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

And today, we return to Aditya’s Advice Column!

Q: I’m a big fan of Rakhi Sawant, and I tremendously enjoy her work. I want to put up posters of her in my room, but my parents disapprove strongly. What should I do?
- K

Dear K,
You describe a subject very close to my heart, and in many ways, I have faced the same problem as you have. The solution, as is the case to all problems of this class, is deception.

I would recommend buying posters of Rakhi Sawant and cutting them into the size of a book. Then, stick it into the middle pages of your book. Make sure that the book is something boring, like ‘Technical Specifications of J2ME 5.1‘, so that your parents don’t ever open it. Another interesting thing you can do is to print out a Rakhi Sawant poster on one of those semi-transparent sheets that you get these days. Then, paste the sheet on the inside of your helmet visor. This way, you can see not only the road, but also Rakhi Sawant when you are driving. I can imagine this being a tremendous help in traffic jams. Another option is to cut the poster into small strips and stick them to venetian blinds. During the day, you can set the venetian blinds open, and enjoy the view outside the window. But whenever you want, you only have to pull on the string to align all the strips and viola! There’s your poster!

I have, of course, never done any of the above things myself.

Q: I’m the dictator of a large country, and I’ve been in power for a long time now, and I kinda like it. But there’s this chic who was in Exile all this while, but has suddenly shown up and wants to be the Country’s Big Boss. She’s bent on taking out rallies and stuff like that, and it’s kinda getting painful. What should I do?
- General M
PS: Love your blog

Dear General M,
As the great philosopher Socrates once said: “Give a hungry woman a fish, and she’s happy for one day. Give her a credit card, and she’s happily shopping for the rest of her life“. Nothing keeps women busy like Shopping. The solution to all your problems, my friend, is simple – Open more Shopping Malls! Once you have enough shopping malls, that should distract the attention of your chic and all her followers. Hell, throw in some discounts and half-price sales, and your chic will forget her ambitions like politicians forget their promises.

And to be absolutely certain that your chic doesn’t interfere with your plans to take over the world again, start a rumor that she enjoyed watching Om Shanti Om and Sawariya tremendously, and if she becomes the Prime Minister, she’ll make it compulsory for everyone to watch the two movies everyday. This rumor should be enough to keep her busy with the mob for the next 10-20 years.

Q: I am pathetically jobless at the moment, and I need a job badly. But all these programming stuff seems like greek to me. What should I do to get into this so happening IT field?
- Van

Dear Van,

Firstly, thanks for writing in to the advice column. And secondly, your observation is pretty profound. All Programming stuff, is in fact, greek. The truth of the matter is that no one really knows what this software thing is, but since everyone is talking about it, everybody assumes “someone else” must know about it, and so pretends to understand it. But really, it’s greek to everyone.

And about getting into the “happening” IT field, that’s quite easy. You’ll firstly need to review my earlier lesson on Jargoneese. Then, learn some of the latest buzzwords – like “Services Oriented Architecture”, “.NET Framework 3.0 Specification” and “Dynamic ByteCode compilation using the JIT” – and you’re all set for an interview at any major software company.

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!

• 10 Comments

Starting this week, I’m going to do all of humanity a great service and start an advice column. To kick off this week, there are some questions people have asked me often. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty.

My Boss keeps asking me to do work, and that leaves me with no time to read your blog. What should I do?
– Arvind

I feel for you my friend. I can’t believe there are still barbaric people in this world that prevent ordinary, honest people like you from reading blogs at work. This is a clear violation of basic human rights.
Here’s what I recommend you do:
When your boss is out for a Coffee break, go to his Comp. Open up Outlook, Word and some other applications. Then take a screenshot of the screen and save it as a JPEG. And then, close all the applications, hide all the desktop icons and set this image as the desktop background.

When your boss comes back, he’ll click all over the desktop wondering why is his comp is not responding. He’ll restart a few times, the desktop image will come back, and the cycle repeats.

This should keep your boss busy all day, and that should give you plenty of time to read this blog.

I have a practical lab exam coming up next week, and I have no idea programming is all about. What should I do?
– Bobby

You know, it is my opinion that College education is totally overrated. I encourage you to follow Bill Gate’s example and flunk your lab exam. Purposefully. Then go ahead and draw cartoons in all your theory papers and make sure you flunk those too. Don’t make the mistake of passing your exams.

This way, you’ll be able to drop out of college. And then you can start doing something really useful with your life. I highly recommend writing a blog. There’s no future in writing a blog, no money and no hope for anything, but hey, it’s the satisfaction of the soul that matters.

There’s this really cute guy in my team, and I want him to come to me and ask me out. What should I do?
– Arpita

This is a trick question. The answer depends on what kind of guy he is. If he’s all deep and wants a meaningful relationship and talks of “soulmates”, you’re better of spending your time watching Shahrukh Khan on TV. In fact, you should walk up to him and say “Hey Buster! Shallow is the new Deep, haven’t you heard?”.

If, on the other hand, he’s shallow and not very bright, then he’s a good catch. Get him a nice Chocolate Cake. That’s all it should take.

I just bought a mobile phone last month, but there is this new phone that was released this week, and I want it really bad. What should I do?
– Darendra

As many readers on the blog have pointed out, the most optimal strategy for tackling this is to accidentally “loose” your phone. That should be a good excuse to get a new one. I know a friend who’s an expert at this. Works for him everytime.

If you have questions for Aditya’s Advice Column, send mail to advice@pointlesswanderings.com. Your identity will be kept confidential (If I feel like it).

• 4 Comments