As you’ve all probably noticed, I’ve not been blogging regularly these days. That’s because we’ve been moving our house, and getting settled into a new place.

Settling in a new apartment is a very complicated process. There is so much to do and so much to buy. One of the things we’ve been looking to buying is a Dining Table. I
But I can already hear all you skeptics say “How hard can that be?”

That’s exactly what I said when the wife told me that we needed to buy a new Dining Table. I used to think that buying a Dining Table would be as simple as:

Step 1. Go to shop
Step 2. Tell shopkeeper “I want to buy one Dining Table. How much?”
Step 3. Take Dining Table home and eat (Eat on the table, not the table itself)

Oh, but no! It turns out buying dining tables is much much more complicated than that! Firstly, I was shocked to find out that there are different types of dining tables – Wood, Wrought Iron, Metallic and what not. Then there are more permutations with Wood top, Glass Top, Granite top and some 45,356 other different types of tops. That leads to billions of combinations that no possible human can comprehend, for some definition of “human”. Secondly, Dining Tables, I’m told, have attributes that I’d never had guessed an inanimate piece of furniture can posses – Dining Tables can be short, tall, square, polished, high-back, elegant and curvy. I could confuse Dining Tables with hindi-movie heroines with that list of attributes.

The wife has very good aesthetic sense, she knows what looks good and what doesn’t, but I only like to see the end result of it. Being a part of the selection process is quite a torture.

At the furniture store:

Wife: “Do you have one with a glass top?”
Salesman (showing us Dining Table #1): “…Yes! This table here has a glass-top…”
Wife: “Do you have one with a metallic frame?”
Salesman (showing us Dining Table #2): “Of Course… This table here has a beautiful metallic frame…”
Wife: “Do you have this in Black?”
Salesman (showing us Dining Table #3): “Certainly… This table has a black frame…”
Wife: “Do you have one with a glass top?”
Salesman takes us back to Dining Table #1.

And round and round we go. When this happens in a computer program, it’s called an infinite loop and the program crashes. When it happens in a furniture store, it’s called “looking at the variety available”. After several hours of this round-and-round, the wife has finally selected one that she likes.

Wife: “I like this one. What do you think?”
Me: “It is spectacular! A work of art! Michelangelo would be put to shame. Can we buy it and get out of here?”
Salesman: “It’s only Rs. 54,514/- after 25% discount!”
Wife: “WHAT? That’s too expensive. No Way!”

And so we leave the place and go to another store, where the entire process repeats, right from step 1. After literally several days of table-hunting, the only thing I’d gained was respect for Dining Table salesmen. Truly enlightened souls. It seemed to me that buying a Dining Table is a bit like crossing a desert with no food or water. You have to perspire all day, and chase what only turn out to be mirages, living solely on the hope that one day the true Dining Table will show up just beyond the horizon and the journey will be over. The Wife, however, thinks that finding a good Dining Table is like finding a soul-mate. There is that one special Dining Table made for each person somewhere on this earth. You just have to find it, that’s all. I find it a little disturbing that she’s taking more time to choose the right Dining Table than she took to say yes to me. But such is life.

But my luck turned good finally, when all the zillions of parameters of one particular Dining Table matched the Wife’s expectations. I breathed a sigh of relief when we finally bought it. It was over at long last!

Wife: “We finally got the Dining Table”
Me: “Finally!”
Wife: “Good. Next on the list is a Sofa!”
Me: ” …. ” <collapses on the floor>

• 20 Comments

This is part 2 of a series. Part 1 is here.

I’m sitting in a fancy restaurant with some exotic italian dish in front of me. Not only does this “exotic italian dish” look like a bar of RIN soap, but it also smells like one. The problem, as always, is my big mouth. The wife had warned me that this would happen, but I made a big fuss of being “culturally sophisticated” and “eating like the Romans” or something like that, and this dish has turned into an ego issue for me.

I have managed to stuff only one bit of this dish down my throat, but my stomach is not co-operating in this war. It is desperately trying to shoot the thing out right from where it came. Only my mouth that is firmly held shut is preventing an eruption from my stomach.

The wife can sense my discomfort. She has a sort of sixth sense in these matters. She launches another attack.

Wife: “How’s your Gratin de Verdure?”
Me: “Exquisite!”

I say that very calmly, without any hint slipping by that my internal organs are in revolt. She thinks for a second if I might really be enjoying it. Ah! This is my chance. I plan my counter-attack. But I’m not going to come out directly at her. Now, it is time for THE ART OF WAR!

Me: “Would you like some?”

What a beautiful move! As soon as she says she’d like to try some, I’ll dump a huge piece on her plate. She won’t like it, and SHE’LL have to admit she doesn’t like it, and I can harp on how “one has to develop a taste for the fine cheeses” or something like that. But the biggest bonus is that I’ll get rid of a huge chunk from my plate.

The wife regards this question carefully. She’s trying to evaluate if I’m being completely honest about it. I keep my calm. She stares me in the eye, trying to look into my soul. I stare back at her, keeping eye contact. The key to such situations is to not loose eye contact. If I look away now, she’ll know I’m lying.

A few moments later, she says “Yes”. Bravo! My trick is working! Aahhh… Now to move in for the kill.

I stick my fork into one of the four big pieces. Just as I’m going to put it on her plate, which she’s held forward, I realize that even if I get rid of this one piece, there are 3 more remaining. I think quickly. Two pieces! That’s it. I should give her two pieces!

I take my fork once more, and stick it through the second big piece as well. But she notices this, and immediately figures out what’s happening. Before I can put the two pieces on her plate, she withdraws it.

Wife: “You know what, I’ll just have a bite from your plate.”

And she reaches over to my plate and cuts a tiny-tiny piece out. Oh NO! My greed has cost me. I should have got rid of at least the one piece. Now I’m stuck with all 4 pieces.

She takes the tiny piece and eats it. I can see that it visibly disgusts her, but she manages to eat it anyway.

Wife: “It’s very good!”

Oh No! A counter-counter-attack! Now, she’s acknowledged that the dish is good, which means if I say it is bad, then she’ll take all my gyaan and give it back to me. Crap! Crap! Crap! The situation just got worse.

My mind is racing to figure out alternatives. Can I just dump the whole thing under the table when she’s not looking? Maybe I can distract her and swap this dish with the neighboring table. That old lady next table probably won’t even figure out what happened. This is a sticky situation to be in.

I consider just admitting defeat at this point, but quickly back away. If I give up now, I’ll have to listen to those dreaded 4 words that every man fears – “I TOLD YOU SO!”. She’ll give me a lecture on how she told me this would happen and all that stuff that will destroy my ego. No, failure is not an option!

As I’m considering if it’s feasible to knock the plate over and say “Oh no! How clumsy of me. Too bad I can’t eat it now!”, the wife excuses herself and heads to the ladies room.

HERE’S MY CHANCE!

As soon as she’s out of sight, I frantically motion for the waiter. He comes to the table, and I ask him to quickly clear my plate. He looks at me, then at the dish, of which only 2 small bites have been eaten.
Waiter: “Did you enjoy your meal, sir?”
A wise ass. I scream at him:
Me: “WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?!?”
I shoo him away and he takes the plate away with him.

When the wife comes back, she asks what happened to my dish.
Me: “Oh, it was so good, that I couldn’t resist stuffing every last bit of it. I ate it all up. Yup, all of it, every last bite. These Italians sure know a thing or two about food! HaHa!”
She looks at me weirdly, and has probably figured out what I’ve done, but she lets it go.

I am so happy to have gotten rid of that thing that calm and peace are returning back to me. My ego and my stomach have just made peace again, and everything is fine once more. But as I sit there, the pizza that the wife is having is starting to smell very delicious, and I’m starting to get very very hungry.

Wife: “Oh, I’d offer you some pizza, but considering you stuffed yourself with the ‘Gratin de Verdure’, you probably don’t have any place left?”

Ooooohhhh…. she’s going to let me have it. She’s not going to give it up so easily.

Me: “True! I’m completely stuffed. Fully. Not one bit of space!”

Oh, this stupid ego is really costing me. As the evening wears on, I get hungrier. I try to order deserts, but the wife skillfully shoots down that as well, and I have to return home, more hungry than ever. My stomach is behaving like a 5-year old, screaming and shouting for food, and I can’t take it anymore. I can feel another war brewing inside me. This time, my stomach and ego and involved in a skirmish. Just as we get home, my stomach throws a round-kick and knocks my ego out cold, and takes control of me.

Me: “I’M HUNGRY!!!!!! PLEASE MAKE ME SOME FOOD!!!!”

The wife has a hearty laugh at this. She knew I wouldn’t be able to survive for long. She doesn’t lecture me, but instead nicely makes me a sandwich.

Aaahh…I figure out why she’s not said “I TOLD YOU SO!”. She’s not going to say anything now and waste this wonderful victory. She’s going to save it, and use it as heavy artillery when she REALLY needs it sometime later. This is not over yet! The battle goes on…

• 16 Comments

Earlier this year, I had resolved to see what could be done to avoid watching all the top-10 worst movies this year again. I discussed the situation with the wife, and she skillfully convinced me that it is my own fault that the movies are bad. Not only that, she also proved to me that watching bad movies improves memory, reduces cholesterol and fights global warming.

And so, reluctantly, I agreed when the wife announced that we were going to watch the movie “Welcome”. But all was not lost yet. I am not the one to take defeat lightly, and I had been working on a master plan to do something about this. The plan of action this time, is to stall and delay us so that we arrive at the theater late and end up missing the movie. Oh, what a brilliant plan! I am so proud of myself!

Soon, D-Day arrived, and it was time to go to the movie.

Wife: “Come on, come on, we’re getting ready. Are you dressed yet?“
Me: “In a second. Almost ready.”

I am sitting in front of the TV.

30 seconds later, The wife comes into the room.

Wife: “You said you were almost ready!“
Me: “Yeah. I said I’m almost ready to start getting ready.“
Wife gives me a cold stare. I try to resist the soul-penetrating tension she is creating. I can hold out for 4.5 seconds, and then I have to get up. Every second matters. My strategy is already working.

After much dilly-dallying, I am unfortunately at the door, ready to go. I look at my watch. We still have plenty of time to catch the movie. I need to stall. I put into action my master-plan.

Me: “What shoes do you think go with this outfit?“
The Wife looks at me strangely, trying to evaluate what I’m up to. I think she’s got a wiff of my plan. I have to be careful now.
Wife: “You have one one pair of shoes. There isn’t much choice now. Just put them on!”
Me: “That’s pretty bad. Oh wait! I can’t go out like this! I need to iron my shirt. Look at how wrinkled it is!“
Wife: “You’re wearing a T-Shirt and a jacket!“
Me: “Yeah. I want to iron my Jacket!“
Wife: “Nobody has ever ironed a jacket. Let’s go!“
Me: “Ha! That’s what they told Einstein when he was working on the theory of relativity. But he didn’t get discouraged by the negativity of others. He went on to do great things!“
Wife: “You want to do great things by ironing your jacket? Have you ever used an iron before?“
Me: “I’ve never used one, but that’s what discovery is all about!“
Wife: “What’s the matter with you? Come on, let go. We’re getting late!“

The wife is hurrying it up. Time to turn up the strategy to ‘evil genius’ level!

Me: “Wait, wait! My hairstyle is not right. I need to apply Hair Gel. I’ll be back in a minute!“
Wife: “You don’t even have Hair Gel. You’ve never used it.“
Damn! Why do I keep bringing up stuff that I’ve never used?
Me: “But we can’t go out now! There is Rahu Kala going on. It is inauspicious to leave the house between 5:00 and 5:45 PM. It said so in the horoscope today! Please don’t bring upon us the wrath of the planets! We’re all going to DIE!!!“

It got a little pathetic at the end, but one cannot be choosy when one is fighting battles. What matters in the end is victory. And I had mine! Oh Yes! My cunning strategy of stalling at the last minute worked, and we were a full 12 seconds late for the movie. I am going to keep working and refining this strategy. My goal is to raise it up to 45 seconds by 2010.

• 11 Comments

I come home one day, to find the wife in a very pensive mood.

Me: “What happened? What are you so deeply thinking about?“
Wife: “I think we should go watch Saawariya again.“

I feel a sudden pain shooting through my heart. My brain cringes with the horrifying memories of those 3 hours spent watching the movie already.
Me: “*GASP*…I…I….I think I’m having a heart attack!“

Wife: “Drama Queen! Anyway, I have this feeling that I didn’t understand the movie. I didn’t ‘get it‘, you know what I mean?“
Me: “There’s nothing to ‘get‘ in the movie. Even I didn’t ‘get‘ it“
Wife: “That’s not surprising. The movie was targeted at a certain audience.“
Me: “What is that supposed to mean?“
Wife: “All I’m saying is that you need to expand your horizons a little bit. Learn how to appreciate art“
Me: “My horizon is too wide already. I’m starting to think about mailing Sanjay Leela Bansali a copy of his own movie. Looks like he forgot to watch it himself.“
Wife: “Anyway, we haven’t watched a movie all week.“
Me: “That is a GOOD THING!“
Wife: “You know what? You’re pretending to hate the movie, but your subconscious liked the movie so much that you can’t stop talking about it.“
Me: “I’m not talking about that stupid Saawariya movie.“
Wife: “See, you did it again!“
Me: “Oh! Wait a minute…My suconciousness wants to say something….I…SLEPT…THROUGH…THE…MOVIE…“
Wife: “Very funny. Oh, by the way, we’re going to watch the movie ‘Goal‘ on Sunday“
Me: “Why?“
Wife: “To help you connect with your inner self.“
Me: “My inner self is well connected, thank you. 8Mbps Broadband, too! If my inner self watches this movie, then it’ll probably disconnect from me.“
Wife: “You owe it to me.”
Me: “My inner self will need to see a psychiatrist if it watches the movie.“
Wife: “Oh by the way, you’re paying for the movie. Thanks a ton!“
Me: “NO I’M NOT!“
Wife: “Oh, I’d check your credit card statement. I think you might find something interesting there.“
Me: “AAaarrrrghhhhhhh…“

So, it turns out, that not only have I lost 3 hours of my life that are not coming back, but apparently I ‘volunteered‘ to pay for the movie tickets! Sanjay Leela Bansali has taken my time and money too! I WANT THEM BACK! DO YOU HEAR ME SANJAY LEELA BANSALI?

• 6 Comments

Hey everyone! I’m sorry I’ve not been posting regularly. But I’ve been really busy playing with my latest electronic toy – A Digital Voice recorder.

This thing has me totally hooked. It allows me to record anything, anytime and play it back later. I always carry it around. It’s fun to hear my own voice. Just think of all the things you can do! You can send the voice recorder to all your meetings where it will record what everyone said, so that you can ignore it later. Also, you can use the time you saved by doing more productive things, like reading this blog.

But the best part is that now I can tell jokes to myself. Usually, it’s difficult to laugh at your own jokes. Kinda like tickling yourself. But this way, I can tell a joke to myself, and then play it back later when I’m feeling down. My own jokes sound so much funnier when I hear them later!

I feel so bad for not having this when I was in College. I could have sent this to the class and gone playing snooker.

Me: “Prof, I’m not going to come to class from tomorrow. But I’m going to send my Voice Recorder instead to listen to your lecture. Please give me attendance”
Prof: “No. If you’re not in class, no attendance”
Me: “But this thingy is so much better than me.”
Prof: “How?”
Me: “Well, the Recorder won’t organize a tic-tac-toe tournament during your lecture distracting everyone in a 10-foot radius.”
Prof: “It’s a deal!”

Having the Recorder is a little bit like having the ability to time-travel. You can ask everyone to talk into the recorder in the present, and listen to it in the future, and respond to their past questions in the future, which is really the present when you play it, which means we are currently in the future. Or is that the past? Hmm…I’m presently confusing my future self.

Anyway, I think this will come very useful when having “discussions” with the wife.

Wife: “We need to talk about the shopping we need to do for Diwali”
Me: “Sure. Why don’t you tell my Recorder everything, and I’ll get back to you when my TV show ends”
Wife: “I think you need to start paying more attention to what is happening in the real world instead of….”
Me: “Can you tell that to the Recorder too? And, it can only store 44 hours of sound, so…Try to keep it short, OK?”

I think that will work great, no?

• 7 Comments

In this post, I’ll share with you some lessons that I recently learnt from the wife, the hard way, about how to successfully carry more than 100 Kgs of stuff back to India from your latest US trip.

Lets say you went on a Shopping Spree when you were in the US, and bought way more stuff than the Airlines will let you carry back. What do you do? For the record, most airlines will allow you 2 bags of 32Kgs each, but what if you’ve bought well over 100Kgs of stuff. What do you do now?

Here are 4 easy steps to getting all that stuff back to India without paying *any* excess baggage fee. All you need is a little bit of cunning and trickery and an unsuspecting husband.

Step 1: Stuff your own bags to the absolute limit.
This step requires some super skills and a total disregard for the laws of Physics. You stuff your bags until they can take no more. Then you stuff them even more. You keep on stuffing until you have enough density to be dangerously close to creating a black hole.

Step 2: Take one of your husband’s bag, throw out his stuff, and then put your own stuff in it.
The key to this step is not letting your husband know that you’ve completely stuffed his suitcase with your stuff. He’s going to have to carry his suitcase when he comes back, so he’ll get all your shopping automatically.

Step 3: Give more stuff to your husband, and ask him to bring it back with him.
The key part in this step is to ask nicely. Say something along the lines of “There’s this tiny-winy little things that are not fitting in my bag, can you bring them back with you? Thanks so much. I promise I’ll make you Alu Paratha if you bring them…“. Another important thing is to “accidentally forget” to mention that you’ve already stuffed one of his bags.

Step 4: Hide all the remaining stuff in your husband’s wardrobe.
…and don’t say anything about it. When your husband prepares to leave, he’ll “discover” all this stuff that you’ve cleverly hid, and he’ll have to get it back with him. They key is to make sure he discovers the hidden stuff only *after* you’ve already gone.

I can assure you, this strategy works *really* well in real life. Just ask my wife. And in case you’re worried about the husband, don’t be. He’ll only have to throw away all his clothes to make room for all your stuff, but that’s just collateral damage. Everything is fair in Love and War. Especially fair if it’s both.

• 10 Comments

Apparently, Life is unfair. I was shocked to find out. I always thought that Life came with a lifetime warranty. Unfortunately, as it turns out, that isn’t true.

When I was little, I thought everyone got turns getting first rank in class. I first started getting suspicious when the same girl got the first rank for the whole year in 3rd standard. But when I didn’t get my first rank in 6th standard also, I thought something was wrong, so I went and asked my teacher.

Me: “Ma’am, when will I get the first rank?”
Teacher: “Eh? You want to get the first rank? That’ll be the day. Hehehee”
Me: “When will my turn come?”
Teacher: “If you want the first rank, why don’t you study?”
Me: “WHAT? I HAVE TO STUDY TO GET FIRST RANK?”

After that episode, I permanently gave up the dream of getting a first rank. But I still had faith that Life was fair.

My faith was fundamentally shaken when in college, one day after the internal exams, we were, as usual, arguing about marks with the lecturer.

Me: “But this answer is exactly correct. You have to give me full marks for this question.”
Lecturer: “That’s not what the text book says. The book says ‘public static void’ is the signature of the main function. You’ve written ‘static public’ instead of ‘public static’. No marks for you”
Me: “But it’s the exact same thing. The ORDER doesn’t matter. YOU ARE WRONG!”
Lecturer: “DON’T RAISE YOUR VOICE! I will call the principal”
Me: “But my answer is correct. Go check with any compiler. You have to give me marks!”

As I was standing there, negotiating my marks like haggling over the price of tomatoes with a street vendor, a pretty girl walked up to the lecturer.

Pretty Girl : “Sir, it seems there has been a mistake in my marks. Can you please increase the marks for this question?”
Lecturer: “Why?”
Pretty Girl: “Sir, because you are a fair and ethical person and because if you give me 1 more mark, then I’ll get 25, and I’ll be very thankful to you, and I’ll tell everyone how nice a person you are”
Lecturer: “Well, OK. Here, 25-on-25.”
Pretty Girl: “Thank you so much sir!”
Me: “WHAT? YOU GAVE HER MARKS AND YOU DIDN’T GIVE ME MARKS? HOW CAN YOU DO THIS?”
Lecturer: “Shut up and go sit down.”

Eventually, I didn’t get the extra marks. The pretty girl later told me that you have to be nice and polite when you ask for favors. Give the other person what they want. In this case, the Lecturer wanted some respect, and that’s what she gave him. The Lecturer didn’t want to be told he’s an idiot for not knowing simple stuff.

This, apparently, is called “street smarts”. Interestingly, I don’t have any of it, but some pretty girls seem to have lots of this stuff. Have you noticed how they seem to get most of what they want?

Anyway, I ended up marrying that pretty girl, but she promised not to use any tricks to manipulate me like she did that teacher in college.

Well, I have to go now and drop my wife to her friend’s place, pick up her clothes from the laundry and arrange for dinner. See ya’ll tomorrow.

Wait a minute…

• 6 Comments