enakkoru girl-friend venumada (loosely translates to "i want a girlfriend")

dedicated to all those career oriented fine young men who are uncorrupted by the western cultures and are bent on upholding the indian culture of a traditional arranged marriage

disclaimer (because at this point in life I can’t take any chances)

All characters in this post are fictitious and are just a figment of my imagination. Any resemblance to anyone living is purely a coincidence and is welcome to make frand-sheep with the author; anyone dead can kindly ignore.

When I was in pre-school, I just wanted a friend to play with. And within the perimeter I was allowed I could only find her. We just about got along well, but we almost always ended up with her mom telling my mom what games we should be playing. Looks like she didn’t take kindly to my road safety games of running over her dolls with my cars.

When I was in primary school, I just wanted someone to talk to. And thanks to the alphabetical order in which we were seated, I found this girl who would talk to me. Not just that, she could talk non stop too. It did not serve much purpose though because me being the polite one could not ask her to shut up, and the gender biased teachers would always make me the outstanding student in their classes.

When I was in high school I wanted a girl who was smart and intelligent and may be even be a good study partner… that was a good way to start a relationship I thought. But then she turned out to be too smart and scored more marks than I did in all the exams. And finally she took up biology.

When I was beginning junior college I wanted to make frand-sheep with the new girl in our batch. She was beautiful and smartly dressed and looked good even in that stupid school uniform. But as it happens with all good looking girls, she was in the commerce stream, and that ended a possible love story.

When I was in the first year of engineering, I exchanged notes with a girl in my class. I was pretty studious at that time and was curious to know what that particular professor had told the class about the exams. Seriously! But little did I know that she was under radar of some seniors and that night they made me understand why I should rely on myself and not ask for help from other people – especially girls who have a potential boyfriend among the seniors.

When I became the senior, I scouted around for good looking juniors. But the management decided that they would go by merit for girls too from that year onwards. And I was left with just my all boys gang for company.

When I got my first job and was posted to a city that was famous for beautiful girls, I hoped I would accidentally bump into a hot chick and that it would be love at first sight. But despite all the loves at first sights there was a high probability that you could get accidentally bumped by those jealous boyfriends who were busy pumping iron while these chicks applied make-up.

When I had made some significant career progression I wanted a career oriented girl, preferably in my same company. She was so career oriented that she became the VP of our department and started playing with our careers.

When I got bored of my job and wanted a break, I wanted a girl who was a bit tomboyish and had a spirit of adventure in her blood. She was pretty tomboyish and even smoked cigars and rode a macho bike and had lots of spirits in her blood. So much that I started to feel womanly in front of her.

Now, I am tired of looking for a girl. I just want a girl who my mummy wants me to want.

Format adapted. Original source available on request.

bitter medicine

I had the privilege of experiencing a cold night out in bangalore recently. And to top it off I had such spicy food that caused a running nose and a glass of mausambi juice that effectively sealed my fate. The next day I woke up with a sore throat and a body ache feeling all warm – that I immediately guessed that I had the FCC – fever cough and cold.

Well this is such a common phenomenon and that is why it is has been rightly named the common cold. It is so common that the average person would not know that there is no cure for it – it comes and it goes whenever it pleases (you see I am very well read). So the average person would say – “nonsense, for the fever take crocin and for the cough take a cough syrup – I recommend TusQ… and for the nose I recommend vicks”.

Personally, I prefer phensedyl… it was so sweet and tasty… and it felt good inside you… and it used to take at least 2 bottles for satisfying my thirst… er… cough. No I am not alcoholic… hic… stop getting ideas… hic hic… I get hiccups when I cough hic hic!!! Cough cough !!! see…

But the government saw to it that all good things must come to an end and they promptly stopped selling of liquor through medicine stores… oops… I mean phensedyl was banned from being an OTC drug (mba mba – OTC => over the counter). So it was only TusQ.

It was easy to prescribe medicines for this kind of situation. “Oh, you got fever – where is the crocin left over from the last person’s fever dose…” it was so common that any other form of the antipyretic drug (yeah another well read knowledge) was called crocin… it was much easier to pronounce crocin than say pa-ra-cet-a-mol… sounds like some mountain peak in karnataka… well the point is that crocin has been in the family since time immemorial that nobody knows how it came into being…

However the story of TusQ entering the family was much different. I was coughing my lungs out in a particularly desperate bid to get my mom to buy some alcohol… er… phensedyl when my extremely friendly neighbor dropped in and said “I have TusQ – the most tried and tested cugh syrup ever” with a plastic smile that looked as if she would have landed a part in the commercial, if only the TusQ people were there to witness it. So my mom got the medicine and forced it down my throat… wot a disgusting taste that was… especially for someone who was expecting a better one… yuck !!! it was green coloured too – somehow green always associates a bitter taste with me after that…

After that I have seen many changes in the color – yellow, pink, orange… And everytime I go sniff-sniff-cough-cough on the phone while talking to home, I would get the standard advice – “have some TusQ and pop a crocin and take rest.” And that has been so ingrained that I always had a inventory of the two in my kit.

So, on this particular day when I woke up and found that I could not answer the phone that woke me up, I decided that this time I would go to the doc. Somewhere my well read self had read that OTC drugs should not be taken indsicrminately without medical advice. I marched off to the nearby hospital to meet the general physician. I was not going to take the usual stuff no more. I will not jeopardise my health for a measly 100 rupees on the consultation fee. No way… then what is the use of my education… an mba at that… moreover there were newer and better medicines these days that helped you get well faster…

I wait in the line to get my token. I marvel at the sophistication of the hospital. They have an id card for every new patient and a records file that they will maintain. What customer service yaar… amazing. My number is 24. that meant there were 23 people before me. Ok… so that meant that the doc was good, else why would so many people want to see him?

But he was not in yet. Blame the stupid bangalore traffic. And yeah it was the peak time as well. So what if he is some 10-15mins late. I found a a chair and started looking around and after every full revolution looked at my watch… it was very painful – one thing even the prettiest young things don’t look good sick in a hospital and it takes only about 30seconds for a full round view… it is tough to see the face of the watch twice every minute… especially when you are longing for that warm blanket.

The doc arrives a full hour late and starts seeing his patients by the FIFO rule… I wait patiently (haha good pun isn’t it… so cool of me to think of humor even in the saddest of times). The crowd of patients doesn’t seem to be reducing at all even after a long time. I look at my receipt (yeah they take the consulting fee in advance) – it says 10:32… I look at my watch – 12:45… man this is too much… I have been here more than two hours… how much longer !!! something inside me tells me “another 1 hour…” . I murmur a sarcastic thanks and go back to my seat to my old routine of looking around and looking at the watch.

Finally I hear my name being called. I look triumphant at the little voice that told me 1 hour – it has been only 45 minutes – buhahaha!!! But then there is a guy who is very very sick and needs to the doc immediately… the great kindhearted soul lets him go in. He was out in 10 minutes… and then a desperate mother with her 15year old child barged in to make sure that the medicines she had bought were the same as the ones that the doctor had prescribed. By the time I went in, my inner voice was rolling on the dirty hospital floor laughing… “I told you one hour more”. One thing I hate is a wise-ass-inner-voice…

Anyways, what matters was that I finally met the doc. He asks me a couple of simple questions. Asks me to take a couple of deep breaths and starts scribbling in his notepad. What the hell??? Dude I have fever – take my temperature at least… nope – no sticking of the thermometer into your mouth or anywhere else… and I was out in less than a minute… I felt like I had just been in and out of tirupathi… sans laddu…

But at least I am triumphant – I felt like I had a prescription for ambrosia. Clutching the scribbled paper on which the doc has given me the greatest relief from my fcc, I march towards the medicine shop as fast as my tired body could carry me and put the prescription on the counter.

The chemist brings out the medicines the doctor ordered in his illegible scrawl – Crocin and TusQ.

The key to all happiness – part 2

This is not a sequel(like jurassic part or harry potter) and has almost nothing in common to the previous post except for the damn !^(#!%@ key…

It was a normal day, bright blue and cloudless skies, cool sunny day. Work was the normal non-existential affair and I had a breeze of a day. In the evening some of us had agreed to meet up for dinner at a chettinad restaurant – one of my favorite cuisines. So there was excitement in the air in anticipation of the good food that lay ahead of me later in the day.

And hence I decided to leave a little earlier than usual, caught the bus that was home bound and reached home a nominal travel time later. But since the winter was setting in, it had grown dark already. That was where I should have donned my paranoid hat and looked occasionally at the skies, but I didn’t. If I had I would have noticed the stealthy accumulation of rain clouds that had added to the drop in temperature and a nice cool breeze that was blowing was actually the result of a local shower at some other area in the city.

I briskly walked home from my bus stop with a spring in my step and a song on my lips (it is good when you cant hear what you are singing – the loud clear sound of the ipod takes care of it) and bounded up the stairs and opened the main hall door. I put my hand into my pocket for my room key and voila – it was not there.

I did not have to think too much – I knew exactly where it was – in my drawer in the office. And I also knew where my office was – some 20kms away. The song in my lips changed into a loud groan that even my ipod could not eclipse.

But I was an mba, so I was getting into the solver mode even as the groan was dying out. I had 3 choices in front of me

plan A - go back to the office and get my key

plan B - stay with my dinner mate

plan C - wait for my roommate

The first one was the most uninviting. Come on said my brain – you just traveled 20 !^(#!%@ kilometers and you want to do it again? Twice ? no way !!! and I can’t feel un-guilty looking at the smiling faces of the late leavers in my team (I left early remember).

So lets move on to plan B. Only problem, I will have to sleep in my formals. Pretty uncomfortable. I want my comfort sleep. And I will have to wake up early to get back to my room for my fresh clothes. I want to sleep those 10mins I will spend traveling from my friend’s place to my room. I can’t sacrifice that.

So plan C. Wait for my roommate. But then that would mean that I would be in the cold till he got back… which would be around 2am… that is if at all he decided to come home… which is a difficult situation altogether.

Wait!!! that exhausted all my plans. I don’t have any more plans. Of course I cant break the lock etc because that would mean breaking the door itself. This plan was dropped even before I had the three choices.

That was when a savior came in. Well not actually a very enthusiastic savior, but more of the reluctant Rambo types(Well at that moment I would call anyone a Stallone if they could help). And there was this guy who could but didn’t want to and all he wanted was to help build that Buddhist temple in Cambodia. Ok ok, not Cambodia. Ok… ok... no temple either. This bugger had just driven back on his bike from his office and was not interested in being a driver to a desperate madman. And I was in no mood to take a no for an answer. At the end of some 15 minutes of haggling he decided to humor me. For what? Yeah I forgot. By some weird twist of fate, I had my roommate’s phone number. I called him and decided to make that great trip to his office to collect the key. So what if his office was 10kms away. It was at least only half the distance to mine. Well, this rambo was not very impressed with this argument, but thankfully he moved.

But all was not well that ended well. We were just approaching the 2kms mark on the trip-meter and there was a splat on my face… ummm... the optimistic me thought it was some stray water vapor that I managed to pass through. But it was not to be and obviously my negative self was proudly surfacing that it had been right all the time – it was raining (remember the seemingly unnecessary mentioning of local showers somewhere up there). But we kept at it. Hardly had we moved some 500mts when the little big drops got bigger and became big big drops. And they were coming down faster.

Of course, I hate rains. So there was a frantic turnaround and back to the place of accommodation. And then I made that decision to revert back to plan C. Or was it plan B? Ok. Whatever alphabet it was, it was basically to wait – to wait for him to come back. And btw, the rain had stopped (%#%@$$#%#^%&@#).

But then, I had to have my dinner as well. So putting all my trust in my angelic roommate (who by another weird twist of fate was planning to come home earlier) and in the unknown god (who was enjoying all this on his sim-city console), I decided to go on to dinner. And my what a dinner that was, but then this is not the time for that description. Maybe some other time.

And when I came home, my roommate had already come back and the door was open for me. So that was it, all was well that ended well and I got to sleep in my pyjamas.

The end.

PS. Thanks srk, for finally unclogging my pipeline with your Murphy post.

PPS. I must stop this PS-ing. It is getting too regular. Somebody once said they directly jumped to my postscripts in my mails – that saved them a lot time. Any suggestions?

life in a metro's volvo

Pre-script: This post is jinxed… this has been a long pending post. Whenever I start it during the time I have wait for something to happen, that thing happens very fast… when I am not waiting for something, something else comes up… or else if there is no something coming up, then there is this thing called nothing… I have almost written and re-written it a million times in my head, but putting in print has always been outta reach

Post-pre-script: No claims that its gonna be a great read just because its been in the grill for so long. Anyways, thanks for reading it.

First love:

I am always fascinated by foreign models... automobiles I mean… they always seem so superior in technology... I have always gaped open mouthed they are paraded on the motorshows on tv even if they sounded stupid when they say “yeh Yamaha rd 6 tho bahut bemisaal hai”… pardon my hindi – am so busy looking at them models that I didn’t pay attention to the exact words… but yeah it is nice watching all those auto shows and dreaming how nice it would be if I could be that reporter or camera guy, and getting paid for looking at all those beautiful models…

The first time I saw this bus I didn’t believe it… was it actually a Volvo… what has happened to the Indian government? How could they turn a blind eye to such a good thing on the Indian roads… that too in the potholed roads of Bangalore… it is a sacrilege to allow good things to happen to the people of India… then I assumed it would be damn expensive like all good things… and I even assumed that it would be totally useless one on the roads probably doing a very small route and asking for an exorbitantly huge fares for the stupid air-conditioning and the suspension… and of course the Volvo safety that is a fallacy on the Indian roads… hah… I am not falling for the looks - can’t we see that it is predominantly empty because of the fares… I catch the local BMTC bus that is looking like a fevicol ad bus and manage to squeeze myself in and hoping that in the long journey that is going to take me about an hour to clear through the traffics of MG road, Richmond Road, and Majestic I would get some more space to put my other foot down on the flat floor of the bus… and all the while I keep watching the Volvo to find out where it is gonna turn off in some different direction... that day I found that kempegowda bus terminus is the same as majestic aka city railway station when the Volvo followed my overcrowded bus the whole damn way…

I know what you ate last night:

This bus is not one I would recommend for claustrophobics or people with highly sensitive noses (u know those noses that are usually blocked when a nice smell like a sweet perfume or aroma of great cooking, but perks up when you are passing by some open drain or railway track settlements). Especially during peak hours. Well since this Volvo is a completely closed container, with the air being circulated mostly within the bus itself, you are normally breathing some 50% (eupho-optimistic estimate) stale air… and it smells stale because it is a mix of body odor (after a hard day’s work and lunch) plus the engine’s diesel fumes odor and the smell that you get when sunlight falls on a seat through the glass windows… well this greenhouse effect (wot else will you call a mix of green house gases and a glass container) is what I hate about the Volvo… at least if you are in a car you can roll down the windows for a while and be happy that you are breathing the pure pollution rather than the refined ones that pass through the Volvian filters which helps me identify what the guy seated next to me had for lunch or dinner… good luck if you find a good cook and you can maybe get invited for dinner…

The woman in red:

It is one thing that we are in a Volvo – a sophisticated looking means to travel that puts us in the league of the developed nations of the world in terms of the modern public transport systems that have arrived in India… but the similarity ends there… people still want that 50% reservation for women in the buses… too bad there are no hooks in the back of the center seats where we can hang a chain and block out the women’s section from the men’s (and the men can travel ticketless as the conductor is usually trapped on the other side…). But the people have found an invisible chain by which they are bound to the culture of India that says all men who travel in buses are out there to “eve-tease” women and the women who travel in buses are poor things who are so beautiful and helpless that every hormone driven male wants to propose to her to make her his n^th wife (except of course the driver and the conductor who are gentlemen).

So there is this 4 seater section in the front half of the Volvo that is with the seats facing each other (which any engineer would point out that it gives the maximum leg space)… and since I am blessed with long legs, obviously that is my fav area to get seated… so there is this invisible chain that is the great gender divide stops women from taking the empty next to a guy in the men’s side of the four-seater-section even if that is the last seat in the bus… in some ways it is good for thick-skinned-long-legged person like me because I get to extend our legs well and have a comfy ride without having to knock the knees of the person opposite to you…

So this day I find myself in a pretty decently crowded bus and the seat in front of me is empty… I look around and can’t believe my luck when I find all the standees are women… so I happily get adjusted to slouch into my seat and start extending my legs deep into the recess under the opposite seat at the same time feeling unhappy that the Indian society has such a bad impression about males… and I am now settled comfortably and looking forward to a comfortable ride, when suddenly this dark-fat-ugly woman in a gaudy red colored saree makes me get back to my uncomfortable upright position and takes the seat opposite… the #^(#!%@ 8!+(#

The girl in white:

There are many good reasons to travel in the Volvo and most of them are the good looking girls who are regulars… (what to do, at this age all you can think of is getting a good life partner who matches your like and dislikes, for example love for foreign vehicles). So there I am in a particularly crowded one ogling at the regulars hoping that at least one of them might hit it off…

Getting jostled and pushed in the bus built for even standing comfortably (but it fails here too because of the great Indian crowd) I manage to reach a seat that was getting empty… and then I saw her. She was bright intelligent looking and dressed in a simple crisp white shirt and black trousers; looking specially cute with those rimless glasses and short loose curly hair. Well I tell myself what is the point day dreaming man – what is the probability that she is going to come over and sit next to me (remember the Indian culture thingee above) and even if she did what is the probability of having a conversation with her?

I immerse myself into the product manuals so that I can prove myself at least at work when I see some movement from the corner of my eye… the guy seated next to me gets off and then the impossible happens – she is there waiting to occupy the vacated spot… wonder of wonders – she is seated in the seat beside me… so what? That is probably the end of the story and I get back to my reading…

Then, a small voice asks – “does company X (the one I am working) have a branch in location Y (where the bus is headed)?” (she had noticed the huge logo in the printout). I am surprised as this is probably the first time that somebody has shown some cognizance about my company, and that too a girl, and a pretty one at that and on top of it she started it. So I say proudly (because I am billable) that I am at a client location and as I am still recovering from my shock at her knowledge and intelligence, I ask her how do you know about this company?

“Oh that, my husband works in the same company… his name is …”

“Murpheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!! what were you thinking when you wrote that law.”

Btw, looks like by the sheer sample size TCS has a lot of good looking girls, but there is no safe statistical way we can find out their marital status.

PS. Nowadays I have switched to the bus that is run by my tech park… saves me a lot of heartbreaks and I even get to sleep all during the way.