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!

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All characters in this story are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living in Bangalore is entirely co-incidental and non-intentional.

There. Now that we have the legal disclaimers out of the way, I can feel free to tell the story.

So, since the last time we checked in with Chitradeep Chetty, he’s been off to the jungles of Bandipur several times and has photographed several tigers. He’s also been showing off these pictures, especially after some of them got published.

A couple of months ago, he invited me, the wife, and a group of other friends to go to his sasuraal (bandipur). He said it would be great, he could get us inside the forest and we could see tigers and other wildlife. It sounded interesting and off we went.

So we’re in the forest on a safari. The forest itself was actually quite beautiful. There were lots and lots of trees and flowers and branches and leaves… but no tigers. There were 8 of us, and after a while, we started getting impatient, and started chatting about the good old days. This upset Chitradeep.

Chitradeep: “Sshhh… guys. Don’t talk loudly in the jungle.”
Me: <in a hushed voice>: “Why?”
Chitradeep: <getting more annoyed, dripping with sarcasm>: “Because the tigers are talking on their phones and you are disturbing them. Huh!”
Me: “That’s absurd…. How are the tigers getting signal here, deep in the jungle?”

There was an awkward silence that followed, where everyone wanted to laugh, but Chitradeep was staring us down, and we settled for a hushed giggle.

We continued to wander in the jungle, and we occasionally saw some birds. And then we saw a big buffalo type thing. It looked just like the buffaloes you can see on the streets of Bangalore, but apparently this one was special, so we all respectfully nodded our appreciation. After a while, we went and waited by a watering hole, hoping that some wildlife will turn up.

We waited, but apparently the animals were not coming. We began to speculate why.
Me: “Why aren’t the elephants coming to drink?”
AJ: “They will come to drink after an hour.”
Me: “How do you know?”
AJ: “Happy hour starts then.”

More hushed giggles and more staring by Chitradeep.

We waited for some more time, and the elephants finally came. It was pretty cool. They were so big and majestic. Several of them, including 3 cute little baby elephants. They came to the water, hung around there for a while and socialized. (With each other, not with us.)

And then, they started to do something crazy. They started picking up mud and throwing it on themselves. Disgusting. That too just after washing themselves. The baby elephants were also rolling in the mud, covering themselves up with dirt.

Me: “That’s disgusting. Why are they doing that?”
Chitradeep: “They do it to protect themselves. The mud acts like a sunscreen to their skin.”
PR: “It doesn’t seem to be working. Look how dark their skin still is.”

More giggles and more staring by Chiradeep.

We started moving along the jungle track when suddenly the driver jammed on the brakes. He shut off the engine. Chitradeep Chetty turned back and motioned us to keep quite. Silence. Just the sounds of the jungle. Everyone is frozen in their seats. We’re all frantically looking around to see what we have run up against. Chitradeep Chetty gets out of the jeep gingerly. He’s stepping very carefully away from the Jeep. He turns back and motions us to come out the jeep slowly and without making noise. We walk up to him. Silence. He points his hand to the ground just around a bush. We peek our heads. And there it is.

Tiger droppings.

I’m like: “What the hell?” and Chitrdeep is all excited that he has seen tiger shit today. It’s like once in a week occurrence here in Bandipur, apparently. After excitingly starting at it for a while, we return back to the lodge, all the while Chitradeep is in high spirits, and as soon as we reach, he goes off to discuss today’s catch with his jungle-lodge buddies.

So, to summarize our trip: We came, we saw, and we smelt.

Anyhow, the trip was quite fun. We saw a few more animals, several peacocks and still more elephants. But no tigers or leopards. Chitradeep Chetty has assured us that the next time we come, he will make sure to schedule a meeting in the tiger’s calendars.

Update: Check out Chitradeep’s wildlife photos here, and judge for yourself if this is a scam!

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Well, now that I have decided that I will be going to ISB, I thought I might start some preparation for my MBA course. People have told me that it is a very hectic course, so some preparation might be in order.

To that effect, I went and bought a couple of books, a scientific calculator and started working out problems from “Options, Futures and Other Derivatives” by John Hull. I then organized a study group of all the Bangalore people who are also going to ISB this year, and started working on Business Plans for the Entrepreneurship course at ISB.

ROTFL.

I bet I had some of you fooled there. For those of you who have known me for a while, you might have realized its a joke as soon as you read the word “preparation”.

But it is true: I have been preparing for life in  Hyderabad, but differently than you might imagine.

I first researched all the places in Hyderabad where the famous Hyderabadi Biryani is available. There are lots and lots of places where the good stuff is available. I also discovered that the awesome ‘Pheni’ (which is a sweet) is also available everywhere in Hyderabad.

I also found out where the IPL matches will be held (home of the Deccan Chargers!) and what the likely schedule is. I hope I get to go to a few matches!

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I was sitting at work today when one of the greatest phenomenons of modern times happened.

It was the 27th of February, the last working day of the month. It is that time of the month when your employer acknowledges your existence, through a directed movement of electrons through the internet and the banking system, transfers stuff to your bank account. And one of the greatest phenomenons of modern times happens.

A hundred phones in the office simultaneously make the “ting-ting … ting-ting” sound of a newly received SMS. Yay! This months’ salary is here! Oh, the joy!

But this joy is coming to an end for me.

As most of you know, I’ve been trying to write CAT for a while to see if I can do an MBA, but it keeps getting jinxed. The first time I wrote it, I did well, but the IIMs cancelled the test ’cause of some paper leak. Then when the re-test came, I forgot to get up on time. Then the next year, when everyone was writing CAT, I was in a nightclub in Shanghai. Then the year after that, the IIMs rejected my application, but didn’t say why. They must have been like ‘Dude. Rethink your life’.

So I rethought, said screw you CAT, and wrote GMAT. I scored 760.

And then, I applied to the Indian School of Business, said ‘Dude, let me in’, and they were like ‘Sure, why not!’. And I was like ‘yay!’.

And so, I’m going to be leaving my cushy and interesting job at Google, and spending the next year at Hyderabad, studying, doing homework, writing assignments, staying up late and mugging one day before the exams. And hopefully, at the end of it all, the economy won’t be much worse, and I’ll have a job.

We’ll see how it goes. I will, of course, keep you all informed through this blog.

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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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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.

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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.

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