Dhoni is frankly speaking

Frankly speaking, if you had watched Dhoni's interview on NDTV "Dhoni on the beach", you would not even have an iota of doubt that Dhoni was lying because every sentence he spoke was prefixed by "frankly speaking", thus emphasizing that he is speaking the truth and nothing but the truth. Frankly speaking, the mass following that Dhoni has nowadays, people don't need this prefix to believe in whatever he says.
You know, maybe Dhoni is really not intending to add this element of truth, but actually he is just one of the millions of us, who cannot speak without such a phrase at the start of every sentence. Basically, these are the people who use words like actually, basically or phrases like "you know", "frankly speaking" as punctuation.
You know, i used to do like this back in college where i started any communication with the word "basically". There actually exists a term for such phrases. Just that i can't recollect the term. Frankly speaking, i have short term memory losses nowadays, you know!

The long and the short of the short cut

When Mahendra Singh Dhoni, of the Indian Cricket team, square cuts a ball for a boundary, a few million people in India admire his cricketing skills in executing the square cut. But,there are also few million others who forget about where the ball has gone, because they are just admiring his "long cut" or rather the lack of a hair cut. Dhoni has not only become a sensation in the cricketing world, but also in the hairdressing world, with more and more people opting for the "dhoni" look.

But, is that look, with long locks of hair any good ? I don't think so. Maybe, it makes sense to him as a cricketer to have long hair. Imagine a situation where a bouncer is bowled at him and the ball hits him on his helmet. By having long hair, he not only has the helmet to protect his skull, but also the many layers of hair and the hundreds of lice which would have taken residence within.

Things started changing from the first week of June with the start of the FIFA world cup. "Short cut" became the in thing. In fact, crazy hair cuts were the fashion. Hairdressers started using modified versions of "not-in-good-condition" lawn mowers to satisfy the ever-changing requirements of their customers. The trend was not to bend it like beckham, but to cut it like beckham.

I have always favoured the short cut, primarily because it allows the easy flow of Vitamin-D from sunlight into my brain, without being obstructed by lots of hair. Another reason is that i get to spend less time at the saloon and make his job easy too, since all it requires for my haircut is 3 or 4 smooth moves of the "machine" with the blade at position 4 and that's it, my haircut's done. My haircut (when done in India) costs around 40 bucks for the few hundred grams of hair which gets cut, whereas when Vidhya goes to the hairdresser to cut few microns from the ends of her hair, she gets charged 600 bucks. Its a pity that women are still exploited in this modern world!

But, off late, I have begun to hate the short cut, mainly because of hot flashes! No, this is not the "hot flashes" associated with women , but this is because of "hot" and "flash". It gets really hot in summer nowadays and with the rapid depletion of the ozone layer, harmful UV radiation also easily enters my brain along with Vitamin-D. This could prove to be really bad for me in the long run.

Another issue is the growing popularity of mini/micro/maxi digital cameras amongst today's generation.

Anyone who is someone has one and considers himself an expert at taking photos. Now all these cameras have good flashes and i didn't realise that i could become the target of a bad photo. Look at the photo alongside, the flash has bounced off my "short cut" and it looks as though I am bald at some places, whereas I am not. This photo also appeared in the official album of my cousin's wedding and my image took a serious dent with some people commenting "Raja, unnakku vayasu ayidithu, sotta vara aramchirutthu" (Raja, you have grown old, you have started becoming bald!)

So, don't be surprised if you see an entry on my blog few weeks later, with a photo of just my head. This is to prove to the world, that I am not growing bald!

How to identify a NRI in Chennai

The points below might help you in identifying NRIs in Chennai, for whatever reason you may want to do so.Almost all the points refer to identifying NRIs while they are in the act of driving a car, for this is where their differences with the rest of the locals show through clearly.

A NRI is driving the car if

• the driver is wearing a seat-belt. The only belts the locals know of are the ones you get for 30 rupees in Pondy bazaar. Few years back, when the Tamil Nadu government planned to make wearing seat belts compulsory, the brahmin community revolted against the idea by saying "We already wear cross-belts, why do we need yet another belt?" and so, seat-belts went off fashion. The NRI wouldn't know that wearing a seat-belt in the searing heat of chennai would "brand" his shirt in sweat.
• Both its side mirrors are in the proper position. Why would a local unnecessarily invest in an useless accessory? A NRI wouldn't know that it the responsibility of the person coming from behind to adjust according to the position of the person in front, who without any care whatsoever in the world, can swerve from one side to another.
• an indicator is used to move from an imaginary slow lane to an imaginary fast lane or vice versa. A NRI wouldn't know that indicators are used to act as a first layer of defense for the car's body against other vehicles which come in a "little" close and are not meant serve any other purpose. Using an indicator is a sure-shot giveaway that the person at the wheel is a NRI. You could even go unnoticed by having a L-board, but not when using an indicator.
• the car is still at the traffic signal when the countdown timer has reached the threshold of 9. Maybe, the NRI doesn't know that a single digit on the counter, and not a 0 or a 1, means that you have the green signal to go. The only other people still at the signal would be the unfortunate ones who are directly behind the NRI and it is logical that they can't turn to go around him, because they would have stopped their vehicles 1.2 cm behind the NRI's car.
• you as a pedestrian walking on the side of the road, without warning, without any hand signals, jump to the middle of the road to continue your walk and happen to be in the way of a car, you hear the driver saying (and not shouting) "What the ...", "Are you crazy?" , "Are you out of your mind", then you can be sure that the driver is a NRI. If the same NRI happens to retain some of his roots, you might hear him saying "Paathu ponga sir" or "Enganga poringa". If it were a local, you would wish you were deaf for you might hear "Eh Saavugraki, Vootle solltiya?" or "kasumalam, Nee Saavarthukku En Vandidhan Kadchidha". A NRI wouldn't know that pedestrians, cows, buffaloes, goats and not vehicles have the right of way on our roads.

But, chennai is constantly changing and so, the breed of NRIs would also have to constantly evolve to be ahead of the masses. No idea as to what this breed might do next.

Pilani Days

"Pilani days" is a short video (will take up 18 minutes of your time at work) where few bitsians recollect the good old days at BITS, Pilani. The video is interspersed with clippings from Bollywood movies, portraying the emotions expressed by the bitsians in a form which makes it easier to comprehend. A very well-made hilarious video of a bitsian's life. If the video below doesn't play, here is the direct link to the pilani days video.

The benefits of going digital

I have become so used to living in the digital age using digital watches, digital cameras, listening to digital soundtracks, even using a digital thermometer for checking the temperature, that I have forgotten how analog worked and how much better our lives are, now.
Sometimes, the past comes back, to haunt you, to show you that it was the one who you had admired and now disown. It did, for me too, in the form of an analog clock. Last week was busy for me, as I had to attend a wedding, which meant that I had to get up pretty early (as early as 3.30 AM).
Not many know the reason why Indian weddings are held early in the morning. Centuries ago, in India, there never existed a custom of arranged marriage. All the marriages which happened were the kind where the couple eloped from their homes and married each other. This was accepted in society, with the only restriction that the marriage should not happen in the presence of anyone else and the society should not be aware of the marriage, prior to it happening. That is why, the couples getting married, always got married in the wee hours of the morning, while the rest of the neighbourhood was asleep. Unfortunately, in modern India, even arranged marriages now follow the same routine.
So, I had to get up at 3.30 AM. I am not an insomniac, but snore enough to make vidhya one. After 4 years of marriage, vidhya has developed immunity for my snoring and manages quite a deep sleep. I needed an external help for waking up at 3.30 and where else do I look at, rather than my mobile phone with a digital alarm accurate to the second. Alas, my phone’s top two buttons were not working, thus making it only useful for Reliance’s “Lifetime incoming free” plan.
So, I borrowed an analog clock from my mom. It looked liked it had been gifted for my mom’s wedding! I kept the alarm for 3.15 AM. Had some difficulty in doing it, because I had to recollect my geometry skills to determine the position to place the alarm hand, so that it would be 3.15 AM. My mom told me that the “alarm” was actually a piece of classical music/sloga. I wondered as to how classical music could wake me up. I am used to falling asleep whenever I happen to listen to one.
Off I went to my world of dreams. Sometime later, in the middle of the action sequence I was participating in, the villain suddenly started singing a sloga! I was wondering, in my dream, whether I was in a dream listening to this sloga! Recursion, I have always been good at it! Later, it “dawned” on me that it was time for me to get up.
This is where all the trouble started. I woke up, half asleep, took the alarm clock in my hand and tried to search for the “snooze” button for that extra ten minutes of precious sleep. Alas, there wasn’t any. I had only one option, that of turning off the alarm. But, I needed that extra ten minutes, without which my entire day would be spoilt. So, I tried to move the alarm hand a further ten minutes away. Neither did I have the eyes of an owl nor did I have such a fine-tuned sense of trigonometry. So I had to get up, in the dark, find my way to the switch board(falling over at least 2 suitcases on the way), switch on the lights and then re-adjust the time on the alarm clock. By this time, the need for that extra time had gone!
Imagine the trouble I had to go through, just because the digital technology was unavailable to me. God bless the person who found the 0s and 1s.

A Good Indian Wedding

My only cousin got married a few days ago. Probably, I am one amongst a handful of Indians of the current generation, who has only one direct cousin, including the father's and the mother's side. So, this was an important occasion for me to attend. Luckily, the wedding coincided with my annual pilgrimage/vacation to India.

This was a good Indian wedding, which I was expecting it to be, considering the importance of this wedding to me! So, what makes a good Indian wedding? It may be similar to big, fat Greek weddings, as in, Indian weddings are big, in scale, in money spent and also in the number of people attending. Indian weddings definitely make one feel fat, with the dozens of varieties of food items on offer during the course of the two or three days of the wedding.

Ironically, Greek weddings are neither big nor fat. I had the opportunity of attending the wedding of one of my Cypriot (Greeks known by a different name) colleagues. Her wedding was held at a “family” church with around a 100 people attending, with more than half of this number being the neighborhood kids! She was so tense before the “walk to the altar”, that she was puffing away at cigarettes just outside the church, to calm her nerves! The strangest part of the wedding, at least for me, was that the entire wedding process, that of the priest solemnizing the marriage and the “I do” sessions were held with their backs to the audience. So, we spent the entire time sitting in the church watching the butts of the bride and the groom!

Back to the good Indian wedding, my cousin’s wedding was very good and it followed a very good schedule. It started off with very good Tiffin early in the morning and 3 or 4 cups of good filter coffee in the few hours after. All this while, something was happening on stage (mandap), something related to the marriage, I suppose. By then, it was time for a good heavy traditional lunch (Sambhar, Rasam, Butter Milk etc). Lunch was followed by a brief afternoon siesta for 2-3 hours. By this time, the bride and the groom had spent many hours in front of the “smoking altar”, cleansing their sinus cavities in this process. I came to know, that the couple had been officially married in the time I had been away for lunch. Next, it was evening snacks time, Pakodas, Badushas and some mixture, of course with the usual servings of filter coffee. Then came the reception. “Reception” in an Indian marriage is done to show off to the public, that the couple is still happy and smiling in spite of having gone into wedlock. When it is time for “reception” for the couple, it is time for dinner for the people attending the reception. The “reception dinner” is usually the best of the lot, as this is the time, when the work-bosses of the parents or the couple, good looking friends of the bride, the not-so-good looking friends of the groom who came to look at the good looking friends of the bride and other socially and economically relevant people attend. Needless to say, it was good.

My cousin has no brothers (If you hadn’t concluded this after the first line of this entry, go and practice old Infy question papers). She has 3 cousin brothers and I am the eldest of the lot. So, I had additional responsibilities, the foremost being that of ensuring that the quality and quantity of food being served at the wedding was adequate. So, there I was, at least 15 minutes before each session, first in line for the pandhi (serving). Not only had I to check the quality of each and every food item, I also had to ensure that everyone got whatever quantity they asked for. So, I had to keep asking for more servings of almost all items to ensure that there was sufficient for all. I had to different kind of tests too. For example, when I was eating the payasam at the end of the dinner and the seats to my either side had been vacated as far as the eye could see, I wanted to test their responsiveness to unplanned requests (thanks to my company’s customer satisfaction survey for giving me the idea of this test). So, with a cup of payasam in my hand, I shouted “One appalam (papad) please”. The guy with the appalams almost fell down in surprise. Good that he actually didn’t, for if he had, all the appalams would have been crushed. Surprised, yet cheerful, he handed me an appalam and asked “Sir, do you need some rice to go with the appalam”. Good guy!

Finally, after three days of the same tough routine of getting my responsibilities right, the good Indian wedding came to an end and may the couple live happily ever after.