I remember the first time I went to Starbucks like yesterday. It was one of those incidents that shook me, and changed me for life.

So I’m waiting for a connecting flight at the Denver airport. It’s horribly early, and I’m terribly sleepy. I decide that a kick of coffee is what I need.

Now, back in India, getting a cup of coffee is a really simple matter. You go to a darshini, say ‘coffee’ (or any of these accepted phrases: ‘kapi‘, ‘kophee‘, ‘caafeeee‘ etc… etc…) and you get a nice, hot cup of coffee! Apparently, Starbucks doesn’t believe in simplicity. It believes in choice.

I walk up to the counter.
SalesGirl: “Hi! Welcome to Starbucks. What can I get you this morning?”
Me: “I’d like a Coffee please”
The salesgirl behind the counter looks surprised, like no one has ever asked for a simple coffee before.
SalesGirl: “Hmmm…OK. What kind of coffee would you like?”
Ah! The famous American consumer choice. I know a little bit of coffee, so I know the answer to that question.
Me: “I’ll have a latte please”
SalesGirl: “Sure. What kind?”
There are different types of latte? This is news to me.
Me: “Err…The regular kind?”
The sales girl is looking really weird at me.
SalesGirl: “Would you like Decaf?”
Me: “Maybe?”
SalesGirl: “And would you like 1%, 2% or skimmed milk?”
I have no idea what this girl is talking about. Why is a simple thing like getting coffee so problematic? I feel like I’m back in my Physics Viva exams.

Examiner: “What phenomenon causes the dispersal of light through the refractive diffraction grating?”
Me: “Errr…Light…Re..fraction?”
Examiner shaking his head.
Me: “Tindall effect? Faraday’s Cage?”
Examiner proceeds to write something down in his marks notebook.
Me, despairingly: “Newton’s Apple? Schroedinger’s Uncertainty principle?”

Back to now. The SalesGirl is also not satisfied with my answers.
SalesGirl: “Would you like your coffee to go?”
Me: “Go where?”
SalesGirl: “Here?”
Me: “What?”
SalesGirl: “OK, that’ll be two-twenty-five.”

I think she got bored with me at this point. Phew! I’m just glad it’s over. But I’ve learnt a hard lesson there.

Now, when I order coffee, I simply say “I’ll have what he just had”, pointing to the person that took the coffee before me in the line. They all taste the same anyway.

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There’s a lot of hype floating around about healthy food and good exercise and things like that. Apparently, just 20 minutes of aerobic exercise makes you 30% less likely to get a heart attack. Also, it keeps you fit, prevents hair loss, gives you X-ray vision and doubles your broadband download speed . Plus, it’s all over internet. And as we all know, because it is on the internet, it must be true. That’s the nature of the internet.

In summary, exercise now, spending 20 minutes of my prime youth so that I can live 1 extra hour when I’m old, weak and can’t see or hear anything. That seems like a good deal.

And so, I go off and click on one of those ‘Want a healthy lifestyle? Click here to loose weight now. Free trial, No Diets!’ ads. No diets? Interesting. But the page it takes me to has a bunch of jumping monkeys that I need to punch, a Nigerian Prince asking for my Bank Account numbers and a very well argued article saying how this stock is going to double in a few days. But I don’t see how these will help me become fit. Hmmm…, maybe there is no virtual solution for exercise. I’ll have to go to the offline world. That’s a new experience for me, but I’ve decided I’ll try it.

Luckily, the company I was working for at that time had a gym right in the office. As I was walking to the gym, I met this guy who had just started going to the gym.

This guy, let’s call him Anishekh*, was pathetically thin. If he lost any more weight, he’d probably become 2-Dimensional. He had joined the gym, he told me, to put on some weight and become a muscle man.
“How’s it been working out for you, so far?” I ask
“It’s great! I’ve already gained 75 grams in 2 weeks!”
“75g? That’s probably your hair and beard growing, man. Don’t go to the barber, because your 75g of ‘muscle’ might disappear. Heheheee…”

This guy doesn’t seem impressed with my brilliant joke. We reach the gym. But the thing is, the gym is located near the Cafeteria, where they are also serving Samosas today. “Oh well, If I’m going to loose weight, I might as well put on some first, eh?” I think to myself. A few other friends are also gobbling on the Samosas and I join them. After that, we start playing Carrom and Darts and by the time I’m finished, the gym is closed.

“Oh, bummer! I’ll just come back tomorrow”, I think to myself and push off.

6 Months later, I’m showing an intern around the office. As we go near the gym, I realize that I’ve forgotten to go back there.
“Do you go to the gym?”, intern asks me.
“Well, Not recently.” I say.

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I usually don’t blog about current affairs (that’s because I usually have no idea what’s happening in the world), but this video on YouTube caught me today. It’s brilliant. Just listen to the deep, insightfull answer that this beauty queen has to offer.

Watched it? I’ll wait till you finish. Done? OK.

I felt very nostalgic after watching this video. That was me, before I discovered the joys of Jargoneese. This chic really needs a lesson from Professor Aditya, if you know what I’m saying

Anyway, this girl finished 4th. She juuuusstt missed the 3rd place crown. Can you believe that? After giving that answer! That can mean only one thing. The judges had no idea either. They were probably looking for some keywords in the answer (like “US”, “education”, “build our future” etc…). Much like the VTU “model answers”.

The point I’m trying to make is that these Beauty Pageants are not very different from Engineering Exams. No one knows what the questions mean, the same few keywords can be used for all the answers, the judges need to see lots of figures and curves and in the end, how many marks you get doesn’t matter at all.

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When I was little, I wanted to be a Bus Conductor. I passionately wanted the job. Just imagine! Riding in a bus all day, everyday. And playing around with all that small change! I loved the sound the coins made when the conductor shuffled the purse looking for change.

I still remember discussing my career plans with my Dad.

Me: “Dad, I want to be a Bus Conductor when I grow up”
Dad (from behind a newspaper): “Very good. Very ambitious.”
Me: “Yeah. Then I will have lots of coins. I will be rich!”
Dad: “Why don’t you try to become something where you’ll get lots of notes instead?”
Me: “I don’t like notes. They don’t make a nice sound. I like coins better.”
Dad: “You have a very bright future ahead.”

I wanted to be Train Driver, Restaurant Waiter, Cricket Batsman, Telephone lineman, Pilot and Nuclear Physicist at various points during my schooling years. Years later, when it finally came down to joining an Engineering course, I decided to do Software Engineering, simply because they seemed to be getting the most money. This was back in 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom. 2 Months after our College started, the dot-com bust came and evaporated all the dreams of big money. I was mentally preparing myself to go into my backup career plan - further studies to pursue a PhD.

One year into college and it became clear that I was not PhD material. I barely managed to pass some subjects - getting 34 and a half, which would be rounded up to 35, which was the minimum passing mark. I had lot of trouble writing 5-mark answers, which were expected to be at least one page long. There was no way I was going to be able to write a full thesis.

Fortunately for me, when graduation time came in 2004, the software industry had recovered sufficiently that I landed a job. I decided that it was high time to get disciplined and to start a serious career. This dilly dallying and switching career plans every 2 months was not going to work. I decided I was going to make it in the software industry.

8 Months later, I was researching Tobacco Farming. It turned out to be surprisingly lucrative. And it turns out the tobacco plants don’t need that much water either. Now all I needed was some farm land…

It’s been 3 years now since I graduated, and I’ve put my Tobacco farming plans on hold to pursue yet another career - I want to write a Bollywood movie now. Seriously. I’m hoping to cast Rakhi Sawant in it.

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It’s 15th of August, and the wife is packing her bags. She’s going to The America for 4 weeks. And I’m celebrating Independence Day right here in Bangalore. Anyway, she’s “encouraging” me to help her pack all her stuff. Unfortunately for her, there’s a Rakhi Sawant “Top 10 songs” special on Channel V, which I absolutely have to watch.

Wife, screaming from inside: “Come here and help me fold all these Salwar Kameezes“
Me, grunting: “But there is a special program on TV!”
Wife: “What are you watching, anyway?”
Me: “Hmmm? Oh, It’s a discovery channel special. About wild cats. And how they stalk their prey.”
Wife: “Is that more important than me?”

That, as I’ve come to learn very quickly, is a checkmate. That question has no answer. It’s a rhetorical that basically translates to “Come here this instant or I will kill you.”

I drudgingly go into the room where there are more clothes than I’ve ever seen in my life. They’re all over the place, like flood waters after a deadly storm.
Me: “Are all these clothes yours?”
Wife: “Of course. Whose else can they be?”
Me: “You’re planning to take all these? In those 2 bags? They’ll never fit.”
Wife: “Of course they’ll fit.”
Me: “That’s against the laws of physics. See, the law of conservation of mass says…”

Wife is giving me THE LOOK.

Wife: “Look, are you going to help me or not?”

Another of those rhetorical questions. This one translates to: “Fold all these clothes into 6 categories. Partywear, Office wear, Office Casuals, Office semi-formals, Office formals and Friday Casuals.” And that’s just the office wear.

Me: “You’re planning to take 5 pairs of shoes?”
Wife: “Look, just put them in, OK?”
Me: “But you’re going only for a few weeks. Why would you possibly need 5 pairs of shoes?”
Wife: “Stop arguing, OK. Just do as you’re told.”
Me: “You do realize you’re only allowed 2 bags, 23 Kgs each?”
Wife: “STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT THE BAGS”
Me: “You’re never going to be able to carry all this. Hell, you won’t even be able to push the Trolley with these bags on it.”
Wife: “That’s it! GET OUT!

VICTORY! Hahahaha…I had managed to nag the wife enough to secure release. Oh, it’s a good feeling. Now I know what she feels everyday. I anxiously get back to the program. The countdown has already reached song #6.

Suddenly, there’s a blood cuddling scream. It’s coming from inside the room. The Wife has let out such a high-pitched shreek, that the clothes must have all folded themselves in fear. I run inside the room.

Me: “What happened? What happened?”
Wife: “The…Oh my God. The… red… I….”
Me: “Red what? You saw a cockroach?”
Wife: “No…no…OK. This is an emergency. The red thing…Oh no! How could I forget. Oh no!”
Me: “Take a deep breath. Relax. What did you forget? Is your passport locked in the office? Is your VISA expired? What’s the matter?”
Wife: “The Red Bag. I forgot to buy a red bag! Now I don’t have a bag to go with this dress.”
Me: “WHAT?”
Wife: “We have to go and buy one now. Let’s go”
Me: “Now? It’s 10 in the night!”
Wife: “I don’t think you appreciate the seriousness of the problem.”

Much convincing and cajoling later, the wife finally agrees that it is possible that she could buy one when she lands in the US. After 15 minutes, she’s managed to calm down enough that she’s breathing normally.

The rest of the packing session doesn’t go so well. The bags are overweight, she can’t find the Knoor soup packs, and there’s no room left for all her watches.

Eventually, she does get all done. I want to tell her that her Chanel No. 5 is not going to be allowed in her handbag, but decide against it. Let the security people tell her. After all, they’re paid for dealing with hazardous objects. And perfumes.

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Thank you everybody for correcting my spelings and grammer.

This is not new to me. I’ve always had trouble with spellings. Over the years, I’ve learnt to take criticism very well - I ignore it.

If you thought my spellings were bad, you haven’t seen my handwriting yet. My regular handwriting looks like this:

This one time in school, the teacher gave us so much homework that I decided to mount a protest. I wrote the homework in such pathetic handwriting, that even by my own low standards, the handwriting was pretty bad. I was satisfied with the end result - My homework looked like the Indus Valley Script - Completely indecipherable.

I submitted the homework, and the next day, the teacher actually called out on me.

Teacher: “Class, Aditya has done such a good job with his homework, that I am going to ask him to come out and read it out so that all off you can learn from it.”
Me: “Eh? The teacher liked my homework? I know she taught history, but can she really read the Indus Valley Script?”

I walked up to the front of the class, and the teacher handed me the book. I opened it, and saw my own handwriting. It was looking much worse than I remembered writing it. IT seemed like there was a battle between the words on the page, and someone had shot a cannon at the words, and they’d all scattered and fallen everywhere from the resulting explosion. How on earth was I going to read this thing?

Me: “Err…Ma’am, I think my Homework has been under attack.”
Teacher: “So you can’t read your own handwriting, eh?”
Me: “Ma’am, I assure you. The letters were all just fine yesterday when I submitted them. They must have gotten lazy and fallen off from the line. Or maybe they slipped”
Teacher: “Why don’t you just try to focus yourself? A good handwriting will bring you a lifetime of happiness.”
Me: “Yesterday, there was a documentary on how the computer would make handwriting obsolete. It was very good. Did you watch it?”
Teacher: “I’ve had enough. You will write ‘I will improve my handwriting’ one hundred times”

And so I wrote this pointless assignment yet again. I don’t see how this improved my handwriting, but it seemed to satisfy the teacher.

I’ll bet she’ll be proud now - Despite the latest software having built-in spell checkers, grammar checkers and the best of all - the ‘preview’ button, I still make spelling and grammar mistakes. As they say, You can try to make software idiot proof, but a better idiot will always come along.

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When I was first trying to woo the wife, I thought it’ll be really romantic to write her a poem. So I wrote up this poem, complete with flowery ‘g’s and dotted ‘i’s. After I gave the poem to her, she avoided me for several days. I’ve never really figured out why. Anyway, here’s the the original poem.

• 14 Comments