Man, I hate shopping. I feel so uncomfortable in a store that I often compare myself to prisoners of war and start thinking of what strategies they must have used to get over their tortourous environment.

But shopping is an inevitable exercise, even for me, so I have adapted some strategies to overcome the near-death-experience feeling I used to get when I went to shopper’s stop earlier.

The key is to think of shopping as a commando operation to strike deep into enemy territory. Just like how British spies didn’t like to spend more time than was necessary in Nazi Germany, I too want to minimize my exposure to departmental stores. There is a lot of planning involved ahead of time. I will usually create a mental map of the store, mark out all the places in the store that have the stuff I need, and plot a course through the store that hits all the targets and has a clear and fast exit strategy.

On the day of the assault, I come mentally prepared. I will also prep the wife for my shopping trip, warning her ahead of time not to get distracted by enemy installations that are scattered all around the store, which are designed to trap the weak mind. And once you are trapped in shoes-surrounded enemy territory, its the end for you. There is no way out.

The wife, however, deeply objects to my interpretation of shopping. She prefers to think of shopping trips as an excursion to a museum. The store has all this art work on display, and it is our duty to respect the artist and sample all the merchandise that has been presented.

As you’ve all probably guessed by now, these two strategies are deeply incompatible, and whenever the wife and I go shopping, we somehow end up in a situation where I think I’m about to be shot by an enemy sniper disguised as a perfume salesman, and the wife thinks she’s in deep philosophical discussion about human nature with Socrates disguised as the friendly fashion consultant at the store.

Anyway, I had a bit of an epiphany today when I saw a glimpse of what the wife did with her shopping strategy. She bought me a suit today, but the interesting thing is how she paid for it. Through a combination of discounts, a sale, store loyalty program, gift vouchers and credit-card points redemption, she bought the suit which was marked at Rs 7,000 WITHOUT PAYING ANY MONEY!!! That’s right, she effectively got it for free!

And since how much I like stuff depends inversely on how much it costs, I absolutely love my new suit!

• 6 Comments

Yes. Gmail was down for a while earlier today. Thank you to all those of you that felt the need to ping me and let me know. And special thanks to those that felt the need to explicitly call me and tell me. I was not busy with any crisis at all. Without you, I would never have realized that the product that I’ve been working on over much of the last year was down. The Google alerts system and server logs would not have alerted me to the fact the one of Google’s flagship products is down globally. So thank you very much.

I am also flattered with the confidence some of you have shown in me. Like this chat with a certain unnamed party called “X”

X: “Hey!!!!!!!! Gmail is Down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Me: “I know… Some problem at google’s end”
X: “Did YOU screw it up?”
Me: “No… Why would you think that?”
X: “you know…. disaster is, after all, your middle name…”
Me: “#$@%%@*&!@!@$%^&@”

I mean, come on guys.

I know I’m prone to disasters, but you don’t have to assume that every time something goes wrong, I am responsible. I can assure you that it was not me this particular time.

• 6 Comments

WTF??!?

There. That’s my whole review of this movie. WTF?!?

I mean what the hell is going on with this movie? The whole thing sounds like a moral science lecture. Start to finish. This entire movie is a Moral Science revision lesson from 6th standard.

This movie makes no sense at all. At any level. So this Abhisekh Bacchan comes to New Delhi from New York to help his Granny die. Oh yes, that’s not a typo. He brings her to Delhi to die. But what I can’t understand is how the hell does Abhisekh Bacchan get so many days leave from his job? Then again, maybe he’s a banker and just got laid off. Recession and all.

The director of this movie must have been at a party and someone told him about symbolism and metaphors. And an epic sense of realization came over him – “You mean we can show a pigeon that can’t fly and people will think it represents the middle-class girl who can’t fly into the real world? That’s just abso-frinkin-lutely brilliant!”

And so, after getting high on this new gyaan that dawned on him, he’s just created a movie with one metaphor after another, trying desperately to tie them together. And has failed spectacularly.

I mean, there are more metaphors in this movie than item-number-babes in Bollywood  The Kala Bandar as a metaphor for the darkness in our hearts, the Ram Leela as a metaphor for … errr… for the destiny of our lives? Then the dark alleys of Delhi -6 as a metaphor for the total lack of regulation in the electricity sector in India? Ridiculous. The only metaphor that made sense to me was the depiction of the burning tree, which seems to symbolize this frickin movie itself that is going to burn and go up in flames, taking the producers’ money with it.

That’s a metaphor that the producer is going to remember for a long long time. The rest of us should forget this meta-disaster immediately.

• 14 Comments

A friend of mine got married recently, and before he jumped into the dark abyss that is euphemistically called “married life”, he came to me to ask for some advice. Seeing that I have some experience at this marriage thing, he thought it would be a good idea. Ha!

For a minute, I experienced an elated feeling of Schadenfreude – The pleasure of happiness derived from the suffering of others. Muahahahaaaa!

Asking me for married life advice is like asking a Tiger for advice on how to escape from predators. Not only is the tiger likely to screw you over, but you will also be staring down two dozen razor sharp teeth when you realize that you’ve been given incorrect advice. You know you are being had by the tiger, when it gives advice like: “The best way to escape predators is to use reverse psychology. Approach the predator with boldness, walk up confidently and say something like ‘I ate your mama for lunch, you big ugly beast’. That should save you from the predator”.

I was thinking I’ll give my friend advice like the tiger from the story above, but I was overcome with feeling of pity for the poor guy. I mean, he’s been already handed a death sentence, and he’s going to suffer it the rest of his life without me needing to make it any worse for him.

And it is for this reason, for the benefit of entire mankind that I have decided to come out and give some honest advice for all those guys out there who are on the fence. What follows is the great wisdom from the holy book of Adityaism. Read it, and you will be set free. (Either you or your soul will achieve Moksha, but there are no guarantees).

1. Do everything you can to get out of doing household chores
Back in the day, when guys would get married, they would get a lot of dowry that would make life awesome! These days, you get household chores that make life miserable. There are hundreds of things to do around the house, and if you break down and do EVEN ONE CHORE, then its the gallows for you. Doing just one chore is an admission that you are capable and competent, and that is an image you can’t afford to keep. You must do everything to display your incompetence at the fullest, so you don’t get asked to do any work around the house.

2. #1 doesn’t work. Hire a cook, maid instead.
No matter how hard you try, the one thing you learn in a marriage is that you can’t win. I think it violates some quantum mechanical laws if you win an argument with your wife, so don’t even try. The easiest way to get out of chores is to hire a maid and a cook to do all the household work. You know what they say: “Liberty comes at a price. About 2500 rupees a month.”

3. Never agree to a joint bank account.
I have learned from the wife that some women have a very strange understanding of finance and money. We’ve had many conversations that have raised some philosophical questions about how the world works. For example:

Wife: “I bought two sarees instead of one!”
Me: “What? Why?”
Wife: “Inflation”

Wife: “I was walking by the mall, and I bought a couple of bottles of the perfume ‘Chanel No. 5′ today.”
Me : “Why did you do that?”
Wife: “To improve liquidity.”
Me: “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
Wife: “Yes it does. I read it in Femina.”

There are many more tips, but not enough time today. I might write a book about this someday, but for now, I have to go now and put the clothes in the washing machine.

• 7 Comments

Now that placement season is on us, it is a good time to review some “guidelines” on how to get a job. A lot of people unnecessarily get stressed about making a living in this world etc…, but as this article will show you, it is just a matter of following a few simple steps.

Résumé
Many people don’t know this, but “résumé” is a french word that means “fictional short story”. It is usually 2-3 pages long, and details the chronicles of your life in an entertaining fashion. What you write in your resume is very important, and if you are having trouble filling it up with funny anecdotes, this exercise may help:

Think about what Superman would do if he had Einstein’s IQ and could time travel. Write down all his adventures in your resume and put your signature at the end of it.

Hobbies
Most resumes have a “hobbies” or “interests” section. The key to filling up this section is to write unverifiable claims that show what an interesting person you are. Here are some tips to fill this section:
Wrong: “Hobbies: Lazing around, testing various sleep-inducing methods and collecting swear words in different languages”
Right: “Studying abstract impressionism, skydiving, helping impoverished poor people.”

No need to mention that the abstract impressionism is “TV”, skydiving is really throwing paper planes from rooftops and the impoverished poor person you are helping is yourself.

Interview
This may sound ironic, but the best way to do well in an interview is to have a misplaced sense of very high self-esteem. Most interviewers can immediately detect if you are low on what’s called “self-confidence”, so you have to go into the interview thinking you are Robert De Nero (or Julia Roberts for you ladies). Here are some tips to get you through the interview:

Puzzles
Think about it: there are more candidates than there are puzzles, so the interviewer is going to be asking the same questions over and over again. The best strategy is to ask your friends who went to the interview before you, and then act surprised when the interviewer asks you the same question. When asked a question you know the answer to:

Wrong reaction: “Aahaaa! I know this one. Page 45 of ‘100 most asked interview questions‘. Answer is 25″
Right reaction: “Hmm… Interesting. I will break down this problem into components…” (…5 minutes later…) “…and therefore, by equation 5 above, the answer is 25.”

“What are your weaknesses?”
This is a very popular interviewing question, designed to measure your self-confidence. Be careful when answering this one.

Wrong Answer: “Chocolate is my biggest weakness. No, wait… French Fries. No, Chocolates. Wait…It’s really french fries…I think.”
Worse Answer: “Gossip”

The right answer is to say something that is really an advantage to the company, and you cannot help doing it.

Right Answer: “I tend to work too hard, sometimes late into the night, because I find it unable to give up on a problem without finishing it, because I want all my colleagues and bosses to like me so much, that I am willing to do their laundry too.”

“Do you have any questions for me?”
Most interviewers will end with this question. This question is one of the most misunderstood parts of the interview. Be careful of asking the wrong question here.

Wrong question: “Does the company make you work like a donkey while constantly beating your behind with a stick?”
Worse question: “Are you allowed to take office supplies like pens and staplers home?”

When the interviewer asks this question, what he is really saying is “I’ve had a long day taking to half-brained, overanxious kids who want nothing but money from this company. Do you know that the company is not even paying me overtime for interviewing you?”

So, in this situation, don’t trouble the interviewer by asking about the company. He is already frustrated with it, and don’t remind the interviewer about it. Ask instead about his dog, or if he saw the latest Rakhi Sawant movie.

Follow these steps properly, and you will not be disappointed. Let me know how it goes.

• 16 Comments

After my previous encounter over negotiating household chores went down the drain, I was thinking of new ways to try and get out of the drudgery. I really really hate cleaning the table after dinner, and I was summoning all my creative forces to help me on this one.

After cleaning the dining table yet another time, I sat down all exhausted in front of the TV. The news was coming on, where the TV news anchor was making a big deal about rising inflation.
TV anchor: “…and with the rising prices of petrol and food grains, it is the poor aam admi that is suffering…”

Me: “That’s stupid. The inflationary pressure is being created by the central bank trying to hold down the rupee to aid special interest exporters groups and not to mention the fiscal deficit created by the absurd agricultural and commodity subsidies meant for… you guessed it… the poor aam aadmi. See?”

The wife gives me a blank stare.

Me: “You don’t see?”

As soon as I said that, a profound understanding of the universe hit me. In that moment, I had the deepest inspiration o my life. It came to me like a bolt of lightning, and I suddenly saw the world crystal clear, and my brain had it all figured it out.

Economics! The impenetrable fog of misunderstanding that permeates our lives, the key to confusion and obfuscation.

Me: “I just had a great idea!”
Wife: “Really? What?”
Me: “Lets have an auction for all the household chores!”
Wife: “Excuse Me?”
Me: “Yeah! Like how the government auctions off the spectrum to the Mobile companies.”
Wife: “Ooo… I don’t know…”
Me: “This is a great idea! We’ll write all the household chores on a piece of paper, and then we can bid on them!”
Wife: “Is this like the time when you tried to convince me that the XBOX is an investment?”
Me: “THE XBOX IS A VERY GOOD INVESTMENT!!! WE SHOULD BUY 2 OF THEM! But anyway, that’s not what this is about.”
Wife: “This sounds like another of your schemes!”
Me: “No, really. It’ll be a fair and genuine auction. Here’s how it works: First, we take some fake money…”
Wife (voice dripping with sarcasm): “Real auction, fake money. This doesn’t sound suspicious at all…”
Me (ignoring, completely excited): “…and then we write “I won’t do chore XXX” on pieces of paper…”
Wife: “…wait… I thought this was about doing chores, and not avoiding them…”
Me: “and then we bid for the pieces of paper. At the end of the auction, I won’t do all the chores that I bought, so you have to do them and vice versa”
Wife: “Wait… This is ridiculous. It doesn’t make any sense…”
Me: “No.. No… Think about it. It is completely fair. Since both of us have the same about of fake money, we have equal buying power, and we can buy chores that we REALLY REALLY don’t want to do, but we can’t buy them all, so we’ll have to do SOME chores…”
The Wife is holding her head and giving me THE LOOK.
Me (still not getting the hint…) “…and the price of the chores reflect the marginal scarcity… of.. the… err… hmm… Why are you holding your head? Headache?”

SCORE!!! Economic Theory: 1 Common Sense: 0

After much convincing and explaining, I finally managed to convince the wife that this was a fair scheme to divide the housework and it would work perfectly. I started writing all the household chores on pieces of paper, and lined up some fake monopoly money, and we were ready to start. This was going to be fun…

[Update: Part 2 is here]

• 11 Comments

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.

• 15 Comments