I am convinced that the whole industry built around buying gifts has been erected by the female species to keep their husbands and boyfriends in check. They have craftily managed to put all men into this corner where we feel guilty before the occasion because we can’t think of what gift to buy, during the occasion because the gift we bought was not satisfactory, and (for decades) after the occasion where they remind us how we couldn’t even buy a simple present for them.

I don’t need to give you examples of how this works, I’m sure everyone of you has experienced it firsthand. But I’m going to complain about it anyway.

I remember the first time I was supposed to buy The Wife™ a gift. I can’t remember the occasion (it doesn’t matter anyway), but I was counselled to buy something that “shows how sensitive I am while simultaneously flattering her“.

I mean, what does that even mean?

Anyway, since it was my first time, I decided to give it a shot, and bought a nice looking dress. After I gave it to her, she made this “Oh, you dear, cute little fool” face, advising me that while she thought it was a cute gesture on my part to make an attempt to buy a gift, she couldn’t use it, since she “doesn’t wear pink, except when it is accompanied by purple, but only in a skirt”.

And then, she said something that has bothered me no end. It is that one phrase that simultaneously adds 7 layers of mystery to the whole process of gift buying, clouding the thought process more than my college professors’ explanation of Eisenstein’s theories.

“But it is the thought that counts!”

I’ve pondered for days over what that sentence could mean in the context of buying gifts, but it is hopeless. I’m sure even if the enlightened Buddha himself were to appear today and contemplate that sentence, he would be stumped.

But I decided to have a go anyway, since the alternative was a second humiliation. So, the next time an occasion that demanded a gift be bought rolled by, I decided to go “with the thought that counts”, and thought about buying a present.

Without actually buying it.

I mean, that’s the right way to do it, right? Right? RIGHT?

Worst. Decision. Ever.

The Wife™ was convinced that this was another one of my stunts to get out from doing some real work and buying a present, and she barraged me with accusations of being lazy, even managed to accuse my thought-only gift of being “thoughtless”.

At this point, most people will give up and fall into the routine of buying gold or platinum jewelery as the safest bet, but not a brave soul like me. I decided that I should give this one last go.

And so, the next time, when the gift-giving occasion came around, I was ready.

Me: “I have the best gift ever this time.”
Wife: “Really?”
Me: “Yup, it is the most thoughtful gift ever!”
Wife: “This better not be another of your scams”
Me: “Nopes, it is for real this time!”
Wife: “Well, lets see it!”
Me: “Aaha! See, my gift this time is so thoughtful, that not only did I think about it, but unlike last time, I have something to show for it, although you can’t physically see it!”
Wife: “…”
Me: “Here’s my gift: I thought about it, and I’ve decided to give you a Nickname!”
Wife: “Excuse me?”
Me: “That’s right! I’ve thought of a great nickname for you. Most Thought Full Gift Ever – Full of thought.”
Wife: “Nickname?”
Me: “Yup, and your nickname is … are you ready for it? … ‘BUBBLES!’ ”
Wife: “Bubbles? What does that mean?”
Me: “You know, bubbles… Like a real estate bubble, stock market bubble etc… Don’t you love it?”
Wife: “…”

Oh Yeah! You know your gift is the most wonderful ever, when it leaves the receiver totally stumped! I’d finally succeeded! Take that, evil empire of gift making corporations! Who’s laughing now?

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Let me try some of my own hyper-intelligent and super smart blog posts. I’ll start with my Delhi – 6 review. So I’ve copied the review and pasted it in the box… hit submit and…

WTF?!?!?!?!!!!! The internets think my Delhi – 6 review is stupid?!?!?!??? The tubes must be clogged again!

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My dear public,

I was on my first class Singapore Airlines flight to Hong Kong for my bi-weekly vacation when I heard about Satyam’s so-called fraud. This is a big tragedy for all of us, especially me. I’ll have to cut my vacation short and come back to my office to reassure my employees, because the employees are worried that my company may be next. Silly employees.

Every few years, a CEO slips and makes a mistake and  gets himself into trouble, and the rest of us have to bear the consequences. But this drill is well-rehearsed. I will now call an “all-hands-meeting”, just like every CEO in the world, and stand in front of 10,000 employees and hand out the usual drivel : “Our business continues to remain strong, and we are well focused. We will continue to concentrate our synergies on leveraging core resources to develop competencies and deliver the best value added services in the industry setting new benchmarks while constantly innovating our balance sheets”. But Ramalinga Raju’s stupidity is not without consequence. I will now by able to buy only a 21-carat diamond for my wife for our half-yearly anniversary instead of our usual cruise in the Caribbean.

Most people don’t really understand the world of CEOs. What CEOs really do and why they are paid so much is such a big mystery, but I can’t see why it should be. CEOs do a very important job, and they get paid for it. Delivering balance sheet innovation is one of the key responsibilities of a CEO. CEOs spend all day strategizing and synergizing (day dreaming), talking to customers and understanding their core problems (playing golf), managing employees and setting direction and vision (telling fairy tales). What comes out of this process at the end of every quarter is called a “balance sheet” (fictional short story with lots of numbers) that drives the stock price up (Caribbean Cruise!).

Many young and aspiring kids ask me “How can I be like you?” and I tell them only one thing. “Have an idol in front of you. Follow his work!”. Personally, my idol is Andrew Sullivan, who was the big boss of AIG. His resume speaks for itself : Wrecked a $100 billion company, drove it to the ground, threaten to take down the entire global economy down with it, then convinced politicians to give AIG $200 billion dollars of taxpayer money, then spent it on a 5-star resort and hunting trip in Europe, all the while getting paid millions of dollars in salary and bonuses.

Bonus. For wrecking a $100 billion company.  Bow down and worship him, he’s GOD!

So, in conclusion, my dear public, don’t get too worried with all that is happening around you. You just focus on getting up in the morning and going to work, clocking the hours all month for just enough money to pay your EMIs and don’t get your head into the world of big money. Leave that to us CEOs.

I have to go now, the air hostess is bringing the 4th course of my 7 course dinner service. ‘Till next time!
The Anonymous CEO.

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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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