• Independence, but..

    tomorrow we start off our version of the independence day weekend, but a question still bothers me, how come we are celebrating independence day?? we were never dependent on our british conquerors at any point of time, in fact they were dependent on us for the smooth running of their economy, whether it be for cheap labour, market for the products of their industrial revolution or even as vacation spots for the sahibs…… so shouldnt we be actually calling it freedom day??
    and in any case, i believe it should only be called freedom day version 1, v1 because we still havent become free of the ultra dumb bueraucracy or the ultra corrupt political system, and we are still not free from illiteracy, unemployment, poverty, only when we become totally free as a country can we ever claim to have the complete version , and yes, at athat point of time, we will still have other issues, which we cant imagine today…i was just thinking, i dont have the sufficient literary skills to write a book or even a short story….but why cant i write a bloggers anthology, history will remember us as the first generation of bloggers, and we should be doing something to chronicle it, what say????
    in case u r wondering, how the blog’s posted early today, boss is on vacation and as the saying goes, “when the cat’s out, the mice will play”… :-)am leaving you with
    manuscrypts trivia
    another fwd i got…We r living in 2003 where …..
    1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
    2. You haven’t played solitaire with real cards in years.
    3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
    4. You e-mail your mate who works at the desk next to you.
    5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they do not have e-mail addresses.
    6. When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
    7. When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally insert a “0” to get an outside line.
    8. You’ve sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
    10. Your CV is on a disk in your pocket.
    11. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o’clock news.
    12. Your biggest loss from a system crash was when you lost all of your best jokes.
    13. Your boss doesn’t have the ability to do your job.
    14. Contract workers outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get long-service awards.
    15. Board members salaries are higher than all the Third World countries annual budgets combined.
    16. Interviewees, despite not having the relevant knowledge or experience,terminate the interview when told of the starting salary.
    17. Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet.
    18. Your boss gets a brand-new state-of-the-art laptop with all the latest features, but you have time to go for lunch while yours boots up.
    19. Being sick is defined as you can’t walk or you’re in hospital.
    20. There’s no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your department desperately needs, but they can afford four full-time management consultants advising your boss’s boss on strategy.
    21. Your relatives and family describe your job as “works with computers”.
    AND THE CLINCHERS ARE.
    22. You read this entire list, and kept nodding and smiling.
    23. As you read this list, you think about forwarding it to your “friends”.
    24. You got this email from a friend that never talks to you often anymore(with exceptions),except to send you jokes from the net.
    25. AND YOU ARE TOO BUSY TO NOTICE THAT THERE WAS NO NUMBER 9!

  • Ancestral Traits

    thats because, in my blog habits, i am exhibiting some ancestral traits, i visited gandalf’s blog in the morning, got a link to a toon site and a copyrights site from there, so have added them, visit gandalf’s site, good piece of work…..also read wonderbug’s post (thats staple diet), today’s is especially good..so go have a look at that… essentially, i have been scavenging, and thats what some of my ancestors did, yours too, 🙂
    will write my bit on the same premise that w-bug’s post was, it basically says that after a certain age, you no longer feel you are ‘with it’…. i have experienced that feeling too, many times, i can recall one particular instance a couple of years back, i met this girl who was in kindergarten the last time i saw her, and a couple of years back she had just completed her class 10 exams, i realised that time was indeed flying, and the kind of things that were important to her and on which she spent ‘thinking time’ on, were not at all what i had in my set, when i was her age…..but , do i want to f9 my life, i guess not….my perceptions have changed, as each day passes, i become more defined as a person, i understand myself more and more, and i can relate better to myself……so i will agree with w-bug on that, at 25, i am happy, the way i am….now, for
    manuscrypts trivia
    a fwd i got…Three HDFC employees and three ICICI employees are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three ICICI employees each buy tickets and watch as the three HDFC employees buy only one ticket. “How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?” asks a ICICI employee. “Watch and youll see”, answers an HDFC employee. They all board the train. The ICICI employees take their respective seats but all three HDFC employees cram into a restroom and close the door behind them. Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says, “ticket please”. The door opens just a little and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on. The ICICI employees saw this and agreed it was a clever idea. After the conference, the ICICI employees decide to copy the HDFC employees (…..as they know how…….) on the return trip and save some money (being clever with money and all). When they get to the station,they buy a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the HDFC employees dont buy a ticket. “How are you going to travel without a ticket?” asks a ICICI employee. “Watch and youll see,” answers the HDFC employee. When they board, the three ICICI employees cram into a restroom and the three HDFC employees cram into another one nearby. The train departs. Shortly afterward, one of the HDFC employee leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the ICICI employees are hiding. He knocks on the door and says, “Ticket, please…” The door opens just a little and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand the HDFC employee grabs the ticket and runs to his restroom. MORALE OF THE STORY: DONT IMITATE—INNOVATE!!

  • One step at a time, still

    have been wondering about the roller coaster ride called life, much like wonderbug, in her post…….yesterday was another ‘gaze at the stars’ night, so there was lucky ali playing in the background, a pepsi in hand and star gazing, although, being a cloudy night, there were hardly any stars, but the sky served the purpose….
    i am generally cautious by nature, but what i was wondering was that there were so many defining moments in my life so far, where one moment’s thought or decision has effectively set my life on a particular track…..now when i think of it, there are a 101 ( in management lingo) opportunity costs…..
    for example what if i had decided that i would focus on only bio and no maths during my +2, i might have lost a year, i might have been still studying medicine or i might have become a good doctor by now……what if i decided i didnt want to go for a pg, i might have been a programmer…and so, with each action/inaction i have changed all things associated with it, and thereby created or destroyed so many manu’s, and i guess, so also altered the people in my life……according to one space/time theory, they are all existing in parallel universes, leading parallel lives….. my guess, they must all be blogging…. 🙂
    all ye budding storywriters, ram gopal varma is on the lookout, so if you wanna get famous post, read this article
    have got a humour board , thanks to wonderbug…..all u bloggers, its free and quite good…..thanks for tuning in, will leave you with
    manuscrypts trivia
    fwdd by a guy working in tcs
    One day, three consultants, one from Wipro, one from Infosys and one from TCS, went out for a walk. They were old buddies from engg college, and they were together for a college reunion..For no apparent reason, they went into this zoo and passed a monkey. Being in the same business and from the same college, there was a little bit of a peer competition going on between themselves – they couldn’t resist testing themselves against each other – especially the Infosys guy. Said he to the others:”Why don’t we prove who is the best among ourselves?”. Why not, said the other two.The Infoscion said “Let’s have a test. Whoever makes this monkey laugh, works for the best firm”.By mutual agreement, the Infoscion took the first turn. Being a pure logical strategist, the Infoscion tried to make the monkey laugh by telling jokes. The monkey stayed still. As a more practical consultant, the Wipro guy tried to make funny gestures… no good, the monkey stayed put… Now, comes the TCSer… being the practical guy he was always trained to be, he whispered something into the monkey’s ear, and it burst out laughing at him.The other two were astonished. How did this TCS guy manage to beat them?No way they were going to accept defeat so easily.So the Wipro guy said “OK, let’s take another test. Let’s make this monkey cry !!”So there they went again, applying the same methods as before. The Infosys guy narrated sad stories, the Wipro guy made sad gestures, and they failed again…Then, the TCSer again whispered something into the monkey’s ear and lo! It started crying, patting the TCSer’s shoulder!The other two just could not believe their eyes!So the Infoscion said “OK, you’ve won twice. If you can win just this one, we will bow to you. Let’s make this monkey run”. And he barked at the monkey and ordered him to run. Of course, it stayed where it was. The Wipro guy, true to his type, pushed and prodded the monkey – still No go. So…here comes our TCS guy, again, and whispers into the monkey’s ear. The monkey just takes off! It runs and runs as fast as it can, as if it was scared to death!The other two surrendered. Said they: “OK, we give up. You’re the best among us, and you work for the Best firm of the three.But please, please tell us your secret,” they begged him. “Well”, said the TCSer,”The first time I made it laugh, I told it I work for TCS. The next time, I told the monkey how much I get paid…so it started crying. And then I told him that I was here for recruitment!!!”

  • Finally…

    today’s post is going to be bollywood based……the title because finally i saw a good movie, 3 dewarein by nagesh k (i dont want to spoil the guy’s surname)… the plot , seems to me, is based on an old short story/joke, but i am not taking away anything from the guy, because he has made one hell of a movie….. and an absolute stunning background track, and some of the best performances, everyone’s good, my fave would be jackie, then naseruddin shah, nagesh k and juhi chawla, gulshan grover is also good…. you can see many actors/tresses from hyderabad blues, ones who played the best friend, the aunty who wants to get her daughter married off to nagesh….i watched the movie twice, must be the only time i watched the same movie twice in a day….
    i simply loved much of the philosophy (of the characters) in the movie, like when juhi asks naseer whether he feels any guilt after killing a person, he says, what is the point? guilt means i wont do it again, theek hai, i wont…but my feeling guilty will not bring the dead person back to life…..so , watch it, watch it, watch it!!!!
    also saw hungama, it is a hindi version of priyadarshan’s first mallu movie, and all i can say is that akshaye khanna is not mohanlal….and the only actor who can be compared to the malayali counterpart is paresh rawal….i honestly cant see why people rave about a. khanna, he is ok, but not spectacular….
    cola bashing daemons, did you see the ads given out by both pepsi and coke regarding those test finds? results in bangalore are well and truly below the specified norms, so wonderbug, Anu…stop PESTering the poor souls who treat Pepsi as staple diet 🙂
    and yes, i have to address this issue, i dont think i have ever claimed originality rights to the stuff i post, it is only meant for pure entertainment ….. for me as well as others who read this…be fair to me, i always quote my sources….if i find a funny or ‘food for thought’ message or forward, i will just go ahead and post it, coz maybe i like making people happy and seeing them smile…..so spare me lectures on CCPs and anti plagiarism …lemme be….and like i have quoted once, “if you want to create an apple pie from scratch, you have to create the universe first”, so once and for all, i am indian, i dont believe in copyrights….
    manuscrypts trivia
    “my thoughts are mine
    mine alone to keep,
    and mine to hide
    deep, deep, deep”
    ——- jaggu in 3 dewarein….

  • The fifth p

    As the title implies, this post is going to have a lil bit of marketing in it. I read an article in the Economic Times, so i thought i’ll riff on it here – The four P’s in marketing by kotler are famous enough, and there have been several wannabes trying for the fifth position, like ‘people’, ‘packaging’ etc, but this one takes the cake. It is very Indian, thats why i loved it – it is the ‘paanwala’.

    Brands are now competing with each other to make their presence felt in the small paan dukan -from fmcg co:s like HLL and Nestle to telecom players like Hutch, everyone wants to be in a paan shop, and in the process, the old paanwala is slowly being phased out and he is being replaced by the new paanwala dude who himself is a walking promotion, sporting Reebok, Levis, RayBan etc…..read more

    I was slightly skeptical about putting the bihar stuff yesterday, but it got a good response..and yahoooooo, it’s the weekend, two days of solid nothingness, only a lil shopping. Meanwhile, guys in Bangalore and Mumbai, tomorrow, watch out for WorldSpace’s ad in TOI and Bombay Times respectively and give me your feedback. So happy weekend people, enjoy yourself, take care and be back on monday for the latest edition of manuscrypts…what’s left is

    manuscrypts trivia

    just a lil dig at management… 😉

    Put eight monkeys in a room. In the middle of the room is a ladder, leading to a bunch of bananas hanging from a hook on the ceiling. Each time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, all the monkeys are sprayed with ice water, which makes them miserable. Sooner enough, whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the other monkeys, not wanting to be sprayed, set upon him and beat him up. Soon, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder. One of the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put in the room. Seeing the bananas and the ladder, he wonders why none of the other monkeys are doing the obvious, but, undaunted, he immediately begins to climb the ladder. All the other monkeys fall upon him and beat him silly. He has no idea why. However, he no longer attempts to climb the ladder. A second original monkey is removed and replaced. The newcomer again attempts to climb the ladder, but all the other monkeys hammer the crap out of him. This includes the previous new monkey, who, grateful that he’s not on the receiving end this time, participates in the beating because all the other monkeys are doing it. However, he has no idea why he’s attacking the new monkey. One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced. Eight new monkeys are now in the room. None of them have ever been sprayed by ice water. None of them attempt to climb the ladder. All of them will enthusiastically beat up any new monkey who tries, without having any idea why. And that’s how any company’s policies get established.