeling. Adding to that, if Smiley needs, he creates words.

You know what your problem is?
I wish.
You have an ego that is larger than this room.
As far as I know, I dont have an ego.
Shut the fuck up.

See, your ego got hurt to know that I dont have an ego. You might have a tough time trying to understand this. I HAVE NO EGO.
Shut the fuck up.

I call it attitude. I think modesty is more of "fear of failure" than humility. I dont have a fear of failure. I acknowledge my strengths. People think it is attitude. Well, it IS attitude. Dont confuse it with ego, which has a need to be right.
You know what your problem is Smiley?
I wish.
Your fall is going to be spectacular. Just the way your ascent has been.
I never fall. I just gain experience. :))
Fuck you.

Are you in the safe zone?
Yes I am.
Good. Well, your choice. Ribbed condomn or me. :)
Well, thats some choice. I dont know.
I will drink up this insult and try to present "me". I aint ribbed, but know a trick or two.
Try me.
Love you.

Moms and Dads

2006-12-11T10:21:00.000+05:30

It all happened so fast, it is sometimes still hard to believe. That we as a family lost Vinny's dad. Vinny's mom isnt too old. She is in her late forties now.

It is amazing to realize, in a traditional sense, how important it is for a woman to have a husband and a home in this society. She lost both in a single sad month.

She is like my friend. She is the only aunt who I dont ji.

Last week I drove to the sleepy town of warangal to meet her. She is staying with her daughter now. Predictably, she was full of tears the moment she saw me. I felt little uncomfortable. But I withheld my usual, "Dont worry, All this happened for greater good. You will be cool" stuff.

I just listened to her. From her early marriage romance, the first movie she saw with her husband (big deal in those days), a surprise bloom of romance after they married off their daughter, the only time he hit her, how truthful he was, how simple he was and the greatest regret of hers.

She narrated that incident to me. Apparently she once set him for a dual. List out 10 flaws in other. He said, You begin. She rattled 17 flaws of him. (Didnt stop at 10). He said, I dont see any flaws in you. I like you as you are. That was also the only moment he said I love you to her. (In their 31 years relationship).

My sister put a plate of Warangal Papads (very popular) in front me. I listened to my aunt through my papads. It was a marathon. It took some effort from my side to sustain a sympathetic face and lots of nodding. By afternoon she felt lot lighter. There was a visible relief in her face.

Over years of experience, (after many hard lessons) I learned to listen to a woman and not offer solutions. It is kind of frustrating but, thats how it is.

Before lunch, I said, Dont worry. I am your son. I am doing quiet well this year. I am there for you. After more tears, she said, Even your brother (notorious for zero communication) invited me to his house. More tears.

I couldnt go through those tears. Well, stop crying. Yeah that was a tragedy. It will take couple of years, before you are totally out of it.

Well, I gotta share this with someone. Now I am feeling better. Sorry for putting you through my stuff, she said.

I know those words I said (I am your son) and my taking time out to visit her, means a lot to her. She will recuperate with the help of these words and relations. She will weave a new web, an intangible and emotional web, which dads and sons quiet dont get.

I guess for men, tangibles speak more than anything.

On my drive back, I called my mom and said, Just visited your sister.
Really? You have done a good thing! How is she?
Usual. Still crying. Otherwise fine.
Keep calling her.
Sure. Bye.

I also called Vinny.
Just visited your mom.
How did you go?
My new car. Its a two hour drive.
Whats the mileage?
13+.
Great. If you havent bought a keychain yet, dont. I will buy you one tomorrow.
Thank you.

A Laddu for INR 16500

2006-09-08T08:11:00.000+05:30

Any festival is a festival when its in India. Burning man is a wussie compared to Vinayaka Chaviti of Hyderabad.

Millions of crazy young drunk fuckers dancing to loud (also called Teen Maar) drums and other such noise making devices, marching towards a big fucking lake to dump (called Nimajjanam) more than 10000 idols of a funny looking fat elephant God.

This God is not someone who you 'fear'. This God dude is your dude. He is your buddy. You play with him, you drink with him, you eat with him and you stand on him. He is fondly called Ganesh in Hyderabad.

We Indians never appreciate the courage and determination of our Politicians, Police and Babus. We are so used to disliking them.

Imagine this. You are a policeman equipped with nothing but a Lathi (Most of them dont even have walkie talkies) dealing with more than a million drunk young men. And you will never be thanked for a job well done.

Like most of the Indian Miracles, this festival is another fucking thing that 'just happens'. 6000 fucking teams pouring out from different streets, passing through narrow lines, crawling under High Voltage lines, accommodating all communities (like diwali, Ganesh too is contagious and non religious), you know!, to dump this God. Crazy shit. Indeed.

So, I was invited by a colony of friends (or friends from a colony) to be their guest on their nimajjana day. After the usual Grease poll and Teen maars we all went to a friends place to sit on their daba. The custom is to auction the 'laddu in Ganesha's hand', before Ganesha heads for the dump ritual.

I asked Zee to participate in the auction. Come back with the laddu. Is what we told him.
He came back, glowing and with the laddu.
How much?
16500.
Holy fucking shit!
(I have a picture of that laddu. :) It is the most expensive dish I ever ordered.)

P.S: The highest bid for a laddu this year is 9.02 lakhs. Hundreds of laddus went for a bid thats higher than 1 lakh. This is just Hyderabad. And this government tells me that there are only 61000 millionaires in India. :)

Dunhill Desire

2006-09-04T09:15:00.000+05:30

Her eyes told me how much she was anticipating me. I had never seen such brilliant present eyes. Shredder has those eyes sometimes. You know, the pure joy eyes.

She ran me through her stuff. From her excitement I sensed that she was thinking I am 'somebody'. Truth is, I am not 'somebody', yet. "But who asked you to work on 'this'?", I asked her.

So you dont like it?
Its not a matter of liking or disliking it. But you dont need to work on this. There are definitely tasks that have more priority. And yeah, I am not exactly 'impressed'.
A little disappointment in those brilliant present eyes.

The next night, I was invited to 'The most happening place in Bangalore' (for invitees only) by this guy. I went there, expecting a guy's evening in a T and jeans and without taking a shower.

She was there. In pure black magic. Brilliant eyes matched by brilliant smile. My heart pumped faster. Before entering into the dance floor I said, "Excuse me" and went into 'Men's'.

Washed my face, did some pecker adjustments and pulled my belt to a lower hole. Went to the bar, grabbed couple of drinks, handed one to her. I dont drink. She said. I gave that to my friend. There was a silence on us, isolated in that 1000 watt room.

She said something.
What? I shouted back. She put her mouth into my ear and shouted.
Want to dance?
No.
She gave this huge brilliant present smile.
You smell good. She shouted.
I nodded.
Do you want me to guess? She shouted.
Guess.
Guess? Giggles. No, wait a minute. Let me smell you again. She smelled behind my ear.
No, this one is jasmine. Indian? She asked.
Palmolive Hand wash. From the mens room.
I told her the truth.

She laughed the whole evening. She told me that I am a crazy, cheap, blunt but adorable guy.

Next day morning, by the time I reached the office, these girls were already giggling.
Bah Girls! They cant keep anything to themselves.
So what is it today? Dettol antibacterial wash? Ha Ha Ha. Girls burst into a burst.
Dont even think about it.
Why? The same huge brilliant present smile, with a twinkle in her eyes.
Its Dunhill Desire. To quote the salesguy, "It arouses a woman and creates an urge."
On me, its quiet irresistible. I said.
Girls looked at her visibly blushing. Her blush was spectacular. She was embarrassed.
All she said was, Yeah Yeah right.

On my return flight, with my eyes closed, I was smiling.
What is it? The curious contractor asked.
You know what they have for handwash at the office?
What?
Palmolive hand wash.
So?
Someone is going blush a lot this week.
I dont get it.
Never mind.

Silly Me(mes)

2006-09-02T10:17:00.000+05:30

Well, dude Patrix tagged me to come up something silly. Just to come up with
something silly there is no need to tag me at all. But this, its for a silly picture.

I think I have one. (As a matter of fact, I have so many of them).
Here you go Patrix. :)

Vinny and Smiley in Frocks.

Metro Retro

2006-08-27T09:11:00.000+05:30

Your Score 34

Thats what this "What kind of Man are you?" Survey said.
According to them, I am neither Metro nor Retro. I am somewhere in between.

This Chick made her body a billboard and selling it inch by inch. Not a bad idea

Check out the original idea and his amazing fairy tale come true blog

I absolutely loved this organic design

And I found this really cool Yoda dog at cuteoverload.com

Nothings. Some sweet. Some sour.

2006-08-16T10:27:00.000+05:30

After we finished watching the movie, a convsersation got started and eventually drifted to sex.

May be we should take this up a little higher. We should add kissing into this movie-popcorn-cola routine. You know we can call it KMKPKC Kissing-movie-Kissing-popcorn-Kissing-cola routine.

Hmm...hihihi...hahaha....errr...yeah we can do that.

Sounds great. Come lets kiss.

*after a long kiss*

Sigh. I think we took too long to get here. We should have started kissing right from day one.

*Giggles* Well, we enjoyed the times.

May be you did. I was thinking about how to do it all the while.

Really?

What do you mean by "Really?"? What were 'you' thinking?

What do you mean by 'thinking'?

I mean why did you agree to watch movies with me?

To watch movies. Of course.!

Really?

What do you mean by "Really?"? What were 'you' thinking?

Ahem.

Tell me. What were you thinking?

Well, to initiate this and take it to the next level.

Intiate what and take it where?

You know, we start with kissing and hugging and we end up in bed. Isnt it a standard routine?

Routine? So is this what you have been thinking during all the times we spent?

Werent you?

So when we went to blah blah blah blah blah..what were you thinking?

That day? That day you looked absolutely delicious. And I was thinking blah blah sex blah blah sex and blah blah sex.

Hmm. So the day you took me to blah blah blah blah.. what were your intentions?

Ha 'that'? See, for an event to happen you have to 'create' some pre-events. So the intention was blah blah sex and blah blah sex.

(Inner Voice: Dude, I have a feeling that this is not your regular quiz show where you give the right answers when you know them.

Me: Inner dude, I know my chicks. Take rest.)

So, all the talk about "you like spending time with me" is crap. Right?

Well, not crap. But I would call it context. The movie context and the intellectual talk context is the premise or OS in which we run "we started with kissing and before we knew it" routine.

(Inner Voice: Dude, trust me. She is not exactly going to appreciate this enlightment.

Me: Inner, I am not exactly soliciting advices at this moment)

So all this is just a 'context'?

"Con"."Text". Ha ha. Funny. Just kidding. Let me put it this way. If I had a choice and if I dont have a context, I would rather take my dog for a walk or have beer with my buddies.

You are a cheat. Thats what you are.

(Inner Voice: Did you ever listen to me?

Me: This is outrageous. She is calling me a cheat. Can you believe that?)

Give me a break, will ya? Dont tell me you never thought about the 'routine'. Dont tell me you dont know that eventually we are going to kiss.

Well, I did think about kissing you. But I am not like you, thinking about it all the time. I also enjoyed our little talks.

Well, my dad is much wiser than me. Why did you pick me? Patrix does better movie reviews than me. Why do you want to watch movies with me? And you never really liked LOTR.

I hate you.

If all you wanted was to watch movie, why are you smelling so good and why are you looking pretty?

Is it my mistake?

Of course, it is your mistake. Come here. Kiss me.

*another long kiss*

Sigh. How did it feel?

Hihihi. Good. I love you. Dont ever talk to me like that.

I love you too.

(Inner Voice: Dude, now is the perfect time to take it to the next level)

Smiley 2.0

2006-07-25T05:24:00.000+05:30

I have another blog at thegreatindiandream.com , where I will be mostly
posting the kind of posts I used to post at tgid.

I tried importing jdv to thegreatindiandream.com and in the process
wordpress kind of screwed up my jdv template. I will repair it soon.
Ofcourse, with some help from Fairy Dear.

The posts that are screwed up here are showing up unscrewed at ,
you know where, thegreatindiandream.com . You might wanna
read them there. (If at all).

Love and make love,
Smiley.

'Real' men dont cry

2006-07-24T18:24:00.000+05:30

It is almost, mmm, whats the word?, silly, yeah, silly is kind of nice word.
Where were we? Yeah, its almost silly, the lengths we (men) go, to act like us (men).

It takes a lot to act like a man. (Sometimes.)

This morning, just like that, after making Egg Bhurji for me, Srinu disappeared.
I waited for him to come back and make my roti. Nah.

So, I asked my guest Lore, Where is this Srinu guy?
He got a call from his mom and left.

Now, Srinu's mom is always in some kind of trouble.
She is been ill. Well, you dont call your mom's illness a trouble. Will ya?
So, Srinu's been giving his best.

I was doing my mails then and it came to me. The realization that Srinu is
fighting it all alone. He is not sharing it with anyone.

All Srinu ever wears on his face is a smile. Beyond that no one ever saw any
other emotion on his face. But, all of us left him. To fight his own way through.
Through the financial burdens, through his moms manic depressions, through
his brothers sobs. He gave a good fight so far. Because, he never asked for help.

Eventhough, I financially supported his mom's illness, surgery and
medications, I was never really there for him. I guess. Otherwise, he would
have shared.

I realized this and I woke up couple of demons in my mind. Demon One is the
sheer helplessness you go through in a situation like this. Demon Two is the
desertion. Your family, friends and this world, just moves on, leaving you behind.

You suddenly get stuck. There is no way out. There is no one out.
But if you are a 'Real' man, you dont yield. You dont cry. You dont ask for help.
You will simply suffer through. Thats all there is in this world for a man.

When Srinu came back, I asked him.
So, how is your mom? You know what? Dont worry about her. She will be fine.
He just nodded. The same smile.
We are taking her to SangaReddy, to her brother's place. He said.
Hmm, why? You brother cant take care of her or what? Do you want to stay
there for couple of days and be with her?

My brother cant take...
His lower lip couldnt hold it anymore. His eyes suddenly betrayed him and he ran
into the balcony.

I know. I know how it feels like to run from your cubicle to the restroom, holding your
tears back.

The child in Srinu is still there. The child wants to be hugged and assured.
My heart shouted. It shouted an arm on his shoulder and a tap of assurance.
Assurance that he is not alone. Assurance that it is going to be ok.
My world is a 'Real' man's world. No one is going to do that for him.
Not me. Not his friends.

I gave him couple of minutes to fight his tears back. He came back.
I explained his mom's illness to him. I suggested a solution to this trouble.
Send you mom. Bring your brother to our office. You guys stay there
together for couple of months and dont worry about money...and why
is brother being such a wussie?

I dont know sir. He is uncontrollable. He is crying non stop.
He is afraid, about, losing our mother.

Sucker.

He is just seventeen...

Srinu ran into the balcony again. This time, it took him more than five minutes
to regain his composure. He just stood there facing the grill, wiping his tears.
I stood near the TV, watching TV and occasionally looking at him.

Your brother is a fucker.
Yes sir. My brother is a fucker.
Tell that fucker, real men dont cry.
Yes sir. I told him so.

Happy Birthday Alphu

2006-06-25T10:28:00.000+05:30

Happy Birthday Sweetie. :-)

Its Alpha's birthday. Last time I spoke to her, I promised a chocolate pastry to her.

I know, I know, thats a cheap trick.

So, here is a cool trick. :-)

This post is sponsored by

2006-06-23T18:37:00.000+05:30

Krrish
A Review (No Spoilers)

Krrish is a nice boy. On a fine day, his (once a sex bomb) granny discovers that he does excellent sketches using Faber Castell pencils. With in days she also discovers, using Faber Castell, its not just sketching, but Krrish dude also excels at doing other dudes homework.

Ex-Bomb Granny decides to keep Krrish away from Faber Castell pencils and takes him far far away where they use chalk for teaching and sand for writing.

But Granny soon discovers that after his daily cup of Bournvita, Krrish does amazing stuff like jumping too high and running too fast and diving too deep. Ofcourse, she uses the All New Tide to keep his clothes clean. But Krrish does stuff thats beyond Tide. So Granny tells him not to jump anymore.

Ok, Krrish grows up. On a fine day Priyanka drops out of sky into his village. Sorry into his lap.
Priyanka is not alone. She is a part of a group adventure tour (on a bus sponsored by Siyaram's) lead by Vicks Inhaling Duryodhana.

Bah. Krrish and Priya falls in love. Priya leaves to Singapore. Priya works for Star News in Singapore. Priya's boss always wants something cool to show on the TV. Priya tells her about this Krrish dude. Boss asks Priya to bring on the Krrish dude. Priya calls Krrish dude's village Phone booth where they also Navratan Oil and Taka Tak snacks.

On Priya's Lays Chips eating friend sexy sharma's suggestion Priya tells Krrish that she is love with him and needs to see him.

Krrish explains this to Granny. Granny refuses. Krrish shouts. Granny flashbacks. Krrish cries.
Granny lets Krrish go.

Interval.

Priya keeps Krrish in a hotel. Krrish helps a street performer and gets invited to The Great Bombay Circus sponsored by Hero Honda. (In Singapore, of course). Circus tent catches fire. Krrish rescues priya. But crowd demands more help. Now its time for Krrish to jump too high stuff. But he promised granny that he would never jump too high. Atleast not in public.

Tattadaaaaiii.

So he wears a mask. And jumps too high.

He soon learns that Priya is interested only in his stunts side, but not in his Dil Na Diya side.
So he packs.

Tattadaaaiii.

Thick eye browed villain type who turns out to be helping type guy enters and tells Krrish that his dad is not dead. After inventing a future seeing machine which accepts only his heart beat as a password, his dad is held captured whatevered by the real villain.

villain sees in the future seeing machine that a masked man is going to kill him. So he kills a man who has that mask. (Krrish actually lends that mask to the street performer).

villain still sees in the future seeing machine that a masked man is going to kill him.

Krrish kicks ass. Krrish kills villain just like the way the future seeing machine sees it. Krrish takes dad home. Granny cries. They all live happily ever after.

P.S: Moral of the story?
1) Never borrow masks.
2) Never invent future seeing machines.

P.S: Actually, Krrish rocked. Amazing technical values. Amazing story telling. This movie is definitely a landmark in Indian Film History. This movie is going to rock the box office.

Dear desipundit.com

2006-06-01T08:21:00.000+05:30

May 12, 2006,
Hyderabad

Dear pundit,

I have been following desipundit.com right from its inception. To cut short, you are doing a great job, still, there is always room for improvement.

Here are my 10 steps to stardom.

1) Feedback mechanism: Right now desipundit is doing the job of displaying talent. Good. But what you need to do, is create a community. You guys are not doing it. Well, the community is there, but they dont have a role to play, to participate, to feel significant or to feel part of.

Good news is, you dont have to re-invent the wheel. Right from amazon.com to businessweek.com have done it. Let the user rate a post. Let users rate an author. (True, this will result in lot of isms and group politics, but, whatever, whatever ism, as long as it takes place at desipundit.com is good.

2) Choose the right template: Simply put, the template of desipundit.com is not up to the mark. You are displaying Indian talent. Not Scottish. We Indians need color. We Indians need a lot to happen on the screen.

More color. More joy. More brightness. Thats what we Indians need.

3) Create Personolities : What desipundit could have hit and totally (abysmally) missed is creating 'personalities'. Desipundit is not a 'team of editors'. Desipundit is 'Patrix'. Desipundit is 'Ash'. Etc.

Come forward. Talk to people. Be open about your tastes. Your likes, dislikes. Your backgrouds. Your dreams. Your tastes. Create your personolities. Share the vision you have for desipundit.com with people. Share the values you have for desipundit.com with people.

4) Market yourself: Good ideas dont run on good will alone.

Make yourself the benchmark of talent display.

Create "Featured on desipundit.com" button. Authors whose post gets featured would love to show it off.

Create "Rated **** on desipundit.com" button. If my post gets five star rated on desipundit.com I would brag about it for the rest of my life. Let me brag. I am creating free publicity for you guys.

Occassionally invite other group bloggers to do an editorial on desipundit.com

Well, you get the idea right? Possibilities are endless.

5) More stats: Remember, this is not a book. This is net. People need stats. Give them stats.
Most featured blogs
Most read posts
Top rated posts
Top rated authors.

Stats are sureway of making users 'connect' to your idea. Stats make people stay longer. Stats make people compete. Stats at the end, reward and tell you the truth.

6) Get rid of the language posts: Honestly speaking, an occassional Hindi, Telugu or Tamil post might satisfy that particular community, but its an irritation for others. It breaks the harmony of the display.

It may make you 'feel good' that you are behind a good cause of giving a chance to 'languages', but its not practical. Just because you have given Tamil a chance, you also need to give Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati a chance. Bah.

Blog community is English.

7) Make desipundit.com "The Best Of The Indian Talent": Expand the scope to include
Pictures
Podcasts
YouTubes
Short Stories
E Books
Illustrations

8) Never Side: Well, its good to stand behind Earth Quake relief funds and Tsunami funds. But its not good to side on an issue like IIPM, for a 'generic talent display area' like desipundit.com

Issues are endless. Fanaa, Aamir, Reservations, Immigration, War, Poverty etc. If someone wants to side, they should side in their editorial. Not desipundit.com

Remember the thumb rule. Always try to stand 'for' something. Not 'against'.
'Against' soon tires you mentally and emotionally. Same thing applies to your readers. Make them feel good.

9) Rock this place: I am surpised to see the lack of 'Event Management' at desipundit.com
Conduct melas
Select Best of the bests
Select monthly bests
Create themes and invite people to write.

Ok, you get the idea.
At any given point of time, make sure, something is 'happening' at this place.

Dudes, where is the joie?
Where is the joie of participation?
Joie of winning?

10) Create an official directory: There is no directory for Indian talent. Invite guest editors dmoz style who are specialist in their channels. Create directory yahoo style.

Be the 'Official directory of Indian Talent'.

P.S: I wrote this post as a personal mail to Patrix around two weeks back. I held back, because I had a business interest in desipundit (on which I am still working). I also doubted that desipundit is bigger than the team that started it. I saw desipundit.com this morning. I thought, heck, these guys are doing it right and doing it good. :-)

Its easy to type letters like these 10 steps to stardom. It is very difficult to execute. Ideas are everywhere. I am pretty sure all the suggestions I gave must have crossed the minds of editors atleast 100 times. What desipundit should do is firm up their vision. It should share its vision. Right vision leads to prioritized goals lead to execution. :-)

I am interested to see how desipundit is going to shape up.

If someone doesnt stop me from preaching, soon I am going to write my next letter
"How to make VCs go crazy for desipundit.com" :-)

How to build a million dollar business in less than 90 days

2006-05-27T20:03:00.000+05:30

On March 5^th , with less than 25 thousand rupees in my bank account, I boarded a plane to Bombay with a personal cheque written for an amount of 14 lakhs, as a sign up fee.

I signed on an agreement and called couple of my partners to let them know that I signed on that agreement.

I came back and prepared a business plan.

The plan basically is about investing in my project and getting a net return of 33% for the first three years.

I called couple of my friends and told them about this plan.

Both of them came forward with 20 Lakhs each.

I deposited 15 lakhs in my account for the sign up cheques to be cleared. I invested 20 Lakhs in Real Estate and spent that the rest 5 lakhs on clothes, laptops and in setting up of a new office.

The cost of the project initially was one crore. By then, 40% of it was funded. I needed to look for the rest of 60%.

Then I met couple of biggies in the town. One of them wanted 40% of the project.

That will be 80 lakhs. I told him. He said yes.

The other guy wanted to invest 50 lakhs and apportion his share at the end of the project.
Meanwhile another guy came forward with 20 lakhs.

I called Bombay dudes and told them to make the project bigger and much better.
I want it to be better than anything anyone has ever seen in Hyderabad. I told them.
We will. They told me.
(Meanwhile, the real estate investment I made blossomed into 30 lakhs. I took an exit and made a 10 lakh cash profit. )

The cost of the project got escalated to 2 crores. I put 10 lakhs. With that 10 lakhs the project got totally funded and my company still owns 100% of the project and is eligible for 60% of the total profits. (Don’t ask me, how is it possible. If you have the right story to tell, it is possible).

Just hype it. I told one of my partners.

We made couple of popular night appearances in the circles that mattered.
A dozen people queued to be a part of the project. (Includes a movie star and son of a famous industrialist).

Deny entry. I told my partners. Shield me from access. I told my office.
I changed my mobile phone number.

Hype got hyper.

Summon the original shareholders. I told my partners.

In that meeting, I dropped the bomb. You wont be part of this project. Your money will technically be a loan for my company. However, because of this huge heart that I have, I am letting you guys tell around that this project is yours too.

Those dudes went into a coma for a week. They recovered. Ok, whatever, just let us be part of this. They said.

Heck no, I said. I hate my heart. Its so large and its so generous. I want you to be a part of this project.

I gave them back more than what I initially planned for and more than they ever expected. Not just that. I gave them a blue print to recover their investment and double it in the first two years itself. Not just that, I gave them responsibilities and titles. Not just that, I gave them the brand itself. It is yours. Fuck it. I told them.

Now we are a happy team looking forward to the launch.

Last week me and my partner (who is financial managementally challenged) were drinking.

I hope this project clicks and we make profits someday. He said.
Sucker. What is your investment so far?
None.

What is the cost of the project?
2 crores.

How much of it do you own?
33%.
Translate.
Fucking shit. 67 Lakhs.
What is your share in profits?
20%.
What is the worst case scenario in projected profits in the next three years.
Fucking shit. Its 3 crores.
For how much do you think we can sell this project after three years?
Hmm. 2 Crores?
So whats your profit?
60 + 67. 1.27 crores.
But that’s not how you value a business.

Warren Buffet way: (The most orthodox and non aggressive way).

The profit you are offering me should be more than, the bank interest rate + projected inflation, after tax.
Average bank interest rate 13.5%
Inflation 7%
That means Buffet is willing to invest 100 bucks if I promise him that my net margin will be 20%.

Question: Lets say, for 100 bucks, you get one share of my project. How much Mr. Buffet, would you be willing to pay, if I told you that my net margin is 40%.

Answer: 200 bucks.

So partner, what is the total projected profit of this project including the exit sale?
5 crores.
Now, How much would Mr Buffet pay to own a business that would fetch him a profit of 5 crores in three years or 1.6 crores a year. Add Brand Equity to it. Add good will to it. Add preoperative expenses to it.
Partners jaw dropped. (Using several different analysis, it can be valued anywhere between 6 crores to 8 crores (1.6 * 5)).

Now, can we safely go ahead and say, we have just built a million dollar business? And we are just talking about one project. Remember I signed on two agreements. Not just one. And remember I made them sign on exclusivity. Then I whispered in his ear, what I want to do with project 2.

Pleahhhhhhse, let me be your partner forever.

Go, first fetch me some ice cubes. My brandy got warm.

Just In

2006-05-23T14:44:00.000+05:30

Chain of Command

I am not a huge fan of politics or reading investigative journalism.
Bah, I dont why, I thought I should read this book. Its a good one. I read
chapter one. I think I am not going to read the rest. I am saving it as a
gift for someone.

The art of seduction

The morality of this book can be debated. I loved the author's previous book
48 Laws of power. Some of those laws are a part of my work ethics now.

125 bucks is not a bad investment in knowing the art of seduction. One chapter
brought huge smile on my face.

Part One
The Seductive Character
The Charmer Page 38

"They (Charmers) understand your spirit, feel your pain, adapt to your moods.
In the presence of a Charmer you feel better about yourself. Charmers do not argue or fight, complain or pester. What could be more seductive?"

What Did Massa Smiley Say?

2006-05-04T19:47:00.000+05:30

The Heat.
The Heat.

Gasp. Gasp.
Massa. Massa.

Heat. Gasp.
Heat. Gasp.

Oh wise Massa.
Oh wise Massa.
Help me.

Splash. Dive.
Whateva wise Massa Says.
Whateve wise Massa Says.

Ayyaayyaayyaayiii.
Massa Smiley Rocks.
Massa Smiley Rocks.

Swapna's tears

2006-05-02T19:35:00.000+05:30

The engineer was abducted and killed by Talibans.

If you are living in India, there is lot of other stuff thats happening too.

Lots of Hindus got Killed in kashmir (the big media is trying to be politically correct and mentioning the killings as 'minorities got killed'.). The killed were not Christian missionaries. So, there is no fun in that news.
Pramod Mahajan, clearly one of the greatest strategists of modern politics is dying. Bah, no fun there too. BJP is not the ruling party.
Darna Zaroori Hai got released. Hmmm.. interesting.
Some dude in a movie titled Gangster, Kissed a slut on the screen. Hmmm..interesting.

Well, we cant disagree with the newspapers. They know the news better than us.
They know what sells. They know what doesnt. So do the politicians.

Yeah, coming back to the engineer. We have an engineer here, from the Indian
middle class, who went to work in Afghanistan (dumb choice) to earn more
for his loving wife and kids. Cool. We got a flash last week that Surya was abducted
by Talibans.

Now, thats news. Talibans sell. Thats for the media.

So , media went big on that story. A telugu news channel TV9 somehow managed
to sneak into Surya's house in Hyderabad and started relaying (live, ofcourse)
Surya's wife and his clan watching TV9 live and weeping.

The women of Andhra love watching other women crying. I am sorry to say
this, but thats how it is. So they flipped their favouring soaps (filled with sorrow
filled crying weeping chicks) to watch Surya's wife.

Apart from the Taliban aspect, there is also the suspense angle to this story.
Surya's wife by thumping her chest live, already stole the show. Now the suspense
is, will Surya live? Now, you can see the newsroom anchors of TV9 rubbing their
hands in glee.

If you are a politician, you cant miss an oppurtunity like this. You have a story
that won the sympathy of women folk and interest of the state. So the CM
promised everything he can do to bring back our engineer. CM blamed Taliban.
CM blamed Pakistan thats still hosting Taliban. CM blamed the previous ruling
party. CM said, he will die to protect his people.

TV9 hit a jackpot. They have a story that won people's interest. Now they have
a government thats pretty much helpless when it comes to protecting its citizens.
News channels love blaming government. Thats their muscle. Thats their power.
When there is chance, they will flex it. (I guess, I dont even have to mention the
SMS circus.)

Finally the inevitable (sorry to say this, but thats the reality) happened. You cant
mess with the Indian middle class. They own the media. Both central and state
governments went crazy.

The CM of Andhra Pradesh personally visited Surya's (weeping) family live (ofcourse
on TV9). Both central and state governments announced lots of exgratia.
The state government announced Five Lakhs and a promise to provide a
government job to the deceased wife.

I dont understand this.
1) What is the merit of Suryanarayan to win Five Lakhs of Government's money?
2) What is the merit of Suryanarayan's wife to secure a government job?

Sympathy? Or is it because of the popularity of the story?
Clearly the popularity of the story. The governement is already at the receiving end
by not able to bring back its citizen. It needs to cover up.
Strangely, during these times, media supports those cover ups. TV9 demanded
more ex-gratia for the family.

Correct me if I am wrong. WHY SHOULD the government PAY? If the government
should pay, BASED ON WHAT CRITERIA ex-gratias should be declared? If the
government should pay, it should then pay the innocent Kashmiris too who got killed
by militants. Who is paying THEM? If no is paying them, is it because they are
less popular story?

It would have been just another story. But wait, TV9 is on a roll. On the day the dead
body arrived, an innocent looking young woman by name Swapna surfaced and claimed
a share of the announced ex-gratia. Swapna surfaced and how! She apparently is the
'second wife' of Surya.

The women folk of andhra jumped in delight. This is getting better than their regular
soaps. Airtel jumped in delight. Media jumped in delight. Swapna went live too.
She went live and stole the entire show. So much so that the first wife attempted
a suicide.

It just cant get better than this for TV9. Swapna has this strange innocent beautiful
look on her face. When she talks she moves her eyebrows in such way that the whole
Andhra fell for her. (That includes me). Her demands are straight forward and honest.

1) I have a child. I am not asking for anything. Nothing. I want a share of the ex-gratia
for my child.
2) I want to be recognized as the 'second wife' of Surya. I dont need no money.

Quiet obviously, first wife's camp refused. Swapna's camp went on a dharna.
Police lathi charged. Media condemned police. Police condemned media and the
second camp. Second camp condemned first camp and police and government
and talibans and government and government.

If you ask me, Swapna has no one but to condemn herself. Technically there is nothing
called 'second wife'. It is basically illegal. The 'second wife' or her 'children' have no
legal rights or no legal claims to anything. Ideally thats how it should be.

But the problem is we have this innocent, beautiful young illegal widow who
is pouring her tears out for justice. Technically there is no justice. But no one in
their right mind can come out and say that. Not the media. Definitely not the
politicians.

We are humans and this is India, where heart is placed above process and systems.
So lets enjoy this show. Let the media milk money. Let politicians claim fame.

Peace, love and someone else' tears.

Singing Birds and Civilizations

2006-04-28T11:47:00.000+05:30

This little bird can sing. Big deal! There is something more interesting than
this little bird singing. This bird sings and how? Grammatically. ! Ha! thats
the man bites dog part. Yeah this chick gets grammar.

One of my previous posts talked about a book titled Songlines and some
whales in the pacific singing. You wondered what the link was? Well, my
suspicion was kind of close.

Here is what Stewart Hulse has to say

it occurred to Hulse that music might be an ideal way to study how the brain arranges sights and sounds into an order, enabling people and animals to communicate and navigate their environments.

"Language is based on certain sounds and a grammar, which describes
the rules by which one thing comes after another. We all have a grammar
if we are going to speak, and so that's an example of the problem of serial order."

I thought about songbirds because they sing. Their song is not music, but
bird song has a grammar and a structure to it.

Here is an excellent study (if you are very mathematical just read the conclusion)
done by two Japanese from University of Tokyo.

Abstract. The mating song of the male Bengalese finch can be described
by a finite-state grammar and has the feature that more complex
songs are preferred by females [1]-[3].

From the standpoint of Chomsky’s theory, the most unique function of human
language is its “recursiveness”, which enables potentially infinite expressions
from finite elements [4]. This plays a fundamental role in grammar. Since “linguistic
behavior does not fossilize”, the questions of how mankind attained this
function and how language has been complicated in modern times are difficult
to deal with scientifically and they remain significant open questions.

I was fascinated at the female's ability to pick up
mispronounciation (or bad grammar). Check out the pic.

We focused on whether song grammars could evolve to become complex through
relatively brief, song-interjection communication. Consequently, we could clearly
demonstrate that song grammars could evolve to become complex as a result of
females’ interjection. This supports Okanoya’s hypothesis. In addition, it turned
out that the song grammars could not become arbitrarily complex, and instead
they evolved towards a boundary where interjection is successful, but not perfect.

After reading these two papers, my suspicion that lot of what we call 'abilities of humans'
are not unique at all. Some creatures evolve certain aspect into higher complexity.
Like dogs can smell million scents, we humans can form gazillion combinations of words
using a fundamental structure of grammar thats not unique to us at all. It is just a highly
evolved form of grammar.

This also throws light on theories that argue that human civilization can be traced back
much beyond. Unfortunately the Christian mind of 20th century had hard time trying
to accept any greatness before Christ.

I propose that for a language as complex and as beautiful as Sanskrit or Latin, to evolve
requires thousands of years. For a philisophical and thinking foundation that gives
rise to vedas, buddha and plato requires atleast thousands of years of thought evolution.
For a political and economic structures that supported Alexander, Pyramids and Asoka
needs great organizations, for an organization to evolve out or pure permutation and
combination requires atleast 10000-15000 years.

I propose ancient civilizations can be (should be) traced back to as back as 15000 BC.

Weeeiii

2006-04-22T17:49:00.000+05:30

The hair accentuated her playfulness. So did her bouncing bosom. I wasnt
looking at her in bits and pieces. It was more like, I was filling that moment
with her. So it was like , it wouldnt have mattered if even if her bosom wasnt
bouncing. Anyway, that moment was filled with her playfulness.

I stopped typing.

Shredder! Stop reading over my shoulder. I dont feel comfortable.

Weeeiiii.

So, where was I?

Yeah, sometimes you have to look out for those small things. There is more to a
woman than a bouncing bosom. Sometimes the wind falls in love with her and
embraces her. She gently shoos the wind away by locking her locks behind her
lobes. Sometimes she embraces the wind with her arms widespread letting her
locks from her locks.

Weeeiii.
Alright Shreddy. We humans are a little complicated. I know you want to know
how her ass smells like, but thats not how we do it.

Yeah there is more to a woman than a bouncing bosom. Underneath her
mask of shyness, there is a key. Her responses are pointers. If you know how
to read them, a woman is a great journey. Sometimes it is adventurous;
sometimes it is sad, sometimes it is bliss.You only need to be aware enough
to read her.

Weeeiii.

Yeah there is more to a woman than a frown and a smile. Look into her eyes.
They tell you a lot. Usually they are (the eyes) very skillful at that. If you had
ever noticed how her pupils grew larger to a similar dimension when you told
her you missed her and that other time when you climaxed together, then you
would know how much she is not just about sex. But then, you were looking at
her bouncing bosom whenever she came running towards to hug you.

Weeeiii.

Yeah a woman is more than an ass that you grab. The touch, and then there
is this touch. There is this lust filled squeeze and there is this palm on your
forehead to check your temperature. Trace her and open her. Open her and
probe her. Repeat. Her breasts are designed to be gently sucked at, not get
squeezed. Know this, and you will be rewarded well.

Weeeiii.
Shredder!!! Will you stop fucking my leg?

Dumb and Dumber

2006-04-19T11:51:00.000+05:30

I can never be sorry enough because these incidents havent died yet.
I know I will have to live with them. They will only die with me.

Dumb

Long back, I used to work as a Y2K consultant for a Fortune 100 company.
Women in general are considered to be hot in that region. But Sharon was
hotter. (Thats her real name). Sharon a pretty hot black origin with a latino
skin pretty much used to set the cubicles on fire. Needless to say we all used
to fantasize about Sharon. Sharon, just like any normal American girl, used to
be a lot friendlier than, just like any normal hostile Indian girl.

One day Sharon came to my cube (Needless to say, she was pretty dumb
when it comes to programming. I used to occassionally help her with
MVS and IMS), glowing, looking just too special.

She was all smiles.
Smiley, today is my birthday.
I was in the middle of something. I thought about it for a while.
It took me sometime to absorb her presence and the news.
Meanwhile, she got a little offended with my perplexed look and said,
Smiley, its my birthday!

I was like, Hey, am I missing something here and continued my look.
She said, Hmph.
Gee, I scratched my head and said, So?
(I actually meant, So, what am I supposed to do, in a way to actually know
what am I supposed to do).
I think I am not that special to be treated special on my birthday. !!
And she walked away.

Even years later, I feel bad about it. :-) Last week I called a friend at
that company to get her email id to say sorry to her. She left two years
back.

Dumber

There used this really cute and really hot hot chick at Starbucks. Then I was
working as Java Developer for another Fortune 500 company. My routine used
to be simple. Buy coffee at starbucks and smile at her. Soon we developed some
kind of commeraiderieee whatever, you know that word right?

Her smile was pure. Pure American, Christian, Naive, Cultured smile.
Good morning. I am guessing its a Latte and a biscotti.
Yeah.
Its Three dollars 45 cents and here is your change. Have a good day.
You too.

Needless to say, in my fantasies we got married and everyday woke
up to her pure smile and a tasty starbucks coffee.

One day I got into my office elevator and pressed my level 4 button.
When the door was about to shut she entered inside.
I looked her and nodded.
She gave me that pure smile again.
I started looking at the walls and button panel.
After a moment she said,
Huh. I guess I am getting lazy these days.
And pressed her level 3 button.
I looked at her waist and thought she used to be thinner than this.
I thought may be she was getting lazy and sympathized with her.
Yeah, you have grown fat around your waist.
Needless to say, there was no conversation after that and the pure
smile turned into a frown so much so that I stopped buying coffee there
later.

It dawned on me after something like an year that I was supposed to ask
her (like a gentlemen) in the elevator, So which floor you want to go?

And yeah, I am never going to reveal my dumbest moment. Ever.

So many books

2006-04-18T09:46:00.000+05:30

I have been buying a lot books lately. Actually I should say, I found lot
of interesting books lately.

It takes a lot from my side to buy fiction. I dont read fiction because I dont
see any 'purpose' or 'outcome' of reading fiction. (I am boring when it comes
to books).

Another thing is, I am a 'Blink' buyer. I make my decision in about ten
seconds. Surprisingly I buy quality books. I think I have an instinct for
quality.

Santaram ***: I think it was Leela who recommended me this book. Or
thought, it was Leela who recommended me this book. Interesting book.
Nice quotes, good humour, lots of layers. I read something like 400 pages.
Then my objective mind took over and asked me, "Ok, do you really care
about whats gonna happen to Santaram in the end?" Truth was, "I dont care".

The Elegant Universe*****: My all time top ten. No book stimulated my
imagination, challenged my knowledge etc etc. This book sent me into a zone
for about a week. Beyond that I dont want to comment. They say, Quantum
physics is something you dont try to understand, its something you just get
adjusted to. This book is definitely not for girls.

Collapse****: Diamond is my favourite author. I get attracted to anything
macro and grand in scale. So a book that answers questions like, why
civilizations fail, is cool to me. I just started reading this book.

Undercover Economist*****: At the core of everything is a gene. Dawkins
says the gene basically is selfish. I say, the gene basically is an economist.
I love undercover economics because it is unmasked behaviour. I would like
to call it Common sense Economics. Excellent read. Highly recommended for
girls.

A new Earth***: Any book by the author of 'The Power of Now' (which is
my unofficial bible) , you think would be as smart. This one is a let down.

Heart pours into it (or something like that): Its the story of starbucks.
I love reading story of corporations. I just love. But havent started reading this
one yet.

Parallel universes: After reading Brian Greene, couldnt resist buying this one.
Havent started reading yet.

Trump **: Love this guy. Love this guy. I dont remember the title but just loved
reading this book. Finished it. At the same time, this book is very 'cheap'.

Mans search for meaning***: Its a shrink direct from gas chambers. I
realized that I know very little about holocaust. I spent more time on
wikipedia while reading this book, than reading this book. I dont know much
about Hitler too. For the first time I realized how sad holocaust was. How
evil Hitler was. It made me sad. So I discarded reading this book.
For now. I am sure I am going to finish it.

Ta!

2006-04-16T08:42:00.000+05:30

April 14th was Cake and Cunnilingus day. (careful!)
They always tell me when its over.

But good news is, its not over yet..

Best consumed over 7 days.

Shopping List:

1 chocolate mud cake
1 carrot cake (Some nice healthy vegetables)
1 banana cake (A lashing of fruit)
1 coffee cake (Keeps you alert)
1 cheesecake
1 ice cream cake
1 sponge cake
7 cup cakes

1 partner (at least) with long tongue, expertise in pussy licking and an
obsession with making you come.

The Diet:

Take cake of your choice into bedroom. Remove clothing and position
yourself on the bed according to preference. Direct partner into correct
position between your legs. (Read on..)

Smiley Says

2006-04-10T07:02:00.000+05:30

Better win than be right.

Ding Dong

2006-04-05T20:36:00.000+05:30

Ding Dong.
I waited for allInOneSrinu to open the door.
No response. Even after a minute.
Lately I am getting this feeling that Srinu is using my
recliner and bed when I am not around.
I could listen to the music being played inside.

Ding Dong. Again.
No response. Again. Even after a minute.
I tried to peek through the curtain. I could see couple of candles on the floor.

What the fcuk is Srinu upto and why the fuck is he not opening the door?
Thats it sucker is fired. This is it.

Ding Dong. Again.
No resonse.Again.

I angrily knocked on the door.
The door opened.

I pushed it wide open.
The recliner was facing me.
On the recliner was a teddy bear.
On the recliner was a greeting card.
Next to the recliner was a stand. On the stand was two pasta bowls.
(With pasta in them). Two wine glasses. (With wine in them).
My amp was playing some love song from a love album.
(Pardon my music knowledge).

I looked around. Candles everywhere. Some of them scented.
I picked up the card.
Surprise. It said.

I whistled.
I went into the bed room. She was standing there.
Wearing a skirt and a top (ok, whatever you call it).

I kissed her. She smelled good.
This is so cool. I said.
I am glad you liked it. She said.
I am not yet into what I actually liked.
I ran my hand around her waist.
She came closer.
We kissed for a long time.
Suddenly as if I remembered something I undressed myself.
We made love. Not the sex kind of sex but making love kind of sex.

Then we sat and ate the pasta stuff. Drank the wine stuff.
Then we made love. Again. Not the sex kind of love but making love kind
of love.

I am glad we are not in love. She said.
Yeah, or else we would have screwed it up by now. I added.

So much for love. So much for making love.

Happy Faily

2006-03-30T21:58:00.000+05:30

Faily, what was that again? Yeah Bilthday.
Faily,
Happy Bilthday.

This is flom all of us. Yeah, alpa, eela, gamma, monkey, nikky, daddy
and so. They say you all hot. You all best. I tust so.
Massa Smiley too say you all hot.

P.S: Massa Smiley Rocks.

AdMan's Ads -Two

2006-03-27T08:41:00.000+05:30

Click for the full version here
If I am not exaggerating, we can call Indian Telecom ad campaign,
Before Hutch and After Hutch. Also, on the same tone, we can call
the telecom Industry, before Reliance and after Reliance.

When Hutch Came, it came. Hutch filled every city with its beautiful,
clean, white orange logos. When RajaniKanth's movie Baba was released,
Hutch basically painted the theatre in Chennai with white and orange.
Everyone loved Hutch.

When Hutch aired, it aired a pug and a boy. Pug sales in India grew by
4000% after the campaign. Everyone loved the pug. Teenage girls sang,
You and I and its a beautiful world.

Hutch basically revolutionalized an Indian ad campaign. Fortunately for
Hutch's ad agency, the ads won awards and elite acceptance.
Unfortunately for Hutch, the ads were never understood by the masses
and more importantly, Hutch ads never sold services.

On the contrary, Reliance came with boring, ads that are right on the bang.
Hey, our calls cost so much. Hey, these are our latest phone models.
It was the same ad, month after month. Month after month. Reliance never
won any awards for its ads.

Reliance is number two in India after three short years.
Hutch is a distant four. (After the purchase of BPL and Essar).

Now, the admen of Hutch came up with something new. Pink. So it is another
Adman's ad campaign, that would win more awards but would never really
ad to the bottom line of the company.

Like mint economics, telecom has its own rules. By rule, all technological
companies lead by differentiating the 'choice' of the customer. You love Hutch
ads. But at the end of the day, when you want to buy a mobile phone, you
would look at two things. Coverage. Rates. Period.

When someone offers better coverage, better rates, better options, you switch.

Dell differentiated by offering this choice to the customers.
In a telecom economy, you need to let your customer 'know' the options.
Brownie points to Reliance. Poop on Hutch.

So, I concluded to LoveMe that, I call Reliance, as a matter of fact BSNL (whose
ads all elite loves to hate), SBI are successful ad campaigns.
I call Hutch, its pug, its little boy, all those funny mint ads that make you
laugh, duds.

More read:
Airtel Vs Hutch.
Adevertising trends in Indian Telecom

AdMan's Ads -One

2006-03-27T08:18:00.000+05:30

The other day LoveMe suddenly said, "I absolutely love these new
SBI ads. They are so much on target and so inviting". I was kind of
amused. Because, atleast in the blogdom lot of people didnt like SBI
ads.

We talked about ads for a little then. We agreed that we love those
new 'mint' ads. As a matter of fact, mint ads are the funniest ads
with catchiest phrases.

Dubaraa mat poochna.
Dimak ka batti jalade.

Funny part is neither of us remembered the name of mints. I dont
know if its Mint-O-Plus or hey what is that other mint?

But hey, A mint with a hole, a Polo is something we would never
forget. I must say, Polo is the most successful of all, when it comes
to 'Product Differentiation'. Someone designed the product so well,
it doesnt really harm Polo if their ad people screw up the campaign.
Polo ads suck. But can you ever forget Polo.

Dimak ka Batti Jalade is funny, but which mint is it for? This also
brings us to pay attention to mint economics. Mint atleast in India
is 'small currency'. Every time an Indian buys a cigerette in all likely
hood he gets a mint back.

The success of a mint lies in its distribution strategies and its margins
to retailers. So it makes sense to spend money at retailer level and
not on national TV. (Around 97% of Indian mint sales happen at
'unorganized' retail).

This points us to an important factor of all. What is the job of an ad?
Is it to show the creativity of the ad agency or to sell the product?

The answer is quiet obvious. Right?
But, not the practice.

It is surprising how everyone from Brand Equity of Economic Times to
Cannes Lion, discusses and awards, 'How Good An Ad Is' rather
than how successfully an ad sold a product.

There are million different awards for 'Good Ads', what I call the AdMan's
Ads. But none, I repeat, none to award an ad that increases the sales.

Now let us scrutinize the mother of all cute ads, Hutch.

Continued..

Shredder Art

2006-03-26T21:33:00.000+05:30

Now, beat this!

Art by Smiley. Dedicated to my buddy Shredder.

Sing a Song, Arre, Ding a Dong

2006-03-26T21:12:00.000+05:30

This study shows whale songs resemble human language.
In other words, whales kind of talk, through songs.

This also reminds of an interesting argument I had with my
friend LoveMe. Bottom line is, life is smarter. Animals are
smarter. We are not that smart. I have an interesting theory
on 'proliferation' which I think is purely a chance event.

Human 'thought' proliferated lately. Ofcourse its manifestations
too. I think thats just a chance event. Nothing too great about it.

Anyway, the whale songs remind of an argument made by
Bruce Chatwin in his brilliantly original travel book Songlines.

Image by EllenRussell

Chatwin studied the curious tradition of aboriginies singing
songs. They basically sing the landscape. Aboriginies own songs
and exchange songs. They think the Earth was sung in the
beginning. Anyway, the argument is that it was song first
and language later. I dont know the merit of it, but it was
a brilliant argument.

Ofcourse, this Dane has a theory called Sing Song theory. Yeah
it was song and merrying first and language later.

Quantum Tears

2006-03-26T09:35:00.000+05:30

I was watching Oprah the other day.
(Confession: When no one is around, sometimes I watch Oprah :-I)

It was about "your wildest dream coming true". Just like in every
episode, Oprah had a list of interesting candidates. Of all, an
eighteen year old black girl caught my emotion.

She was deserted by her family three years back. She is been
living on the streets since then. She was harassed several times.
She occassionally gets shelter from a cousin or a friend. All she
wants to do is finish her graduation. No one from her family
ever graduated. She grew up the last three years idolizing
Oprah as her mom. She has this fantasy, if you can call it so,
to hug Oprah atleast once. Hmm She also wants to look pretty
once, for a change, because she thinks, she is pretty. She is
tired of her blue jeans and blue coat.

She was innocent and honest in her intentions.

On Oprah's request America's top model (dont remember her name)
went to her college to surprise the black girl. Model met the girl
and offered free classes in modellign by top dogs. Top dogs took
her photos and made a fantastic portfolio. Model also gifted her a
designer wardrobe that would last two months if she doesnt wear
the same clothes agian. She was called on Oprah' s show and Oprah
hugged her. Her portfolio came out so well, she was offered job as
a model by a top agency. A women's magazine offered to put her
on her cover. And they did. A white woman offered to adopt her
to see through her gradutation. Ne need, said the university. The
university paid for her graduation. All this happened as a surprise
to that girl.

She hugged Oprah and cried.
I cried too.

I suddenly came to senses, wiped my tears and looked around. I
was so embarassed, I didnt know what to do.

So I called Vinny.

Dude, when was the last time you cried?
Whats wrong with you man? I told you not to stay at home alone.
Please, when was the last time you cried?
Why?

Err. I was watching Oprah and cried.
Why the fcuk are you watching Oprah?
All those chicks cheering and shouting Oprah turn me on man. I lied.
You know what? There is a hot anchor who is doing Tring Tring Top Ten
in Gemini TV. She is wild in bed it seems. Shall I book her for you?
No thanks, I can take care of myself. Tell me, when was the last time
you cried?

Ok. But you shouldnt make fun later.
Go ahead.

Finding Nemo. When Nemo gets stuck in that tube I got so upset, I cried.
You gottobe kidding. Oprah is Ok. Crying in a Pixar movie?
Hello? I thought we agreed on something.
Yeah. Yeah. Yes, sometimes movies make you funny.
I have another confession to make. Remember Lakshya? When Hrithik makes
that call to his dad, I cried so much.
Thats nothing. Remember Chalte Chalte? When Shah Rukh slaps Rani, I had
tears running down like a leaking pipe, down my cheeks.
Worse. King Kong. King Kong man. I cried when King Kong died.

Sigh.
Sigh.

You think this is normal? I mean, are we normal?
I dont know.
Ok. Hang up. I want to call Eddie.
Why?
I want to know when was the last time he cried.

Are you out of your minds? If you tell this anyone, we will be fried for the
rest of our lives.
You think so?
I swear so. This is between us. To the end.
To the end.

Sigh. I feel a little lighter man.
Sigh. Me too.

Smiley Says

2006-03-25T08:54:00.000+05:30

Routine is God.

Links

Here is a list of worlds top selling drugs. Whats interesting is they ALL are lifestyle related. So its just the environment that we are putting under pressure. :-)
Looks like this is the season of lists. About future stuff at wired.com. In 1997 I dreamt of a device thats basically a mobile phone, wirelessly connected to the broadband, involves flippable, foldable epaper and auto language translator. Most of the stuff became a reality. Just somehow, someone needs to figure out that foldable, flippable electronic screen.
I dont know where these guys come up with this stuff. But this is seriously cute stuff.
These guys have something say about how to succeed in emerging markets, yeah, they mean, in India and China.

Shreddy The Shredder

2006-03-23T09:18:00.000+05:30

Shredder has his own page now. It could have been a blog.
But out of curiosity I used Google's page creator.

There are couple of posts that I wanted to finish.
One is Know Thyself, which is kind of Pseudo philosophically
comically surrealismistic post.

Another one is Green Apples. Green Apples need some
illustrations to tell.

Hopefully I will tell these stories one of these days.

Monkey, you are welcome to come up with your whacky
posts.

Here is the theme.
Master Smiley ordered Shredder to shred world's
information. Every time Shredder says 'woof' he turns
into ShredderMan. Nothing can stop him but an order
from Master Smiley.

A panel led by Master Yoda assigns Minor Yoda to embark
on a journey that involves travelling seven seas to reach and
protect The Oracle, which is Shredders final destination.

Whether Shredder shreds Oracle or not depends upon what
Oracle tells him.

Update # : What else? Shredder's page updated.

Smiley Says

2006-03-16T20:56:00.000+05:30

Make friends with everyone.
Choose your enemies wisely.

Predictions come true (Kind of)

2006-03-13T20:17:00.000+05:30

In his famous article 'Web 2.0 Predictions for 2006', Dion predicted
10 things for Web 2.0 in 2006.

His prediction number 2: 37signals.com will register million users.
37signals famours product whiteboard didnt exactly set the web
on fire, but its competitor writely.com did. Google.com bought writely.com
Why million I am sure, its gonna get atleast 2-5 million registered users
by the end of this year.

His prediction number 3: Microsoft will go live. Well, go to live.com

His prediction number 4 & 7: BarCamp is happening in Hyderabad and its
theme? Web 2.0

Prediction number 9: Provider Switching is becoming everywhere.

I am beginning to respect this guy.

2006-03-13T08:51:00.000+05:30

Blues

I discovered this wonderful blog couple of days back.
When was the last time I read someone's archives?

2006-03-12T23:17:00.000+05:30

I Love You

Lets say for the sake of a fantasy, I get what I want.
I would get this island. (Roughly 110 Crores). I will take her
there on a surprise blindfolded helicopter ride.

I would tell her, I love you.
And what do you think? Is this an ideal nest for us to
procreate?

(The above shown island is for sale. Its in Fiji. Now all I need
is a girl that I love. A girl who loves me.)

2006-03-12T22:17:00.000+05:30

Treat

I watched this movie titled 'Apaharan' and fell in love with it
instantly. Its my movie of the year. Forget Crash, forget Capote.
This is true stuff. So wonderfully unbiased stuff. I loved the movie.

I enquired about the director and came to know that there is
another movie of his titled Gangajal. I brought that DVD home, but
ended up watching the match between South Africa and Australia.

Fcuk !

I eman Fcuk! That was the match of the decade.

I am saving Gangajal for tomorrow.

2006-03-11T17:27:00.000+05:30

Make Noise Project

Monkey, I think I have the toughest job in the world. Explaining
myself to a bunch of girls.

The reaction to my post Vaishali was rather strong.
So was the reaction to a comment I left on Megha's blog. The responses
made me laugh. And also think. So I left a comment there.

It got mysteriously disappeared. This post would have never
happened because I dont care about what ZZ, Huh had heh or Megha
think about me.

But I do care about what alpha, Leela or nonick think about me. When
the reaction was strong enough for my friend to email me saying

"Somehow I felt there was a certain insincerity when I read it. The
'Gross Smiley' act has become so much a part of you that it's hard to
believe when you mean otherwise."

I felt bad after reading it. (Hey surprise! Men have feelings too). But
I understood the gap I am creating with this Smiley style. I was also
surprised none asked me the required question "So what have you
done to better Vaishali's life?". Honestly I thought my readers are
smart enough to understand that I sympathized with Vaishali's
situation and helped her. I was wrong. Only Monkey and Patrix
looked like they knew me.

If I told you that after our first meeting Vaishali and I became good
friends, that I helped her financially with her health, that I
encouraged her to keep her girl in the school and helped her with the
school fees, that in our last meeting Vaishali broke down into sobbing
and I told her how much I admire her as a person, that even well after
an year every time I visited the manufacturer I made it a point to
visit her and encourage her, would I stand corrected?

I hope so.

Now here is my response to the dudes on Megha's blog (wait..I am trying
to recollect what I wrote on her blog)

My apologies for coming up with a bad example. That pinching butt stuff is
a bad example. I thought I was pointing towards an incident that happens
on a daily basis in this nation, to highlight the attitude behind that act.

Agreed. Raping is crime. Ogling is indecent. Pinching butt is vulgar and crude.
Smiling at is kind of ok. Using endearments is civic. I get it. I think everyone
should get it.

But why is this harassment as common as air in India? Why is it happening
everysecond to every mother, to every child in every street and in every
public place? Gurudwar to city buses why the butts are being pinched?

It feels good to thrash men. To condemn these barbaric acts. You think
a) there is something wrong with the upbringing of these men
b) all these men are emotionless beasts.

But that doesnt solve the problem. Why are men doing it?
a) They think they are having fun
b) Thats their 'making a move'
c) They are beasts who are taken over by their insincts
d) They think the receiving woman actually enjoys it
e) They dont understand they are making the other person uncomfortable
f) They dont care.

Whats happening on the receiving end?
a) In general women dont like it and dont enjoy it.

So where is the solution?
Make noise.

Make enough noise for the appropriate laws to be passed to punish harassment.
Make enough noise for the machanisms to be built to implement those laws.

Make enough noise for every girl child to understand 'harassment'.
Make enough noise to educate every girl child to understand how to react/
report to a harassment

Make enough noise for every uncle, teenager, rowdy, wise ass to understand
the scars they are leaving behind.
Make enough noise for every man to understand how devastating the
punishment would be if they get caught.

Blank noise is as good as no noise.

Make noise.

If I still sound insincere,
My organization is committed to the prevention of child abuse.
We regularly contribute to orphanages and education programs.
Not just contribute but monitor the implementation too.
I personally contribute to the education of three girl children.
If I still sound insincere, the 'Charity' and 'Charity Activities'
of my account heads are submitted to the government of AP
every year to make them tax deductable. You can always
browse them.

I want to be a part of this noise. That is the reason why I am
entertaining this conversation in the first place.

The only mature response I got was a private email which actually
tried to understand the situation. To quote her,

It will be interesting to see how you deal with the comments on your
blog about Vaishali.

I did, indeed, think of commenting. There is respect involved in flirting,
just that the hormones are too overwhelming for one to identify that.
The problem is that there is too much logic, explanation and the stating
of what is 'reality' as it may seem. Maybe men are not always thinking
about sex, maybe women are not always that touchy-feely. What's the
point in refining one's judgement of what men, women and this world
actually is? What's the point in analyzing the two genders so closely?
It yields nothing too great, excepting a sense of control and
understanding (hence, maturity). I believe that over-analysis and
generalization is a manner in protecting oneself in actually feeling what
they feel. So yes, you wanted to sleep with her..but is that all you will
identify? That men have a goal to reach (literally) and a benchmark
for their performance? Come on. You, Smiley, are a better man than that.

Thats another reason whenever we meet I look into her eyes, not at her
boobs.

2006-03-10T09:01:00.000+05:30

Foo Bar

Three weeks back

So thats my plan. I gave the rough sketch to Vinny. Vinny who usually would
jump into it, quiet uncharacteristically gave me a sarcastic smile.

Its not going to work.

I was disappointed and hurt. Why not? Atleast half of it can be implemented.
No. I am not tempted. Its not going to happen.

Three weeks minus one day back

So thats my plan. I gave the rough sketch to Zee. Zee donning his wise man role
just nodded. Now Zee, tell me how it cannot be done?

The total cost Smiley. We need fucking one and half million dollars, all in cash to
do this. And you are so broke right now.

Yeah, cant we raise cash?
Let us be a little realistic here.

Two weeks back

Thats my plan. I handed it to Dr Rao. He pointed out to couple of blanks. If you
can do this, this and this, then it can be done.

One week back

Zee, do this, this and this. I have done the ground work. Now its your turn.

Four days back

Smiley, this and this are done. We still have this to do. But its impossible.

Two days back

I shook hands with the CEO of one of the subsidiaries of a three thousand crore
(3000,00,00,000) Indian giant. Then I sat in their Directors room explaining
COO why they are so lucky to get me. Then I told them, Not just one. I want
them both. Both the projects. And of course exclusivity.

I cant believe I am signing on this document. You are so inexperienced.
COO shook his head. Sign it. I encouraged.

On my flight back

Zee, I signed on both the projects. Not just that, I gave them post dated checks.
Now, you have get that this done. We have no other go.
Holy fucking shit. Congrats. But I mean holy fucking shit.
Yeah lots of holi fucking shit.

One day back aka yesterday

Its done. Said Zee.
I smiled.
But you will have to convince them tomorrow evening. I have arranged a meeting.
Convince? I am going to make them beg us. Now, rest your soul.

The Dream, I said, The Great Indian Dream has arrived.
Cheers.

2006-03-09T20:01:00.000+05:30

Always On

Sigh. I am on. I got so tired of not being able to connect to the net.
I initiated this 'I should always be on' policy and unveiled it on, who
else?, my allInOneKrish.

So I am on. Always on now.

A Dell Inspiron connected to the net by a Reliance wireless modem
when I am on move.

A Toshiba connected to BSNL broadband at home.

Another Toshiba connected to Airtel at work.

(*Grin* Yeah, I have three laptops now. Because I hate disconnecting those
power cables.)

My IPaq always on with GPRS from Airtel.

Sify broadband connected to a locally assembled computer at the
other work place.

Tata Indicom broadband, once again to an assembled computer at my
Vijayawada office.

Rrrrrrrrriba rrrrriba.
Beep. Beep.

2006-03-05T12:48:00.000+05:30

Vaishali

Vaishali stood out in that crowd. She stood out with her large happy smile that
revealed a surprisingly clean (for her class) and white set of teeth. Her smile was
pleasant and motherly. She stood out for her skin too. Not exactly an unusual fair
but hers was a smooth natural hairless skin. She was the head mestri for a group
of 40 laborers.

All of them were women.

It was three years back. I was working on a leather export order. To personally
supervise the quality and design I decided to get into the thick of action and went
to Chennai to make sure these women understood the design.

The owner of the leather factory was a muslim. He had a brother in law who was
in charge of design and prototypes section. It was a shed roofed with asbestos. I
daily used to go there with a laptop, digital camera and Reliance phone for my
internet access.

Trust me, sitting in asbestos shed during the peak of Chennai’s summer is not for
faint hearted. You would sweat your digestive juices out.

I fell in love with Vaishali on day one.

Vaishali spoke Tamil. I understand Tamil but cant speak. Razzaq spoke Hindi and
Tamil. My Hindi is extremely rusty. Razzaq understood neither Telugu nor English.

Vaishali never looked into my eyes. She always used Razzaq as the mediator.

On day three I guess, Razzaq was absent. Vaishali finished a prototype and just
placed on my table. I looked at it. Didnt like it.

I said, No. I showed the model to her and said No.

I need a clip on the back. The edges should be of light colored leather for contrast.

By the evening we grew comfortable. One thing I noticed about her was she did not
sweat while I soaked.

On fourth day she asked Telugu? I said Yes. She said in Tamil that she understands
Telugu but she cant speak Telugu properly. I told her that so is my case with Tamil.

Our deal was I will speak in Telugu and she will speak in Tamil and that we can
work together.

The women did a laborious and boringly repetitive job. The run starts around 9 in
the morning. All they have is a chai around 11. A twenty minute lunch break in the
afternoon and close of the shop at 6 in the evening.

On the next day she looked a little special. She wore a saree. Almost instinctively
I said Wow and smiled at her. She smiled back. She joined her women and they
all giggled.

Even after an hour when I was talking to her about a new design she was giggling.
Why are you laughing?
She looked back at her team. She covered her mouth still giggling. The team was
giggling too.
Whats the matter?
Those two girls think you look like a cinema hero.
Really? I looked at the girls. Those two girls covered their faces.
Stop this nonsense. Razzaq erupted. Get back to work.
But nothing stopped Vaishali from giggling till lunch.

Just around lunch she finished a design and placed it on my table. I didnt like it.
I also wanted to her work on two more prototypes. The lunch bell rang.

I will come back after lunch. She said.
I cant wait. You can bring your lunch here.
She said, No no, I will eat later. I explained my design to her.
She worked on the prototypes. Around four in the evening. One of the prototypes
came out just right.

Good. This is what I want. I said.
I took pictures and uploaded them to my laptop.
What is it? She asked.
Its a computer.
By the way, did you have your lunch?
No.
I am sorry.
No no no. Thats alright.
You can bring your lunch here and have it.
Ok.
Show me your lunch.
It was a double decker. Pickle and rice in one box. Curd rice in the other one.
Thats basically crap. Dont you cook?
She giggled again. She said that she cooked some curry in the morning but after
fixing boxes for her kids and husband nothing was left for her.

I got shocked.
You have kids?
She got shocked.
I am married.
How old are you?
Twenty four.
And you have school going kids? You don’t look like that. You are actually
kind of good looking.
More giggles.
You dont have scars on your stomach.
She was little offended and covered her stomach with her saree.
Go ahead, eat your crap.
Are you married?
No. No girl is interested in me.
You are a liar. Girls will like you.
Aha. How do you know? Do you like me?
Giggle.
Will you marry me?
Shut up. I am married.
Lets see, what is your husband like? Handsome? Smart? Rich?
No. She said. I noticed sadness in her face. I realized she was not comfortable
talking about her husband.
What about your kids? Are they cute?
My son looks like my husband. My daughter is just like me.
Lets keep your daughter. We can sell your son to an orphanage.
She laughed hard for about a minute.
You are crazy.
Where does your husband work?
At the port. But not on all the days.
How much do your earn here?
Eighteen hundred.
Fuck! How much does your husband earn?
He doesnt give us any money.
What is this us thing? What does he do with his money?
He drinks a lot.
Nice pick. Not handsome. Not smart. Not rich. Drinks a lot. Ha!
She got offended again.
Shut up.

Next day I asked her.
So have you thought anything about it?
About what?
About coming with me.
Why are you teasing me?
By the way, I cant marry you. I can keep you.

She put her hands on her hips and gave me a strong stare. She waved her index
finger and uttered something and broke into a wild laugh. She ran and joined
her team.

Vaishali wakes up at 5 in the morning. She fights for four buckets of water with
about 60 other women. She fights for three jugs of drinking water with another
60 women. She wakes and make up her children for school. She manages to
cook a breakfast and lunch meanwhile getting herself ready for the job. She
leaves house around 8 AM. She takes two buses guarding herself from men
from 15 years to 55 years ogling at her,trying to touch her, making comments
at her. She works nine hours non stop at the leather shop. She reaches home
around eight in the night. She prepares dinner for the family. Once or twice
in a week her husband arrives in the midnight. If he arrives in a love making
mode, he rapes her once or twice. If he arrives in an asshole mode, he
beats her.

She is the unsung heroin of the society. She is the working class pillar on
which factories run, institutions spread and intellectuals feed.

Her greatness belittles me even today.

This post is dedicated with immense respect to the great Indian working
class moms.

2006-02-19T19:22:00.000+05:30

Windows

A lovely thing to see:
through the paper window's hole,
the Galaxy.

ISSA

2006-02-19T07:25:00.000+05:30

Cuddlers and cleaners

Let me start with a cliche. There is a lot of difference between having sex
and making love. Girls need love and boys need sex. Thats generalization.
Yeah there are always exceptions. There are different kinds. Let me freeze
time. Rewind. Let us go the micro second during which the guy comes.
Now let me open his mind for us.

Hmmm..that was not bad. Last time it was 7 minutes. I think (looks at watch)
its 9 minutes now. She clearly had two orgasms. Good. Mmm sucks couldnt
try doggie position even this time. Bah. There is always next time. I wonder
how she enjoyed this one.
Did you like that one baby?

I wonder how she liked it. Man! making this condom sink is a tricky job.
Last time it took me three buckets of water. Should I let her use the toilet
first? Let me be a gentleman.
Did you like it? Also, baby, you wanna use the toilet first? (I am a gentleman)
*Disbilief in her eyes* (I cant believe this. He is a pig).

Hmm, now do I wear my underwear and walk to the toilet or just walk naked.
*Looks inside the blanket* Eeew, thats the ugliest thing I had ever seen. Let
me wear my underwear. I hope she liked my undie. They come with clinically
proven anti microbial lining. I wonder how she liked this one.
Sweetie, did you like it?

God! dont tell me, I spent all my money for THIS. Fuck, it lasted less than a
minute. Her boobs are not as big as I thought. Why in the hell did I order that
fancy dinner? We should have settled down with a pizza. For this kind of money,
I can as well fly to Bangkok. Bang Cock. Hey, thats funny. I wonder if she
likes giving head. I mean, if she doesnt, I am ditching this bitch. She doesnt
smell all that good. Btw, I wonder how she liked it.
Did you like it?

Sigh. Wow. That was cool. Btw, this also is the twelfth one this month. Boy am
I on a scoring spree or what? I like her. She is so soft. I like her moans. Hey,
I am getting hard again. Shall I go for the thirteenth? Hey, today is Friday. That
makes it 13th on the Friday. Hey thats funny. Hey, I can call my dick,
Frankie the thirteenth. Hey thats more funny. Btw, I wonder how she
liked it.
Cutie, did you like it?
Yes my man. You were amazing.
Did you know we just scored a dozen? Ha ha.
You are counting?
Yeah!
I hate you.

Should I still keep it inside. She still looks likes she is enjoying it. Let me give
her some more thursts. She is amazing. I love her so much. Yeah, there, she is
coming. Hold it for her boy. Wow, she is amazingly graceful. There she is
opening her eyes. Look at those beautiful eyes. Look at the pure magical love
she has in her eyes. Sigh. Do I deserve her? I am so lucky.
I love her.
I love you. *Kisses on her lips for a long time*
I love you too baby.
Baby, I am never going to let you go. You are mine. *Hugs her tight*
Me too, love. *Gets hugged*
Btw, did you like it?

2006-02-11T18:55:00.000+05:30

cuteoverload.com

2006-02-11T18:47:00.000+05:30

Just in

2006-02-05T12:12:00.000+05:30

Smiley meets Ram Gopal Varma

It was Saturday afternoon. No one was at my office except Zee, Shredder and I.
Zee was lazying in the sofa and I was playing dead with Shredder.
Zee suddenly asked
What are your plans for the evening?
Dunno. If you are staying back, I will have couple of drinks and go home. Else, I will
go home straight and sober.
There is a cocktail dinner at Taj Krishna. You want to join?
No. No way.

The day before I bought a key chain with glowing LEDs. I was showing it to
Shredder and then hiding it. He gets frustrated pretty fast when he is losing.
So he was begging me to show that zing zing thing to him.

Zee said, Hey Ravi just called. I need to go to the party.
Who is Ravi?
Ravi Teja.
Why is Ravi Teja attending this party?
You are crazy or what? It is his party. Its got something to do with his latest
movie Shock. Ram Gopal Varma will be there too.
Gee Zee. Can I join?
Sure you can. But you need to take a bath. Lately you smell like a dog.

In the shower I suspected that Jyothika might attend the party too and did my
Smileys Quick Fix Ab exercise (Just in case). I wore jeans, Calvin Klein T and my
new shiny metal Espirit watch. (I wrote the previous sentence just to tell you about
my new watch. It rocks. My friend loveAll gifted that watch to me two weeks back).

On our way we picked Dagger and reached Taj.
It turned out to be an audio function with cocktails and dinner later.

This sucks man. An audio function? Dagger got frustrated.

There were the usuals. Puri Jagannath, Raghavendra Rao, Suresh babu, Rajamouli
etc. But nothing prepared me for the arrival of Ram Gopal Varma. There was certain
uneasiness till then. With Ramu’s arrival the whole auditorium got charged up. He
was mobbed by the press and everyone from Tollywood wanted to shake his hands
and to get a picture with him. There is an enigmatic energy surrounding him. He was
charismatic in his own way and knew his way through.

Audio function was over in a swift fifteen minutes. Everyone mobbed the bar
counter.There are always three kinds of people in this type of parties.

Celebrities.
Hey-I-Know-Celebrities.
Hey-I-Know-a-Hey-I-Know-Celebrities.

Zee and I managed drinks and some quick snacks. We secured a comfortable
area to stand too. Dagger, Kyonki and Rocky joined us. Soon Ravi Teja joined us.
(Dagger, Zee and Kyonki are good friends of Ravi Teja, the hero of the film).

Ravi is energy personified. There is no difference off screen. My eyes were rather
fixed on an itemNumberBomb. She did a number in the film. There was another
beautiful female who was a little on the plump side in a bright red saree. She was
sexy. She was also shy. Clearly not from the industry.

A lot of young girls were taking pics with Ravi and his autographs. Bomb was
with an oldie. There were going everywhere together.

I wonder how much bomb charges for a night.
30-50k. But she must have been already booked. Dagger came in handy.

By the time I finished my second Bacardi rest of the dudes finished four. Most of the
folks finished their dinner and left. We got a little high. I spotted this dude Jeeva.
(Chandraswamy in the movie Sarkar).

Zee, lets talk to Jeeva.
Jeeva was gulping whisky. I walked to Jeeva and shook his hands.
We want to talk to you. As a matter of fact, we would be cool if you join us.
Jeeva joined us. Zee started.

You wont believe what I am going to say.
Jeeva looked curious and puzzled at the same time.
Whatever I am going to say is going to come from my heart. Not from my mouth.
Say it.

Zee is a fan of yours. I lied.
Zee thumped his chest and then placed his hand on Jeevas shoulder.
Eyes. Your eyes man. Your eyes. Zee remained silent after that.

Thats all Zee wanted to say. I helped Jeeva out of his open mouth.
You know what is the thing that we remember about the movie Sarkar?
What?
You.
You know what is the first thing that strikes whenever someone mentions
Krishna Vamsi?
What?
You.
You know a villain who can do comedy as well as a rape?
Don’t know.
You.

Dagger loved what was happening. He joined. My grandma used to tell me that
artists are Gods children and rest of us is adopted. Your life is blessed.

Jeeva got fully charged up. He started talking about divinity in acting and how his
job of acting is his puja to the God.

Sir, long time back I saw an illegal clipping of a Malayalam movie. It was a clip of
you raping a girl in a hotel room. It looked so original. I asked.

Jeeva gave me a Chandraswamy look.

Meanwhile Ramu walked by. A girl who looked like just out of her teens was waiting
to meet him. I was observing that girl. One of Telugu artists spoke to her at length
before that.

Meanwhile Zee caught Lawrence. (Composer of Chiranjeevi’s famous Veena step,
Director of Mass and Style).

You wont believe what I am going to say.
Because whatever I am going to say is going to come out of my heart.
Not from my mouth.

Lawrence looked at me for rescue. I winked.

Zee thumped his chest. I am fan of Chiranjeevi. I saw your film.
You are a fan of Chiranjeevi too. We are brothers.

Meanwhile Ramu was getting physical with the girl. He put his hand around her
shoulder. Another Telugu star (Cant disclose the name) approached the girl and
whispered something in her ear. She looked a little nervous and not really into it.

I just couldnt stand it anymore. I walked to Ramu and looked into his eyes and said,

Hi Ramu, I am Smiley. I love your films. I am so glad I met you in person. Then I
looked at the girl and winked at her. She looked at Ramu. I shook Ramu’s hands.
He just said, Thanks. He was oozing power that was intimidating. I walked back.

Zee and Dagger were explaining Gist about how they have got rights to a dinner
with Shah Rukh Khan and wondering how to cash it. Gist was assuring them that
if they can pull Preity Zinta he can sell it out.

The girl was wearing a sleeveless. Her skin still has the radiance of a girl and her
chin is still filled with baby fat. Ramus seasoned hand on that shoulder, sucking
her into the matrix, looked like a metaphor to me.

Bomb left. Red saree left. Teenage girls were going gung ho taking pictures
with starts.

Its going to be a long night. I thought. I waved my hand for an extra drink.

2006-02-04T15:55:00.000+05:30

Hoot

Hooters in India .
Auuuuuuuuuwooooooooo.
For us Southies, even their 911 chicken wings wont do.

Ta

Ta is the sound you make by pressing your tongue to your upper
jaw and releasing it at once.

Ta is also the sound you automatically make when you eat the lemon
from a lemon pickle.

This morning my mom made two chapati, cabbage curry, spinach dal,
rasam, pulihore and pongal, along with carrot pickle for my meal. I ended
the meal with an extra helping of curds and pulihore. When I thought it was
over, my mom gave me pineapple pieces cut like crop circles.

When she asked me about how the meal was, I said
Ta.

2006-01-31T10:04:00.000+05:30

Huh

Not believing in anything I just sit,
listening to my breathing
After thirty years
It still goes in and out.

Albert Coelho

Addendum

Huuuuhhhh!

Reading the mornin paper while I sit,
Flashes in the mind of one dim twisted wit
Thirty years and still
What goes in as food comes out as shit

Two Penny

H(M)uah!!

and in a voice that sounded faraway and strange she asked
oh shitting stranger,
how many miles more to Utopia?
Utopia is this land of dreams i hear
oh stop reading the paper dear
how many more miles to Utopia?

nonick
ps: love u too

2006-01-31T09:54:00.000+05:30

Cheeky

2006-01-27T12:15:00.000+05:30

Yoda Iyer

Here is how to draw him

2006-01-21T13:49:00.000+05:30

Dumb logic of the year

Just read on Megha's blog about this design nomination stuff. Hilarious post.
Not the post. But the logic of the nomination. Some stuff about Indiblog
awards is silly (I appreciate their effort. But lets call a dud a dud.)

1) They talked more about programming than nominations and content
2) They are proud about the Script they wrote that let people vote than
voting patterns and gaurding the privacy of the voters
3) Categories basically are silly and not comprehensive

Finally, if what I read on Megha's blog is true (read), well there is no point
in me rambling about it because I totally agree with her (whoever this
Megha chick is).

So here is my award to the Jury of Indibloggies
Dumb ass logic of the year award goes to Indibloggies.org for saying
that 'People who borrow (steal) templates from public domain are eligible to
nominate for a category called Best Design'.

Added later: Since Desipundit.com is the default pit shop for every
Indiblogger I propose Desipundit.com to come up with hosting the awards.
I will sponsor the award of 'Two day vacation with Smiley at Kulu Manali'
for the best female humour category.

2006-01-18T14:36:00.000+05:30

At the other end of your blanket

Rated: Yawn

Just with in couple of days of Shredders arrival, my fantasies of my dog
fetching me beer and peanuts got distorted with lots of reality. Actually,
got replaced by, me cleaning his feces and puke, running behind him,
hiding my-socks, shoes, cell phone charger, coffee mugs, cushions, pillows,
(re) making the tent for him, making sure not stepping on him and on
his urine.

By fifth day he looked like a prodigal child. He doesnt respond to my calls.
He doesnt listen to me. All he does is eat, shit, shred and bite. Of course,
sleep. He absolutely refuses to sleep alone. He bothers Srinu during the
nights. (Srinu eventually shifted into Kitchen). That’s when my nephew
came to my house, saw shredder, fell in love with him and said,
I want him. I said, Take him.

The next day, I gladly packed the tent, the food, the toys and Shredder
and knocked on Sillys door. Silly looked perplexed. Here, your son wanted
him. I efficiently and quickly tied Shredder in her balcony, gave her
instructions and left. Actually I left to a different city to attend an annual
meet. I came to know that Shredder accommodated Silly well and became
a family member in just two days. According to Silly, he is the nicest dog.
But things were not destined to happen that way. Someone close to Silly
died the next day and the entire family had to leave and I got a call.
(I was in a different city). I called couple of my friends and instructed them
to pick this funny looking black patched dog from my sisters place and keep
him with a family for couple of days. Thats what they did.

For the next two days, Shredder didnt eat a single grain. Not even his
favourite Royal Canin. He cried through day and night. I got more than two
dozen calls because he was also going through diarrhea.

I drove back. Collected him and brought him home. I hand fed him. He ate.
That, some one so small and selfish could distinguish who was feeding him,
kind of surprised me. Shredder, kind of won my respect.
May be it was curiosity.

With in just four five hours Shredder was truly home. I know a thing or two
about animal stress. So, I understood. Shredder continued to bite and rule my
house. Unfortunately for him, I read couple of articles on the net about
alpha male and show him who is the boss stuff. On that night, the next day
morning, for a full four hours I tried to tell him that I am the boss. Some how
he didnt get it (Looking back, I didn’t get some of what he was telling). He
continued to fail to understand not to crap or pee inside the house. His worst
nightmare came true that night. I took him inside my bedroom, took my
leather belt out and shouted to him. Listen. He ignored me. His ears still
stood out in pride. Whack, came down the belt. His first reaction was
disbelief. He is a furless dog. It must have hurt a lot. Listen. I shouted.
Whack. He gained his senses and ran to a corner. You will go nowhere.
I shouted. I held his collar and dragged him to the middle of the room.
Listen. I shouted. His ears were in a submissive mode this time. We stared
at each other for a long time. You will listen to me from now on. I told him.
And you will respond. I added.

Things changed a lot after that. Within two days he learned not to pee or poo
inside the house. But he still continued to bite and ignore calls. One of his
favourite spots is the my travel bag that lies under my bed. He loves
crawling into that corner and sleeping on it.

Soon I realized that he is actually a smart dog. He has an amazing range
of low grunts and whines. Remember, he is a French Bull dog. He doesnt
bark much. He makes this Weee…weeee…which can be translated to
Untie me, I want to play. He makes this Hissss weee hisss weee..which can
be translated to Stop tickling me. Ha ha ha.

He makes this hwwwiieeee….Please dont disturb me, I am sleeping.

He also has a wide range of looks. Sometimes his looks can be spooky.
He also has a wide range of body expressions. The best is when he walks
to you and rolls on his back to expose his belly and looks at you.
He is saying, Yo, scratch my belly.

It struck me a little later, but I really didnt understand why we are
supposed to be more intelligent than dogs. I seriously dont think so.

We formed a true bond when Shredder got super sick. He got food poisoned.
He became a skeleton in two days. I let him sleep with me those two days
and talked to him a lot. Shreddy, you are strong boy. Its alright. You will
be fine. He used to sigh with lots of self pity in his eyes. It took him a week
to recover.

Another threat to our relation came from the management of the
apartment. They said pets are not allowed in the apartment. Now,
shredder stays in my office. Shredder misses me a lot. I miss him a lot.
I never disciplined him beyond, Sit, Stop.

Guess what? I am moving next month. Yeah, to accommodate this funny
looking dog in my life.

2006-01-11T21:51:00.000+05:30

A note

She has these incredible sexy chocoloty browny edges on her lips.
Her saliva is so neutral you can drink her. Probe her under her
tongue and drink her.

I rested one of my hands on her plump rump. Then squeeezed it.
She steamed. I took some liberty and ran my hand over her breast
to feel her hardened nipple. I rested there and squeezed her.

She grew hesitant and said, No.
What do you mean by No?

No, you cant do that.
What do you mean by I cant do that?

We can kiss on lips. Thats all.
(My hand still on her breast) That sucks. But logically it shouldnt matter.
Took some more liberty and kissed her on her nipple.

No, we cant do this. We can kiss, though.

Note to self: The white Jockey Elance you are wearing is not exactly
your luckiest wear.
Another note to self: Girls are so complicated.

2006-01-10T08:07:00.000+05:30

Of Macs, Modi, Mutton and Monkeys

Can an announcement last more than 90 minutes? It could. Says
Thinksecret.com guessing on Apple's traditional Steve Jobs
presentation thats going to happen today. So whats being churned
by the rumour mills?

1) Intel Based Apple Tops
2) Cheaper Shuffle
3) Media Centric Mac Mini (Mounted on Front Row)
4) Several major media deals

**

I threw a gala party at a place called Alankrita yesterday. Honouring me,
everyone had their dinner in a bowl and with a fork. (Thats trademark
Smiley). This is what we had Rasam+Rice+Mutton Rogam Josh.
The ones who didnt know the art of eating rasam with fork drank
straight away from the bowls.

Thats not the point. There was a discussion about Narendra Modi Vs
Rajashekhar Reddy. Actually there was no discussion. Unanimously we
all agreed that Modi is the best in India. (Hard to swallow for the so called
secular Indians, but I havent met an average Indian who doesnt like Modi.)
Thats not the point either. The intellectual depth of the conversation got
me clean bowled. By the way, did I mention the capuccino Hukka?

**

Last week, during one of those lazy afternoons I returned home from office
to take a nap. While dozing I heard next door kid crying (both crying and
shouting) "Uncle, Uncle". I wondered what was happening and went to her
rescue. Standing at my door was a six year old, soaked in her tears. In front
her is a baby monkey making faces at her and scaring her.

I hugged her and stomped the baby monkey. "There is another one inside my
house. My mama is not at home. I am scared". I liked her honesty in admitting
that she is scared. She stayed with me untill her mom returned.

She revealed few things (kid notes) about me. Kids in the apartment are scared
of me. They like my TV. They love shredder. (All the kids routinely play on my
floor). Now she thinks I am 'good'. (Silly girls). 'You are good only' with
vigorous head shake.

Next day she introduced me to her friends. 'Monkey Uncle'. Stupid girls.

2006-01-09T09:29:00.000+05:30

Delirium
Its a go

I stopped walking.

What is that?
That strange shining white light object?
Yeah
Its light.
Light?
Yeah, we are at the end of the tunnel.

For a long time I didnt say a thing. The emotion was overwhelming.
I looked at my bloody feet. Felt my wounded soul. The sense of relief
wasnt obvious. Not as obvious as I thought it would be.

I sat down in the mud. I silently started crying, within.
He left me alone for sometime. After a while, he returned with a huge
smile and asked.

Why are you crying?
Because its a Delirium post.

We laughed. I hugged him.

What do I do now?
Keep walking.

2006-01-06T16:16:00.000+05:30

Know Thyself
The net.

When Junior entered the room, Master Yoda was licking his armpits.
Junior greeted Master. Oh the one, whose pits are clean chits, Greetings.
Master greeted back. Oum.

Oh the master of masters, the one whose wisdom guided Adam to slow
down, I have a question.

Ask.

Its shredder. Shredder shredded the known world to bring in a new
order, new kind, new peace and boundless hapiness to this new world.
But oh master, there is one thing that puzzles me about Shredder.
Why is he always trying to bite his own ass? The word in the woods is
that it has to do something with the last Buddha.

Master Yoda's pupils grew larger. Junior, the last Buddha is a myth.
All Shredder is trying to do is sniff his last meal.

Master, oh whose ear wax can light a thousand clouds, I know when
you lie.

Master Yoda sighed deeply. Alright junior. The truth, I warn, must be
contained. I will tell you why Shredder is trying to bite his own ass.

It was a different world. It was a different kind. It was a different master.
Humans they were. They called it the information age. The age of
knowledge. They truely believed that they were destined for greater
greatness, because they harnessed information. It was called the Net.

The last of Buddha called it Being or collective consciousness. The last
Buddha also warned, Thought alone, when it is no longer connected
with the much vaster realm of consciousness quickly becomes barren,
insane and destructive.

But the humans didnt think so, they integrated net into themselves
and called it Bionet.
They thought
harnessing collective intelligence and real-time leveraging of the
two-way communication ubiquotously
will finally make man himself, the God.

But then Shredder was born.

continued...

Know Thyself II
I shred.

2006-01-06T08:11:00.000+05:30

Blog awards everywhere

Indibloggers are nominated. Except for few deserving, its a disappointing
list. Is Gaurav's blog a good blog or a popular blog? I would like to fire the
bench and appoint myself the supreme. Here are my nominees.

Male Humour
Penny, Yogu, Daman (by the way they are not blogging anymore)

Female Humour
Alpha or Megha? Lets schedule a cat fight and see who wins. (Psst thats just
to enjoy the fight. My pick is Alpha. Dont tell this to Megha)

Travel Blog
Finn Times (Sigh. The full moon.)

BNOUBA (Blogs no one understands but appreciates)
Ph, ::M::

Default Nominees
Patrix, Desipundit

Sexy Mom who blogs
(Hey send me some pics here)

Most redundant post of the year
Patrix's 2005 review of his posts post

Most grammatically correct blog
Absolute Lee

2006-01-05T12:05:00.000+05:30

La Vada

Rated:Gross

It happened a long time back. We entered second year during our
Engineering years and were bloody ravenous to rag junior. (We got so
thoroughly ragged during our first year that we were in a revenge mode).
A lot fun stuff happens during ragging. But this one lasted so long.

We asked a junior to attend a greeting formality at our room. When he
entered we asked him to perform a mono and mime act.

Do you know how to eat a pussy?
Don’t know sir.
Well, well, we very well know that you know. You have two options.
Either perform or die.

He started performing. He was surprisingly good.

With little encouragement from our side,
Yeah, you can imagine a table. No, no, first undress her. Yeah, she can
wear a sari. Wow man, go ahead. No you cant fuck her,
the show went well.

A little later another junior entered the room. I got a little curious and
told Junior2, Dude, Junior1 is going to perform some stuff now. You
have to tell us what he is doing.

Junior1, start all over again, No sounds please.

Junior1 promptly did his act.

So, Junior2, tell me what he was doing.

Without any hesitation, Junior 2 said,
Sir, Junior1 went to a Udipi hotel, ordered a plate Vada and ate it.

We all laughed for two full days.
We promptly nicknamed Junior2 La Vada. Junior2, for the rest of his four
years was fondly called Lavada ga.

2006-01-04T12:17:00.000+05:30

Alpha's new post rocks

I just love this girl's sense of humor.

2006-01-03T20:44:00.000+05:30

Spartan kicks ass

Bungie got this cool idea of incorporating a Spartan (of Halo fame), a female
Spartan in Dead or Alive 4. For all of us who are used to hald naked chicks
in Dead or Alive a Spartan I should say is too clothed.

2006-01-03T12:43:00.000+05:30

Flowers falling and stuff

Author:nonick
(Yeah that nonick)

pink paperthin blosoms of the May tree
add something to my busy mornings

falling flowers
no purpose whatever
add cheer
to vacant thougths.

i need to fall down with the dying blossoms
gently without noise
on undisturbed earth
and with a fragrance
without obstruction
light up my corner of life's canvas

2006-01-03T08:19:00.000+05:30

Morning Saga

Yesterday I realized that , though I lead mostly an unorganized and
hour by hour life, I have a 'routine' in the mornings.

I prefer getting up early. I dont get lazy in the bed. If I am working out
(which happens rarely) I get up at 5:15 AM. Else it is 6:30 ish. I prefer
waking up to see two newspapers on my recliner or bed.

Times of India, Economic Times. I read, Speaking Tree, Business Section,
Sports columns and couple of comic strips. It is Economic Times that I read
paying more attention. All this happens while having a big mug of Coffee.

Then I walk to my laptop, to check (in that order) Gmail, Businessweek.com,
Rediff Biz, Business Section of Samachar (which I love), Bloglines (Desipundit
and Boing Boing are a must), my office mail. Couple of random sites like
Yahoo movies (I always keep a tab on Box Office collections), Amazon, Wired
Google news etc.

Then its Loo time. I always have a copy of 'Business Week' in my Loo. I like
reading on the pot. I prefer to brush and take bath immediately after that.

By the time I am picking my clothes to wear I usually am hungry. I prefer to
have my meals early in the morning. Having breakfast and lunch is not for me.
My breakfast is a big meal. I get cranky when I am hungry. I am not at peace.

After having meal I rest in the recliner watching silly stuff like Oprah,
Animal Planet for about 10-15 minutes. Sometimes I take a quick nap
(10-15 minutes). By then my mind is usually hyper with tasks and
problems and to-dos.

Only then, only then, do I make calls or take calls and start yet another
day. :-)

2005-12-31T09:01:00.000+05:30

Last night I scored.

I don’t remember when the last time I played cricket was. I think it must be
something like a decade back. I don’t play Tennis either. I can play Volley ball
for hours. (I am not sure if I can still claim that). The thing is, my knee doesnt
let me to run on hard surfaces.

Many a times there were opportunities to play cricket. I was always
apprehensive about fielding, running and catching and stuff. Last week
some dudes who I remotely know through my friend Zee, booked an entire
ground for a day and night match. I hesitantly asked them if I can play.

Sorry, we have already formed teams. Captain Kiran informed.
How many are there in your team. Zee enquired.
Eleven. Kiran.
Make it Twelve. Smiley is playing. Zee concluded.

Twelve we were. Before getting into the field I told Kiran that its been a
decade since I played this game.

Can you atleast stand for 25 overs? Kiran asked.
I can try.

He put me on the offside.
It was already dark and the stadium dudes switched on the flood lights.

Zee meanwhile mixed a bottle of vodka with sprite and water for me.
I ran back, stuffed my right pocket with Haldirams mixture and came back
to my position to field (with the bottle).

I was a little nervous worrying about me misfielding. It did happen.
The batsman swung his bat, before I realized, the ball came running
towards me.

According to Brian Green, the probability for it to happen is infinitesimally
small.But it happened. The ball just when it was about to close in my palms
entered a new dimension, got disappeared and reappeared in a fraction of
seconds at the boundary line.

Thats ok Smiley. Zee encouraged me from the stands.
Smiley, can you move back to the boundary line? Kiran appeared.

Sure. Within no time I actually got comfortable with the whole thing. I kept on
sipping my vodka. When the ball came towards me the next time, I actually
held it and threw it right on the spot to the keeper.

Kiran suddenly appeared out of nowhere and asked, Can you bowl?

I took that question quiet literally and told him,
Of course I can, what do you think? Fucker!

Go bowl. He threw the ball at me.
Dude, I can bowl. But I don’t think I can bowl.

I did some practice rotating arms suff and tried to remember my bowling
action. It was a white leather ball. Umpire asked me for the guard.
I gave him a blank look.

The first ball was such a wide that the batsman made fun of me by
running after that ball. The second ball was a good one. But Umpire declared
it a noball. He was eighteen years something dude.

Dude, Umpire! Didnt Kiran tell you about my knee injury?
No.
Well, you cant declare nobes for the fucking balls that I bowl.
Take a shorter runup and no nobes for you.

The next ball directly went to the keeper’s glove in a semi circular arc.
Nice throw. My keeper encouraged me.

Suddenly my basics flooded back I bowled four decent balls. Actually the
fourth one was a snick and keeper failed to catch it. After I finished the over
I ran to Kiran to give him a high five. Dude, I finished the over.

They smashed 148 in 25 overs.

I finished my vodka and sat in the stands watching my team’s batting.
Zee appeared suddenly and asked me, Why are you not batting?

Come on, I cant bat. I don’t think I can even see the ball. Besides I just had
a quarter Vodka.
You are batting. Kiran! Smiley is next.
Well, Hari is next. Kiran said.

I am stopping this match. Zee ran into the field. We pulled him back.
The thing is, I never batted with pads on. They gave me full gear. After
wearing the guard, pads, thigh pad and gloves, I refused to wear a helmet.

Thats not for me. I said.

With the gear on, I was little awkward. Kiran sensed it and said,
here, Let me bowl some practice balls for you. So, in the stands, I practiced.
Someone got out. Kiran got into the field. A little later, another one got out.
It was my turn. I walked calmly towards the crease. Took my stance. Bowler
bowled. Before I realized that he bowled, the ball was collected by the keeper.
Everyone oohed because the ball missed my ear by an inch.

Kiran walked to me and said,
Dont try anything fancy. Just enjoy the show. Keep batting. Dont get out.
I made a note. Instead of simply watching the bowlers action, react to it.

Keeper shouted to the bowler. Straight onto the wickets. We will get him.
You will get my dick. Mother fucker. I told him.
I ended up driving the next ball beautifully onside for a four.

Sometimes, after couple of drinks, I get really calm and focused. After getting
drunk, no one can beat me on my Xbox.

Instead of being a nervous wreck, I strangely ended up being focused on that
night. I played for the rest of the overs, remained a notout batsman and scored
some fifteen plus.

The best part was, for one of the offside balls that I missed; I walked down to
the umpire and told him that I would have declared it a wide.
He declared it a wide.

After the match, Kiran said, with little practice, I can come handy as a batsman.

That night I fantasized a glorious innings by me in the finals of 2007 world cup.

2005-12-15T10:25:00.000+05:30

Kong is King

The wait is over. The reports are in.
Yeah, he is gonna rule the box.

2005-12-01T08:01:00.000+05:30

Hello..mike testing..1,2,3.

Thanks to the broadband connection at home and lots of free time.
I am suddenly brimming with stuff to say. If I ever get enough
free time this is what I would like to talk (type) about

1) Green Apples

An illustrated story starring Smiley, Leela, Shreddy the Shredder, Coo and
Boo.

2) Joie.de.vivre

3) Where have all the chicks gone wrong?

4) The art of giving

5) Strategy and Vision

6) I am wrong. Whats wrong with that?

2005-11-30T15:44:00.000+05:30

Eats , Sh*ts and bites

2005-11-28T16:21:00.000+05:30

Numbers

For some one (me) who loves numbers this was heavenly.

As many as 3000000 Xbox 360s will be sold this quarter.
Close to 10000000 game titles will be sold for Xbox alone.

Apple is poised to sell something like 37000000 iPods by the
end of this year. So far it has managed 17917000 iPods and
is storing 19083000 iPods for this holiday season.

Its know as the Threshold or Yield in Physics, Halo Effect in
Economics. I have a lot to comment on iPod and its ROKR.
To me this is the most important fusion. Probably the foundation
of Web 2.0.

Harry Potter ended up collecting more than $200000000 at
the box office in just ten days. If the book sales arent mind
blowing enough, wait for the total gross and the later DVD sales.

Sigh. If feels so good when someone is selling.

2005-11-28T16:12:00.000+05:30

Annoying Thing

A ding ding ding ding dididing ding bing bing pscht,

Dorhrm bom bom bedom bem bom bedom bom bum ba ba bom bom,

Bouuuuum bom bom bedahm, Bom be barbedarm bedabedabedabeda

Bbrrrrrimm bbrrrrramm bbbrrrrrrrrraammmmm ddddddraammm,

Bah bah baah baah ba wheeeeeee-eeeee-eeeee!

If you had enough of this annoying thing (Crazy Frog of A ding ding ding) you
can now kill him at killcrazyfrog.net. If you have no clue about what I am
talking, then, here.

2005-11-23T11:01:00.000+05:30

Bre Bre Bre he he aake.

Just returned back from a three day Tirupati trip. I havent reached
Hyd yet. Halted in Vijayawada. I am already missing Shredder.

So I asked Zee to hit the road and bring shredder along with him.
Amazingly, Zee obliged. Now I cant wait to freak out my mom with
Shredder. I hope Shreddy learned a trick or two to make my mom go
eeeeeeew.....eeeeeeew.....eeeeeew. (Like, Shreddy can eat a newspaper
and can puke it out whenever you ask him to).
(My mom is not exactly a dog person).

2005-11-19T07:03:00.000+05:30

His Stuff

My other best friend Zee bought lots of stuff for Shreddy. We made him
a recliner (Zee and I, after three rounds of Brandy, swore that Shredder
is our brother and that he shall be treated like one.)

A tent. Carpet (inside the tent) and bath towels.
Toys. Bones. That so called Recliner.

While Shreddy was busy shredding the gift wraps and polyethene bags, we
pitched up his stuff. He slept in his tent yesterday night. He is already
hiding his stuff in there.

I ended up making lots of changes to the house. In order to understand
Shreddy I had to think at his "level". We taped all the running wires to the
walls. Had to make sure that he cant grab any of the stuff thats not his.
No simple task. Let me tell ya.

Yesterday two of my software friends dropped in for a friday evening party.
They were surprised to see Shredder. Initially they were excited and one of
them promised a silver dollar chain as a gift for Shreddy. With a Silver Dollar
hanging, he would rock, we thought.

But later they grew a little uncomfortable and watched me in almost disgust,
talking to Shreddy, kissing him and fondling him. Lucky for them, because I
had to sleep (pretend) next to Shreddy in his tent to put him (other wise
excited) to sleep at 12:15 in the night. By then they already left.

2005-11-18T12:39:00.000+05:30

My new best friend

Dude, where is the remote?? and Hey! What happened to my tail?

This dude arrived from Russia a day before...and to my place, yesterday.
He is a French Bull Dog. According to the breeder, he is the fifth spotted
French Bull Dog in India and first in Andhra.

Yeah, you guessed it. After learning that, the first thing I asked the breeder
who imported him for me, was,...Hmmm...then whats my buddy gonna do
during the mating season? I was assured that by then there would be atleast
four females imported by him to Andhra.

So far, he hasnt barked even once. He just barely whined when I threw him in
the air to scare him. It took him couple of hours to sniff around my place. Once
he got settled, he suddenly got hyper active. Within notime I named him
"Shredder" because by then he shredded everything made out of paper.

He chewed on my shoes, peeed on my Sub woofer, shat at five strategic
locations, bit my hand and simply refused to sleep in the kitchen and to be tied
up. There was no way I could have my food and beer in the evening.

Its only a matter of time before he eats up my telephone cable and signs on my
recliner and make the wires behind the TV his bone hideout place.

In the morning when he woke up, he demanded lots of attention. He watched
me wearing my trousers with such an amazement that even I had to wonder.

This morning, while I was reading my main edition, he ate my sports edition.
I think, life as I knew it is pretty much over.

Now, all I need to do is name him. :-)

2005-11-14T12:36:00.000+05:30

Just In

The elegant Universe by Brian Greene
The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond (one of my favs)

2005-11-08T15:06:00.000+05:30

Sold

Halo Script

..is ready (for the movie) and is sold to Universal for $5M and 10% Gross.
This script is further sold to Peter Jackson who intends to produce this
movie. According to a review, the script rocks.

Quiet predictably, the movie opens on Master Chief's visor.

We open on a SPARTAN HELMET, and a REFLECTION in its visor.

In the reflection, we see buildings. The design and architecture of the
buildings tell us this is not Earth. The suns are low in the sky, and bathing
the landscape blood red.

We snap back to show the full figure of the SPARTAN and folks we are
introduced to MASTER CHIEF (MC for short for the rest of this review).
Seven foot tall, clad head to toe in MJOLNIR armor, holding a
MA5B ASSAULT rifle

"What are my orders"? by Master Chief will be the opening dialogue.

India Vs China Vs World Vs India-China

Thats interesting.

Illusion of Gravity

Gravity, too, would be part of the illusion: a force that is not present in the
two-dimensional world but that materializes along with the emergence of
the illusory third dimension....(needs subscription)

Blogquotes

I never met a Calorie I did not like !
Swathi

He just rubbed my belly as if it was his.
Gabby

Like the time he told me, “You know, the Europeans are very sexyful.”
I kept a stony face, silently groaning and thinking, spare me your conquests.
Leela

This was to be my first proper date. It was important. He was important.
And I was nervous as hell.
Ash

2005-11-04T10:11:00.000+05:30

Bring home a bahu. Babu! III

I understand your concern. Yeah. I have traveled far and wide. Met people from all kind of tribes, countries, continents, religions and customs. Met the most beautiful women on this planet and the most intelligent ones too.

Moms widened their eyes.

At the end I have realized that I need a cheerful companion in my life. Everything else is c in a plus b square. Hmm..I don’t know how to define cheerful companion. See, its basically two people living together and working together. Together is good when there is a common goal. Together is good when one make compromises for the other. Together is good when one knows their weaknesses and respects others strengths. Like the way Vinny and I work together. I love women who enjoy life and who can accommodate people. Someone who understands and respects my goals. Someone who can enjoy a coke, pop corn and watching Finding Nemo. Someone who can accommodate me. That’s it I guess.

Moms fell silent.

Anything else?

Yeah. I like husky voice and light brown eyes.

We all fell silent for a minute. The evening breeze added certain heaviness to the situation. Younger one started looking at the coconut precariously hanging from the tree and my parked car below it.

A little later, suddenly, one thing added to the other. The matrix suddenly revealed itself. A wave of comprehension and joy overwhelmed me. It swam upcurrent and came bursting out of my mouth and eyes.

Do you know anyone with these qua…

I cut my mom and said.

I know who it is mom. Rani Mukharjee.

Rani who? Chorus.

Rani Moo..Khar..Zee.

I knew it. I knew it. I knew you are in love with someone. Who is she? Where does she live? What does she do? Younger one hugged me with unlimited joy and streams of tears.

Bhale. Bahle. Seeghramevakalyanapraaptirastu. Elder revealed her pearls quiet uncharacteristically and took her sutram out and kissed it.

Bring home Rani. Babu!

I will.

Moms blessed me with their hearts filled with joy and radiant hope.

Next day morning Younger one called me to remind of the pressure cooker. She also told me that the night before moms thanked Goddess Durga for revealing the girl on such an auspicious moment. She also told me that the moment I took my car out the coconut fell. It’s a good sign. I am going to get what I want. She told.

I am sure. But I am a little worried soul. Because, I am planning on buying a Great Dane at the end of the month. I already named him Buddy. And I am not sure if Rani likes pets or not.

2005-11-03T12:10:00.000+05:30

Bring home a bahu. Babu! II

Ok. There is Gabby. But I think she will be too pregnant for the marriage and these stupid international lines wont let her fly.

Moms looked at each other wondering.

Who else do I know? Aah. Nonick.

No, what?

No nick. That’s all I know about her. She lives in my comment box. Whether its haloscan or blogger.

Halo what?

I ignored the question and continued.

She is a process oriented chick. She wants processes in place for everything you do and she wants it documented. Probably she will demand recipes for all the cooking you do and processes defined in steps for all the recipes.

I didn’t get you.

Ok if she ever catches you stealing money from Dad’s pocket she would demand it documented on a paper.

My mom turned pale.

Then there is Ph. Aaauuuuuummmmm. But she is too complicated. Half the time you wouldn’t understand her.

Like?

Aaaargh. Cant you handle anything without an example? I am getting tired of this. Ok, like, if she catches you stealing she would calmly leave the room and write something in her diary.

What will she write?

Something like

Naked hands frisk loaded trousers.
Adroit fingers find their way to leather cleavages.
Wallets empty themselves to pregnant jackets.

What the f**& was that? The younger mom looked at me in bewilderment.

Didn’t I tell you? Ok, leave it, leave it. Ok I admit. I am moving with the wrong crowd. My only bet was Patrix and he fell in love with Asterix. Chee chee, he fell in love with Ash.

Moms started crying again. You need to settle down son. Otherwise you are gonna lose it. They chorused.

Babu! Do you know what you want? Atleast?

I thought for a long time. Long enough for the elder one to start her prayer again.

Mangalam. Managalam.

I think I like Bengalis.

Bengalis?

Yeah, there is something about them. I don’t know. They are so vibrant. There is a certain radiance of sexuality and you can feel they are content, calm and kind, I don’t know. I like the way they wear their sarees. I like the way they mix traditional tops with jeans. I like the bags they carry. I like their sweets. I like their food. They are ideologically challenged. But I don’t think girls are. They have this strange gift of looking modern and yet make you feel home.

So you like Bengalis?

Yeah.

Mangalam. Mangalam.

I think the first I look at is a girl’s smile. I love the ones that have a pleasant effect. Not exactly cute but pleasant. You know the kind of smile Gello has.

Aham. Om. Mangalam. Mangalam.

This is strange but true. I thought I love fair skin and cant stand dark skin. * Concluded during the early teens after watching a western blue film and a desi blue* But over the years I ended up falling in love with , mmm, how do I explain? Take any shade from brown and what we generally call fair skin, not the Scandinavian paleness, and add cheesy translucent vibrant energy to it. Make it sensitive and soft. That’s my girl.

Moms looked at each other and checked their hands and stomachs.

Elder raised her pitch. Mangalam. Aha, mangalam, oho mangalam.

Another thing. I think I have an inclination towards chubby ones rather than tall and slim ones. Between medium and slim I would go for medium. Not the American kind of Big but the Indian kind of healthy medium.

This brought a huge cheer on the oversized elder one. Her eyes glowed and she placed her palms on my cheeks and said. Thadaasthu.

But my mom looked little concerned.

Have you thought anything about the girl?

To be continued..

2005-11-01T11:09:00.000+05:30

Joie De Damaka

Dear Children of the land,

No, you dont have be sad because terrorists killed your fellow citizens.
You have a right to be happy. Dont wear black badges.

No, you dont have to save the environment by not firing crackers.
Those adults dont know what they are talking about.
Fire as much stuff as you can.

No, you are not creating sound pollution.
No one is asking jet planes to stop flying.
Buy the loudest ones and break all decible laws.

No, you are not wasting money by burning crackers.
Poor people can be helped. Not with your money. Definitely not tonight.
Make your parents spend. Burn holes in their pockets.

No, you are not putting weight.
Thats for grown ups.
Eat as much as can.

No, you are not putting yourself at risk.
Safety is for wussies.
Be adventurous. Burn a finger or two.

Steal. Burn. Play.

Be a child. Tonight is the night.

2005-10-29T11:51:00.000+05:30

Bring home a bahu. Babu!

Ok. I am leaving. I will come tomorrow morning. Yeah, I remember that I need to bring my pressure cooker while coming.

All three moms stood to say bye. They walked me to the door.

The younger one said, “Babu, we are all praying for you” and without any warning, she suddenly started crying.

This kind of shocked me. Not the crying part, but the praying part. What do you mean by praying?

Sniff. Sniff. Vinny and you are like my sons. You guys are of same age. Whenever I look at you I think of my son. Whenever I look at him, I think of you.

Really? But, why confuse yourself like that? ..and...ha ha ha...and..why do I need your prayers? If you havent noticed, my business is picking up day by day and I bought a brand new laptop just yesterday.

We want to see you settle down. Sometimes we dont understand how you are managing. Your mom never tells, but she is a worried soul.

I looked at my mom. Her eyes were already busy manufacturing a new set of waterlets (rhymes with applets). I looked at the elder one. She started a new round of prayers.

I thought I killed my ego at Vipassana. But three moms worrying about me hurt my ego. I was not comfortable with the idea that they think that I am not a happy person. Vinny always tells me that I must be the happiest person on earth because I have an Xbox and a 44” TV. Also because, I could get a house thats quiet near my office. Also because, I am not overweight like him.

I am the happiest person on earth. Ask Vinny. I told them.

No, you need to get married. Younger mom. We have a girl in our mind. Elder mom. New set of waterlets. Mom.

Sniff. Sniff. We dont understand why you said no to the last one. Sniff. Sniff.

I know the girl you have in your minds. Sorry, I dont get any sparks when I think about her.

Screw sparks. Spark theory is all bull. We know it. She is such a nice girl. She will be an excellent match for you. This is Mom's (Goddess Durga) wish. Younger one.

Mangalam. Mangalam. Elder one.

Elder one suddenly started crying. She glanced at my balding head and added “and you are aging”. We thought atleast you yourself will bring home a bahu. We are open to that too. But you couldnt.

What do you mean by COULDNT? I know a lot of girls. Come on. Its not like I couldnt but it didnt happen. I guess I am working on it.

Really?

Yeah. Like, OK, if you want to know. I proposed to this hot chick named Leela, last time I met her in Bombay. She is pretty. No, she is hot. Mm..actually she is pretty. She reads a lot and she can cook. She likes bungee jumping, water rafting, rock climbling. She can sing Norah Jones like Norah Jones. She loves children.

What did she say?

She said she cant marry someone who thinks a Pav Baji is a quarter bajji. Thats too much of a cultural difference. She thinks.

Quarter Bajji?

Yeah, she said a quarter Bajji is her favourite dish.

Tch. Tch. Those Bombay people. Always working hard to meet their ends. Bring her home son. We will feed her lots of full bajjis.

Thats what I told her. Silly girl. She said no. Anyways, she is in Dubai now.

Any one else?

Yeah. I know a girl in Delhi.

North Indian people? But we dont know much about them.

I know something about her. Her grand dad was like good at catching chicken. During partition he caught a lot of them in Afghanistan and sold in Delhi and got married with that money.

And?

And what?

Is she fair?

Ha she is so fair, her name is Fairy. If you pinch her cheeks they turn pink.

Really?? And?

And what? And, she works as a manager.

Works!!!!!!!!!!! Manager? I dont understand how women manage to be managers. But will she listen to us?

Listen? She will kick your ass if you dont listen to her. She also is good at detecting lies. Like next time you steal money from Dad's pocket, she is gonna detect it and report it to him.

Mom suddenly became nervous.

Dont worry. If you cant deal with that, I know a girl in Hyderabad. But she is in Europe now and she is gonna come back.

And who is she?

Her name is Mahati. She is cool. She is hot. She is pretty. She recently learned singing. As far as I know she can cook cookies and brownies.

What is she doing in Europe?

She is doing her Masters. Some kind of criminal psychology.

Psychology?

Yeah, she studies criminals, rats, abused children, rats and men. Btw, she is good at understanding whats going in your mind. Next time you think about stealing money from Dad's pocket, she is gonna detect it and report it to dad. Not only that, she will summon you for a therapy.

My mom stopped crying and started thinking.

But dont worry. I know a girl who is gonna fit in like a perfect fit.

Her name is alpha-2. She is one tenth Tamil, one tenth Telugu and so on and the last three tenths are American. She is fair. She is tall. She can cook. She can draw and I dont know about her singing talents. But, she has a fetish for female nudes. You better be careful while changing dress before her.

Thats OK. We all girls like watching each other.

Really? I didnt know that. She is working but still is traditional.

She sounds too good. There must be a catch.

Yeah. She is married.

Do you have like any normal friends?

Let me finish.

To be continued…

2005-10-27T18:56:00.000+05:30

Sorrow

Its better not to write on Sorrow.
When I was young I thought sorrow was the naked pregnant prostitute in a Van gogh
That sorrow was like a song that wafted from afar
About unrequited love
About a nothingness in our lives
That sorrow of silences .
But today sorrow has the hues of the settling dust
A hint of betrayal
The smell of death
The bite of the cold night air when there’s no roof to call your own
Sorrow is the language of misfortune
That talks to you from the dry eyes of a mother
When her children lie buried in rubble that was once shelter.
Sorrow is the memory of a happy yesterday
And the waste around one now.

They say that the soul of the world is one.
That it lives in us.
Then this sorrow is ours too.
And if we truly Listen to the sacred silence within us
We’ll know that we are looking into our very own eyes
And the dead are ours
This sorrow. ours.

Universal soul?
I don’t know for sure. But some have felt it.
They say you become very brave afterwards.
You can stare at death’s face calmly.
makes life is pretty simple .
and I am sure they know what it is to be happy.

-nonick (In support of the call made by desipundit.com)

P.S: Posted by smiley in support of nonick's response to the
call made by desipundit.com and in support of the call made
by desipundit.com

2005-10-22T16:55:00.000+05:30

Flock, The browser

I downloaded and tried Flock. Its basically some features added to Firefox.
I liked the idea of Shelf. But neither the Shelf nor the features to blog right
from the browser worked. Its still a developer's version and build isnt even
an unary.

Doom, The movie

According to Edbert "Doom" is like some kid came over and is using your
computer and won't let you play"

Yoda, The dude @ boingboing

2005-10-22T15:59:00.000+05:30

Invitation

I have an invitation to Tarun Tahiliani's fashion show @ Taj Krishna
tomorrow night. Mmm..I have another invitation to a party @ Touch
tomorrow night. Both the events are by invitation only. Interested
hot (hooooooooooooooooooot) girls are cordially invited. :-)

Here is the plan. First we go to Taj. Watch the crap and then go to
Touch and get drunk. Then we go to my apartment. (Because by then
it will be really late).

Teeritiri teeri. Laaala lala laaala.

2005-10-15T15:19:00.000+05:30

Fools paradise

My first thought was, "I dont think those legal notices served to Gaurav
and Varnam are from IIPM. In the first place, I dont think they are legal
notices at all. I wonder if any one called that Saxena dude and verified it."

The article ran by Jammag indeed is frivolous journalism. At times it is
almost a ridiculous article. (The campus photographs of all IIPM centers
are published on the homepage of IIPM.edu. I wonder why Rashmi had
to send someone to checkout the architecture and stuff).

All ads are hyped. Period. Duh. Whatever.
To obviate further clinical analysis, for Christs sake, its an ad.
IIPM runs (like any private educational institute in India) on strong
media hype. Last year, educational institutes were the largest segment
when it came to print media advertisments. (Education tops ad spending)

But yeah, people at Jammag has every right to run the article and express
their opinions.

Freedom of speech is a silly trump card. Everybody has one in their pocket.
If Jammag has FoS, so does the students of IIPM. Their freedom
of speech doesnt appeal to popular taste. But appealing to popular taste
didnt stop Larry Flint from calling pope a gay and an ass***e. It didnt stop
Howard Stern from airing a contest of "Who can fart longer" on prime time.

Sorry dudes, if you use your FoS trump card, then the students of IIPM use
theirs and will call Rashmi a lesbian.

(Larry Flynt won a landmark Supreme Court decision on February, 1988
(Hustler v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46), after having been sued by Jerry Falwell
in 1983 over an offensive ad parody in Hustler that featured Falwell. The
decision clarified that public figures cannot recover damages for "intentional
infliction of emotional distress" based on parodies. )

But then, Desipundit has every right to codemn this cheap act and to call for
a reaction. The aftermath would have been a great case study for Malcom
Gladwell for his Tipping Point. Desipundit did demonstrate the strenght of
the net.

I strongly suspect that the management of IIPM has nothing to do with the
phoney blogs and the silly legal notices that followed. I strongly suspect it
was these pissed off students who pressurized the management (who inturn
would have been pissed off by Gaurav's disparaging comments on IIPM and
its Dean) to bully IBM. (Lenovo).

I strongly suspect that that bunch of smart ass students who patiently set
those phoney blogs and comments, created those silly legal notices and
pressurized management and IBM are laughing their asses off right now.

I congratulate Desipundit on an outstanding job and the power it unveiled.

I hope this incident doesnt step into the main media.

2005-10-15T12:00:00.000+05:30

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

"Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal.
Just three stories." -Steve Jobs

Commencement address by Steve Jobs at Stanford

2005-10-15T11:02:00.000+05:30

God's own movie

Peter Jackson decides to produce Halo

2005-10-13T17:23:00.000+05:30

Template Change.

When 38.5% of your readers can't view your blog properly, you better
change the template.

Puja

2005-10-11T11:48:00.000+05:30

Puja

This one is Silly's favourite. I flickred it. :-)

2005-10-08T13:16:00.000+05:30

Tech

Flock

"The Web is not just a library of documents, but a stream of events and
people," says Flock co-founder and Chief Executive Bart Decrem. "And
people are spending a lot more time sharing on the Web."

They are going to release the Beta in a week. Check their website
www.flock.com

Open Office 2.0

Larry once said that the key is the Office suit. Not the OS. Sun made a
strategic bet long back on StarOffice. In Sun's tradition they donated it
the community. The result is Openoffice.org . But OpenOffice suit so far
limped behind Office. Not anymore.
OpenOffice RC (Release Candidate) 2.0 is as good as Office 2003.
I tried it and am impressed. I am sticking to it.

The world is not enough

For Larry and Oracle, the world definitely is not enough. Oracle buys
yet another database company. This time its Finnish open source
database company.

Oct 12

ThinkSecret.com thinks this time its not 'Yet Another Upgrade To Nano'.
A possible upgrade to the Mac lineup itself is on the table. Whatever it
is, I have my eyes and eara open for Steve's announcement.

2005-10-07T16:50:00.000+05:30

Desipundited

I started this blog around two years back. I was heavily influenced by
Unified Blog Theory back then and thought that this blog is for myself.

Nevertheless, I would make it public. If people wanted to read it, let them
read. But I am gonna blog for myself. Well, that was the idea.

I wanted to keep the blog simple, non opinionated and basically easy going.
Smiley was the natural choice. He basically symbolized Joie De Vivre in a
simple and elegant manner.

Thats how it was for a long time. Few HBMers who knew me occassionally
visited this blog and occassionally left a comment. All of that changed with
some gay comments I left on Alpha's blog. (Note: I am not gay).

Those comments and what followed later defined the character of Smiley.
Smiley made friends with an amazing lot of people. LL, TP, Adi, Sensai,
Mahati, Leela, Alpha, Babita, Neil etc. (in person) Patrix, Fairy, nonick,
Gabby etc. (online).

While it lasted I enjoyed the humour it brought, thoroughly. Esp, Alpha,
nonick and TPs. Hunting down Leela on every comment box (not
necessarily mine) was shameless and classless, but priceless too. :-)
Detective Fairy is such a game. She is a very cool techie.

Thats how it was for a long time. HBM got dissolved. Alpha quit.
Lee left. TP vanished. Nonick took an off. My blog got back to its
original status. Few people who knew me occassionally visited and
occassionally commented on it.

Then all in a sudden, after two long years I decided to install a counter
on my blog. On my day one I expected something like 5-10 hits. (I never
registered my blog with any search engine). I was shocked to see 50 hits.

Needless to say, it all came from Desipundit. My post Your friends wife..
got an entry on Desipundit and attracted all that traffic. (If I hadnt installed
that counter probably I wouldnt have known about that entry).

Thats a good start for a counter. :-)

On the second day the counter registered another 56 hits. Once again almost
all the hits came from Desipundit. Another entry in Desipundit explained it all.

This blog is never intended (unlike the other A class blogs) for a larger base of
readers. But its a good feeling when the stuff you write is read (and sometimes
appreciated).

I thank the team at Desipundit for doing an excellent job of bringing the best
of blogosphere (and giving Smiley an entry into the best of the blogosphere).

Based on my experience, I humbly present this world a new verb

Desipundited

verb. To have your blog mentioned on Desipundit.com

Usage:
1) Can you believe it! That silly post of mine about picking nose in public got Desipundited!!
2) Man! Look at the number of comments I got today. I must have been Desipundited.
3) She writes so well, all her posts are Desipunditable.

2005-10-07T15:29:00.000+05:30

I Bloc

The spell check of Blogger doesnt recognize the word blog. It offers bloc as

an alternative. Funny.

P.S: It doesnt recognize the word Blogger either. Funny funny.

2005-10-06T11:43:00.000+05:30

Dads driving moms crazy

My dad likes clear and complete sentences, no matter what context they are
presented in. He also likes to have complete information, no matter what the
situation is.

This often leads to interesting conversations.

Thats because my mom has a tendency to enter the room with a sentence
that doesnt fit the above criteria.

Mom: They just called. They are coming tomorrow.
Dad: Who just called?
Mom: My sister and her husband. For heavens sake we just talked about it.
Dad: How am I supposed to know?
Mom: They are coming tomorrow and they want us to..
Dad: Who just called? Your sister or her husband?
Mom: Why dont you listen to what I am saying? Its my sister.
Anyways, they want us to..
Dad: So how are they coming tomorrow? By train?
Mom: Of course by train. How else? You know my sister cant stand bus
journeys. Anyway, we have to...
Dad: Which train?

By the time my mom gets to tell my dad about the real piece of information
she usually half delivers because she is already upset.

Nothing is obvious to my dad.

Mom: My sister and I went to buy sarees this afternoon. I was short of money.
So I took some money from her.
Dad: From who?

Mom: How is the tea?
Dad: Which tea? (While drinking tea)

Mom: How is the curry?
Dad: Which curry? (While having the only curry in the plate)

My uncle is a little different. (My moms elder sister's husand.)

He has a tendency to repeat the crucial bits of information and to have a
contra entry for bit of information.

We were watching NDTV. A train got derailed.

Uncle: A train collision, I guess.
Me: The train got derailed.
Uncle: The train got derailed?
Me: Yes. Train got derailed.
Unlce: Train got derailed? I thought it was a collision. Dont you think its a
collision? Look at two engines. One of them is a diesel and other one is electric.
I think thats a collision.
Me: (reading the headlines of NDTV) So and so train got derailed.
Uncle: Yes, train got derailed. Crazy. It looks like a collision.
So, the train got derailed?

My other uncle is a lot different. (My moms younger sister's husband).

He basically speaks in an antakshari mode. Not exactly akshari but more like
a wordri. Lets call it anatapadari. He doesnt need your acknowledgement
either. While he is talking there is no chance for anyone at all.

Uncle: So what time are you leaving?
Me: I have to...
Unlce: What time do you usaully go? Commuting is a big problem here. Dont
you think so? Last time remember when I came here to visit Prasad...
You know Prasad right?
Me: I..
Uncle: Prasad is the elder son of the younger daughter of your grandfathers
second sister. They are in Hyderabad now. He left to US. Where did you work
when you were in US?
Me: I..
Uncle: But you people dont maintian relationships in US anyway. It took me
two hours to reach from Kukatpally to SRNagar. What traffic? What traffic?
What do you think? Is this because of all these IT people? These days bank
folks are giving loans to every Tom, Dick and Pussy. Btw, did you buy your
car on loan?
Me: Yes, I ..
Uncle: But they are not realizing. The roads are crowded and fuel prices are
increasing. I dont know how you people are managing? Are you managing
your finances well? Be careful. Save when you can. You have seen what
happened to Pattabhiram. Huh! You should see, his apartment
construction got stopped. What a shame. There is no money to buy even
cement now. Managing finances is the key. Btw, what time are you leaving?

Now, imagine all these characters at one place. Now they are at one place.
My sister Silly is hosting a nine day durga puja. (Today is the third day).
Serious stuff. Serious puja. Moms are going to recite slokas from morning
till noon. They eat only prasadam during these nine days.
Its a grand tradition in our family.

For these nine days, dads (all retired) have nothing else but to drive these
moms crazy.

For these nine days, moms are going to pray for the health of the family,
the world and a long life for their nut husbands.

Its a strange world, I tell ya.