The Universe behaves in very mysterious ways, and Women even more so. There are several things I don’t understand about this world - Theoretical particle physics, Aristotle’s Philosophy and why women buy so many shoes. I’ve researched the problem extensively, and I’ve developed my own explanation to understand the freakiest of all phenomenon - Why do Women buy so many shoes?

I’ve had the pleasure of studying this phenomenon up close. The wife has a full size wardrobe for shoes alone. She has more shoes than I have clothes. Heck, she has more shoes than I have games for my PS2! That got me thinking… What could possibly explain the need for women to own so many shoes?

My first hypothesis was that shoes are very useful as attack projectiles, deadly accurate and easily throwable. They even carry a strong message of feminism apparently, that is adequately conveyed to the unwilling recipient of the projectiles. I used to think that this is a very good form of offense, until I discovered the secret to dodging these harmful projectiles. In all honesty, I didn’t discover this technique, Neo from the Matrix did. He figured out he could dodge them by leaning backwards and waving your hands until the shoes passed safely overhead. (He later used this technique to dodge bullets, but they seemed to have missed the shoe scene in the movie). You should all try it the next time you are confronted with flying shoes. I can assure you that it works reliably.

As I was thinking of this, I also discovered that the shoes can have a more efficient use. You see, the shoes are in a sort-of symbiotic relationship with clothes. See, the ratio of clothes to shoes is a delicate balance, and the dynamic system (sometimes called “a woman” in layman terms) is constantly seeking this equilibrium. Sometimes the system overshoots on the clothes side, and to compensate has to buy more shoes and vice-versa, oscillating in a more shoes -> more clothes -> more shoes motion. It is believed that the system eventually converges onto a stable state, but this has not yet been experimentally observed. The value of this ratio is not known, but legend has it that the universe will explode if someone tries to evaluate it mathematically. This gives you the illusion that more shoes are being unnecessarily bought, but that of course, is not the case - The system is merely trying to adjust itself to equilibrium.

I was struggling with this question for several days when the solution occurred to me out of the blue - It just hit me! Women buy so many shoes because they want to help the planet and our environment and to stop Global Warming! That’s right. I was confused at first too, but then I figured out the logic - See, the more shoes you have, the more space they occupy, and the less space there is for the CO2 to occupy. Therefore, by occupying volume, they are preventing the CO2 from occupying all that space and are thus reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

This is such an insightful discovery! I had no idea that shoes were so good for the planet! I urge everyone to go out and buy more shoes!

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You’ve all probably heard already that our planet is on the bring of exploding because of this phenomenon called Global Warming. Apparently we’re dumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere that our planet is getting cooked. This is really bad, and the world, if you’ve noticed, is busy fighting this global war against… hmm… I’m not sure who we’re fighting, but it’s an exciting war. I want to do my part to help stop this Climate Change thing, and here are some things you can do to help:

1) Cut more Trees
The central problem that is causing this climate change is that we’re dumping too much CO2 into the atmosphere, and that’s why trees are our friends - They absorb the CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in their tree trunks. But once a tree is fully grown, it stops growing and that means it can’t store any extra CO2 in its branches and tree trunk. This is why we need to cut down fully grown trees, so that we can let the smaller plants get the water and soil and grow into a tree. As the small plant grows into the tree, it sucks the CO2 out of the atmosphere and stores it away.

As to what to do with Trees that we cut - we shouldn’t burn the trees because that would release the CO2 back into the atmosphere, so we need to do something else with it. Fortunately, there is plenty of things we can do with the wood - Make sofas and windows and more importantly Dining tables!

“Cut Trees, Make Sofas and Stop Global Warming!” That can be our slogan!

2) Waste more water
As you’ve probably heard, this global warming is going to cause our sea levels to rise, and if we don’t stop it, all our coastal cities - Mumbai, New York and Singapore - are all going to become underwater museums for Dolphins to enjoy. So how do we stop all this extra water from raising sea levels?

The answer, as is obvious to any sensible human, is to consume more water. Lets take all that extra water and waste it, so that it goes from our houses into the drains and then into the rivers. And before this wasted water reaches the oceans again, we should waste even more water to make up for it. So, the next time you go to the bathroom, remember to flush three or four times and waste as much water as you can - You all have to make some sacrifices for the environment.

3) Buy more stuff
Being green is expensive - companies need lots of money to go green. Buying clean energy, reducing their carbon footprint, putting up lots of advertisements claiming how the company is becoming green. I’ve heard even the green ink in color printers is starting to become more expensive - Because companies are making their printers go green too. Anyway, becoming environmentally friendly is expensive for large companies, and it takes a lot of money for that. Where is this money going to come from?

That’s why we all need to go out and shop for stuff. By giving these poor big companies our money, we can increase their profits so that they may invest more in advertising and making sure that all consumers know that the company is going green. We have to help out our big corporations with money - They have hardly any left after spending so much on buying IPL players, buying private jets and paying a few crores to their CEOs.

So the next time you go to the shopping mall, make sure you buy those shirts and dresses you’re never going to wear - It’s for a good cause. Borrow on your credit card, take out a personal loan if you have to. It’s all for the sake of the planet. You love our mother earth, don’t you?

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It seems that there is some “journalistic integrity” or some such thing by allowing your opposition to present an alternative viewpoint. And so, here is Paras Sharma, or JustPazz as he’s known on his blog, with the inside scoop on me.

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Friends, Readers, Fellow Romans, Lend me the ears!!….Today I wish to bring to your notice how an unassuming, innocent looking, ‘Software Officer’ is stealing precious moments away from your lives. Moments you could have spent with your family, your loved ones, the hot girl next door, or just sleeping, this man is sucking them away without you even noticing anything of out place. You don’t even know what I am talking about right now but as we speak over 3600 hours have been taken away from the world in the last 6 months alone by this nuisance. And I’m not even talking about Bird Flu…..I’m talking about a brain virus called Aditya Kulkarni who is slowly seeping to the rest of the world, since July 2007, when the first outbreak was reported in Bangalore.You may think of this as an attempt to sabotage a rival bloggers reputation by a struggling humor writer who has been writing for a longer period of time (and better to might I add). You may say I am jealous because he garners the same number of hits in two days that I do in a month. While all of that is true, it is irrelevant. The purpose of this expose is to attempt to rescue the 90 innocent souls who readily plugged him into their daily lives and the hundreds others who could follow suit and fall prey.

I did some googling on Aditya Kulkarni…how do you like that PK! And just by my primary research I found some startling truths, some not as relevant as the others, but who cares. If you still don’t believe me, be prepared for a rude awakening.

Firstly, Aditya who comes across as a harmless humour writer, is actually a conman. You might say, WHAT RUBBISH, and go back to chat with your online fraands. Aditya’s blog is part of his plan to take over the world and become the One-World Dictator some day. He plans to publicize his propaganda through means of his blog. As more and more readers come by, he plans to float his own religious - cult – The Adityaists. Soon enough he will claim tax-exemption as the head of a religious sect and with all that spare cash, he will further his efforts to someday take over this planet. Who knows he can be an alien too…Look at that unusually round head and buttony eyes, doesn’t it seem obvious already.

But to make this evil system work, he needs to distract you and get all your personal details. He plans to make a fool out of himself on the internet so you’d visit his site more often, thereby divulging all your personal details one by one.

Today he asks you to click on his ads and if you are generous enough, to send him some donations, but tomorrow, mark my words, he will be out with his wifey dearest shopping for Rakhi Sawant DVDs, Tinkle Comics Omnibuses, and home theater systems for the wifey so they can truly understand what Saawariya was all about….all with your money….because after one point of time, he’ll have all your details, even your credit card numbers….Chew on that for a while.

For those of you who know him as a person and would beg to differ, beware, for you are at greater risk.

Take the example of the poor victim Drinivas (name changed to protect privacy). He didn’t ever visit Aditya’s blog, or even use the internet, but he was a victim none-the-less. Why you ask? Simply because Aditya already had first hand information on him which needless to say he used against him.

Recollecting the trauma of the day he discovered he was being mocked on the internet by a so-called friend, Drinivas said,

“When at first I received phone calls and messages from my friends saying that I was the laughing stock of the internet, I didn’t believe them. Then someone linked me to Aditya’s blog. I didn’t suspect anything out of place at first, even though the story closely resembled mine. I though of it as a co-incidence. Maybe there was a Drinivas out there somewhere. But the stories didn’t stop there, there were more blog posts, about topics which were increasingly private in nature. I started to grow suspicious when Aditya mentioned that Drinivas also had a classmate called Dwetha…who seemed a lot like my actual classmate…Dwetha (name changed to protect privacy again). I wanted to sue for defamation but Aditya placated me and said I could make fun of him on his own blog by being a guest writer. But my awesomely funny jokes were misconstrued and once again I was made to look like an idiot. Now over 10,000 people each month send me insulting letters and make crank calls. I was so frustrated that I had to secretly move to Dunnyvale (location changed to protect anonymity).”

Dwetha, when contacted was unavailable for comment, but sources revealed she had become dependent on sleeping pills and was a shadow of her once chirpy self. And so far attempts to find out the true identity of one Chitradeep Chetty have proved unsuccessful. We suspect the name has been tampered with yet again.

But the most shocking revelation came from Mrs. Kulkarni herself. In an online conversation, she revealed to this writer that the only things that were true about Aditya’s write-ups featuring her were that, Aditya has a wife….nothing more. She further revealed that indeed there was a funny person in their household but hinted that it wasn’t Aditya.

The facts have been placed plainly in front of you ladies and gentlemen. It is now upto each one of you to bring an end to the very menace we helped grow. Stop visiting Aditya’s website, he is an evil evil man, henceforth visit only http://justpazz.wordpress.com

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Today, we have a special interview with a special person. Meet Pappu Pandey! Pappu Pandey has been spending the week at the recently concluded Auto Expo, and has graciously agreed to do an interview for us. What follows is a transcript of this interview.

Me: “So Pappu, you’ve been at the Auto Expo for the past 3 days. What interesting things have been at display at the Expo?”

Pappu: “Oh yeah! This year’s edition was sizzling! I mean what hot models! I went around to all the booths, clicking all the pictures my camera could hold of the beauties. All dressed up in exotic colors! I’ll say! Red is definitely the color of the season.”

Me: “Errr…. You are talking about the cars, right?”

Pappu: “Oh! Hmm… Oh yeah, definitely the cars. Of course! Not the models promoting the cars, but the cars themselves. Yeah, yeah. That’s what I meant!”

Me: “Anyway, did you have a chance to check out Tata’s brand new Nano? I believe there was a lot of buzz about it?”

Pappu: “Oh, there was a buzz all right! Everyone is going ga-ga over the Tata Nano. But you know, I think you shouldn’t buy one.”

Me: “Why is that? I was actually thinking of getting one of those! Why shouldn’t I get one?”

Pappu: “Tata has got this backwards. I don’t think it is the 2-wheeler folks that are going to upgrade to the Tata Nano. It’s going to be all the auto-rickshaws fellows that are going to upgrade to the Nano. I did some investigating, and found that the AutoRickshaw costs just a little more than 1-lakh, so it’s going to be actually cheaper for them!”

Me: “Really? That’s very interesting!”

Pappu: “Yeah! The Nano is going to be the new Auto. “NanoRicks”, they’re going to end up calling them, which, you must admit, sounds like an underwear company’s name. The tag line is going probably going to be “NanoRick: Kyonki Yeh Andar ki baat hai!”

Me: “Sounds plausible. But what do you think of all the environmentalists stand that it’s going to increase pollution and congestion?”

Pappu: “Pollution Shmolution! It’s all a way to scare people into believing this Global Warming nonsense! By switching Autos to Nanos, it’s going to reduce the net pollution!”

Me: “You don’t believe in Global Warming?”

Pappu: “No! I won’t believe in it till it’s hot enough to make an omelet on Anupam Kher’s head!”

Me: “Thanks for the colorful metaphor! It was nice talking to you, Pappu!”

Pappu: “No problem! Goodbye, and always remember to brush your teeth!”

Me: “What?”

Pappu: “You know, you have a higher chance of dying form teeth decay than from global warming. So, put the important problems first!”

Me: “All right! Bye bye! Pappu Pandey, Ladies and Gentlemen!”

Pappu Pandey is the secret identity of this great super hero. His secret identity is secret from some secrety-type reason. You can, however, email him at pappu@pointlesswanderings.com

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Driving in India is so much different than driving in the US. I’ve written about the various traffic similarities earlier, but today I wanted to focus on the differences.

1) If you can drive in India, you can drive anywhere.
Driving in India is like playing a video game - You have to dodge other cars, autoricshaws, stray dogs, buffaloes and aliens to go to the next level - the next signal. The challenges get harder at every new level. You also get a few weapons to help you play the video-game: The right to use profanities and various gestures with the hand that can be used against different villains. If you brush your car against another, then you have to get out of the car and the game turns into Street Fighter! If you’re really good, you can practice some Mortal Kombat style fatalities and provide entertainment to the other players in the video game.

The Corollary is also partially true - If you can drive only in the US, then you can’t drive anywhere else. You’ll be so used to rules and lanes and driving mundanely that the excitement of playing this real life, multiplayer video game called ‘Exxxtreme Driving Bangalore!” will probably cause you a heart attack.

2) You don’t have to worry about pedestrians in India.
I’ve always believed that Pedestrians are a necessary evil of society. Sort of like the Calorie and Fat information on chocolates. They are completely ignored all the time, but for some reason, need to exist on every Chocolate bar. So, imagine my shock when I found out that Pedestrians have the right-of-way in the US! I mean come on! That’s just stupid on so many levels. Firstly, Footpaths are for Pedestrians, and they should not be allowed on the roads, even Zebra Crossings. After all, the don’t let cars drive on the footpath, do they? And secondly, Pedestrians are the evil mutants from another planet who are spying on us earthlings. Have you noticed how these spying pedestrians constantly look at you when you’re driving towards them. Their stare gets even more glaring when you increase how fast you are going towards them.

That’s the reason I like driving in India is because the pedestrians have the last-right-of-way. The official order is: (by importance)
1) Autos
2) Killer Trucks & Buses
3) Cars
4) Cows
5) Stray Dogs
6) Mice
7) Dirt, Dust and Garbage
Pedestrians.

3) Driving in India is a very spiritual experience
Driving in India will really restore your faith in God. You’ll constantly be praying and hoping that you’ve not used up your quota of Luck when you cheated in your exam and didn’t get caught. I’ve been in this worrisome situation many times, and I’ve always wondered which God to pray to. We have millions and millions of them in our tradition, and there is no clear distinction as to whose domain ‘Traffic Problems‘ falls into.

Which brings me nicely to the need to create a new God for Traffic. I propose that we derive inspiration from Spider-Man, who, if you’ve noticed, despite living in a crowded city, never seems to have any traffic problems. Our “Traffic Hero”’s name will be ‘Udta Hua Macchar‘. He’ll be like Spider-Man, but instead of being bitten my a spider, our Hero will have been bitten by a giant Mosquito, and will have acquired all the super powers of a Mosquito - Namely to appear out of nowhere and be present everywhere.

If you’re stuck in Traffic, all you have to do is pray to our “Traffic Hero” (The prayer, incidentally, goes like this - Goooooiiiiiiiiii, Gooooiiiiiiiiii - That’s “Help Me!, Help Me!” in Mosquitoeese) and he will swoop in from the sky on to your car/bike and carry you safely with the help of his powerful wings to your destination. And in return for this help, you have to let him drink your blood, but that’s a small price to pay to avoid traffic.

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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!

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As you readers probably know, Sanjay Leela Bansali stole 3 hours of my life and some thousand rupees of my money. And I want my money back. I’ve been thinking of how I’d go about doing this. I thought I’ll wait at a traffic signal and pounce on him when he drives by. But that sounds very sneaky and criminal, and I don’t want to do bad things.

And so, I decided to do the honorable thing - I’m going to send him a SPAM email with a scam. Here’s my draft mail that I’m thinking I’ll send him

Dear Mr. Sanjay Neela Bansali,

I are Ram Mohan Bihari, a big fan of your movies, Sirji. I am watching all of them. When you are making Saawariya, everyone in our Village (under banyan tree) is telling it is a blue movie. I am getting excited and taking all my wild monkeys to see blue film. But it is not usual type of blue movie, but it is good. My wild monkeys are enjoying seeing your wild monkeys dance. I think they are liking the movie.

I am loving my wild monkeys very much. I am living in tribal Chattisgad, and I am training wild monkeys to dance for daily money. I am very much liking your movie because I am thinking you are doing the same. Even more is that my wild monkeys are liking your blue movie so much that they are jumping up and down. I am wanting to bring my wild monkeys to Mumbai to seeing your movie in big many plex.

But I am poor and I am needing monies to bring my monkeys. Will you, Sirji, sending me Rs. 1000 to me so I am coming to Mumbai? I am very big fan of your movies and I am hoping you are not disappointing me. Please Sirji, do it for my monkeys. I am seeing you are very fond of them, so please sending my Rs. 1000 and I am coming.

Thank you Sirji,
Ram Bihari

Do you think my scam will work? Do have any other ideas I can try to get my money back?

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