It’s nearly one year since the wedding day, and it has been a very interesting learning experience for me. I have made the startling discovery that there is a secret code-language called “wifeese” that the wife speaks. It sounds and has words just like regular language, but has hidden meanings that take a lot of time to decipher. I’ve figured out quite a few of them, and here I present to you the “Top 5 Wifese Statements and what they really mean”

At number 5, we have: “There’s nothing on TV today. *yaaawwwwn*”
What it really means: “I’m really really bored, so stop writing your stupid blog and take me out to dinner tonight. You married me, not the blog, damnit!”
This one was pretty obvious for me to figure out because if you didn’t get it the first time, progressively agressive statements get made until the last step, which is to get hit by a thick book in the head.

Number 4: “Hi Sweetie…. How was your day?”
What it really means: “I got us tickets to the latest movie for Friday Night. If you try to resist or make up an excuse, you won’t get breakfast for a week.”
I had to learn this the hard way, after my several attempts at avoiding the inevitable friday night movies. I’ve come to realize that breakfast is much more valuable than spending 3 hours sleeping in the theatre.

At number 3:  “How does this dress look on me?”
What it really means: God only knows.

Heck, I think even He won’t know how to answer this question. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is not really a question, but more the signal of an impending storm. Kinda like if you see a shark swimming towards you. It’s too late to do anything about it.
And at Number 2: “Do you have a minute? Can you come here please?”
What it really means: “Cut these tomatoes.”
The first few times I was called like this, I rushed expectedly, hoping it would be some new gift. But like Pavolv’s dogs who figured out what the ringing bell really meant, I have come to figure out what that invitation really means, and try to avoid it as much as possible.

And finally, we have The Top Wifese Statement And What It Really Means:
Number 1: “We’ll Talk about it later!”
What it really means: “We will stop discussing this issue now, and I will wait till you forget about it, and when the actual time comes I will convince you that we had talked about it earlier, and you had agreed to go with what I want to do.”
I totally didn’t get what this really meant for a long time. I always thought that the matter will duly come up for discussion later and promptly forgot about it. I began to get suspicious when I “discovered” that I had agreed to buy the wife 7 pairs of shoes, a sofa, a dining table and had also “volunteered” to vacuum the house twice a week.

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It’s time again for Aditya’s Advice Column

Q: My wife makes me go on these morning walks everyday, and it’s complete torture. I have to get up at 6:30 AM and go round and round and round, like a moth flying around in circles around a tube-light. I want to get out of this mess. What should I do?
- VK
A: I find the comparison to the moth very apt, especially because after going round-and-round-and-round the tube-light for a while, the moths eventually die. And that’s what’s going to happen to you if you don’t figure out a way of getting out of this. I have some tips that you can use to try to get out of it.

My first advice to you would be to try and convince your wife that you’re allergic to mornings. Yes, tell her that in the morning, the sun’s rays come at an angle to the earth through the atmosphere, and that increases their vitamin-D content (everyone knows that sun’s rays contain vitamin-D), and that you are allergic to Vitamin-D. You can prove this by showing your groggy, sleepy eyes in the morning, which are undoubtedly caused by the slanting rays of the sun.

Another option you can try is to deny the walk at the source - Don’t get up in the morning at all. Your wife will probably cajole you to get up, then ask you politely, then not-so-politely and then scream names of unpronounceable diseases  at you in an effort to appeal to your good sense to get up and go for a morning walk. She might also claim that it is good for health. But you must be strong and not fall for emotional blackmail like that. One requires great self control and will power to not budge even after all the screaming and yelling, but let me tell you my friend, it is all well worth it in the end. Under some extreme circumstances, you might have to face a bucket full of water, but I’ve found that in such situations, having an umbrella by the bedside usually helps.

Q: This Bangalore Airport fiasco is driving me crazy. In Bangalore, they’ve built a brand new airport 30 kms from the city, but there is no road to reach the airport - It takes 3 hours to get there. Then, they want to close down the existing airport - which is right in the middle of the city and very convenient - after the new one opens. I’ve been trying to keep it open, but these politicians and beauraucrats keep coming in the middle, and now no one knows what’s going on. What should I do?
-RK M

The problem with this whole airport fiasco is that all the involved parties are not willing to talk to each other, but they don’t mind talking about it to everyone else. So here’s what we should do. Let’s take all the politicians, airport dudes and some other dudes and put them into a room. But before going into the room, let’s give all the politicians 3 straight shots of tequila. I find that the shots help everyone think clearly. For example:

Politician before Tequila shots: “We should all endeavor to support our fellow tigers from the brink of extinction, since our national animal, which is also a part of this great nation under Gandhi…”
Politician after Tequila shots: “Lets get the tigers extinct and build an SEZ in all the forest land. The dinosaurs went extinct, and we all got used to it. Ditto with tigers.”

So, once this meeting is finished, I’m sure everyone will come to the proper conclusion - To shut down both airports and make everyone take the train. “Why?” you ask? Because Lallu Prasad promised to give the Airport CEO 12 cows and some land in Bihar in exchange for the favor!

Q: What came first, the Chicken or the Egg?
- RR

A: This profound question has troubled mankind since the beginning, but I have finally figured out the solution. The answer obviously, when you think about, is that the omelet came first.

Shocked? Yes, I was too at first, but it can be proved quite convincingly using the simple  economics of demand-supply. We all know that people demand omelets (you know, because they’re all tasty and all), and because there is a huge demand for omelets, the farmers have to supply the eggs, which are in turn supplied by the chicken themselves. Now, anyone who knows basic economics knows that demand comes before supply (no demand, no supply), we therefore arrive at this equation:

omelet -> egg -> farmer -> chicken ....[ Equation (1)]

From equation (1) above, it is quite clear that the omelet came first. We can finally mark that problem as solved!

If you’d 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 confidential.

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Have you heard all the hype about the “Wardrobe Malfunction” at the Lakme Fashion Week? A also have a malfunctioning wardrobe, but in a very different way. I don’t have a wardrobe. Let’s just say that my wardrobe territories were invaded by certain unnamed parties in the house, and my poor, innocent clothes have been pushed out and had nowhere to go. But no worries, I’ve invented a very innovative way to manage my clothes even without a wardrobe. I call it “Aditya’s Clothes Management Algorithm”

The central device in this algorithm is the Plastic Chair. It’s the Rs. 250 Neelkamal thing. The chair is now my entire wardrobe, but as I’ve come to realize, it’s so much better (and cooler) than a dumb wooden closet. The chair is used like the “stack” data structure, and works on the principle of “good stuff in, bad stuff out”. It also has several intelligent features. Let me demonstrate how it works.

Freshly washed clothes are dumped placed on top of the chair as they arrive. They originally come in neatly folded form, but they quickly attain their natural crumpled state once in the chair. Clothes that I’ve worn also go to the top of the stack (instead of going to the washing room, but it has some advantages as I’ll explain later), but in their natural crumpled form. The advantage of this scheme is that it creates a quickly retrievable, random-access “wardrobe” of clothes. When I need new clothes to wear in the morning, I put my hand into the pile of clothes and grab a pant and a shirt that will approximately go together. This mix-and-match way of choosing clothes creates a new style for me everyday, and I suspect that this is the exact same algorithm famous fashion divas like Madonna and Rakhi Sawant  to look all stylish and hip.

But the real genius of this scheme is how clothes automatically go for washing. It involves complicated mathematics and higher-level 3-dimensional calculus, but basically, the clothes that need washing gradually collect dust over time, and become heavy (you know, with the additional dust and all) and bubble-down to the bottom of the stack and eventually fall off the chair. At this point, the maid picks up clothes from the floor and they are dispatched to wash. Note that this scheme requires absolutely no manual intervention (a good sign that the scheme works very well) and that’s why it’s my favorite.

This scheme offers so many advantages - Automatic wash detection, high utilization of space, random access and the opportunity for high-fashion (through mix-and-match, remember?) I highly recommend it!

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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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Some people think that arguing is pointless and it is not “constructive”, but I beg to disagree. Firstly, there is that incredible entertainment value, which I think is very under-represented. Then, if you are arguing about a sensitive topic with someone who holds their opinion dearly, there is this sheer joy of annoying, then frustrating, then angering the person you are arguing with. Seeing them go through this progressions is one of the few best things of like that are still free. Arguing is a skill, and today I will teach you the most important points.

Be Condescending
Being condescending is the best way to push your opponent from frustration into anger. Effective body language is the key here. One of the most efficient techniques I’ve seen is to yawn with your mouth open wide. You have to get the timing right - Break into the yawn just as the opponent is making an emphatic point. Another technique to use is to tilt your head and let it rest on your hand - As if you’ll fall into sleep if the opponent makes one more boring point.

The above two techniques are what I call “Passive Condescendence“, where you passively show how disinterested you are. The second type, called “Active Condescendence” is also very useful. Here, you want to trivialize your opponents’ statements and rubbish them. Example:

Victim: “… and so, if we have to do something to stop global warming, or we’re all going to die!”
You: “We have to do something about your squeaky nasal voice first, or I’m going to go deaf!”

Victim: “…and that’s why education is so important to one’s life.”
You: “How can you make such a stupid statement? You must be “educated”. Hahaha!”

Use rhymes and “profoundities”
You’ll think I’m kidding, but using rhyming constructs adds a lot of force to your argument. “Might makes Right!” has a certain sound to it that makes everyone feel like it’s true.  Also “No Pain, No Gain” sounds more true than it really is. Using a rhyming first syllable also helps: “Mind over Matter!”, “Hire and Fire”. Using such phrases can make it sound like you know more than you do.

Another trick is to use “profoundities“. Notice that this is using profound statements, not the same as “profanities” (Well, you can use profanities as well, and it sometimes helps to speed up the argument to its logical conclusion - A fist fight). For example, anything said in Latin sounds Profound like “in vino veritas” (”there is truth in wine”) sounds much more convincing than when said in colloquial form: “I want more booze”. This actually goes for any classical language. Anything said in Sanskrit also sounds more convincing - “Tawa Murkham Asi” sounds much more convincing than “You’re an idiot”

When cornered, challenge all assumptions
Occasionally, you’ll find yourself cornered by a logical argument that you can’t get out of. That’s only a problem if you believe in logic. (Believing in logic, by the way, is optional) If you find yourself in this situation, you can have some extra fun by denying all assumptions. Be careful when you do this, however, because in my experience the next step after this is usually flying projectiles that can cause bodily harm. Denying assumptions is easy, philosophers have been doing it for years! Example:

Victim: “…And so our impact on the environment is real”
You: “What is real? It’s just signals your nervous system is sending to your brain. Your brain is creating the reality, which means reality is in your head. That’s another way of saying reality is just your imagination”

Einstein: “…and that’s why the earth revolves around the sun”
You: “Or, it could be an illusion created by the curvature of space-time according to the theory of relativity. Seriously, Einstein, you should read up on this stuff.”

You can tell that I’ve thought about this very deeply. I get a lot of time to think about these strategies when the wife kicks me out of the house for using them on her. That’s also, incidentally, when I write most of my blog posts.

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Living in a house inevitably means that you’ll have some share of the household chores assigned to you. The situation is particularly bad if you are lazy, and even worse when you are a follower of Adityaism, which requires you to NOT do work. But fortunately, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking of the counter measures we can use to avoid doing any work around the household. Here are some very useful tips:

1) Ask a lot of questions
Asking a lot of questions is a good strategy to use when you are assigned some new work. The person that has assigned the work to you is probably using the common misconception that “Give a man a fish, he’s happy for a day. Teach him how to fish, he’s happy for life”.

This saying is obviously not true, because if it were, we’d all be fishermen. Clearly, we are not. Therefore, it can’t be true. Quite simple.

But sometimes, your opponent doesn’t believe in logic, and can’t be convinced with the above logically correct argument, so you have to use a different strategy. You have to make your opponent so frustrated with questions, that they should think “I’d rather give him the fish!”. Example:

Wife: “Can you cut some Tomatoes and Onions, please?”
Me: “OK. How do I cut them?”
W: “Well, with a knife of course.”
Me: “Do I have to use a chopping board?”
W: “Of course!”
Me: “What if I cut myself?”
W: “You’re not going to cut yourself.”
Me: “Do we have emergency bandaid, just in case? Besides, it’s pretty late. Do you think the hospital will e open?”
W: “Just cut the Tomatoes, OK?”
Me: “I think we should call the hospital and ask if they’re open.”

… and so on, until your opponent cuts the Tomatoes.

2) Argue
This technique is a variant of the first one, only more aggressive. Use this technique when the first one doesn’t work, and you are cornered. The difference is, this time you have to push the opponent into a state of frustration. This works best if you counter every question with another question. Example:

Wife: “Can you cut some Tomatoes and Onions, please?”
Me: “Why?”
W: “So that you get Sambar to eat tonight, that’s why!”
Me: “Can’t you just use the food processor? Why do I have to cut it?”
W: “Because the food processor doesn’t cut it into small pieces”
Me: “How am I going to cut it into small pieces?”
W: “Do I have to tell you EVERYTHING?!? Start with a horizontal cut and then slice it”
Me: “Are you sure that’s the proper way? I read somewhere that cutting tomatoes causes it to loose important vitamins.”
W: “JUST CUT THE TOMATOES!!!”
Me: “I think I’m going to look up Wikipedia for “How to cut a tomato”. I’ll be right back.
W: “AAAARRGGGGGHHHHH!!!”

3) Reverse Psychology
This is a dangerous technique, but if you can pull it off, it is very effective. The idea is to get your opponent to feel extreme sympathy and pity for you. Bonus points if you push your opponent into a guilty feeling. An easy way to do this is to make it seem that you are doing something super-important, something that matters more to the universe than the chore. The trick to achieving this state is proper body language - That means cute puppy eyes and a voice that seems like you’re almost going to cry. Example:

Wife: “Can you cut some Tomatoes and Onions, please?”
Me: “Um? I was just going to call our broker and talk about our investments.”
W: “Really?”
Me: “Yeah, it’s tax season, and we need to make the proper investments and save for our future.”
W: “That’s true.”
Me: “Have you finished your tax planning under section 80CCC and applied for Premium Deductions on your IT declaration?”
W: “Uh… Huh… Hmm… Err… What does that… I don’t know…”
Me: (deep sigh) “OK, I’ll take a look tomorrow. Do I have to do everything? Aren’t you worried about our future together? Isn’t our financial security and independence important to you?” *sniff* deep sigh…..

… and you’re done. Your opponent won’t bother you for 2 days after this.

Do you have any more techniques?

• 20 Comments

Getting married is very stressful these days. Apart from the 48-hour wedding ceremonies and rituals, there’s the near-infinite shopping and preparations that go on for months together. And don’t even get me started on the cost of the whole exercise.

Even after all this pain, the whole marriage ceremony passes by like a blur. The only thing I remember about my wedding day is that I was hungry, very hungry, but the punditji wouldn’t let us eat lunch. He insisted on me saying something in a language I didn’t understand. I’m pretty sure that he was swearing at me in Sanskrit, but I can’t prove it.

Anyway, I think the world is now ready to see progress in the institution of marriage. And so, in the footsteps of the great social reformers of India like Vivekananda, Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Rakhi Sawant, I’m proposing a radical reform to the ritual of the marriage!

Marriage 2.0 !
Marriage 2.0, as I call it, will incorporate the best of social networking and the internet age phenomenon, and by using real innovation, will also drive down costs!

The central part of the whole marriage ceremony will be a AJAX website created for your marriage. It will contain your photos and a feature will allow you to send an email to all your friends and relatives with the “e-wedding-invite” so that you don’t have to personally go to their houses and invite them.

The Marriage ceremony itself will be cut to 10 minutes, and will be web-cast live on the internet. There will even be a conference-call number for people to dial in if they want. This way, your friends and family can be a part of the ceremony without traveling. They are even free to keep their phones on mute and discuss yesterday’s cricket match without inviting stares from the punditji like in a real marriage!

Gifts & Presents
Gifts are the most important part of the marriage for the bride and groom. The website will contain a list of all the things that the bride and groom want, and people can register on the website and make donations towards the “Gift Fund” that will be used to buy stuff from the list. This is a win-win situation for everyone. Instead of getting 56 different types of wall-clocks, the bride and groom and get stuff that will help them with their married life (Like an XBOX for the groom and a life-time subscription to Cosmopolitan for the bride).

The website will also allow you to track how much money each of your friends and family have contributed, so that you’ll know how much to give when they get married.  This is the killer feature of the website. Everyone is going to LOVE this feature!

Eating and Dining
Eating is the most important part of the marriage for the guests that come to the wedding. This is where marriage 2.0 is taken to the next level. Instead of driving to a far-away marriage hall to eat the wedding food, guests will get to go to their own favorite restaurants and eat whatever they like - They can collect the bill and upload it to the website and get reimbursed for the dinner. This way, people can eat what they like and later tell the bride and groom how great the food was at their wedding.

Many of you are already thinking how to game this system - You say most people will go to a 5-star restaurant and order the most expensive butter naans. But I’ve thought of a solution to this problem too: There will be a limit to how much you can get reimbursed, and that limit depends on how much contribution you’ve made to the “Gift Fund” section of the website. This way, your guests have the incentive to make the maximum donation, so that they may get to eat at a good restaurant. Clever, no?

Gossip
Another important part of a wedding, I’ve been told, is the gossip about who wore what, and which saree was not going with which jewelry and what was looking gaudy on who. To enable this discussion, guests will be required to get dressed up in their fancy sarees/suits and upload the pictures to the website. These pictures will be available for everyone to view and comment. There will also be an online forum where guests can login, review the pictures of the other guests and then proceed to gossip.

This is obviously such a great plan, that I’m thinking of making it the default way people get married in Adityaism. Just think of the time and money that will be saved if everyone moved to Marriage 2.0! I think building this website for Marriage 2.0 will be a good plan for a startup company. Maybe I should quit my job and do this fulltime?

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