We have a special episode of the Advice Column today. After the last advice column, I received so many questions, that I’m trying to answer some here:

I have a problem which needs pointless advice. I don’t like to work and want to laze at home. But I want my salary to come without going to affeesss. What should I do?
- A

What you need to do, A, is to join Politics. It’s the perfect Career for you. Think about what Politicians do all day: They….err…hmmm….What do politicians do all day, really?

Which actually brings me to my point nicely. You get to do absolutely nothing all day, and still “magically”, the money seems to flow to you. It usually flows from under tables, but that’s just a technicality.

So, here’s my advice to you: Get to know some Gangsters and become friends with some Goondas. Then, slowly expand your circle to include drug dealers and smugglers. And before you know it, you’ll be the CM!

I have an embarrassing problem.I have more hair on my left toe than on my right. And now my right toe is filing a lawsuit for discrimination. Can you solve this hairy problem, o esteemed One?
– A sincere follower of Adityaism

My heart goes out to you my friend. I experience the same problem with the voices in my head: They keep fighting with each other, and give me a headache.

But I think your problem is solvable: Just shave them both off! There’s nothing prettier than two bald toes sticking out. I’ve heard the chics really dig it.

If that doesn’t work out, I also have a Plan ‘B’ for you: Just cut off those two morons. Yeah! That will also serve as a warning to your fingers to not get into petty disputes. With 2 missing toes, you’ll lead a very happy life.

Hi Adityaji! I am a real fan of your blog and I have a problem. There is this guy I chatted with on IM for a really long time. Now both of us are in Bangalore. And he is pleading with me to give my mobile number and meet him. Although I like him, I am very much scared of my parents and my conscience. What should I do !?
- Miss “Confused fan”

The real problem, as I’m sensing it, is your meddlesome, interfering conscience. You know, this conscience is a very problematic thing. It keeps telling you what to do, bossing you over all the time. What does the conscience know, anyway? It’s hanging around poking it’s nose into your affairs, never letting you have fun.

There is only one solution to this problem. Shoot the conscience. As I’ve discovered, Life without a Conscience is very free and fun. It could work for you. Give it a try!

If you would like to ask a question in Aditya’s Advice Column, send a mail to advice@pointlesswanderings.com. Don’t worry, your identity will be kept a secret!

• 5 Comments

I recently moved cubicles at my work place, and as fate would have it, I was now sitting surrounded by people in “Strategic Marketing”. Sitting next to marketing people has several perks – A free education in household matters, behavioral analysis and travel gyaan.

And, in the spirit of spreading knowledge, I’d like to share some of the “Strategic Discussions” I’ve heard:

Strategy Discussion 1:
——————————–
Lady #1: “Did you watch OSO?”
Lady #2: “Of course yaar – SRK is looking choooo goooood, OH MY GOD!”
Dude #1: “I don’t know what you women find so attractive in SRK – he’s old. Now, look at Deepika. God knows why she was cast opposite that oldie.”
Lady #2: “Tune sirf Deepika ko dekhne ke liye film dekhne gaya kya?”
Lady #1: “What does your wife think about Deepika?”
Dude #1: “Tum sab mujhe marvaoge yaar!”

As the discussion headed off towards morality and marriage, I buried my head into Iron Maiden.

Strategy discussion 2:
——————————
Lady #1: “Heyyyyyyyy, welcome back yaaaaa!! How was Paris?”

They say marketing people have a way with words. This Lady had not just a way, but a big road – highway even, with words. What followed was 45 minutes of extremely descriptive, excruciatingly detailed description of Paris. It seemed like she described every single iron rod in the Eiffel tower, and when she ran out of iron rods, she described individual trees on all the roads of Paris.

I chose to listen to Megadeth this time.

Strategy discussion 3:
——————————
Lady #1: “Hello madam – welcome back!”
Unrecognized female voice: “Hey people, nice to see you all after a month!”

I peered out to see who this new strategist was. It’s actually Lady #2, but now with a very heavy American accent.

Dude #1: “You landed 4 days ago na? Where have you been?”
Lady #2 <Thick American Accent>: “No dear, I was so tired, you know. Like, there is so much pollution here, you know. I mean, I must have gotten an infection or something, you know. I thought I might have the flu, so I rested for 3 days. And don’t even get me started on the Jet Lag – I mean, what’s the deal with that?”
Lady #1 “Oh that’s bad! Anyway, how was the trip?”
Lady #2 <Thick American Accent>: “I mean, I was so excited to go on a US flight, but the flight had so many Indians! I mean, it didn’t felt like a US flight, you know what I’m saying? I could hear people talking in their native language all the time, I mean come on, you know. It’s a US flight for God’s sake.”

At this point, I felt like walking up to her and tell her the infamous “Thames nalli t…” proverb, but I exercised restraint.

I’ve had the pleasure of listening to many more of these strategies – Like “How to have head-bath with just half a bucket of water”, which, by the way, is very useful.

• 9 Comments

Devdas, in my humble opinion, was the worst movie ever. How do I know? BECAUSE I SAW IT THRICE!

Yes, this is my sad story of how I ended up watching the remake-of-a-remake-of-a-movie-of-a-book three times.

The first time, I had to watch it because I was then trying to impress the wife, my Girlfriend at that time. I’d been trying to take her out, but something or the other kept coming up. But finally, an opportunity came.

GF: “I’m free this Saturday. What do you want to do?”
Me: “Oh, great! I’ll take you to a movie.”
GF: “I want to watch Devdas!”
Me: “Sure, any movie. Let’s just go out”

Oh, the follies of youth. I was so excited that we were going out, that I didn’t bother to check what the movie was. Turns out, it was 3 hours of non-stop flashy songs with plenty of crying and dancing. By the end of the movie, my head was ready to blow apart.

GF: “What a beautiful movie! Did you notice the attention to detail?”
Me: “Yeah. Mind blowing. Literally!”

The Second time, I had to go see the movie because of my big mouth. The GirlFriend was standing along a bunch of friends, evidentially discussing the movie.

Friend #1: “…and “Devdas” shows are at 6:15 and 9:30 tonight”

I thought this dude was planning on going to see Devdas again (I knew he’d seen it once). Back then, I was desperately trying to impress the GF, so I thought a wisecrack would be appropriate. You know, to win her over with my sense of humour.

Me: “Who would want to watch the movie twice? That’ll be like going in front of an angry bull…”

I wanted to say “That’ll be like going in front of an angry bull and saying ‘Feeling Hungry, Pretty Boy?‘”, but before I could complete my joke, the friend furiously made signs to indicate that the GF wanted to see the movie again, not him.

Oh Crap! Now I had to change the joke mid-sentence.

Me: “…and telling the angry bull…err….why don’t you…hmm….watch Baba Ramdev…”
The GF is looking at me weirdly.
Me: “…and meditate…err…to understand….hmmm….the beauty of art….uh-huh…in movies like Devdas…”
There is shocked silence. Everyone is staring at me.
Me: “…which I think everyone should watch twice.”

Voices in my head: “OH, NO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?”
GF: “Do you want to see Devdas again? I didn’t think you enjoyed it. But if you insist, I do have an extra ticket.”

And so, I’m at the theater ONCE AGAIN listening to Madhuri and my Head singing ‘Maar Daala…. OOooooo… Maar Daala’.

The Third time was a real tragedy. I had managed to convince the GF to watch “Men In Black 2″ after great persuasion. Back then, there were no multiplexes, but there was this complex in central Bangalore with several theaters. Each theater had it’s own ticket counter, so we walked up to the window under the “Men in Black 2″ banner.

Me: “Two tickets for the 12:15 show”
Dude behind window: “The show is at 1:15″
Me: “That’s weird. The poster says 12:15. That’s OK, give me 2 tickets”

I took the 2 tickets, and the GF and I roam around for an hour, and come back to the Theatre at 1:15. As we start to walk towards the entrance, there is no one else there. That’s weird, I think. The Movie is not THAT bad. As I try to walk in, the usher sees my tickets and says: “These are tickets to that theatre over there. This theatre’s show started at 12:15″

Me: “But the ticket window….”
And at that point it hit me. I bought tickets to the wrong theater. Oh, Crap. I look across to the other theater.

There’s a huge crowd of people rushing to get in. Above them is a giant poster of Aishwariya Rai and Madhuri Dixit saying “DEVDAS: A Grand Saga Of Eternal Love!“

Me: “NAAAHHIIIINNNN……“

• 12 Comments

After the dramatic success of the Advice Column and it’s second part, we now return with a third edition of the advice column where I will solve all your problems.

I’m planning to participate in Miss World next year, but I’m scared of all the questions the judges ask. How should I answer the questions?
– Miss India

Dear Miss India,

I’m glad you asked this question, because I’ve been a big fan of beauty contests. In my carefully studied opinion, the right strategy to answering beauty pageant questions is:

1) Listen carefully to the question (Or at least pretend to)
2) Ignore the question
3) Say how much you want to improve society and work for world peace.

You can also use the ‘smiling-even-as-the-high-heels-are-killing-me’ look for additional points. This strategy is a sure-fire way of winning the Miss World Contest. Send me a picture when you win the crown.

The Traffic in Bangalore is absolutely driving me crazy. Especially these Auto fellows that break the signals and drive like madmen. I feel like murdering them. What should I do?
– V

Dear V,

The problem that you describe is a particularly problematic one. But no fear, I have a very innovative solution for it.

It comes from the sacred world of Zen: Ditch your car and start riding a bicycle. That should solve all your problems.

Allow me to explain: By riding a cycle, you will be breathing in all the polluted air that will markedly reduce your lifespan. And if you don’t live for very long, that means you will have this problem for a lesser about of time. But the real bonus is that your chances of getting hit by a truck and dying increase dramatically. And if you die, you won’t have to face the traffic problem at all. You’ll become a ghost, and I’ve heard ghosts can float around, and are not affected by traffic. Problem Solved!

There is this silly blogger on the internet who is defacing my name. He keeps writing some random (but partially true) stories about me and is causing problems for me. What should I do?
– Chitradeep Chetty
PS: The blog is really good, by the way.

Dear Chitradeep Chetty,

I have conducted a handwriting-analysis of your email, and I have been able to decipher some important aspects of your psychology. You clearly admire this blogger, although you won’t admit it. Listen to your inner guiding voice. What does it say? Something along the lines of “Send him some Money, Send him some Money!“, perhaps?

As the great philosopher Socrates once said: “The people that aggravate us are the ones that we really admire!“. You clearly have a lot of respect for the literary talents of this blogger you talk about. Why don’t you write a letter to him telling how great his skill is? I’m sure it will make you feel better.

If you would like to ask a question in Aditya’s Advice Column, send a mail to advice@pointlesswanderings.com. Don’t worry, your identity will be kept a secret!

• 5 Comments

Everyone is talking about Global Warming these days. “Save The Environment” is everywhere – You have to recycle water, recycle paper even recycle movie storylines. Everyone is talking about saving the planet and the stuff like that, but they are all forgetting about saving the most important resource in the universe:

The Electrons!

Allow me to explain: Electrons do most of transporting these days. They travel over your phone wires and over your LAN cables and your TV Cable lines, delivering all the good stuff for your entertainment. But have you spared a thought for the poor electrons that do all the work? Do you know what happens to them once they have delivered your email to your computer?

Let me tell you – They come to your phone/computer/TV and then GET WASTED! That’s right – There are only a limited number of electrons on earth, and everytime you watch TV, you are consuming this precious resource of mother earth. These electrons just hang around your Phone/TV/Computer for a while and then just DIE ! (That’s why you get a shock when you touch the back of your computer sometimes)

All this is causing a MASSIVE ELECTRON SHORTAGE in this world. Have you wondered why all the TV serials and Movies are so crappy these days? That’s because there aren’t enough electrons left in this world these days to make good TV serials and movies. The Directors have to work with a limited number of electrons and the quality suffers.

We need to take the electron shortage seriously. Some reports say that we may run OUT OF ELECTRONS as early as 2045 ! This is a complete disaster scenario. Without electrons, there is no TV, no Internet and no Phones! You have to do your part TO CONSERVE THE ELECTRONS!

You can start by recycling electrons – You can do this by forwarding this article to all your friends. When you SEND emails, you are recycling the electrons that came to your computer and sending them back to the internet, which is really a series of tubes for electrons to flow. Also, leave comments on all blogs, especially this one. This way, you can return some of the electrons back to the blogs where they originally came from.

Try to reduce your electron usage. Instead of watching Saas-Bahu serials on TV, watch cartoons. Cartoons take 75% less electrons than other serials. When on the phone, talk very loudly. The high volume and energy of your voice will give that additional push to the electrons and they can travel faster. This is shown to take 20% less electrons. And finally, when on the internet, always practice good electron-recycling practices – Send more forwards and comment on more blogs.

The Electrons are an oft-ignored but very very precious resource of our planet. It is your responsibility and duty to use electrons responsibly. Together, we can save the planet from our own selfish over-consumption of the electrons. TOGETHER, WE CAN SAVE THE ELECTRONS FROM EXTINCTION!

• 6 Comments