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Nov 19, 2009

180 feet

Shamianas came down, signaling the end of fun.
The mother-daughter duo, started working, under the hot sun.
The 10 year old girl, gawked around. causing her mom distress,
She was, told,ignore the food and drink, just help me clean the mess.

Later, their Masters offered to the girl, a cool drink, as a tip..
But her mother snatched it from her, before it reached her lip.

As she went home carried by her tired feet
She wished they didn't have to plan, When to drink and eat
But she shared her bathroom with 180 feet
So didn't dare to sip water, even in the scorching heat.

Their Masters might offer them something to drink or eat
But definitely wouldn't let her use, their toilet seat.

Nov 18, 2009

Fending off the Unfriended

"Unfriend" according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, is the Word of the Year. Oxford defines "unfriend," a verb, thusly: "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook."

So perhaps its time, you let go of the strangers who are on your friends list or the snoopy colleague at work. While its agonising to be unfriended, (Divine Justice - Bollywood style ) it not easy fending off the unfriended, when they confront us and ask for the reason. Well, look around you, and get inspired. Here are some responses you could use :-

1. Did I unfriend you? I know I shouldn't have. Let me check and respond. (Mayawati to Supreme Court on Memorial, style)

2. I value your friendship. But my family needs me more. And Family comes First. (Sachin style)

3. I just needed (your) attention. (Sena style)

4. Claim "Its against internet's culture to ask the reason for being unfriended " Then get violent and send virulent viruses and claim you did it because your cultural sensibilities were affected. (MNS style)

5. Everyone is doing it. Don't focus on just me. (Yedurappa's 1.7 crore renovation expenses style)

6. I want to spend the time, I spent on your friendship, helping the poor and needy. (Manu Sharma's give me Parole style)

7. I didn't unfriend you. Some virus did it. (Koda denial style)

8. Its just the beginning. I have asked all my friends to unfriend you. Lets see who ends up with how many friends. Its going to be an unfriendly unfriending war for friendship. (Ambani brothers style)

9. Hide and let someone else explain it for you. (Osama style)

10. Lol ! You thought I care about your feelings! (Rajapakse style)

11. We can, (pause) have a great and meaningful, (long pause) offline relationship, (longer pause) only if I unfriend you, (longest pause) first. (Obama on Tibet style)

2. I know how you feel. It hurts awfully. Its only one for you. I was unfriended by 7 people today. (Pakistan on terrorism in India style)

13. See for a better life, you need to unfriend and declutter your life. I was helping you kickstart the process. Unfriend everyone else, then don't forget to be grateful to me for it. (US enabling Iraq style)

14. Let me give you 3 email ids. They can be your friends instead of me. (Just don't target us, US to Pakistan style)

15. Of course I know you don't deserve it. But I am the member of Nobel Committee on Increasing Internet Friendship...

Nov 15, 2009

Moanday Morning Syndrome

A study found that 35% of all sick leave is taken on a Monday. While the lowest sick leave rate was recorded on Fridays - just 3% of the total.

There is a simple reason for people feeling sick on Monday. It isn't due to the work, but due to the absence of play. Yes, its not due to unreasonable targets fixed by the (knowledgeable and esteemed) management. But by a single universal question asked by colleagues to one another on Monday Mornings "How was your weekend?"

The answer is of course "Slept, Ate, Watched TV. In different order. And possibly also, cooked, cribbed, washed, cleaned house, watched porn, exchanged forwards and blogged. For those with kids it would include "Slept little, Ate something, Fed kids, Watched whatever the kids were watching , yelled at the kids and did their homework". For the social types it would be "Met the same boring people, ate, and cribbed about everything".

Since we have to appear cool, its not easy to spout these truths. And when we are not creative enough to think of cool lies, we feel sick and suffer from the Moanday Morning Syndrome.

If you suffer from this syndrome, and have exhausted your sick leave, here are few tips on how to manage it.

1. Ask the question before its asked. And appear bored with the answer. The colleague becomes defensive and moves away. Attack is better than defense, even if it means spreading the syndrome.

2. Announce you are an Art Collector who collects toothbrushes of famous people during the weekends. Bring a toothbrush every Monday and display it on your table and claim it belongs to some celebrity. You will be glamorous because you hang out with stars, yet people wouldn't want to talk too much about toothbrushes. (If you don't know the details of the celeb, mention sometimes you have to deal with dealers). (For the persistent, mention you also collect armpit hairs.)

3. Say you were Skydiving from a Sky Scrapper. And ask your colleagues if they would like to join you next week.

4. Read the reviews and pretend to have watched the latest movie. If it invites more questions, explain the movie was intellectually demeaning, and so you dozed. To make it more interesting, mention you sat next to some Reality TV star.

5. What can be sexier than sex? If you are single, hint you are having an affair with a celebrity.

6. Mention you are a member of some MLM (Multi Level Marketing) concept. And start discussing the products and schemes. Its not cool, but you will be left alone.

7. Reply you were re-reading Alchemist or Fountainhead or Monk who sold his Ferrari or Jonanthan Livingston Seagull. And each time mention "I was reading about it from a philosophical/ socio-economic/ emotional/ ethical/ historical/ contemporary... perspective". Or mention you were reading War and Peace. (Its lengthy so you can get away with it for couple of years). Or better claim you are writing your own book which will be an amalgamation of the concepts in these books.

8. Think creatively like the Hindi News Channels. Mention, you were busy waiting for a flying saucer to fly or in a long queue to consult a Tarot Reader. Or you were holidaying in some haunted house.

9. Imply if you hate to be caught in a lie. Tell the truth with a mysterious smile and a mischievous wink. Throw in a knowing look with a Maaay BBe and Juusssssst.

10. Claim you have joined MNS and were working for it .(Online if you are not in Maharashtra). It may not be cool but colleagues will leave you alone and if they come up with any cool activities you can label it as "against our culture values" and quieten even them.

11. Announce you are an Artist. Say your Art is Conceptual and Context-Intellectual and Anti-Commercial. Point out Van Gogh didn't sell a painting during his lifetime. If colleagues persist, stick couple of dead cockroaches on a paper and keep it on your desk. Or mention you work with nude models, who trust you to keep their paintings private, since they are celebrities.

12. If nothing works, say "Working, of course". Its not cool, but atleast makes the colleague feel guilty. And say it louder if the Boss is around.

Whatever you say, never admit you blog. Your colleagues will google out your blog and you will have to write safe boring blogs, which will drive away your regular readers. And if there is anything worse than you suffering the Moanday Morning Syndrome its your blog suffering from UnCommented Content Syndrome.

Nov 14, 2009

Celebrating Birthdays

What did Nehru Do for Children? Why should we celebrate Children's Day today?
Perhaps we should celebrate Sonia's Birthday as Bahu Day.. (Sorry Ekta Kapoor you still have Saas Day)..
Since Balasaheb seems to know more about Indian culture, should we celebrate Culture Day on his birthday? (Kareena's bareback poster irks Sena activists)

Nov 12, 2009

Outrage

There is a lot of outrage on the streets
Not due to the poor quality bullet proof vest provided to the ATS chief, Hemant Karkare.
Not due to the 4000 Crores Koda loot.
Not due to a Japanese Rape game, where you get points for raping a woman and her teenage daughters..
Yeah you got it right, India dropped to 3rd place in ODI rankings. And Dhoni spotted partying after loss!
Lets sack Dhoni. We need accountability in this country.

PS : Since we are ahead of Pakistan, you don't have to rush out on the streets to start a revolution.

PPS : Congress is outraged at the Forbes Powerful People List, for including Manmohan and excluding Sonia Gandhi.
And MNS is outraged because the list wasn't in Marathi..

Nov 3, 2009

Divine Justice - Bollywood style

Movie - Kribs and Kit Kits (Kompassion ya Kruelty)

Dedicated to those who couldn't comprehend my Previous Post.

Cast
God : Amitabh Bachan
New Angel : Saif Ali Khan
New Angel's GF : Kareena Kapoor
Item Girls : Rakhi Sawant and Mallika Sherawat.
Kribber : SoRP (Son of Rich Producer)
Kribber's girlfriend : Ms.Skimpy (Who will reveal if the role demands it)
Aargh Angel : Shahrukh Khan (in Special Appearance)

Voice of Amitabh as the titles role..
"In the eyes of God all are equal. Unfortunately, when it comes to Justice, I get a bad name, because I treat all your problems and prayers as equals. You wonder why there is hunger in the world. Yet, pray to God, for your Pizza boy to deliver, faster.. "

Scene 1 : Bar of a Five Star Hotel with a Stage.
Mallika Sherawat is dancing on the stage. SoRP is enjoying the song, when he checks his mobile. He sees the message and becomes gloomy and drinks heavily, mumbling to God about Insaaf..

Saif Ali Khan enters and sits next to SoRP, gives him another glass and says "Dude whats your problem. Can I help?"

Cut to Amitabh peering at earth from the clouds.
Shahrukh walks over and asks Amitabh, "What happened to my proposal, to reduce the Complaints by Creating more Problems for the Cribbers." (For complete proposal read the post, Divine Justice T20 style in Shahrukh's voice).

Amitabh : "I got another proposal. A new recruit thinks, Angels can solve the problems of even cribbers, by being kind and compassionate."
Shahrukh snorts. They are joined by a third angel, Kareena, who stares anxiously at the earth, from the clouds.

Back to the Bar.
Rakhi Sawant is now dancing.
SoRP moans : "I got defriended dude. Can you help me with the revenge?"
Sail Ali Khan smses Kareena "I have a doubt, can you meet me."

They both meet in an exotic foreign locality and dance to a song. Baddies tries to molest Kareena and Saif bashes them.

As they walk away, licking ice creams, Kareena : "Defriended means rejecting a person on the net. For example, in facebook or twitter. There was an article in CNN about it causing lots of misery among humans. But angels are forbidden to help in revenge, Sweetie".
Saif : "Don't worry babe I will think of something else" winks and enters the Bar.

SoRP is now singing a sad melodious song, Mallika and Rakhi are dancing with tears in their eyes.
SoRP is imagining his Skimpy Bikini Girlfriend.

SoRP joins Saif after the song. Saif : "I can't help you in revenge but give me the details, dude."

SoRP shows he attended acting school by emoting love, frustration, hatred, misery and anger (by furrowing his eyebrows) and then tells his story.

"Today morning, I fell in love with a girl in a bikini on the beach. But Baddies kidnapped her to a factory to demand ransom from her rich father. I bashed the baddies and rescued the girl. But when I confessed I loved her, she said she has to be my friend first, and asked if I was fit to be her friend?"
"I told her I would get 500 friends in my network by midnight to prove I was worthy of being a friend. I had 496 friends 15 minutes back. Now the 497th one was a friend of the colleague of my classmate. He rejected my invite saying "He didn't know me." I am worried it could be due to something else. Maybe my Profile Picture, or Profile Details or my latest message. What if more people start defriending me? I am doomed."

Saif sighs and says a long dialogue about hope and love then suddenly stops. He stares at the clock. Its going to be three minutes to midnight. A limousine stops in front of the Hotel. And a girl in high red heels and skimpy red skirt gets out with a pout and a poodle.

Saif asks Mallika and Rakhi to be SoRP's friends. They agree. SoRP's friends count reaches 498.

INTERMISSION

Ms.Skimpy enters and Saif asks her to accept an invite from a friendly stranger. She agrees. SoRP's friends count reaches 499. 30 seconds to midnight. SoRP and Saif stare at each other.

SoRP asks Saif for his email id. Saif hesitates. He recalls Kareena saying "Baby, unlike human beings we have only one email id, never share it with humans."

But when Saif sees the ticking clock and the pouting girl and the pained lover. He gives his email id to SoRP and accepts his invite.

SoRP proudly displays his 500 friends to Ms.Skimpy. They kiss. And SoRP says, he now believes in Divinity and Divine Justice.

In Hitech Heavenly Palace, Amitabh is seated on a throne, while Shahrukh is busy behind a laptop. The guards bring in Saif in shackles and handcuffs. Shahrukh rises with a smirk and circles Saif.

Shahrukh to Amitabh : "Dear Lord, we have before us, Mujrim Angel, the first Angel to commit a crime".
Amitabh stares at Saif.
Shahrukh to Saif : "Mujrim Angel, Did you give your confidential email id to a human being, yesterday?"
Saif nods, looks at Amitabh and says "Everything is fair in love and war"
Amitabh looks passive.
Shahrukh "Do you know the Kost... of your Krime?" turns to Amitabh "For the first time we had to spend a million on antivirus software and technicians to fix our computers."

Amitabh : "I don't know understand.."
Shahrukh deferentially : "When our Mujrim Angel gave his email id to his Human Protege, he didn't realise the Konsequence of his actions. He received invites to 9 social networking sites, 17 photosharing sites, 7 sites which united you with your classmates, 15 sites which linked you to people in your profession, and 36 forwards. Since the Bcc option was not used in forwards, all the 499 friends of his Protege, got Mujrim angel's email id, and they too started sending him invites and forwards."

"Instead of blocking them, Mujrim Angel, didn't want to cause anyone distress, so he accepted them all. He decided he would respond kindly to every email and invite in his inbox, including the offers from the kind men in Africa who wanted to share their hard earned millions with him and the women who wanted to sell sex pills and weight loss programs, for a pittance."

Shahrukh turns viciously to Saif : "But more importantly, while reading those emails, you also accepted the viruses and worms these humans create. These viruses and worms attacked and infected every computer in our Divine Network."

Amitabh gravely to Saif : "Do you have anything to say? Do you realise I could punish you with death?"

Saif looks down and then becomes defiant and delivers a long dialogue about love being priceless.

Kareena looks on with tears in her eyes, then challenges Shahrukh, to his solution, to SoRP's problem.

Shahrukh smirks and sends an email to SoRP with the subject, Naked Pics. They watch the result on the bigscreen. SoRP oogles and forwards the email to all his 514 friends and everyone's computer crashes.

"Problem solved" he smirks to Kareena. "No computer, No Virtual Friends."

Kareena laughs and points out technically, even Shahrukh gave away his email id and now they have to deal with 514 cribbers who want their computers fixed.

Saif to Shahrukh and Amitabh : "Love is the solution, not cruelty, even when it comes to Cribbers."

Amitabh nods gravely. And orders Saif to be released.

Shahrukh pouts, picks his laptop and starts to leave. But Saif and Kareena, reach out to him. Shahrukh looks suprised then gives in. They all have a group hug. And dance at the wedding reception of SoRP and Ms.Skimpy.

Nov 2, 2009

Divine Justice T20 Style - 2

He stared at his screen, stunned and softly cursed. Emotionally, he felt, he had been suddenly marooned in a cold lonely island, even though technically, he was at work. He went to the pantry, leaned against the wall, and tried to digest what had happened to him.

Rage, Depression, Confusion and Frustration, played havoc inside his mind. In between he cribbed about his fate to God and immediately a nervous guy came in.

"Angel. Ketan Angel." he said. "Ketangel to friends. . I am visiting a friend, here. You OK? Here have a coffee" He thought Ketangel was funny, but after sipping the coffee, felt warmth towards Ketangel.

(The coffee had been spiked. Ketangel was actually an angel in disguise. A volunteer to render speedy Divine Justice, T20 style, to Cribbers, Compassionately. Not to be confused with his colleague, Aargh Angel, who prefers to wipe out Cribbers (Humans who clog the Divine Justice System with silly cribs). This was Ketangel's first assignment and he beamed at his Protege.)

The Protege said, "I have been defriended and feel miserable. Any revenge ideas?"
"Sorry can't help you with anything immoral and what is this defriended?" softly enquired, Ketangel.

Protege groaned and yelled few abuses. "You #$# don't know what has happened **** to me, and you $#@ won't help me with the revenge. Why are you wasting my time! %$#%#$%"
Ketangel winced but remained calm. "Perhaps if you explain, I can think of some other way to help you."

"I sent an Invite to this guy, who is a friend, of a colleague, of my classmate, and he rejected me! Said he didn't "know" me! Ha! How will he know me if he doesn't accept my invite! Anyway today morning, I thought I had 497 friends, and I would reach 500 today. Now I am with just 496 friends, and don't know the Real Rejection Reason. Maybe something in my profile, picture, or my latest message. What if this is just the beginning? What will I do, if more people defriend me?"

"Why don't you feel happy about the 496 friends you have, instead of getting upset with someone whom you don't even know. Why waste today, thinking what might happen tomorrow? Don't let your self worth quantified by the number of acquaintances, er friends.. "

Suddenly Protege's face brightened and he said "Hey, Ketangel, thanks for the advice, but you can make me feel better if you give me your email id and be my 497th friend."

Ketangel hesitated. He had only one email id and it was for official purpose only. And it was supposed to be strictly confidential. Yet Ketangel, was a benevolent angel who wanted to make an improvement in a human's life, even if the human happened to be a low life cribber and wanted to desperately succeed at his first assignment.

So Ketangel gave his email id, and watched his Protege rush back to his cubicle to work.

Actually, the protege went to check out Qwitter which allows Twitter users to determine who's stopped following them and which tweet may have turned them off; in case any of his Twitter followers decided to quit.)

Ten minutes later, Ketangel received invites to 9 social networking sites, 17 photosharing sites, 7 sites which united you with your classmates, 15 sites which linked you to people in your profession, and 36 forwards. Since the Bcc option was not used in forwards, all the 496 friends of his protege, got Ketangel's email id, and they too started sending him invites and forwards.

He didn't want to cause anyone distress, so he accepted them all. He decided he would respond kindly to every email and invite in his inbox, including the offers from the kind men in Africa who wanted to share their hard earned millions with him and the women who wanted to sell sex pills and weightloss programs, for a pittance.

The next day, the Protege oogled at the email from Ketangel, which had hot naked pictures of the latest starlet. Just after he finished forwarding it, to his 514 friends, his computer crashed.

You see, some Angels could be compassionate to cribbers but not to computer viruses and worms that had entered their "packmerries" through Ketangel's emails. So Ketangel had been fired and his email id had been handed over to Aargh Angel..